Welcome KirbyHead! Good luck with learning.

I'd say don't worry about the handwriting; 'real' Japanese people don't write that neatly either. Also, some characters/primitives might seem impossible to write at first but practice makes it (not perfect) much easier and you can write faster.

I'm already finished with RTK1, or I'd be your learning buddy.

Currently at 508 but going over 180 I hadn't absorbed properly.

Nijuro, At 500 I finally grasped the concept. I would take a day to review and edit stories.
頑張ってください！

It's been a week since I restarted Hesig. (I was gone for 5 months) and I am now at 1250-500 frames. By the end of this week I should finished all the characters I learned some time ago. (1600ish)

Has anyone seriously studied kanji before starting Heisig? I di and when I look at my kanji poster I know around 2-6 on each row. This is comforting to me. I wouldn't have liked it as much if Heisig did kanji by the order it's taught in schools.

皆さん、頑張ります。

I only studied the numbers 1-10 and 100, 1000. It took me two days to get those with on'yomi and kun'yomi as well. This was before I discovered RTK. I was like: if this is how it is then I'll still be going years from now. Then I discovered RTK and I was like: I must be doing something wrong, it's going so fast and easily. XD

Nijuro Wrote:Currently at 508 but going over 180 I hadn't absorbed properly.

That's fine, right now I am going through a big bad failing session (I just reached 1000!). Stick with it and you will be fine .

To those who want to just finish RTK and get to the long awaited utopia of native material, these are my two biggest suggestions for completing RTK more quickly:

1. Spend only one minute on a story.
Once you're done with RTK and begin sentence mining or reading native materials, you'll see the kanji enough in context that recalling stories will become obsolete.

I recommend spending only around one minute on each story. I did this for the last 500-600 kanji of RTK, and I regret not having done so earlier. My retention dropped to 40-70% for a few days, but it then jumped up to more than 90% after 1-2 weeks.

2. Spend only 10-20 seconds reviewing a card.
Give yourself ~10 seconds for each card. Immediately fail it if nothing comes to mind. If you remember most of the primitives or most of the story, or if you're only having difficulty with the positioning of the primitives, then give yourself another 5-10 seconds. Fail it if you can't reproduce the kanji in that time. Besides saving time, not hesitating to fail cards encourages you to recall kanji quickly. It's almost useless to have a kanji memorized but to take more than 30 seconds to remember it.

Concluding remarks
Creating stories and spending time on reviews are the most time consuming aspects of RTK. I found it most efficient to limit myself to one minute per story and 10-20 seconds per flashcard. Goals like 50 or 100 kanji a day are quite manageable this way, as are 200-400 card review piles.

@Anyone currently doing RTK: without it I would not have passed the kanji kentei today and there's no way i'd be aiming for 3級 in 6 months. It's well worth the effort and is extremely effective. Keep going.

vileru Wrote:To those who want to just finish RTK and get to the long awaited utopia of native material, these are my two biggest suggestions for completing RTK more quickly:
1. Spend only one minute on a story.

For short term results just for taking a test, that would most likely work. For long term retention, you may have problems. I spent 20 minutes on some of the stories that had several elements. It has been a year since my last review and I can still see a kanji on a billboard and tell the story on how to draw it.

bodhisamaya Wrote:

vileru Wrote:To those who want to just finish RTK and get to the long awaited utopia of native material, these are my two biggest suggestions for completing RTK more quickly:
1. Spend only one minute on a story.

For short term results just for taking a test, that would most likely work. For long term retention, you may have problems. I spent 20 minutes on some of the stories that had several elements. It has been a year since my last review and I can still see a kanji on a billboard and tell the story on how to draw it.

I haven't had much difficulty with those 500-600 kanji that I rushed through. Initially, my retention percentage decreased, but it returned to former levels after about 2-3 failed reviews. Furthermore, RTK is provisional. The stories are meant to keep the kanji retained until you encounter them in context and begin to frequently use them. There's no sense in spending excruciating amounts of time on stories when the need for them will be quickly lost.

I had 1000 cards total to review or restudy but I am finally in the groove of adding cards. 380 漢字 to go!　

vileru Wrote:Once you're done with RTK and begin sentence mining or reading native materials, you'll see the kanji enough in context that recalling stories will become obsolete.

