Hello,

First of all, I've been using this great site for quite some time now, but I haven't been active in the forums, thus I have not participated in its equally valuable community. So I'd like to use this somewhat lengthy post as a kind of self-introduction, and a bit more detailed description of how I've been trying to conquer the kanji. If you don't feel like reading this, but would still like to answer my question, please jump to the last paragraph of the post.

My civil name is Robin, I live in Slovakia, I'm 22. I'm an IT student, I just got my bachelor degree and plan to continue with my studies. I've been studying japanese for some time as a hobby which I take a bit more seriously than my computer science studies. I study with variable intensity, mostly on holidays.

I have completed RtK1 couple of days ago (though I still have a small number of Kanji in the lower compartments) and would like to proceed with RtK2. I am not asking whether or not I should do this. I have read several threads discusing different aproaches to learning the readings. The most reasonable advice seems to be to try a few popular methods (RtK2, kanjichains, kanji in context, etc.) and see which one works best for me.
The thing is, I will be leaving for a vacation shortly. I'll be without access to internet for about two weeks. I have decided to start with RtK2 because it's the only method I have readily available and can take with me. Also, despite all the controversy surrounding RtK2, after completing RtK1 I have some faith in Mr. Heisig.

I'm writing this post in order to avoid the mistake I made with RtK1. You see, this attempt I just finished was about my third. For the first attempt, I started making paper flashcards just as Heisig suggested.
I failed at this in so many ways. I failed at keeping them ordered, organised. I failed at making them fast enough to be up to date with my progress through the book, then I failed at actually studying the characters along with making the cards. I even failed at keeping them the same size and shape. I simply suck with paper.
For my second attempt, I realised I needed a software tool for reviewing. This was my biggest mistake, I ignored the first law of software engineering - 'everything useful has probably already been coded'. Without any serious research of existing tools (I figured most good ones would be non-free, and none would be made for RtK specifically) I started making my own reviewing tool. I quickly finished the first version. It was a simple java application, just the basic functionality, no review scheduling, but it worked and was usable. It allowed me to save review sessions to continue later, and to save a list of failed kanji. The problem was the database. For a program like this you need a database of (at least) keywords, characters and frame numbers. I figured I would be adding characters to the database as I was learning them. Study a few characters - then add them to the spreadsheet. Needless to say my studies quickly degraded to just adding the characters to the spreadsheet. Although I still managed to learn some kanji this way (and I still remembered some from the beginning and from the first attempt) this pretty much cost me most of last summer. When I finally reached the end of the book, I googled the phrase 'valeant benefici, poenas dent malefici'. This site was the first search result. Everyhing (and much more) I had been working so tediously to make was here. Two minutes of googling could have saved me two months.

So as to avoid making the same mistakes, I would like to ask: Is there any software support for reviewing the RtK2 method? What are you using for your RtK2 reviews (if you are doing RtK2 that is)? What do you use to review yomi in general? If there is no specific tool for RtK2 and I should decide to create one, is there an RtK2 database (I've read something about some spreadsheet). I would prefer standalone applications to online systems, since I'll be taking my laptop with me for my vacation (2 weeks without internet means 2 weeks without reviewing RtK1 and I'm quite nervous about this)...

Thank you for reading this annoyingly long post, and thanks in advance for your help.

Anki is probably the best program for reviewing Japanese content flashcard-style. It works on mac and pc, and has the ability to let you review even on your cell phone.

http://ichi2.net/anki/download/index.html

Have a look at the videos Damien put together to explain how to use it. They're very useful, and packed full of info.

They're here: http://ichi2.net/anki/index.html

What I like the most about Anki is that if you use the Japanese card model, when you put a sentence full of kanji in the Expression field, it will automatically generate the kana in the reading field. For kanji with multiple readings, you just have to double-click the reading you want to use. The only downside is that the reading translation program he uses has a few weak spots, but you get used to it over time. Either way, it saves time entering cards, as you only have to put them in once.

Thanks,
I watched the vids, it's brilliant. So I installed it (this was the tricky part, I'm a linux newb, I had some fun locating all the necessary packages:-)) The Heisig model flashcards seem to be designed for RtK1. What should I use for RtK2? Japanese model? or simple front-back one? I guess I'll reread the book's introduction and then play with the program, but a little advice always helps :-)

One more question, I'd like to use this for RtK1 too, at least when I don't have access to the internet. I don't think I could import my kanji from this page - so that the review schedule would be consistent with that on this site. But there should at least be a pre-made RtK1 deck. Where could I get it?

