From what I know about anki, you can set it up so that the amount of time you spend per deck can be limited to a certain period of time per day that's preferable to you.

So if you can only afford 10 to 30 minutes per day reviewing, then you can set up Anki that way. 15-30 minutes a day spent reviewing kanji over the course of a lifetime would probably get them ingrained.

Slow at first, but likely to become steady over time in the long run.

I got burned out on my RTK deck too a while back, and I solved the problem with a very simple tweak.

My original RTK cards where Keyword + story on the front and kanji + stroke order on the back.
I simply flipped the cards to kanji front, keyword + story back. The benefits were immediate : less time spending deciphering stories = faster reps = less frustration = no burnout. Originally, it made my success rate fall off a bit, but I quickly picked it right back up, and I never went back.

Odin89, getting familiar with radicals requires learning just a few hundred kanji. He has already finished all RTK kanji, which is a much higher effort than becoming familiar with kanji components. Advising him to drop RTK is basically saying throw away hundreds of hours of effort down the toilet.

He would not have a hard time knowing which is which of 微 and 徹 with RTK; that's the point. If you are relying on just reading repetition then you might have a hard time telling those apart, but someone who did RTK will easily tell them apart.

I see. At the end of the day however, one can read fast enough to not pay conscious attention to every kanji in a sentence. RtK may be useful at very early stages but I don't think it's something that needs to be reviewed during the whole duration of your Japanese studies (as long as you have frequent enough contact with it).

Odin89 Wrote:I see. At the end of the day however, one can read fast enough to not pay conscious attention to every kanji in a sentence. RtK may be useful at very early stages but I don't think it's something that needs to be reviewed during the whole duration of your Japanese studies (as long as you have frequent enough contact with it).

Have frequent enough contact with what?

With the language of course.

Odin89 Wrote:With the language of course.

Staying in frequent contact with the entire language is impossible. It's made up of tens of thousands of words.

Which part of the language should one stay in frequent contact with?

You have to take into account that the familiarity RTK creates with each kanji is a significant help in learning and distinguishing new words as well.

Also as far as just getting enough exposure, word and kanji frequency varies; a great many appear as infrequently as 1 in 10,000, 1 in 100,000 words and so on, therefore without SRS the amount of reading "in the wild" you have to practice most kanji is quite high.

With SRS you can of-course make sure you have words / sentences that give you frequent enough practice recognizing the kanji. There is the risk though that you end up memorizing the context and go directly to the reading rather than practicing the kanji themselves.

Stansfield123 Wrote:Which part of the language should one stay in frequent contact with?

With whatever suits your tastes? I may not be interested in politics but someone who is could spend his time reading/listening about that field and expanding his knowledge.
If you like history, try reading about history in Japanese, geography, cooking, manga, visual novels, whatever.
I wasn't implying one should stay in contact with the whole language, that would be impossible as you say.

Stansfield123 Wrote:

meeatcookies Wrote:What about stopping RTK when I'm doing RTH (Chinese Hanzi) right now? I'm writing by hand Kanji a lot in a whole sentences or words, because I want to be able to write this way too. I'm thinking about stopping RTK, because the keywords only confuse me.

Good. You deserve to be confused. It's what you get for being arrogant enough to try and learn two languages at a time.

I was reviewing RTK for 2,5 years already, began learning Mandarin only recently.

vosmiura Wrote:Also as far as just getting enough exposure, word and kanji frequency varies; a great many appear as infrequently as 1 in 10,000, 1 in 100,000 words and so on, therefore without SRS the amount of reading "in the wild" you have to practice most kanji is quite high.

Absolutely, I can't read like 90% of the vocabulary comprising Kanken pre-1 and 1 myself.
It all depends to the kind of media you deal with I believe, there's always going to be field specific words. Do you really need to know all the lingo concerning geotechnical studies, quantum physics or biology? There's always some selection to be done, it's the same for natives.

Odin89 Wrote:

Stansfield123 Wrote:Which part of the language should one stay in frequent contact with?

With whatever suits your tastes? I may not be interested in politics but someone who is could spend his time reading/listening about that field and expanding his knowledge.

I love history. But, guess what: history books contain tens of thousands of words. I can't stay in frequent contact with all of them.

So if my method for reading is to forget about paying attention to individual Kanji, and just try and remember all the words by staying in frequent contact with them (this is the advice you gave), I won't be able to read about history.