Quote:Furthermore, RTK is provisional. [...]There's no sense in spending excruciating amounts of time on stories when the need for them will be quickly lost.

Just thought I'd add a mention of comments here by folks who do a fair bit of handwriting or want to be able to. Their ability to recall some stories turned out to be a bonus for kanji they write less frequently. There are occasions, as well, where stories prove useful to distinguish kanji which differ only slightly. This becomes apparent even years later.

I wouldn't necessarily describe times >1 minute (or whatever time others choose or need to take) as "excruciating." (but I'm Canadian, I guess we have a reputation for being a bit more humble and indirect. lol*) Often more upfront investment of time (learning vocab would be another application) can pay dividends later.

Quote:Concluding remarks

But always good to have a variety of opinions...er...speeches? ;-)

*a joking reference to an previous thread.

Thora Wrote:Their ability to recall some stories turned out to be a bonus for kanji they write less frequently. There are occasions, as well, where stories prove useful to distinguish kanji which differ only slightly. This becomes apparent even years later.

I wouldn't expect this to differ greatly with someone who made quick stories, but kept up with kanji reviews. About a month after completing RTK1, currently 90% of my cards are in Box 4 and beyond. This seems to suggest that quick stories do not significant impact retention.

Thora Wrote:I wouldn't necessarily describe times >1 minute (or whatever time others choose or need to take) as "excruciating." (but I'm Canadian, I guess we have a reputation for being a bit more humble and indirect. lol)

I think a strong argument can be made that even a slight increase in time spent creating stories can result in a significant loss of time. 1 min x 2042 = 2042 min = 34.03 hours. Excruciating is probably the wrong word to use, "unnecessary" would be better.

Thora Wrote:

vileru Wrote:Concluding remarks

But always good to have a variety of opinions...er...speeches? ;-)

Haha, it's definitely cheesy, but I thought it'd be useful for those reading.

Your point was that stories are meant to become obsolete. I was suggesting that's not necessarily so. (Retaining just an associated image is often enough, though.)

One month later while reviewing doesn't give much indication as to whether it will be useful 5 years later despite not maintaining reviews. That's what I'm talking about.

34 hours isn't time wasted if it turns out to be a worthwhile investment. And the fewer fails and reviews would offset much of that time. Besides, some place value on enjoying a less regimented approach. More generally, I tend to think a focus on speed sometimes misses longer term language goals. But, in fairness to you, you did address your post to those who want to finish quickly. And this is an encouragement thread. :-)

@ Thora

You're right. Stories are beneficial when it comes to remembering rare kanji. However, maintaining reviews seems more reliable than spending several minutes creating a story, and then halting reviews after a few months. If you continue with reviews, you know for sure that you've remembered what you've learned, whereas there's a lesser degree of certainty if you stop reviewing. Therefore, it would be a good idea to spend more time on stories if you plan to stop reviewing. However, the purpose of spending a lot of time on a story is to increase retention, but stopping reviews negatively affects retention. Keeping up with reviews seems like the better option.

Regarding the time wasted, I find that failing and reviewing a card ~1-3 extra times ultimately totals to less time than spending an extra minute or two forming a story. A review typically takes less than 10 seconds.

I agree that those who prefer a less regimented approach should proceed at their own leisure. Likewise, focusing on speed can impact long-term language goals, especially motivation. I wouldn't recommend carrying this mindset over to studies beyond RTK, since it'll probably lead straight to burn-out. However, RTK can be frustrating for those who want to immerse themselves in actual Japanese. To them, I strongly recommend moving through RTK at a brisk pace. I did, and I don't regret it. Since I've been with my girlfriend, I've been more or less surrounded by Japanese people on a daily basis. It was tormenting to be able to write a bunch of kanji but barely speak with them. After RTK, it's been much more interesting and exciting to be learning actual Japanese and using it with my friends.

I'm at 430 and getting frustrated and discouraged. My whole goal of learning Japanese is to be able read and translate a particular series of trashy yuri light novels, and when I think about that, I get so excited and motivated. But somehow that just makes me so impatient that actually sitting down and doing RTK is...hard.