I definitly suggest that you play around with anki quite a bit, until you feel you understand about everything it has to offer. It sounds quite drastic, but in the long run it will save you time. (I had to delete my deck 3 times before I finally got everything the way I wanted to).
You can set up as many question fields and answer fields as you want to. So a good way to start is to ask yourself what do I want to be asked, what should I have to answer - And according to that you could setup your anki-model/fields/cardmodels etc.

You can use anki for your RTK1 stuff. There even is a plugin/script that will import your progress status from this site. Instructions/plugin should be in the wiki of the anki page.

That's great. I've found the plugin installation page. However it seems I still need a deck of RtK1 cards (adhering to Heisig model) for this to work.
'# Open any deck that has cards adhering to the Heisig model. ' - quoted from installation instructions.

EDIT: I asked on the Anki forums, they said the file was in my Anki distribution. Thank you all for your help.

Hello,
I decided to dig out this thread rather than start a new one.
Unfortunately, my first attempt at RtK2 was unsuccessful. I installed anki, read all the introductions and began adding the characters. I quickly discovered that this doesn't work for me nearly as well as RtK1 did. Adding new cards and constant reviewing of so many failed kanji was too time consuming, so when the school started I abandoned the attempt completely. With school taking up most of my time I haven't given learning the readings much thought until now. Luckily, this time I was at least able to keep up with reviewing RtK1 using this site, and recently I've started adding RtK3 kanji at an extra slow rate. This is fine with me, learning RtK3 kanji is not a priority at the moment, I'm only doing it to prevent stagnation.

The need to learn the readings is, however, getting more and more urgent. In my japanese class (I'm in 3rd year now, having skipped the 2nd year entirely) I may know more kanji than anybody else (except for Sensei of course) but I can't demonstrate this, and I can't even use (often even read) those we've already covered, because for most of them I don't know the readings. The other part of the problem is vocab, which is of course closely related to the kanji. Our Sensei is very skilled, but she's also very oldschool, so there is no support for computer aided learning, unless I implement some myself. As I wrote in my first post, I'm terrible with paper. With kanji and vocabulary words being presented on pages of books (some of which I don't even have due to having skipped the 2nd year) and separate papers (most of which I have lost already) I have little chance of coping with the amount of kanji and vocabulary.

Now to the point. I haven't really progressed anywhere with RtK1 until I found this page. While the scheduling system is extremely useful, the story sharing is priceless. But the system itself is appealing to me for another reason. It provides a consistent and comprehensive set of facts to be learned. Whether I'm going at 50 characters a day, or 5 characters a week, I'm going toward a clear goal and the system ensures I don't forget what I've learned along the way. Another important factor is the ease with which I can add new cards. I just type in the frame number and click a button. If I am forced to type in each card manually, as I was before I found this site, and more recently with anki and RtK2, the efects are disastrous. First of all, it's too time consuming and tedious (not to mention redundant), and I usualy don't have time for this. Secondly, I sometimes tend to go too fast for my own good. I lose patience, or get thrilled by the thought of how quickly I would be done with the task if I went faster. If I do this on this site, I am brought to senses at once, as I am forced to stop and study so many failed flashcards. If I do this on my own, my efforts simply turn into adding more and more cards (since this is something that has to be done, why not do it now and get it over with, right?) and ultimately my deck is full of kanji I don't know at all.

I thought I needed a computer support for RtK2. What I really need is a system for learning kanji readings and vocabulary/compounds as efficient and time-savvy as this site. I don't know if the actual method will be RtK2, last year when I started this thread there were no indications that anyhing like this exists for RtK2. This doesn't mean I've abandoned RtK2 completely, not after one failed attempt. But I need to start learning now, using the most efficient method, or the one with best computer support, for the reasons described, be it Kanji chains or Kanji in context or anything else.

I have not grown as fond of anki as so many of you have, I still consider this site to be much better. As far as I know, anki lacks the community-based story sharing system, the necessity to create my own decks manually is also a drawback. Again, this doesn't imply that I won't use it, I will if my needs are met.

So, could you recommend me a method and a tool that would meet these requirements:
- a comprehensive set of facts that would ensure that after learning it I would know all (or most) 'general use' readings and compounds
- simple adding of cards as I progress, no need to type in the facts manually
- ability to progress as quickly or slowly as my spare time allows
- a tried, efficient method with the best possible learning curve

Thank you.

Why is it that every time I try to ask for advice here, I end up writing an essay about my studies of japanese?

- a comprehensive set of facts that would ensure that after learning it I would know all (or most) 'general use' readings and compounds

Kanji Odyssey. IMO, the most effective way to learn a kanjis readings is to learn one vocabulary word for each reading and that's the point of kanji odyssey.

