So, Ive been studying Japanese for 2 years. My listening and even speaking is pretty good, but Kanji has always been a problem, and this is my third time going through RTK. I got around 500, but my problem is that I really can't review consistently, I'm just way too busy. I work 30+ hours a week, am in a band that gigs pretty regularly (And practices on every one of my off days, on top of me being in charge of booking) and I meet with a private Japanese tutor around 6-7 hours a week. I mean, I technically have time but as you can see, I have a lot going on. On top of all this, I'm going back to school in September.

It was my sensei's idea that I try rtk again, and while I agree that I need to do it, I barely have time to do his homework alone.

So, I've been thinking, has anybody done RTK without using srs? I feel like at this point I should maybe just go through the book, learn to write them all, and review on my own terms, rather than Anki's. I have like 200 reviews sitting there right now, and it's pretty hard to progress when I fall off the wagon a couple times a week.

Has anyone done it this way, and if so, how was it?

I first worked through RTK without an SRS. It'll work, but the SRS will save review time. I'd suggest just doing what reviews you can and not worrying about the backlog.

How long does it take you to go through 200 Kanji when reviewing what you already learned?

If looking at 200 Kanji to review seems daunting, it might be because you are not actually learning them in the first place. Simply writing 200 Kanji only takes a few minutes.

kapalama Wrote:How long does it take you to go through 200 Kanji when reviewing what you already learned?

If looking at 200 Kanji to review seems daunting, it might be because you are not actually learning them in the first place. Simply writing 200 Kanji only takes a few minutes.

As kapalama said.

I suggest you to use SRS. This way the easiest kanji will be pushed ahead in time and you will review more the difficult ones. After a couple of weeks / one month your review number will be easily manageable.

I suggest also to add one or more japanese keywords per kanji, especially considering your listening skill is good. Most of the time, what makes RtK hard at your level, is more the english keywords system than the kanji itself.

If even with japanese words you find it daunting, then maybe what you find stressful is the process to actually write down kanji on paper? If this is true, then I suggest you to try simply visualize them. For example 緩 takes me 10 seconds to write it phisically (but I'm particularly slow at writing, even in my own language), but a couple of seconds to visualize it in my mind's eye. So, give it a try if you want, maybe this will work for you

Or, if even this way you find it daunting, then do it in recognition mode, with Kanji on front. Even if recognition mode is not as effective as production, it's still pretty effective and it's definitely better than nothing.

It breaks my heart when I see people turned off language study because of this !@#$% computer-anki thing.

In answer to your question, I did RTK1 without SRS/anki and it worked out fine.

[s0apgun]

I suggest playing with the review interval settings in Anki.

I have anki on my phone - app called AnkiDroid.
I do reviews whenever I have free time (have no more than 80 cards to review a day) and I find it pretty easy to manage.
And I'm one of these that visualize too much, to be sure I won't forget the most important and writing the characters take me the brief second. Never had any problem with writing.

Thequadhunter Wrote:So, Ive been studying Japanese for 2 years. My listening and even speaking is pretty good, but Kanji has always been a problem, and this is my third time going through RTK. I got around 500, but my problem is that I really can't review consistently, I'm just way too busy.

That's weird because I find kanji easier than learning vocabulary. However I am doing kanji recognition only. I'm assuming you are doing production..? Doing recognition makes it really easy because you don't need to carry around a notebook and pencil, so you can do it anywhere, even walking to anywhere. Anki just makes it easy for me to pull out my phone and study when I'm waiting in line at the grocery store. I even study in my car while waiting at red lights. I've been able to scrape together 90 minutes every day basically walking places and being anti-social at lunch. That's more than enough time to study 300 kanji every day.

But anyway, back to your question about srs. There's no reason you need to use srs if that's what's holding you back. However I don't see how anything could be more efficient for memorizing things than srs. All of the other methods I've seen like wordlists and flashcards turn out to be simply analogue versions of srs, but those are fine too.

I'm guessing you problem has to do with consistency, like you said. You have to keep up the reviews regularly. One thing I have noticed about kanji, is the older the cards get, they progressively get harder to remember, so you need to keep up the reviews. If you end up going through RTK again using anki, I suggest setting the initial ease on the lowest setting of 130 and add only as many cards as you can study every day. Keep up with the reviews even after you have finished RTK - for years even. Eventually it'll only be a few cards per day and take 5 minutes and I can't see how you can forget them.