Just wanted to pull this topic back to the original purpose real quick:

I've been using the stories to review and so far it's going great! With the story in there, making sure I focus on it for the first few times I review the card and reinforcing it using the SRS algorithm really helps. Instead of failing it and seeing it so soon, I spread out the story reinforcement. I think this will help me learn them far quicker than any other method.

I'm sorry, but that sounds like the ultimate crutch. You're effectively showing yourself the answer; of course you get it right. o_O

Tobberoth Wrote:Easy. I want to write 待つ and not 持つ. I know it's either 待 or 持 I need to use, but I can't remember which radical (I don't understand how anyone can NOT have a problem with this, I lived in Japan and studied Japanese 4 hours a day in a language school, I lived constant immersion yet ALWAYS had to think for ages before I could decide which one was the right one). Not anymore, because I know that if I want to write 待つ i have to use the kanji with the "waiting" meaning, not the "holding" meaning, and I know which is which because the FINGER is part of the HOLDING, the COLUMN of soldiers was WAITING. If you don't have those stories, how would you have any idea just because you happen to see the kanji often? They are just strokes, or some figures connected together, without the story and the radical names, you can only try to remember the last time you saw 待つ and write the kanji you rermember (which will often be wrong).

Ah, I see. That's interesting. Yeah, I don't use the stories like that. I remember that 待 has a waiting meaning and 持 has a holding meaning the same way I remember that め has the 'me' sound and ぬ has the 'nu' sound (which are both just strokes connected together as well), or, indeed, the same way that I remember that まつ means wait and もつ means hold (they're as phonetically similar as their kanji look). Or any of the English alphabet, or phonemes, or whole words, etc. I'm not sure how that is, other than "I just do." 待つ and 持つ being common, I don't think at all when I write them (much like め and ぬ), but even with less common kanji that I do have to think about, the stories and the meanings of the kanji components don't come up. A keyword may factor in, however (although usually not the actual Heisig keyword, I've forgotten a lot of them).

Radical_tyro: thing is, there isn't actually anything wrong with getting it right. And the answer isn't the story, it's the kanji. This isn't a game, and you can't actually cheat unless you manage to cheat yourself.

Ryuujin27: Sweet XD Glad to see it's working for you. I wish I'd thought of it (or it'd been brought up) when I was going through. I wasted a lot of time, energy, and frustration on keyword-story associations that I could make stick. It was always the hardest part for me. If I'd known it was unimportant, aaaah.

mentat_kgs Wrote:Well, I think nukemarine tried to say what I'll say now:

While doing your reviews, someday, the story will be there just to resolve your doubts (as it does with tobberoth).

I finished RTK for some months already and I'm still having a ~50 card/day review schedule.
There are kanji that I'm not "strong" yet (the ones keeping my schedule high) but there are kanji that are already part of me and that I'll feel I'll never forget.
For instance, 持 and 待 are two of them. I don't need to think at the story at all to remember them, but if I want, I can.

My point wasn't really to remember them. I knew both kanji after studying japanese for just a month and could write both of them perfectly. The point I'm trying to make is that if they are nothing but images to you, nothing but symbols, it's hard to know when to use which one. The whole idea is that you connect the FINGER radical (which actually means hand, but yeah, the heisig keyword is finger) to holding something. If the radical was just a symbol without meaning, how would you know 待 couldn't be the one to use in もつ? Both would just be combination of strokes. The stories and especially radical meanings, is what lets us know that 待 can't be the right one, because it's a column and a temple, why would those two be in a word meaning "to hold"? What I'm trying to say in my own limited way, is that the stories and meanings we've learned is what gives us that "feeling" of what a kanji means, beyond just simple strokes.

radical_tyro Wrote:I'm sorry, but that sounds like the ultimate crutch. You're effectively showing yourself the answer; of course you get it right. o_O

You would think so, right? The answer to this that Khatzumoto gives is "Show it to someone who doesn't study the book and see what they make of it."