I set a finish date of April 16th, and taped up calenders on the wall where I mark my progress(and lack thereof) and doing that has helped quite a bit. I still skip too many days, though. I'm currently 94 kanji behind, I was going to do them today but as of right now I've only done 20. I just...I'm so lazy I have trouble getting off my ass and doing something.

I'm also kind of nervous because I haven't done anything this "big" on my own before. It's not that I don't think I can do it, it's just that...all of the times I've started things and then fizzled out keep coming up in my mind. And that's...irritating.

xquio Wrote:I'm at 430 and getting frustrated and discouraged. My whole goal of learning Japanese is to be able read and translate a particular series of trashy yuri light novels, and when I think about that, I get so excited and motivated. But somehow that just makes me so impatient that actually sitting down and doing RTK is...hard.

I set a finish date of April 16th, and taped up calenders on the wall where I mark my progress(and lack thereof) and doing that has helped quite a bit. I still skip too many days, though. I'm currently 94 kanji behind, I was going to do them today but as of right now I've only done 20. I just...I'm so lazy I have trouble getting off my ass and doing something.

I'm also kind of nervous because I haven't done anything this "big" on my own before. It's not that I don't think I can do it, it's just that...all of the times I've started things and then fizzled out keep coming up in my mind. And that's...irritating.

Make the finish date flexible, don't beat yourself up for being behind. I finished RTK a week later than I wanted to, because I wanted to go too fast. It's okay to slow down a bit, rather than start altogether. Make it easier on yourself. It's fine to do just one in a day.

I found it a lot easier to do more kanji when I didn't work too hard on the stories. Usually, I just took stories from here, or made mine particularly pervy/disgusting, which was fun, and also easier to create and remember. (It got really funny when the flag/pee primitive was introduced, and crotch, and shakuhachi/"shakuhachi"...)

But be careful with too much perv; because once you make a story for something that might be considered pervy and you don't make the story that way, you're forever failing the kanji, as when it comes up in reviews, you keep thinking in the pervy direction, whereas it's a 'regular' story. XD

@vileru
I completely understand the need/desire get some momentum going to get through RTK and move on to communication. Too many variables, variations and unknowns to attempt meaningful efficiency calculations, though.

Spoken Japanese: In your lucky circumstances, you might want to consider focusing more on spoken Japanese first. RTK and this site are very reading focused. I've had friends who started with intensive spoken Japanese courses (3, 9 and 12 months) for missionary work and corp/gov't jobs. Their results were astonishing! (I even borrowed the missionary's books. Unfortunately, all the Holy Ghost vocab wasn't particularly useful for me. :-)) There are textbooks and audio resources which focus on spoken vocab, grammar and patterns. We use far fewer words in speech and some regular patterns. It's also easier to learn reading when you already have some language skills. Just a thought. Encouragement?

Stories: I don't think long-term reviewing of English keywords is a great idea. Transitioning to Japanese prompts is better, but it takes time to customize and learn a Japanese deck. I suspect most don't do it. Also, you are already finding that your brain often goes directly from keyword to kanji, bypassing the story, as you do reviews. Reviewing doesn't necessarily reinforce the story. It's when you stop reviewing, or review so infrequently, that a lasting story image can prove useful.

Concluding Remarks: haha For school and work in Japan, I was gratefully surprised how often story fragments helped me out with radicals - even 10 years after completing RTK. A great perk of a component learning method!

rosenafglenn Wrote:Make the finish date flexible, don't beat yourself up for being behind. I finished RTK a week later than I wanted to, because I wanted to go too fast. It's okay to slow down a bit, rather than start altogether. Make it easier on yourself. It's fine to do just one in a day.

I found it a lot easier to do more kanji when I didn't work too hard on the stories. Usually, I just took stories from here, or made mine particularly pervy/disgusting, which was fun, and also easier to create and remember. (It got really funny when the flag/pee primitive was introduced, and crotch, and shakuhachi/"shakuhachi"...)

The problem with me and flexible dates is that they just make my procrastination worse. The date gives me hope.

