Hi everyone

I have going through RtK1 for about a month now and am a quarter of a way through but I still am having trouble.

I have found that if I go through a lesson and then right away go through them on RevtK I remember 90%+. However if I wait even an hour or so that rate drops from anywhere from 50% to 85%. My fail pile is growing as a result, I have been keeping up and moving them out but now its at 95 or 16%.

It seems most of time when I forget one its because I fail to make the connection from the keyword to the story. Once I Flip the card, I see the kanji and the story comes rushing back.

One idea I have had is to review immediately then do it again the same day even though its not expired and go from there.

So anyone have similar experience or advice.

ありがとう。

Don't worry about it. It's a long term effort. Just keep plugging along.

Even if you're failing every single kanji, if (as you say) you remember the story when you see the kanji, then that means you're learning the kanji enough that they're more than random scratchmarks. That alone gives you a huge advantage learning Japanese.

What i do is after i learn my kanji for the day, I will review those particular kanji using Anki, and keep going through until I can answer them all. Then the following day, I will review them here on this site. I find that when I first make my stories, I don't usually let my stories really "sink in", so the initial review later the same day helps with that.

Yeah, go ahead and review it multiple times the first day. But DON'T try to do this by clicking on the green stack, as that will increase the time before you see it again. Either review them the first few times on a different program/handmade flashcards, or delete the new cards and re-add them.

Muliple reviews make a lot of sense. I didn't know going through the green stacks counts as a review even if they aren't expired.

Thanks for the advice, now I just have to handle my fail pile (it's at 135 now).

[Katsuo]

theBryan Wrote:It seems most of time when I forget one its because I fail to make the connection from the keyword to the story.

This worked well for me:

What are the first things that come to mind when you think of that keyword? Work one of those into the story.

e.g. Say you are learning the keyword and kanji "General" 総.
What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of "general"? Maybe General MacArthur? General de Gaulle? General Motors? General Strike? Whichever it is, try to work that into the story.

I have a similar experience. I'm solving it slowly with advices like Katsuo's: making better stories for my older kanjis. And switching to mnemosyne to do my earlier reviews properly, as Zarxrax is doing.

Katsuo's advice is right on. Be sure to pick stories that go from the keyword to the story, and not vice versa. Lots of people have written very clever stories (including Heisig) that may work for them, but the keyword simply occurs somewhere IN the story. I've found the other way around to work much better for me. Plus, if you use the method of trying to work with whatever pops into your head when you hear the keyword, incorporating that concept into the story often makes it quite bizarre and memorable!

Fully agree with tuuli and katsuo. Once you have that "pop into your head' image, work it into your story no matter how ridiculous the image - in fact the more ridiculous (and the more active) the better.