There is something you are doing to reinforce onyomi, beside vocabs reviews?

As I want to keep the use of Anki to the bare minimum, instead of reviewing them with anki I have a txt file with all the kanji I sometimes get wrong because I confound between them, and from time to time I review this txt file.

I've seen that with time those sort of confusions resolve by themselves as I keep doing reviews, but I feel that comparing those kanji by side does help.

When I started with Core I was always screwing those two 転 and 動, "which is 'dou' and wich is 'ten'?". And something also 連 and 運. Something I feel guilty to say because I know they are so common there is no way one could get those wrong after sometimes, but I was allways thinking there was something defective in my memory, that I'll never get them right, but with anki they took care of themselves.

But the fun thing is every time I learn new kanji and it happens I screw them, I end with the same negative thinking. It cannot help the fact that I had the same experience over and over in the past to prove me there is no need to be worried.

Now it's happening with this group of kanji:

認 務 能 静 解 態

I know they are pretty diverse but the fact I learned new words with them all in the same time, it happens to me to screw onyomi, like this morning where I read 能 as ム thinking it was 務, while it's funny to think now while I'm writing this I have no problem to remember their readings, even out of the context of their words.

This morning I was tired and not concentrated, so I failed a lot of easy one. I reviewed with swiftness and I see all those things and other things like the lack of sleep can influence a lot the ability to recall even easy things.

Another thing I've noticed is in the beginning I was recognizing words in Anki but not in context, while now it's happening the opposite. When I read something I have almost no problem in remembering the reading/meaning of a word I am supposed to know, while it happens I fail it in anki, especially as I'm reviewings words only just to make the review time as short as possible.

Like today I failed 値段, and I feel I'm a failure for having failed this, even though I never fail to read it when I see it in "real japanese", and I had no problem to recall it from memory now that I needed to write it here.

Also I see, as Steve Kauffman said in some of his videos, that the fact itself of forgetting is useful in learning and make it harder to forget the next time.

Another thing that helps, as Stansfield123 suggested me some time ago, is to add only words for which you know the kanji readings, or to add more words where the same kanji uses the same onyomi, to reinforce it.

Another thing could be to review RtK with japanese words like ”じゅう・大　（じゅうだい）” where you must recall the kanji for juu.

Sorry for the bunch of disconnected thoughts

EDIT: just let me add that the last month I'm consuming almost no native media, especially reading. And I know this is bad because I'm sure Anki by itself is not enough to make words like your second-nature. It helps maintaining them in memory with the more optimized way there is, in term of time, and when you forget it makes you notice and fix it.

The fact is I'm so tired I've no mental power to concentrate, and reading in japanese for now is a pretty stressful activity in terms of concentration. But I'm learning new words in anki every day, like 30 or more, and also this has contributed to make Anki more stressful. Now I have 200 reviews every day, and I don't know what to do... I feel I can carry up to 400 but after that what will I do?

I have only 2340 learned words in Anki, and my short term objective is to learn at least 9k / 10k words in the less time possible so I don't know what number of rewiews to expect from the future.

You guys how many reviews have? How much can you do before it's too much?

PS: it's not I'm in a burnout or I'm hating Anki, on the contrary... but to see other user's point of view could be useful

I use the phonetic components anki deck I created because I had the exact same problem as you do. There's a shared (albeit a bit dated) version in the "shared decks" sections of Ankiweb. https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/3283034296

Using it saved my sanity, though it's not applicable to all kanji.

Reading is the funniest way, and thus probably the best way, to learn readings. After 6 months of extensive reading I can guarantee that reading is really great. It reinforces your listening and grammar comprehension, and production has improved a lot, too.
On the other hand not reading in english has made me very unstable with spelling, I guess it works the same way...

Quote:You guys how many reviews have? How much can you do before it's too much?

Currently just under 100/day. Haven't run into any sort of limit; I think the most reviews I ever had in one day was about 800, plus learning to bring the total over 2000.

Read, read, and read some more.