When you don't work as hard on the stories, how badly does your retention rate drop? On a good day I'm around 90%, but most of the time I'm somewhere in the 80's. I only spend a few minutes on each story, just basically coming up with it as I type it into Anki...That's actually working better for me than trying to come up with the mnemonic and focus on it when I first see the kanji, though...

xquio Wrote:When you don't work as hard on the stories, how badly does your retention rate drop? On a good day I'm around 90%, but most of the time I'm somewhere in the 80's. I only spend a few minutes on each story, just basically coming up with it as I type it into Anki...That's actually working better for me than trying to come up with the mnemonic and focus on it when I first see the kanji, though...

When I went from spending about 2 minutes per kanji to spending the 1 minute it took to read/copy the first or second story on her, my retention... stayed the same, might've increased. My original stories were a special kind of suck, though. Anyways, had been in the range of 80-85, definitely didn't drop. I think it went up to about 83-88.

Ha, it's been a while since I did almost 2/3 of RTK. A week ago I started watching anime again (I noticed my ISP in Belgium is switching my subscription to unlimited download - yeah - with some Fair Use Policy, doh!) so that gave me a boost to start downloading some jtv and new fansubbed animes (until I can understand Japanese, subs will be there, but it's fun to see that I understand some words here and there). Basically, what I'm trying to say, is that I found back my passion for japanese and its culture.

Why did I drop out? I'm trying to remember why... ah yes.. I think it's coming back...

First I had to throw away my RTK1 book because... well, I totally forgot the book was in a bag with an orange and it began to rot. Included was my second notebook that had my written stories from 900 to about 1400. The pages of the book where totally messed up and unusable, and so was the outer side of my notebook. I still hope that my girlfriend didn't throw it away so I can reuse a couple of them. Luckily I saved on the reviewing part of the website at least 60% of my stories. Thanks to the export functions I can print them out like a little book! I just need to add the missing ones. Saves me a lot of time.

Second, my new boss at the client started wondering why there were some pages full of 'Asian' characters lying around on my desk. He wasn't happy with that because he thought I didn't work... I have not much time at home, so I do some reviewing during my pauses, ok man? Yeez. All those smokers outside here - I don't care that they smoke - but they take more pauses than I do! So, that took me away from learning Japanese too.

Anyway, I'm back and trying to do 50 kanji per day, which will drop eventually to about 25-35 when I'm going above #1000 again. Finishing in 2 or 3 months should be a possibility. Luckily those 500 first kanji are still pretty fresh in my mind. So that gives me a great mental boost to go on again.

But then there's another problem. I started following Tai Chi and my teacher got me really interested in Chinese also but I think I need to be hard to myself and wait until I reach some intermediate level of japanese before trying to learn Chinese.

Are there people who managed to learn Chinese and Japanese at the same time?

I never took Japanese class with my friends in High School because I bought into the hype of "Japanese is waaay to hard look at all the symbols try Spanish class instead". I ended up failing Spanish because I was bored out of my mind. Fast forward a few years later and I find the AJATT website and learn all about Heisig and RTK. I'm up to 250 Kanji now and I really believe I can do it. Which surprises me since I've never had much academic confidence (was a slacker in school sad to say). But learning the Kanji and immersing myself in Japanese doesn't feel like a chore (which most of my classes did) and I'm really excited to burn through RTK. Reading peoples posts on this topic makes me want to do even more Kanji then I've done before.

Best of luck to everyone still going through RTK hope to see you all at the "finish line"

Don´t even bother writing a story. Just imagine something--and vividly. No words are required.

I haven´t yet failed to forget the image I used when provided with both the kanji and the meaning, so the written story isn´t even needed for record keeping.

On a somewhat unrelated note:

A quarter of my kanji deck has been converted to kana keywords with explainations.

Often I do my reviews, read the keyword, think, "???" and flip the card, only to see something simple like 別. I then think to myself, "wtf？？　Isn't that just べつ？” and change the keyword.

hereticalrants Wrote:Don´t even bother writing a story. Just imagine something--and vividly. No words are required.

I haven´t yet failed to forget the image I used when provided with both the kanji and the meaning, so the written story isn´t even needed for record keeping.

Hang on; though this method works for you, it doesn't work as well for everyone. We all have different ways of remembering best (stories or images or both). It is one way of working, but not the way.

Hey Dakoina, I wish you luck! I took a long break from learning new kanji, but now I'm almost there (100 to go). I bet you can do it!