- simple adding of cards as I progress, no need to type in the facts manually

Well, there are premade excel arcs for kanji odyssey.

- ability to progress as quickly or slowly as my spare time allows

Anki.

- a tried, efficient method with the best possible learning curve

Kanji odyssey is based on frequency so it should be efficient and the learning curve shouldn't be steep.

thank you, I'm looking into this at the moment. However, I should probably explore more possibilities, before choosing one of them. So, any other suggestions?

EDIT: Ok could you give me a head start? How does the method work? Where (and how) do I begin? do I have to buy anything before I can begin?

Green_Airplane Wrote:thank you, I'm looking into this at the moment. However, I should probably explore more possibilities, before choosing one of them. So, any other suggestions?

EDIT: Ok could you give me a head start? How does the method work? Where (and how) do I begin? do I have to buy anything before I can begin?

Kanji Odyssey is a book. It orders the kanji into a frequency based list and gives you several example sentences for each kanji with some of the most useful words for the kanji, with the most useful readings.

If you go through all of kanji odyssey, you should have learned most of the most important Japanese words and all of the important kanji readings from the example sentences.

Thanks again Tobberoth. I've found the Kanji Odyssey spreadsheets on the net, after some copypasting and formatting I've managed to import the first file (kanji 1 to 100) to anki.
Now here's the problem: I don't want to import a hundred cards. I want to only add those I've already studied, and I want to do this on daily basis. If I had a busy day, and have managed to say, study just 5 new sentences, then I want to add those five. If it's a saturday and I've managed 30, then I want to add 30. Creating a file with only the new facts is admittedly less tedious than typing in the facts manually, but it's still a bit of a chore.
I figured there would be something like disabling/enabling facts, I thought I remembered a feature like that from the last time I used anki.
This is actually an anki usage question, so I'll ask on their forum too, but folks here seem pretty experienced with anki :-)

Green_Airplane Wrote:Thanks again Tobberoth. I've found the Kanji Odyssey spreadsheets on the net, after some copypasting and formatting I've managed to import the first file (kanji 1 to 100) to anki.
Now here's the problem: I don't want to import a hundred cards. I want to only add those I've already studied, and I want to do this on daily basis. If I had a busy day, and have managed to say, study just 5 new sentences, then I want to add those five. If it's a saturday and I've managed 30, then I want to add 30. Creating a file with only the new facts is admittedly less tedious than typing in the facts manually, but it's still a bit of a chore.
I figured there would be something like disabling/enabling facts, I thought I remembered a feature like that from the last time I used anki.
This is actually an anki usage question, so I'll ask on their forum too, but folks here seem pretty experienced with anki :-)

As long as you have a recent version of Anki, this shouldn't be a problem. You can set how many new kanji you want added every day at the first screen, the Study Options screen. There's a "New Cards Per Day" setting, by default set to 20.

And can I change this value every day before reviewing? will this only affect the number of newly added cards? If so, it's just what I need. Seems the program is useful after all

Hi Green_Airplane, could you share the results of your RTK2/Kanji reading studies? Did things work out well with Kanji Odessy and Anki, or did you use a different method altogether? Thank you ~

Alright, here's the skinny.
I didn't try RtK2 again this time. I think all in all I've tried it about 3 times, and I can safely say it doesn't work for me.
Instead I went with Kanji Odyssey 2001, as many people here have suggested. For those who are unfamiliar with KO2001:
The book has accompanying electronic materials, which have sample sentences featuring vocabulary related to each kanji. There are up to 3 sentences for each Kanji, (usually 3, sometimes just 1 or 2) These are for most part actually practical sentences you could use in real life. What's even better, somebody took the effort to compile all these sample sentences into an Anki deck. (the deck is hanging about on the internets, it's pretty easy to find if you know how to use Google)
Since I was only aiming at improving my reading skills, I've removed the Reproduction (Recall) cards and kept only the Recognition cards (You can do this in one go in Anki)
Using this deck made my life a lot easier - I didn't have to copypaste anything, when I learned more facts I'd simply click "Learn more" and keep reviewing until all new cards were answered. Setting the pace at 10 cards a day (on "peak" days), I've relatively quickly gone through the deck.
Then I hit the wall with the limits of the KO2001 materials. The book is split into 3 parts:
part 1 - 555 kanji
part 2 - 555 kanji
part 3 - 891 kanji
But the sample sentences only exist for the first two parts, that is the first 1110 kanji. After consulting with some people, and trying to find someone who already made the their own deck with part 3 sample sentences, I did the only thing I could - I started making my own deck.
I'd look up sample sentences in online dictionaries like
http://dic.search.yahoo.co.jp/search?ei=...c&ei=UTF-8
and
http://www.alc.co.jp/
Obviously, this has made the process much slower and much more labor intensive. Each time I have to look up a word, choose the appropriate sample sentence (if there is one, that is) copy it, copy the translation, mark the relevant kanji, and so on.
I've been making some progress, but I had to take a break now due to busy schedule (ironically it's because I'm actually in Japan at the moment) but I intend to get right back to it when I have time.