Ahaha I love you all I was expecting those answers! I find great the suggestion of Vempele (in another thread) about learning only the readings and to learn meanings in context.
It is something I was thinking before and he gave me a sort of confirmation.
The fact is I learned to read english just by reading (but don't judge my knowledge of english by the way I write, I know my production skills suck but I can read everything in english and understand 100%, maybe also because it shares so many words with italian so words I don't know are still pretty obvious).
In other words I learned the meaning of words by reading, and even if written english is different from spoken english, they are still very similar and after that, listening did the rest.
But with japanese there isn't only the meaning to pick up. There are those kanji readings, multiple onyomi, multiple kunyomi, irregularities like hi that becomes bi, or pi etc..
With japanese I feel it is the same, I can pick up easily word's meanings... like if I think about zero no tsukaima, I can remember easily the meaning of words like 奸 or 幻獣. Or when in the beginning I used to read idol's blogs, I had no problem to pick up meanings like 握手会 almost instantly.
But for readings is not so easy, especially for words that doesn't appear so frequently.

For example I learned this word 状態, with two kanji that are new for me. Considering I'm reading zero no tsukaima 1, I looked if this word does appear in it and no, it doesn't. So there are frequent words which are still not so much frequent to just learn them by reading at my stage. Maybe when I'll be more fast in reading I'll read more and see words like that every other day, if not every day. But for now it's not, so at least for readings I must use Anki or I will end up forgetting them.

For japanese people there is not this problem because they already know the spoken word, so the distinction between meaning and reading is not valid for them, because the reading associate with kanji words is really the meaning itself. It's like if 状態 reading is "state", you'll pick it up by reading. But it's じょうたい and as you're learning this word for the first time you still don't know that じょうたい = "state".

Pretty obvious things here, sorry another time, just need to jive vent to my thoughts But I know I can rely upon this great community

Another things that keeps me from reading those days is that I'm not getting into zero no tsukaima really... It's ok I think but I don't know... Considering reading for me is already stressful by itself, I don't feel the compelling need to read it. If my japanese reading ability was like my english reading ability... but it's not... So I need something more compelling, things like death note another note, but I tried to read it and it's grammar is still too difficult for me, so I gave up for now.

EDIT: another thing about the Vempele's suggestion, he said also that he adds only words for which he doesn't know the readings. But for now I feel I cannot do this, as adding words for which I already know the readings is helping me to reinforce them. Like for 態, even if now I know it, I'll still add other words with the same kanji and the same onyomi, because I feel this will help me to reinforce it, and also the fact itself of seeing the words in Anki helps me to recognize them more easily when I encounter them in real japanese. But maybe it is only insecurity and the need to satisfy the need to feel everything under control. If it's not in Anki it's not good so I must add it, like a dogma ._.

What do you guys think about this last point?

At some point I was so annoyed with my inability to produce a lot of onyomi I just created a deck with the kanji on front, one onyomi on the back and added every kanji I came across that I couldn't read. Worked out reasonably well for me.

apirx Wrote:At some point I was so annoyed with my inability to produce a lot of onyomi I just created a deck with the kanji on front, one onyomi on the back and added every kanji I came across that I couldn't read. Worked out reasonably well for me.

What do you mean with "inability ot produce a lot of onyomi"? Do you mean for words you're supposed to know?
For example if you learned the word "重大" but when you review it or when you're reading and encounter this word, you fail to produce the onyomi for "重", you add it to anki with the reading "じゅう" on back?

But in that case it's not the same as reviewing the word "重大" as a whole? What difference does it make between seeing "重大" in anki and test yourself in the ability to recall "じゅうだい", and reviewing "重" to "じゅう"?

Sorry for the question, it's only I want to add in Anki only the bare minimum, so I fear this would be like a sort of repetition because I'm already reviewing that kanji in a word (or more than one) and so I'm thesting its reading implicitly. And what about kanji with more than one reading, that in fact are those that give me more trouble?

Here is a guide to phonetic signals in kanji that someone on another thread came up with. You have to excuse the kanji rendered as Chinese variants, it's because I copied it from Chrome without thinking.

"
千+灬: 勲 勳 熏 燻 薫 醺 クン - 熏 plus 薫 and 勲.
先-贊: 先 洗 濳 筅 跣 銑 セン - In RTK2. -贊 removes 讚 贊 鑽 サン, a perfect group.
戍+幺: 幾 機 畿 磯 譏 饑 キ - This is really just the 幾 group with 畿 added.
見+臣: 攬 欖 纜 覧 覽 ラン - The 覽 group plus 覧 纜.