I don't really find this that satisfactory, but the results I see so far are undeniable. When I studied the other way, without the mnemonic, after 3-4 reviews I didn't need the whole story anymore, and the kanji would just come automatically. However, I also often failed cards many times before this happened.

Now, the same thing happens, where after 3-4 reviews I don't need the story anymore and the kanji just comes. However, I no longer fail any cards (obviously, because I can just look at the story), thus making me remember more, faster.

While it seems like the ultimate crutch, as I thought at first, I was just sick of failing cards over and over. So I tried it out, and I must say, if nothing else, I see an improvement in my remembering ability.

I actually started a topic on this a while ago, and since then have been using the story in the question field as well. I too have come to the conclusion that it takes much less effort to do this, and the results are more or less the same as when I was just studying by the keyword.

What I'm doing when reviewing is first reading the keyword--if the kanji pops in my head, then I mark it as passed. If I don't get it immediately, then I look at the story, usually after starting to read the first couple of words of the story, the whole story as well as the kanji pops in my head--I also consider this a pass. If I read the whole story and have to really think about the primitive placement, i.e. the story seems "unfamiliar", meaning I never really learned it properly in the first place, then I consider that a fail (it's generally pretty easy to tell when you're doing this).

radical_tyro Wrote:I'm sorry, but that sounds like the ultimate crutch. You're effectively showing yourself the answer; of course you get it right. o_O

Now, see, that's the kind of attitude I don't really understand at all...what do you mean by showing yourself the answer? (Edit: Sorry, I don't mean to seem like I'm attacking you in particular, you were just the easiest to quote ) The "answer" is the kanji itself, we're not showing ourselves the actual kanji. For some people, the word "hold" is enough to evoke the story of "持", but for the rest of us, if it's not enough, I don't see any issues with associating a little extra to get the keyword. Ultimately the Heisig keyword->Japanese meaning is very tenuous, and is only used as a transitional tool anyway, our goal is to learn the Kanji, not the Heisig keyword->kanji pair.

I was in a rush writing my previous comment. Let me clarify my stance, as someone who has long completed and successfully applied RTK 1 using the traditional keyword -> kanji reviews. I don't think I'll have time to reply after this, but I thought I'd send a word of caution. It could be a nice shortcut but I'm skeptical until I see the RTK graduates of this method showing the same benefits.

burritokun Wrote:

radical_tyro Wrote:I'm sorry, but that sounds like the ultimate crutch. You're effectively showing yourself the answer; of course you get it right. o_O

Now, see, that's the kind of attitude I don't really understand at all...what do you mean by showing yourself the answer?

What I meant is that by seeing the story, you are telling yourself what elements make up the kanji. It is then only a triviality to write them down and pass the card. Perhaps since you don't practice keyword -> kanji this trivial step for me is more difficult for you; I hadn't thought about that.

burritokun Wrote:Ultimately the Heisig keyword->Japanese meaning is very tenuous, and is only used as a transitional tool anyway, our goal is to learn the Kanji, not the Heisig keyword->kanji pair.

True, it's a tool, but a useful one. In making and reviewing the keyword and kanji link, you are carving out a dedicated spot, if you will, in your memory for this kanji. It becomes a unique and recognizable object in your mind to which you can make connections with vocab, readings, etc. I'm not convinced the story -> kanji reviews have the same benefit.

Ryuujin27 Wrote:Now, the same thing happens, where after 3-4 reviews I don't need the story anymore and the kanji just comes. However, I no longer fail any cards (obviously, because I can just look at the story), thus making me remember more, faster.

While it seems like the ultimate crutch, as I thought at first, I was just sick of failing cards over and over. So I tried it out, and I must say, if nothing else, I see an improvement in my remembering ability.