All in all Kanji Odyssey is a very good tool, especially if you've already learned the kanji through RtK1 (I don't know how useful it would be to a total beginner). The vocab associated with the kanji is useful, the sample sentences will help you remember the meaning of the keyword, while at the same time improving your grammar and expressive capabilities. Progressing is relatively effortless (at least in my experience, compared to RtK2) I'd recommend it as a very good stage 2 after completing RtK1 (or RtK1 and 3). Especially if you can combine it with other efforts - japanese classes, podcasts, anime, reading, actually talking to people. I for one love those moments when I'm watching an anime, or trying to read a website, and I come across a word I just reviewed a while ago. In those instances something goes click in my mind and a strong connection is made.

Some pitfalls to avoid:
while you are going through KO2001, try to keep your grip on your RtK. I'd say the best thing to do would be to start while your RtK is fresh in your mind.
You see, while a great way of introducing you to Kanji, for a lot of people RtK becomes something of a burden as they continue with their studies:
- the keywords often barely correspond (or not at all) with the actual core meaning of the kanji
- the keywords will collide with English meanings of the new vocab you've just learned
- keeping synonyms distinct in the RtK keyword pool can be a pain as they crop up (it was for me)
- ultimately maintaining a set of 2 (3) thousand keywords just for the sake of keeping the kanji in your head seems redundant, once you've made other connections.
So a lot of people just abandon reviewing RtK in the end. This is what happened to me - the keywords were getting tedious, I kept mixing up the synonyms, mixing up RtK keywords with new vocab keywords, etc. Very gradually, I neglected a review, then I neglected two reviews in a row, and so on until the pile of orange and red cards was unsurmountable and I just stopped. By the time I got to KO2001, a lot of the RtK keywords, meanings and stories had already faded from my mind. Consequently, I now have a lot of facts in my mind where I know the reading of a compound, and through the reading I know its meaning, but I don't know the meaning of the kanji.
Don't let this happen to you. Connect the readings to the meanings, while they're all in your mind.
Also, there are some limitations to the existing KO2001 deck:
-as has been pointed out to me, while a kanji in the KO2001 may have say, 6 keywords, it only has up to 3 sample sentences. Although these 3 sentences usually cover all readings of the given kanji, as well as the most important keywords, you still only get to review a portion of the keywords that are in the book. Obviously, this is not a problem in part 3, since you have to make your own deck anyway, and you can make cards for all the keywords. If you're a hard worker, you can just ignore the existing deck and do this from the beginning. I know a guy who did it, and he said he's better off for it.
- the sample sentences in the KO2001 electronic materials are, alas, pictures (this is presumably to get around the encoding and rendering hurdles, the materials are in the form of a webpage) and the author of the deck just copied these pictures and put them together in a deck. This makes fixing errors really difficult (and there are a few, mainly in the furigana). Also, you can't do a fulltext search on those cards.

As for my plans:
As soon as I have time, I'm getting back to KO2001, part 3. (like I said, I'm not adding new kanji to my deck at the moment, but I'm keeping up with the reviews - never again shall I let a large part of my deck expire. Those of you who've done it know the pain of trying to claw your way out of that pit)
After I'm done with KO2001, it's back to RtK1 - but with Japanese keywords. I know there have been efforts (or at least talk) towards assembling a set of Japanese RtK keywords. I don't know how far this has gotten. Worst case scenario, I'll just have to make the deck myself, like the one I'm going through at the moment.
The keywords would obviously be based on words that actually contain the kanji, e.g.
the keyword for　大　would be 大きい, the keyword for 楽 would be 楽しい, and so on.
I'd need to get creative in a lot of cases, as Japanese is highly homonymous. In cases where no suitable keyword can be found, the keywords could even mimic the way Japanese describe which kanji they mean when it's unclear (～　の　～, "kanji X from word XY")
While this has a lot of advantages over the English keywords, I'd advise absolute beginners against doing it.
The reason you're doing RtK, the reason you're not doing any readings or vocab yet, is to focus on learning one new thing at a time. You learn an unfamiliar thing - kanji strokes, and attach it to a FAMILIAR thing - an English word. Doing it with the Japanese keywords from the start, when you don't know any kanji and any Japanese, would in my opinion be counterproductive. Once you've memorized the kanji, using RtK, and built up your vocabulary using KO2001 or something else, THEN you can let go of the keywords. It will be a natural thing to do. Don't get ahead of yourself.
In fact, if possible, it may even be best not to tell the newbies about the shortcomings of the RtK keywords. It may make some people less willing to actually learn them, if they know they're gonna have to ditch them in the future. But the keywords are not all useless, a lot of them actually DO correspond with the core meaning of the kanji. If I recall correctly, even Heisig said something in the epilogue of his book, about eventually abandoning the keywords, in his own vaguely philosophical way.