兩-廿: 倆 兩 裲 輛 魎 リョウ
兩+廿: 懣 滿 瞞 蹣 マン - Only a pure group.

筑: 筑築 チク
凡+工-筑: 恐 蛩 跫 鞏 キョウ - The top part of 恐 on top of anything.

巣: 剿勦巣樔 ソウ - Only a pure group
巛+田-巣: 緇 輜 錙 鯔 シ - 巛+田 is the right side of 鯔.

舌+氵: 活 濶 闊 カツ - The 活 group plus 濶.

敢-厂: 敢 橄 瞰 カン - Most kanji containing 敢 put it under a cliff:
敢+山: 巌 巖 ガン
敢+厂-山 : 儼 厳 嚴 - Only a pure group.

祭-宀: 祭 蔡 際 サイ - -宀 removes the perfect group 察擦 サツ. Both groups are in RTK2.
升-飛: 升 昇 陞 ショウ - Not quite a perfect group, as there's also 枡 (no on-yomi).
呈-士: 呈 程 逞 テイ テイ - -士 removes 鐵 and two kanji that distort 王 to 壬.
育+乂: 徹 撤 轍 テツ - In RTK2.
万+厂: 励 砺 蛎 レイ - In RTK3.
壬-廷-王-?+⺤: 婬 淫 霪 イン - Just a really complicated way of saying "the right side of 婬". The ? is probably 丿 (⺤ was originally also a ?).

瞿-矍: 懼 瞿 衢 ク - 矍 is a pure group 攫 矍 钁 カク

左-月: 佐 左 サ - Only a pure group. Listed as semi-pure in RTK2 with 惰 as the exception.
左+月+辶: 膸 隨 髓 ズイ - In RTK2.
左+月-辶: 墮 惰 楕 橢 隋 ダ - Only a pure group.

Pure groups:

可-奇-阿-竒: 何 可 呵 哥 彁 柯 歌 河 渮 珂 舸 苛 荷 訶 謌 軻 カ - 奇 is nearly pure for キ, 阿 is pure for ア and 竒 is perfect for キ (just two kanji).
少+貝: 嬪 擯 檳 殯 濱 瀕 繽 蘋 賓 頻 顰 鬢 ヒン - A pure group 賓 and a perfect group 頻 walk into a bar. Out walks a pure group.
我-羲-羊: 俄 哦 娥 峨 峩 我 莪 蛾 餓 鵝 鵞 ガ - Almost perfect. In RTK2.
工+巛: 剄 勁 徑 痙 經 脛 莖 輕 逕 頸 ケイ - Heisig notes in RTK3 that this is the old form of 圣, which is a semi-pure group for the same reading (confirmed: 怪 remains the only exception).
林+厂-广: 暦 櫪 歴 瀝 癧 轣 靂 レキ - In RTK2. The real purpose of -广 is removing the 麻 マ group (which has 4 exceptions now, 糜縻靡麾).
缶-丿+月: 徭 搖 瑤 窰 謠 遙 鷂 ヨウ - Almost perfect. Old form of 䍃: 揺 謡, a perfect group with the same reading.
回-亠-嗇: 回 廻 徊 茴 蛔 迴 カイ - Four of these also share the on-yomi エ: 回 廻 徊 迴.
屮+欠: 厥 獗 蕨 蹶 闕 ケツ - The 厥 group plus 闕.
圭+厂: 啀 崕 崖 涯 睚 ガイ

氏-民-昏-?-一: 帋 氏 祇 紙 舐 シ - Whatever the ? is, I'm fairly sure it's redundant.
氏+一(-民): 低 底 抵 柢 牴 砥 羝 觝 詆 邸 テイ - Exceptions: 岻祗胝鴟.
民: 岷 愍 民 泯 眠 緡 罠 ミン - Exception: 氓.
民: 岷 愍 泯 緡 罠 ビン - Exceptions: 民氓眠
昏: 婚 昏 棔 コン - Perfect group.

缶+勹: 掏 淘 綯 萄 陶 トウ - Almost perfect.
延-口: 延 涎 筵 莚 エン - "Almost" perfect. 口 removes 蜑蜒誕.

叉-蚤: 叉 扠 釵 靫 サ
蚤: 蚤騷 ソウ - Perfect.