To read about history, I need to learn words you don't see every day, and be able to read them. For that, I need to easily recognize all the Kanji they're made up of.

If all I do is look at the shapes of common words when I'm studying Japanese, I'll never be able to read a history book.

Odin89 Wrote:Absolutely, I can't read like 90% of the vocabulary comprising Kanken pre-1 and 1 myself.

Kanken is short for Kanji Kentei. It's not a vocabulary test, it's a Kanji test. The Japanese have that test because knowing the Kanji is crucial to having a high level of literacy, not because they're bored and can't find anything better to do with their time but memorize Kanji.

vosmiura Wrote:Advising him to drop RTK is basically saying throw away hundreds of hours of effort down the toilet.

Aside: time already spent (and possibly wasted) doing something is not in itself a reason to continue doing it. This is an example of the sunk cost fallacy.

Writing kanji without a compelling reason to do so is a suboptimal use of time.

If the goal is reading, reviewing kanji -> meaning is the way to go.

Stansfield123 Wrote:So if my method for reading is to forget about paying attention to individual Kanji, and just try and remember all the words by staying in frequent contact with them (this is the advice you gave), I won't be able to read about history.

Each one has his own method based on his goals and experience, surely you're the one that knows best what works for you. TC asked if he could stop reviewing his RtK deck, I answered he can, it's not the only method available.

Odin89 Wrote:Each one has his own method based on his goals and experience, surely you're the one that knows best what works for you. TC asked if he could stop reviewing his RtK deck, I answered he can, it's not the only method available.

No, you didn't say that there are other methods available, aside from RtK. You said he doesn't need to learn the Kanji at all.

That is false, you can't read Japanese without learning the Kanji.

Stansfield123 Wrote:Kanken is short for Kanji Kentei. It's not a vocabulary test, it's a Kanji test.

Yes, it's a kanji-focused test but vocabulary is made up of kanji. Kanken tests how well you can make use of them given the context (considering the amount of homophones, it's not an easy task), it also tests if you know the correct okurigana for verbs, among other things.

Stansfield123 Wrote:No, you didn't say that there are other methods available, aside from RtK. You said he doesn't need to learn the Kanji at all.

That is false, you can't read Japanese without learning the Kanji.

I would like you to quote me saying he doesn't need to learn kanji at all. I do love kanji, believe me, I can't imagine Japanese without it. What I said is that he doesn't need RtK in particular to learn Japanese or kanji.

vosmiura Wrote:Aside: time already spent (and possibly wasted) doing something is not in itself a reason to continue doing it. This is an example of the sunk cost fallacy.

Writing kanji without a compelling reason to do so is a suboptimal use of time.

If the goal is reading, reviewing kanji -> meaning is the way to go.

Sunk costs are not so much a fallacy as a bias. If you intend to ever write kanji in the future, and have that skill it's not a bad idea to maintain that skill so that you don't have to pay the cost again.

anotherjohn Wrote:

vosmiura Wrote:Advising him to drop RTK is basically saying throw away hundreds of hours of effort down the toilet.

Aside: time already spent (and possibly wasted) doing something is not in itself a reason to continue doing it. This is an example of the sunk cost fallacy.

Writing kanji without a compelling reason to do so is a suboptimal use of time.

If the goal is reading, reviewing kanji -> meaning is the way to go.

This would be true if remembering the writing of kanji was orthogonal to reading the kanji. It isn't.

Practicing RTK production is effective in training both production and recognition.

Kanji recognition (only) is only effective for recognition, and leads to a more fuzzy level of recognition.

Beside, in practice if you work on removing "leech" kanji by making better stories, adding hints to ambiguous keywords, or just suspending leeches, I think you can reduce RTK review time to less than 10 minutes a day.

Remember that retaining 90% of 2000 is much better than giving up altogether, and eventually going back to 0%, so it is better to suspend 200 frustrating kanji than to stop reviewing all the kanji.

I can't stress enough that it's better to keep reviewing the kanji you know, and suspend the ones you don't than to suspend all reviews.

anotherjohn Wrote:

vosmiura Wrote:Advising him to drop RTK is basically saying throw away hundreds of hours of effort down the toilet.

Aside: time already spent (and possibly wasted) doing something is not in itself a reason to continue doing it. This is an example of the sunk cost fallacy.