That was a good read, thank you. Have you heard of Rikaichan? Have you tried just reading news pages and Japanese forums with it? What I gathered from Heisig's advice throughout the book was that we are supposed to make stories from the keywords, as we run into regular Japanese compounds.

My plan is finish my remaining 1300 RTK1 kanji, then just read using Rikaichan and make stories as I go, never reviewing anything but RTK1.

Yes, I've been using Rikaichan for quite a while now, mainly as an aid when reading Japanese websites. Lately I've also discovered that it is invaluable when I'm chatting with my Japanese friends over Facebook chat. Since the chat is browser-based, Rikaichan makes it very streamlined and easy to use (as opposed to say, Skype chat, where I have to copypaste whatever word I don't know)
However, as handy as Rikaichan is, in my experience it isn't a very good learning tool. Rikaichan makes looking up words way too easy. When reading a longer text, I'm likely to find myself just hovering my mouse over the compounds, without even bothering to try and read them first. It's so compelling it actually makes it hard NOT to do so. I'll give you a similar example - I bought some manga with furigana. By the end of page one I was simply reading the furigana and ignoring the kanji altogether. Even in the places where the furigana was so minuscule it wasn't really readable.
I don't mean to question your resolve, or your powers of concentration. But I would recommend you find something that will help you keep your pace, no matter what.
Sure, you may tell yourself that you will always try to read the compound before you use Rikaichan, and you may have the mental discipline to do so under normal circumstances, but what about when you're tired, stressed, you really don't feel like studying, or are having trouble concentrating for whatever other reason? In such cases
it's really easy for your mind to just slip into its comfort zone and just slide by without doing any actual work.
The important thing that an Anki deck does is it gives me an objective benchmark for whether or not I'm actually learning. Unless I read the word/compound/sentence correctly, I simply don't give myself a passing mark on the card, and the question keeps popping up. Since I have enough sense to uphold that one simple rule (otherwise the whole exercise would be pointless) the whole process is quite foolproof.
The other thing that Anki does for me, is that it helps me keep my pace. Through trial and error I arrived at the pace of 5 kanji a day (which in Kanji Odyssey means anything between 12 and 20 sample sentences, depending on how many keywords there are for each kanji) Once a day I simply add the sample sentences corresponding to my 5 kanji, review all the due cards until Anki tells me there are no more cards left, and I know I'm done for the day.
Pacing yourself is more important than may seem at first. First of all, it will prevent you from making the fatal mistake of going too fast. I'm speaking from personal experience. I thought "hey, if I do X kanji a day (X being a ridiculously high number), I'll finish RtK in Y days (Y being a ridiculously low number)" Don't do that. You'll end up shooting yourself in the foot. With like, a bazooka.
The other obvious problem you may face when you don't pace yourself (or rather when you don't have an objective benchmark of how far you've gone) it's much harder to see how much progress you've made. This can make the mountain of kanji seem insurmountable.
Another advantage of a Kanji Odyssey deck compared to just reading a forum or a newspaper, for each kanji in the book I get a lot of essential core vocab. Maybe not all the core vocab I need, but certainly a large portion of it.
I went on a bit of a tangent there (as per usual) but the point I was trying to make is that in my opinion Rikaichan is not the best tool for honing your reading skills. At least for me, you may be wired differently.
I've recently added some reading practice to my routine as well, but I have a slightly different approach. I bought a book while in Japan, that has both English and Japanese in it. It's short stories, actually adventures of Sherlock Holmes. It was designed for the Japanese to learn English, but it works both ways. First I read the story in English, so I know what it's about, then I start slowly working away on the Japanese. Needless to say, there is no furigana. I look up every word I'm not familiar with, and add it to an Anki deck. I review the deck just like I review the Kanji Odyssey deck. I reread the part I've already "deciphered" quite often, to make sure the new vocab gets baked into my memory. It may be tedious, but I'd say it's worth it, I'm able to read larger and larger portions of the book without the help of a dictionary.