Hi there, everyone!

I've been studying Japanese for about 4 weeks now, going through both Genki 1 and RTK at the same time. Today, I'll hit the 700 kanji mark. Because I've been doing this for a while and had to spend a whole week relearning some kanji that I didn't immediately add to anki, I realized a couple of things.

So lately, I've been thinking about what helps and what doesn't. One of the things that I realized was that I should immediately write down the first couple of words that come to my mind when I see a keyword - those are the words I'm probably going to remember later, so why not? Then I try to incorporate them in the mental image I create, be it a character, a place, someone I know, etc.

Sometimes, I fail to remember the word that I use to link the keyword to the primitives, but more often than not it works better than just thinking about the primitives alone. Unless it's an easy kanji, of course. My point is, these words serve the purpose of "subkeywords"... or perhaps I should say, hints? So I thought, why not add these hints right next to the keyword?

What I'm worried is, would this be "cheating"? By that I mean, would this be actually helpful? Or would it backfire? I guess everyone knows that keywords can sometimes be very vague, so you see it and nothing comes to your mind - unless you strengthen the link between the keyword and your story. This seems even more useful when it comes to similar keywords, such as yearn and pining. Of course, I won't be writing the name of the primitives right next to the keyword, although some hints are inherently connected to certain keywords, so that'd be pretty much the same.

I don't mean to say my retention rate is bad or anything, but I thought this could be an interesting thing to do. Not all words need this, but I can probably add hints to most if not all keywords if that's for the better. The question is, is it? What do you guys think? (By the way, sorry for the wall of text.)


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I think this may not have been clear enough, so let me give you a few examples.

Kanji: 因
Keyword: Cause
Primitives Pent In / Big
Story: It reminds me of a specific story (I won't say the name to avoid spoiling stuff) where everyone is pent in, but it's for a bigger cause.

So I could write in the front a more conservative Cause - Where? or maybe even Cause - What story?, but I could also write Cause - *name of the story*. Not sure which idea is better or if both would be considered bad, since I'm still going through the course.

I do it and I think it's not cheating as long as the hint doesn't give away the kanji.
A good hint in your example would be the onyomi but this works only after you learn some compounds with the kanji.

When two or more keyword are similar is ok to put an hint. See it as a keyword extension. Or as a single keyword made of two words.

The kanji in your example is used in compounds which mean things like "the cause of...". For example

原因 cause, origin, source
要因 primary cause, main factor
死因 cause of death

So you can add a hint like:

"Origin (intended as "cause of", ex.: "cause of death")

And you can use it in your story, for example make a story with a dead corpse whose ORIGIN is unknown, maybe an alien. Then let the cia investigate on its origin and on the origin of what causes his death.

Remember that you must not learn the story as a poem but you must visualize it as a movie.

You read "origin (cause of... death)" and the image of a dead alien pop in your mind. Next to him a cia agent who ask to himself "what is his origin????" The he take the dead alien and he put him into a big recintion, to investigate the origin or cause of his death.

I see. Thanks for the reply! It seems like an interesting thing to use readings.

Would you say my approach above is a good idea though? By that I mean, adding a hint to most keywords, even regular ones (save the very easy ones)? If so, which of the 3 ideas I mentioned would you recommend?

I think this approach might actually help me save time. Maybe even push further the number of kanji I learn per day, since it'll be easier to remember the stories. But you see, I'm just not sure if it's a good idea to go overboard with this hint thing.

Some hints (like the more specific one I wrote above, e.g. writing the name of the movie/game/etc on which I based my own story) remind me of the story almost immediately, so I'm not sure if that's a great thing or if I need to be vaguer.

People say you even forget the stories in the long run, so I'm thinking why not take advantage of hints that could turn fails into kanji that are far easier to remember? Won't the kanji be the only thing that you'll remember at the end of the day anyway? But then again, this might be going too far, for the same reason I think people don't write their whole story, just the keyword. And what I'll be doing is like writing part of the story. So yeah, I don't know.

It'll be fine. The keywords are just there to identify the kanji. If you need another phrase tacked on, that's pretty much the same thing.

I don't like any hints to include any names of primitives, because I feel like that's taken away an important part of the memory exercise.

However, so many of the keywords are similar, many of them have multiple meanings... trying to remember the right definition of the keyword to go with the kanji, or trying to remember which kanji goes with which of two synonymous keywords... that stuff is just not important, so if you have trouble by all means put a hint down.

[s0apgun]

Doesn't matter. Keep reviewing and its gonna end up sticking with you no matter how many times you failed or a cheated on a card. Do whatever works, but don't stop studying.

s0apgun Wrote:Doesn't matter. Keep reviewing and its gonna end up sticking with you no matter how many times you failed or a cheated on a card. Do whatever works, but don't stop studying.

I hope so. The one thing I've learned to accept from here is that with Anki it is OK to fail as much as I hate it.

There are some cards that just don't "work" They resist stories or the stories that prevent order problems. Hopefully they are few and as you fail them and do them again, rote memory starts to take over and what was once WTF actually sits in the head. At least that is what I am counting on.

Also in the greater scheme of things, if you have trouble with say 200 of them, that is still 2000 that you do know and the rest should sort out by the time you do vocab.

I find what has helped with a character that I worry about is that I'll try to think about it during the day usually after that it sits much more solid in the skull meat, even if I don't have a decent memory game going for it.

Even being able to memorize 3 miscellaneous words like 9 tree turkey with no story is a lot easier than remembering vertical stroke, horizontal stroke that goes down, below that vertical and horizontal stoke with.... I'd rather eat glass than do it that way. I'd almost rather go to a Justin Beiber concert... not quite but almost. [Actually 3 misc items is miscellaneous, I am often amazed how I can get a story together when at first I am gobsmacked.]

Directly addressing the OP

All that being said, I wouldn't put the hints in the front card. I'd rather fail it a few times. If you must do this, you probably need to jig your stories. Something more basic, more complex, more visualization or less... whatever works for you. Slow down, speed up. Whatever works.
One thing I changed, under lapse I set it to test me 3 times when I fail a card. Also if you completely blow a card, make a note of it and play with it in your head over the day.


As for being 80 Kanji ahead of me in slightly less time while doing Genki 1... Respect yo.