則-厂: 側 則 惻 測 ソク - Almost perfect.
則+厂: 厠 廁 ショク, シ - Perfect.

武-斌: 武 賦 錻 鵡 ブ - 斌贇 is a non-phonetic group.
必+宀: 密 樒 櫁 蜜 ミツ - Almost perfect. In RTK2.
厄-危: 厄 扼 軛 阨 ヤク - All but 厄 also have the reading アク.
萬+厂: 勵 礪 糲 蠣 レイ - Almost perfect.

隶-康-示: 棣 逮 隶 靆 タイ - Almost perfect.
康: 康 慷 糠 鱇 コウ- Perfect.
隶+示: 隷 隸 レイ - Perfect.
臼+⺤: 滔 稻 蹈 韜 トウ - Almost perfect.

臣+戈-月: 臧 蔵 藏 贓 ソウ - The next group adds the missing readings.
臣+戈: 臓 臟 臧 蔵 藏 ゾウ - Exception: 贓.

That's not all, but I think I'll go back to improving the algorithm.

坑 抗 航
"

Wow! I already knew about RtK2, there are differences between it and your list? So are you suggesting I might study signal primitives? How many onyomi does one know in terms of % supposing he knows all those primitives? (For joyo kanji)

左-月: 佐 左 サ
That group is lacking 差 and its derivates.

cophnia61 Wrote:But in that case it's not the same as reviewing the word "重大" as a whole? What difference does it make between seeing "重大" in anki and test yourself in the ability to recall "じゅうだい", and reviewing "重" to "じゅう"?

Well basically cards get harder the more unknown information there is on them. So a card with 重大 = じゅうだい will be considerably harder to remember than 重 = じゅう or 大 = だい, assuming both kanji and readings are unknown.

The situation I was annoyed at was that I would see a new word, like 弛緩, and while the left kanji was completely new to me, I knew the right one very well as 緩い, yet still fail to produce the on reading. Or fail at reading unknown compounds of common kanji, like 払拭. Basically just the feeling of "I know this kanji so well, why don't I know its on reading"

I decided to wipe that out by learning an on reading for every kanji I know.

apirx Wrote:

cophnia61 Wrote:But in that case it's not the same as reviewing the word "重大" as a whole? What difference does it make between seeing "重大" in anki and test yourself in the ability to recall "じゅうだい", and reviewing "重" to "じゅう"?

Well basically cards get harder the more unknown information there is on them. So a card with 重大 = じゅうだい will be considerably harder to remember than 重 = じゅう or 大 = だい, assuming both kanji and readings are unknown.

The situation I was annoyed at was that I would see a new word, like 弛緩, and while the left kanji was completely new to me, I knew the right one very well as 緩い, yet still fail to produce the on reading. Or fail at reading unknown compounds of common kanji, like 払拭. Basically just the feeling of "I know this kanji so well, why don't I know its on reading"

I decided to wipe that out by learning an on reading for every kanji I know.

Ok, now I understand and it sounds good, so thank you for your advice!

It remembered me the advice of ajatt to test only one thing per card, when he introduced the MCD. So maybe some cloze deletion would be good, but thinking about it often I review in situations where I can not write down the kanji... I wonder if going from reading to kanji with clozed deletion and just imagine the kanji in my mind would do the job...

cophnia61 Wrote:Wow! I already knew about RtK2, there are differences between it and your list? So are you suggesting I might study signal primitives? How many onyomi does one know in terms of % supposing he knows all those primitives? (For joyo kanji)

The list was based off a discussion about RtK2, as DrJones said, it was at that point incomplete, but those groups are kanji that have only one reading, and that reading can be predicted by the signal primitive (perfect), or kanji with at least one reading that can be predicted from the signal primitive (pure).

I thought it might be a good place to start for you, especially since it deals with your confusion on dou/ten. I really liked RtK2 laying out the patterns pretty clearly for me, but I think an example sentence too would have been good.

Personally, I do two things. First, in the spirit of 'one thing per card', for every word (that has a kanji spelling) I generate two cards. One test me on the kana word and I look for the meaning, and the other tests me on the kanji word and I look for the pronunciation. (I still might mark it wrong or at least 'hard' if I get the reading but mistake the meaning, but this rarely happens.)
You do need to provide a usage hint or example sentence on the front of the card for at least the kana version of the word - there's simply too many homonyms in Japanese. (I put all my words into example sentences so this isn't a problem for me.)