I would advise caution. Passing cards when you used such a crutch does not mean you remembered it. Don't take it the wrong way (I'm not being hostile), but I think you're just fooling yourself. You should fail these cards; they need it! But if you are really convinced it's working, I won't argue with that.

radical_tyro Wrote:I was in a rush writing my previous comment. Let me clarify my stance, as someone who has long completed and successfully applied RTK 1 using the traditional keyword -> kanji reviews. I don't think I'll have time to reply after this, but I thought I'd send a word of caution. It could be a nice shortcut but I'm skeptical until I see the RTK graduates of this method showing the same benefits.

What, am I invisible over here? D:

radical_tyro Wrote:True, it's a tool, but a useful one. In making and reviewing the keyword and kanji link, you are carving out a dedicated spot, if you will, in your memory for this kanji. It becomes a unique and recognizable object in your mind to which you can make connections with vocab, readings, etc. I'm not convinced the story -> kanji reviews have the same benefit.

They do. After all, this was the only thing I really wanted to get out of Heisig going in, and you can be sure I wouldn't keep doing something if it was hampering my ultimate goal. Besides, it's not really story to kanji, it's keyword to kanji. The story just happens to be on the front of the card. It's a crutch, to be sure, but only during the first few reviews of a kanji. I basically used them to make sure that, for the first few reviews, I played through the scene I'd associated with a kanji in it's entirety. Without an aid, I found I had a habit of paring down the imagery too early, making everything less vivid, and ultimately less memorable with each review. It led to lots of failures, not through any fault of the stories -- they were, largely, quite memorable and engaged all of my senses -- but because of some quirk of my own minimalist nature. Mah brain is funny.

In any case, I hardly, if ever, glance at them in my Heisig reviews, and I've achieved all the listed benefits of the method in my actual Japanese studies, so I'm dandy on all fronts.

radical_tyro Wrote:I would advise caution. Passing cards when you used such a crutch does not mean you remembered it. Don't take it the wrong way (I'm not being hostile), but I think you're just fooling yourself. You should fail these cards; they need it! But if you are really convinced it's working, I won't argue with that.

If anyone cares, my grading scheme for Heisig cards is something along the lines of:

0 - Totally blanked
1 - Wrote the kanji wrong (forgot primitive, misplaced primitive, etc.)
2 - So much as glanced at the story
3 - Only used keyword, but took a while
4 - Easy

I use the 4 key a lot.

Quote:0 - Totally blanked
1 - Wrote the kanji wrong (forgot primitive, misplaced primitive, etc.)
2 - So much as glanced at the story
3 - Only used keyword, but took a while
4 - Easy

This is not too dissimilar from how I did it, but I just didn't have the question on the cards; I looked them up on RevTK when I needed reminding. You essentially are only looking at the story when you can't remember it; it's basically similar to the normal method so long as you grade yourself in this way, because whenever you answer 2 in Anki its almost the same as Failed; Anki will ask you every day while the card is young.

The problem is that some learners will take this thread & think that all they have to do is always read the story & produce the kanji without trying to do it without reading the story; always answer Yes or Easy (IMO most of the time its Easy if you look at the story) and therefore get reviews spaced far apart quickly & finish the book very quickly (hardly having done many reviews and recall at all) feeling like they've passed a major milestone, only to find that away from the story its not so easy to remember the kanji after a while and have little to fall back on.

Lets suppose you see a keyword for the 1st time in 1 month, and you totally blank out without support, but when you read the story you remember so you give a full pass (Yes on RevTK or 3 on Anki). As far as the SRS is concerned you've nailed it, and next review will be scheduled for 2 months out, despite the fact that without looking at the story after 1 month you pulled a blank (in other words you can't remember without help). That sounds bad; chances are you would not remember anything in 2 months without help again. You're only cheating yourself if you give a full pass when its not a full pass (the final goal being to know the kanji without help). The correct thing if you want to eventually remember without help would be to go back to more frequent reviews intervals (i.e. Fail on RevTK or answer 0,1,2 on Anki).