I just passed 500 or so in RTK1, and I'm adding around 22 per day. Right now I'm doing about 150 reviews/day with an addition 40 cram every once in a while.

I'm finding that I have a tough time learning new stories. I get completely lost which words are the keyword. For instance, "Grass" has a huge story in RTK, and full of non-primitive keywords like "window of a patch" and "harbinger". So the longer the story, the harder it is for me to memorize and hold it in.

I am not great at making up my own stories, so in my head, I simplify it as "Grass: Flower: Early", and move on.

What I notice is that in the short term reviews, I can get by, but the longer term reviews, I may need a reminder since my story isn't a story at all. I assumed that this will clear up as I get deeper in reviews though.

Am I setting myself up for problems later though? Should I work more on nailing down a story and slowing down the kanji a day?

It might help you to make shorter/better stories than what heisig gives if they arent working for you.

However, after enough reviews I generally was able to shed the story and just use the keywords to prompt my memory/hand to go to work. I would make sure that you know the kanji well, but at the same time if you forget the story at some point later on it won't make as much of a difference. Mostly, just do what actually is getting you to study and remember

Mine are pretty short, to avoid extra non-primitive items, but I tried to go with the "imaginative memory" suggestion where possible. For "grass" I had flowers poking up through the grass, including a sunflower. The ones where I just listed the primitives do seem to fail more at long intervals.

BrianT Wrote:What I notice is that in the short term reviews, I can get by, but the longer term reviews, I may need a reminder since my story isn't a story at all.

This is a problem because a story shouldn't need a reminder, but like you said yours aren't really stories, they're like a list of the primitives, ie mnemonics in the basic sense. And imho, if Heisig is so effective (in my personal experience) it is because --as Helen says -- it uses imaginative memory, which is not using words to trigger the kanji, but using an image representing a story.

For example "demolition" 壊: I break it up as earth/needle/eye/clothes. Of course when I try to remember the kanji I don't think of the string of words earth/needle/eye/clothes, but more of what demolition evokes in my mind, and I have this image of a a building falling down and raising a huge cloud of dust that stings my eyes and stains my clothes. See, half of the primitives aren't literaly in the description of the story, but as long as I have the image of me in a cloud of dust rubbing my eyes with stained clothes pictured in my mind, I can't forget that kanji.

So yes, the fact that you are forgetting is a sure sign that something should be changed about the way you learn and you should be more careful from now on because it won't clear up as kanji will start using other kanji as primitive and if you don't remember them you're screwed. One thing though you'll remember less complex kanji easier as you study more complex ones (and 草 is a less complex one), but you still have to learn it in the first place, and a good story allows that.

Also I won't lie it's hard to have a relevant image for everything (and it can be time consuming but the site has lots of amazing stories so don't be afraid to dig there) so you'd rush certain things anyway, but the more you can think of a detail that can speak to you in the image/story of the kanji, the more likely you are to remember it long term.

In a word, yes.
If you are already having issues at the 500 mark, you may not make it the whole way. Whilst a good image and story isn't possible for every kanji, you need it for at least 80% or you'll get into big trouble when you encounter multiple kanji with similar keywords.

From my personal experience, I think you should slow down. I rushed to be 'done' (initially learn) all the kanji, and did it in a couple months. But, I've been reviewing for about 8 months since then. Looking back on it, I might as well have invested more time in the initially learning, to solidify each kanji in my memory, so I don't have to re-learn it again and again later (after I was 'done' with the RTK book). I don't think the total time investment would be much different, it is just whether it is spent up front, or in reviews. Initially learning is actually more fun than endless reviews.

In my own experience, the shorter the story the better. The best ones are only a single short sentence. E.g., "Diarrhea is profitable illness" (that's from Henschall actually). Pretend they're short sayings from Chinese fortune cookies.

Also make sure you go kanji to keyword sometimes in addition to keyword to kanji. I know Heisig says not to go from kanji to keyword but I found it necessary to do so.

If I may reply late, I have my own take on this "remembering stories" problem.

For me, I think I'm following exactly what Heisig's introduction suggested and am using my "imagination memory" instead of visual memory or ability to recite a memorable sentence.

The "story" I associate with each word is supposed to be memorable in that the keyword plays a significant role in it. And each of the primitives is supposed to be something noteworthy within the story. Yes, they usually "fall away" but by then it's not so much I don't remember the "story' anymore as much as the logic behind the story becomes part of the meaning of the word for me.

Looking at early <500 examples I used,

Yeah, revelation is cow+mouth and a story is supposed to be about how surprised a person was when the cow spoke its revelation. But I -really- visualized that cow, I imagined its face looking right at me and it slowly spoke in a deep voice of apocalyptic warnings, essentially the book of revelations. I take a little time to visualize this and think about how this means revelations. Really see the cow, that's important. Really see the mouth, that's important. It's memorable. Maybe even tell myself that this was a part of a fuller story somewhere and this farmer who found his cow like this ran to tell everyone about the revelation he heard "straight from the cows mouth".

Then later when I'm reviewing and see that word or kanji I smile to myself because I can imagine how ridiculous that mental image is; it instantly springs to mind.

Or a recent favorite of mine is "comrade" which is composed of "un-" (which we've taken as a primitive to mean "jail cell") and "car". Some Russians buddies try to break their "comrade" out of jail by busting down the wall with their car! See the bricks, feel the explosion, how startled everyone is in the cell, how demolished the car is, the absurdity of the situation. They're shouting for their comrade and they hear their comrade above them, the jail cell is the one above the car! Oh no! Everyone is panicking, alarms are going off and they're trying to back the car back out of the hole in the jail cell over the rubble!

I don't think it's as much that you're not "learning the full story" as much as you're not visualizing and taking advantage of your "imagination memory" to spring forth the fun mental image.

I think you're doing it absolutely right when you see the word or kanji and your made up etymology for the kanji (the "story") springs to mind and makes you smile. When making the "story" I'm not afraid to sit there and think about it for 60 to 120 seconds and just "meditate" on it.

Maybe that's helpful to you?

Hyreia - superb post and thank you for taking the time to highlight your view on the learning process. Very clear and well thought out!