Secondly, particular kanji that I have trouble with I'll look to add another word that is spelled with the same kanji (and same reading, in the case of kanji with multiple readings.) This isn't always reasonable if the kanji or the reading is rare, but still, once I know several words with the same reading of the same kanji I rarely have trouble with them again (or with that kanji at all if it has only one reading).

Not to take anything away from the idea of studying phonetic groups - I think that can be worthwhile too. I do like to review phonetic group lists from time to time although I don't test myself on phonetic groups or signal primitives in Anki.

As a final thought, I've considered adding another kind of card that gives me the reading and tests me on kanji production. It would be the same front as the kana->meaning card, but with a different color background or a title phrase at the top of the card or some other indication as to what it is asking. Could also use the input field for a checked answer, but if you type the kana the IME will give it away; a handwriting IME could be ok but I might prefer to just write it on paper. Kind of redundant with RTK reviews though (for me at least - I'm slowly converting my RTK reviews to Japanese keywords. Maybe not as redundant if you're using English keywords or have stopped RTK reviews altogether.)

SomeCallMeChris Wrote:Personally, I do two things. First, in the spirit of 'one thing per card', for every word (that has a kanji spelling) I generate two cards. One test me on the kana word and I look for the meaning, and the other tests me on the kanji word and I look for the pronunciation. (I still might mark it wrong or at least 'hard' if I get the reading but mistake the meaning, but this rarely happens.)
You do need to provide a usage hint or example sentence on the front of the card for at least the kana version of the word - there's simply too many homonyms in Japanese. (I put all my words into example sentences so this isn't a problem for me.)

Secondly, particular kanji that I have trouble with I'll look to add another word that is spelled with the same kanji (and same reading, in the case of kanji with multiple readings.) This isn't always reasonable if the kanji or the reading is rare, but still, once I know several words with the same reading of the same kanji I rarely have trouble with them again (or with that kanji at all if it has only one reading).

Not to take anything away from the idea of studying phonetic groups - I think that can be worthwhile too. I do like to review phonetic group lists from time to time although I don't test myself on phonetic groups or signal primitives in Anki.

As a final thought, I've considered adding another kind of card that gives me the reading and tests me on kanji production. It would be the same front as the kana->meaning card, but with a different color background or a title phrase at the top of the card or some other indication as to what it is asking. Could also use the input field for a checked answer, but if you type the kana the IME will give it away; a handwriting IME could be ok but I might prefer to just write it on paper. Kind of redundant with RTK reviews though (for me at least - I'm slowly converting my RTK reviews to Japanese keywords. Maybe not as redundant if you're using English keywords or have stopped RTK reviews altogether.)

I've stopped RtK reviews xD I know this will negatively affect my ability to recognize kanji, but this could be said for everything. Then why not review phonetic groups, audio to meaning, grammar production and so on? Obviously anything you add in Anki will be useful, but frankly for me the core deck by itself is enough. I could not imagine to do other things too in anki. In fact people learned japanese even when there was no Anki or other SRS, and they still do today. So I think I will take it to a minimum, with my core deck and another deck with grammar sentences (allways recognition mode). I can not bear more than this with Anki

But if I would do another deck it would be kana to meaning, as you do. I suspect it would help even with your ability to recognize spoken japanese.

[RawToast]

Quote:But if I would do another deck it would be kana to meaning, as you do. I suspect it would help even with your ability to recognize spoken japanese.

I would recommend this if you plan on starting reading 'lower level texts' or taking N4/N5 as those sources will make heavy use of kana.

Quote:I've stopped RtK reviews xD I know this will negatively affect my ability to recognize kanji, but this could be said for everything.

I would quickly add vocab/whatever to include the kanji you have covered in RTK, which should prevent slippage. A core deck with added Heisig keywords on the answer side can be useful for any kanji you struggle to recall. There is a plug-in to add the keywords to an existing deck.

Quote:There is something you are doing to reinforce onyomi, beside vocabs reviews?

Anki wise, no; although, I often use a method similar to what Stansfield123 suggested. I mark cards in Anki that I haven't got vocab cards for and add a bunch of words. If there is one reading and meaning that is dominant (e.g. used in most of 'example words' in my deck) then I will only add words for that reading/meaning -- the rest can wait.