The sunk cost argument assumes that one's previous efforts haven't moved him closer to his goal. Are you claiming that RtK is an ineffective method for learning the Kanji?

If you're not, then I don't understand what your argument is. Having gone through RtK, picked out and worked through thousands of mnemonics, and having reviewed them for months already, OP is well over half way to his goal of learning the Kanji. How is pointing that out, and advising him to stay the course, because, having made all that progress already, that's the quickest way to reach it, a fallacy?

Odin89 Wrote:I would like you to quote me saying he doesn't need to learn kanji at all. I do love kanji, believe me, I can't imagine Japanese without it. What I said is that he doesn't need RtK in particular to learn Japanese or kanji.

Your English is pretty bad (or you just weren't paying attention), but I'm 99% sure that you're recommending "frequent contact with the language" as an alternative to studying the Kanji, here:

Odin89 Wrote:I see. At the end of the day however, one can read fast enough to not pay conscious attention to every kanji in a sentence. RtK may be useful at very early stages but I don't think it's something that needs to be reviewed during the whole duration of your Japanese studies (as long as you have frequent enough contact with it).

I apologize for my lacking English, I sincerely hope you NEVER make mistakes in a forum where you are not using your native language.

Using again my previous example, what I was trying to say is that having studied 微 and 徹 in ISOLATION doesn't mean you know them, I see it as saying you know how to play soccer just from having read the rules. TC knows the rules at this point, I don't think he (just assuming you're a guy btw) NEEDS to keep reviewing them before every match, especially if he's not comfortable doing so. His success or not at Japanese won't be determined by his RtK deck reviews, but his will and dedication towards learning, using, listening, reading the language.

In my opinion, knowing kanji (which certainly is a crucial component of Japanese) is not a matter of Anki statistics saying you have a 98% pass ratio for its card, it means being aware of multiple words making use of it, and thus seeing it in a variety of contexts.

I know 微 is 微 and not 徹 because it appears as the component of a known word and not in isolation, I wouldn't mistake reading one for the other simply because I know 微妙 is not 徹妙. I bet I'm not the only one in this forum that doesn't need to stop and check every kanji while reading, not because I don't care about kanji, but because one gets used to words and patterns.

In your case Stansfield123, you may stumble across unknown words when tackling a new text about a different history period from what you're used to read since (as when reading a work by a new author) there is an adaptation time. Providing you check their reading and meaning as you find them though, I'm sure you will start remembering those new words and the kanji forming them the more you read about the same period.

Odin89, of course we get used to digesting whole patterns like 微妙 and in other contexts.

IMO we do RTK because it's still valuable to recognize a kanji and it's core meaning in isolation because it's a reusable piece. For example 微 is part of 微妙 and 20+ other common compounds and 100+ uncommon compounds too. If you are focusing on learning 微妙 "wholemeal" instead of by it's components and 微 is otherwise a blur to you , then you miss out on the ability to associate with 微量, 微小, 微動, 微震, 微熱, 微力, etc. for "cheap".

Arguably you will learn those quickly if you know the components well: delicate(bi)+quantity(ryou)=minute quantity, delicate(bi)+small(shou)=microscopic, delicate(bi)+move(dou)=slight movement, delicate(bi)+quake(shin)=slight earthquake, etc.

Individual kanji are to learning words, what components are to learning kanji. I think on the RTK forums we can agree that component based learning is more efficient for kanji than drilling the kanji wholemeal.

It's a perfectly valid point vosmiura, I can't argue you back how knowing the components facilitates making sense of a new word and why it is formed by those particular kanji, I remember how I was shocked after noticing an apparently difficult kanji like 鍵 was actually made up of 金 and 建, which makes all the sense of the world.

Radicals are important, when I started contact with Japanese around 2004, many of the useful tools available now probably didn't exist (or I just wasn't aware of them). I was able to learn new kanji I found in the media I read by forming them up by radicals in a Japanese text output program called NJStar, which I still use to the present day. It was a slow, probably not time-effective method. Do I regret doing it that way? Absolutely not, because I enjoyed the process (maybe due to young age, sometimes I wonder if I could endure the very same process if I were to start studying now).

As I said in a previous post, Heisig does a good work making the reader realize kanji are not a random generation of strokes. I just don't think, however, that keeping information like keywords or stories throughout the whole duration of the learning process is worth the effort required to keep it fresh.