Hey all,

A few years ago Ive started and finished RTK. Somewhere over time I lost all decks and data. When I picked my japanese studies back up, I figured "eh, done rtk, lets just start over with vocab".
All nice and well, it started just fine, but lately Im failing to memorize certain words. To be exact, words where I cant quite place the kanji anymore, mostly kanji from late in RTK and I didnt review as much as the earlier ones, theyre just back to moon runes.

Is this a time where I should be restarting RTK? Other forum topics of other people shout no! iM not sure if just grinding out vocab visually is the way either though..

At any rate, some advice is welcome.

I know some people did RTK multiple times, but personally I'd rather just review: the ground work has already been done, you may have forgotten, but it's still there somewhere. And even if you lost your data just get a deck, reschedule and spread for something like 1 to 2 months, then do a little everyday and it'll be over before you know it.

Since you have identified where you're the weakest (late RTK), you can also go through the second half of the book (as in just read the kanji and the keyword, not do anything else): it doesn't replace reviewing but it'll already put some things in order.

I agree with EratiK. Just study what you don't know but relearning those kanji you forgot obviously makes learning vocab much easier. Setting your reviews for 1-2 months or longer is a good idea. Or you could just suspend the cards that you pass the first time because you obviously know those and don't need any further review.

After slacking on RTK reviews for awhile, I 'started over' using Japanese keywords.
When I say 'started over', I mean I changed the information on the cards to Japanese keywords (with a short example sentence for context). I didn't reset the time on them unless I failed them. As you can imagine, after changing 'one' 'two' 'three' to 「いち番」、「に番」、「さん番」 ... they are still scheduled at max interval (2 years I think).

I also went in RTK-Lite order to cover more ground in terms of getting all the primitives changed to Japanese sooner.

I think it was kind of worthwhile, although I've not finished and am slacking on RTK reviews again...

In any case, I think once you've already established an intermediate or better skill in Japanese, that doing RTK with English keywords is kind of a waste of time.

You could do RTK with Japanese keywords, or just study the traditional radicals, or even checking out some native Japanese youtube videos for learning the Kanji (if you don't mind really cheesy animations for kids). There's lots of options.

Scientists still know very little about the human mind. Some speculate that the mind does a great job of recording information and the trick is recall. Using Anki for nearly the past year makes me believe this speculation has some relevance.

Thus, I would also agree with EratiK and Yogert and just review.

I might be tempted to spend a weekend with the RTK and just running through the 2,200 Kanji from the very beginning without getting bogged down then launching reviews again. Not sure if this is a great idea but it could make for a tough and potentially satisfying weekend.

Alright, thanks for the tips. I'll be starting a new RTK deck, spread them out over two months, and just do them as a side-dish while continuing the vocab, hoping my latent memory will just get a few nudges and recall whatever it is that I've lost.

And if not, RTK is sort of fun anyway, isn't it? :p

If you are not do the set of (using English keywords and just trying to remember 2200 characters as fast as possible) it's not RTK, it's juts studying Japanese.

If you are not writing the characters out everytime you study, it's not RTK, it's just studying Japanese.

If you add in Japanese readings and Japanese names for primitives, it's not RTK, it's just studying Japanese.

Learn the characters (using pure RTK) and then go read native materials like gossip magazines. The goal should be using Japanese functionally. Not being familiar with the Kanji and and have a rough meaning of each means that reading native materials is just not possible.

I wish, kapalama :< lately I've been attempting to read simple manga or easy news websites, but I'm stuck on every second kanji I find, makes for very tough reading. That's the goal I'm aiming to achieve ASAP though, cause once I'm able to at least grasp what sentences are about, I can just grow by immersion after that.

Also, very well :3 I'll "just study Japanese" using the RTK book and koohii website as a tool.

If you went through it before and sort of know it, it wouldn't take much time to Anki it.
No need to read the book, especially if the cards have stories
Reduce learning intervals to 1 step and not be afraid to fail a card multiple times.
Mark ones you know as easy. First step pushes it out to 4 days and much further afterwords.

I'd guess that in no time at all your deck would be hitting you mostly with cards you need help on.

I'm guessing.

kapalama Wrote:If you are not writing the characters out every time you study, it's not RTK, it's just studying Japanese.

I think most people here are 'just studying japanese' and have no interest in doing 'pure rtk' just for the sake of doing it as james heisig commanded from on high. As you said, 'The goal should be using Japanese functionally.' If a varient of rtk gets the job done, who cares if it's pure this or that. After all, 130 million people learned japanese just fine without rtk.

I'm repeating RtK 1 for basically the same reason.

It's easier (initial intervals at 3 or 8 days are working just fine), but the conflicts between keywords and real vocabulary are oh so highly annoying.

I'm changing those freely, which hasn't been too much of a problem.

(2015-11-10, 3:39 am)Taelia Wrote: I wish, kapalama :< lately I've been attempting to read simple manga or easy news websites, but I'm stuck on every second kanji I find, makes for very tough reading. That's the goal I'm aiming to achieve ASAP though, cause once I'm able to at least grasp what sentences are about, I can just grow by immersion after that.

Also, very well :3 I'll "just study Japanese" using the RTK book and koohii website as a tool.

Do you find grammar to be the main hanging point?

Also you do have Rikaichan installed?

You might find using Firefox with its version of Rikaichan makes the reading move much faster, because you can do the lookups while reading (and make sure and activity the Lookupbar) which is the best dictionary app for English-Japanese.

Japanese friends even use Rikaichan off-label to look up English phrases.

But more to the point:

The reason to stress running through RTK as designed is because otherwise you simply cannot do anything but look up every character if you are dealing with native materials.

Do RTK as designed, and you can finish it in a month or so. Try and add any kinds of extraneous info in, and it will just slow down the RTK, and actually become counterproductive to using RTK.

There is a place on the far side of studying RTK (and I suggest just finishing RTK1 this way) where Kanji becomes a huge positive tool. Until you get there as fast as you can, Kanji will always be a stumbling block.

Close off all other Japanese study. Just burn straight through RTK1 as designed (English Keywords, write the Kanji out every time) and get it done with as fast as possible. Then go back and do whatever study without ever having to worry about anything but attaching meanings and readings to something you already know (mostly).

If you try and do it really any other way, you are attempting to attach new information (kanji) to other new information (readings and meanings) and both get lost because you are trying to attach things to each other while juggling both.

Do the system as designed, and then move to native materials. (Or get reborn as a Japanese person as yogert909 suggests ) Most of us though, have to worry about efficient use of time, and cannot get reborn as a native Japanese person.