Ok, after some weeks of meditation I decided I need to do something about that. When I posted first I hadn't fully understood what was my problem and what I was trying to obtain.
Now I've seen where is the problem. It's not the readings on their own, but the fact I was confusing kanji because I stopped reviewing RtK.
In other words it's not that I don't know 格好 and 結構 or 確認 and 観念 (see the blue kanji). Obviously I know what かっこう and けっこう mean, but when I see them in kanji the fact that 格 and 結 are similar does confuse me. Non that I cannot read them, but I'm like this:

結構 appears in anki reviews;

"uhm... this is ke... no wait, it's kakkou... mh... still not sure, let's see the answer side... ok, I was right"

This appens only for words with kanji I don't recognize well... so it's not because I don't know the word, it's just I need more confidence with kanji, to put them apart without esitation. Just how it was when I did RtK (I stopped it six months ago).

Now I want to start it again, but I think it's impossible to do it with heisig keywords now. I could not even think to do something like:

TIE -> 結

So I was thinking about doing something like:

けっ婚 -> 結婚

But I have a couple of doubts:

1) In RtK 2 Heisig suggests against doing "rading -> kanji" and he suggests to reviews "words -> readings" only. What does he mean precisely? Not to do things like "けつ -> 結"? Isn't this different from what I want to do?

2) To take the most advantage from it, I want to eventually add more than one word per kanji, for example if the kanji has two onyomi and I have problem with both, like:

じゅう大 -> 重大

and

貴ちょう -> 貴重

(and maybe a sentence or the english definition of the word in case of possible ambiguities)

obviousy this will help me to remember how to recall kanji from memory and consequently to better put them apart. But this will actually help me to reinforce onyomi knowledge? Because if it's not, then it makes no sense to add more than a single word for every kanji.

3) in other words it's not that I don't know the word, but I'm relying too much on context, for example with the previous kanji I have no problem to read this word 結婚 because I've seen it so many time but I cannot say the same for other words where 結 appears, which I don't know so well.

4) Some times I'm relying so much on the word like a whole that when I see the same kanji in another compound I screw its reading for the reading of the other kanji in the first compound, like:

絶対 I recognize it in a nanosecond, but when I used to see the same first kanji 絶 in other words I used to do the wrong assumption that "oh, yes, this must be "たい" from "ぜったい".

Eventually I saw it so many time while reading that it finally clicked, but until that moment it was frustrating to see so many times a kanji I know and get the onyomi wrong. So if I could use kanji to help my memory, why not? But I'm not sure what I want to do will be actually useful to reinforce onyomi. I know that apirx resolved my same issue just adding kanji to onyomi:

apirx Wrote:At some point I was so annoyed with my inability to produce a lot of onyomi I just created a deck with the kanji on front, one onyomi on the back and added every kanji I came across that I couldn't read. Worked out reasonably well for me.

but sincerely to do something like this for me would be like taking some bitter medicine... so if my method of clozed reading to kanji could be just as much useful in cementing onyomi I would greatly prefer it.

5) I will definitely add at least one japanese word that summarize in the best way the general meaning of the kanji. What's the best place to find this?

6) It makes sense to just extend this with kunyomi? For words like 通じる and 通う or 通じ and 通し.

PS: I know this is something that could be resolved by just keep reading japanese books, by constantly seeing the same kanji in various compounds and looking at its reading every time I'm not sure, it would finally click as it happened in the past for other kanji, but sincerely it's frustrating to feel I am greatly improved in various area of the language but still I lack confidence in kanji. I feel like this is slowing too much my progress and it's killing my confidence so I keep reading less and less just because of this. :/ In addition there are times when I can not read much and this means memory decay. But Anki exists for this, to keep in memory what you already know, just that minimum exposure needed for when you can not expose much to the language. So even if I now know that 対 is "たい" Anki would keep this in memory for when I can not read much (I know this is a common kanji, but think about more rare kanji and more rare but still used onyomi). So is it this japanese clozed words to kanji going to help me with kanji readings?

I have no trouble with nearly all On-Yomi and most of the Kun-Yomi. So typically if I see the unknown Compound Kanji vocab (that I knew the individual kanji) then I can guess the pronunciation and be right 80% of the time (and if I'm wrong then it's mostly due to the 'slurring' of kanji sound when they are compound with a certain kanji).

I think the trick is to find the main primitive of the vocab. for example:

the 'shi' of "司" primitive
司会[しかい]
歌詞[かし]
飼育[しいく]

the 'shi' of "士" primitive
士官[しかん]
出仕[しゅっし]
寸志[すんし]
雑誌[ざっし]

the 'teki' of "antique" primitive
適切[てきせつ]
敵[てき] 地[ち]
正嫡[せいてき]

the 'shu' of "朱" primitive
朱筆[しゅひつ]
特殊[とくしゅ]
真珠[しんじゅ] #note how the 'shu' sound changed to 'chu' . this kind of exception is not that hard to guess as most of it happened because it "sounds more natural and easier to pronounce". also note that most of the time the slurring of sound is just a matter of adding ̏ or the ˚ to the consonant

What I did to learn this was via Anki (yeah, I know you mentioned about not wanting to use it too much but it's just one of the method that works for me

•RTK2 public deck that group most card with the same main "primitive" near each other for easy first time learning. This is the part where you should quickly learn to grasp and identify the main primitive for the sound of that kanji. It's okay to disregard the compounded kanji meaning at this point
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/9959...ks0000.jpg

•This is the complete RTK set with common words to see so you can passively learn how the vocab and it's pronunciation is used. You could also make use of the "yomi hint" field and add some mnemonic or whatever that helps you remember
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/9959...ks0001.jpg

Thank you very much! But how many onyomi are covered by those signal primitive? How do you review them? As in the screenshoot? So you have two decks, one for rtk1 and one for rtk2?

PS: from the screenshoots it seems you're doing them the opposite of the way Heisig suggest, it's so?

Sorry for so many questions but really I don't know what to do... but I know I must do something about this...

PS2: how much do you think it helps to keep reading japanese books?

Well if my memory serves me right, then the 1st RTK book is about remembering general concept or the "keyword" of Kanji and disregarding it's pronunciation. The 2nd RTK focuses on remembering the Kanji pronunciation on the first volume using mnemonic and stories. and the 3rd RTK pick up where it left off and add more "keyword" of Kanji.

So the total Kanji from Heisig RTK1+3 combined = ~3007 ish which is what my second deck is (this one https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/995 … ks0001.jpg ) So this deck contains the 2 top "stories" (and I think from this site, Im not sure) for each Kanji, its Onyomi, Kunyomi, Jouyou level, JLPT level, and I also added info about how many common words is used. I don't know who created this deck but i sure love this guy

And this deck ( https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/995 … ks0000.jpg ) is to further reinforce my On-Yomi which contains about 2386 card, but since its compound kanji word so you will see duplicate card word but that focuses on different Kanji in the compound Kanji. like this:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/9959...ks0002.jpg -- card 11
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/9959...ks0003.jpg -- card 1657

So here's how I learned:

•I studied Kanji from Heisig RTK1+3 combined deck first. Learn the keyword stories, make up my own Yomi-hint story field, skim read the common word field so see how the kanji is used, suspend most kanji with 'blank' common word field until I saw it in real life book/novel/games/news/drama/etc then i'll unsuspend it and add the word I found to the "common word field". I also add new kanji outside of RTK here when i found them. If you're only learning the kanji, then you may want to focus on keyword first. This took me about 2 months where the beginning is just me remembering only the keyword and I gradually become a lot better at Yomi sound (both Kun and On as Kun-yomi is occasionally used in compound kanji)

•Studies 2k core. Or at least have some known vocabs as it's a lot easier to relate to and create Yomi-hitn storeis based on the vocab you already learnt

•Tackle the RTK 2 public deck. I bit the bullet and spent 1 week cramming the whole deck during Uni break, received Divine retribution of ~200-300 ish card everyday on the following 2 week and received redemption after that where the cards due fall to around ~125

This picture I had sometimes ago may help provide you with Time-Cost Insight for the RTK 2 public deck
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/9959...ks0005.jpg

- Initial learning + Cramming costs about 7+ hours combined. this is actually spread throughout the whole week and I think it doesn't take that much time because I already have some learned vocab to help is yomi hint
- The reviewing stage to retain it costs about another 7+ hours in the same month, relearn about half an hour
- The reviewing time was reduced to ~4 hours on the 2nd month, and to ~2 hours on the 3rd month and then I slacked off but that's another story
- I personally believe this method works quite well for me as the failing rate is pretty low since the 2nd month
- As mention by many people in the forum, keep the answer time per card low on review stage.
- Do a lot of Cramming at the beginning. It'll help improve the retention rate tremendously, and you'll end up saving a lot of time on the card later on.

Once this kanji business is done with, you should either quickly move on to 6k core or any real Japanese materials and expose yourself to real life and practical usages of compounded kanji words. Because from my experiences, you'll remember the compounded kanji word without the need of anki after you 1. really understood the component of kanji used 2. know its pronunciation 3.know its compounded meaning 4. had real life exposure to the word.

Finishing RTK deck only creates an illusion that can somewhat fulfills the 1st requirement (since RTK only helps you grasp the abstract concept of the Kanji). 2nd requirement can be aided with RTK2 public deck since the Yomi of kanji typically stays the same. 3rd requirement may be anki-ed but it can't help you with 4th requirement.


"PS: from the screenshots it seems you're doing them the opposite of the way Heisig suggest, it's so?"
what did heisig suggest again?

cophnia61 Wrote:6) It makes sense to just extend this with kunyomi? For words like 通じる and 通う or 通じ and 通し.

The つう in 通じる is actually the on'yomi: nearly all -じる and -ずる verbs use the on'yomi (they're like する for single-kanji on'yomi).

myxoma Wrote:•I studied Kanji from Heisig RTK1+3 combined deck first. Learn the keyword stories, make up my own Yomi-hint story field, skim read the common word field so see how the kanji is used, suspend most kanji with 'blank' common word field until I saw it in real life book/novel/games/news/drama/etc then i'll unsuspend it and add the word I found to the "common word field". I also add new kanji outside of RTK here when i found them. If you're only learning the kanji, then you may want to focus on keyword first. This took me about 2 months where the beginning is just me remembering only the keyword and I gradually become a lot better at Yomi sound (both Kun and On as Kun-yomi is occasionally used in compound kanji)

Wow, you just cured my depression! I think I will do the same and from what you said I think it will help me enormously! I'm already at 2500 core words but I think I'll put new cards apart for the moment and just do reviews, and devote some time to do what you suggested!

myxoma Wrote:"PS: from the screenshots it seems you're doing them the opposite of the way Heisig suggest, it's so?"
what did heisig suggest again?

I mean I didn't understand if in your RtK 1+3 deck you put kanji on front or on back of the card

Vempele Wrote:The つう in 通じる is actually the on'yomi: nearly all -じる and -ずる verbs use the on'yomi (they're like する for single-kanji on'yomi).

And Vempele, your advices are allways enlightening I didn't noticed this, great thing to know!
Also I think after I'll do as myxoma said, it will be way easier to do what you suggested some time ago, that is to just add on anki words for which I don't know the pronounciation

Sorry to bring this thread up for the third time :/

I've done as myxoma suggested, and while for some kanji I remember the meaning and onyomi on its own, for other kanji I need a menmonic for both meaning and/or reading.

As I said before, it's not that I don't know the kanji, but it happens that I confound two similar kanji, so I'm not too strict with stories as long as they make the kanji unambiguous.

In other words I don't need to make full stories, for example for those kanji 察 際 I limited my stories to make it clear which is which, but I have trouble in finding mnemonics for some readings.

So I was thinking, what do you do? For those who does pronounciation mnemonics. You use the same mnemonic in every story, for the same pronounciation? Let's sai "GO", you use allways "GOku"? Or it depends on the story?

Another thing... do you make one story for everything, or two separate stories for meaning and reading?
What when a kanji has two common onyomi, like 正 or 直?

I've seen kanji damage and it does use the same keyword for a pronounciation like "today" for kyou.

cophnia61 Wrote:Another thing... do you make one story for everything, or two separate stories for meaning and reading?
What when a kanji has two common onyomi, like 正 or 直?

I don't use mnemonics, but I remember ちょく for being similar to the signaled しょく (actually more the other way around), and 正 for being one of multiple primitives that signal both せい and しょう (青 and 生 being the others). Also, I only learned just now that じか and じき aren't kun'yomi - they never appear in compounds.