Hey everyone, just a quick question. What do you do in this situation?

You are reviewing and come accross a kanji where you know all of the elements involved but cant remember one of the inner elements. For example, knowing "imperial edict" is "words" and "seduce" but you can't remember what seduce was. Id assume you fail it since you technically didn't actually know it.

Heres the question though.. when seduce comes up later, and you only remember it because you just had to spend a bit of time on the "imperial edict" story, do you still pass it?

I usually think "when I doubt, fail it" but maybe the double relearning would warrent a pass?

No difference.
The objective is to learn how to write the Kanji - even the keyword is somewhat arbitrary.

If you pass it when you don't really know it, you will fail the next time.
If you fail it when you really know it, you will pass it the next time.

Either way, you will eventually learn it.
Don't get hung up on this.

Agreed. I sometimes even pass kanji I didn't write 100% correctly because I was too hasty and thought I knew what I was doing. If the fault was really minor, I usually spend a few extra seconds reinforcing that part of the story/image, then pass it... Usually, I pass it fine the next time it comes up.

i would pass it and fail seduce. --> The problem was not remembering imperial edict, but rather what seduce was so im telling myself that i need to work on my seduce story more.

That sort of problem will fade out after a while anyway because every other char that uses seduce will force you to remember seduce heisig way or the hard way. Imo, primitives/radicals are meant to be rote learned anyway. There are only 300 or so of them, use a story to initially learn them and by the time you use it in 50 other characters you'll just know it before thinking of the story (which is what heisig says not to do, but ignore him).

I pass "seduce" in this situation too. Here's another thought: When both kanji come up for review close together, maybe you have learned them at the same time and put them in the SRS at the same time, so they are near each other in the queue. If you fail the first and pass the second you spread them out, and the chance of seeing them close together again is less likely. Then "seduce" either stands or dies on its own.

In that case I fail "imperial edict" and pass "seduce". It evens out enough in the end.

I'd fail "imperial edict" and pass "seduce" too, I just don't see the point in failing something when you know it.

First you should fail Imperial Edict. Boil it down to this, if you're unable to write out the kanji like in this case, then fail the kanji. Knowing how to write the primitives is part of the job.

As to should you fail a primitive later on purpose, no. "Seduce" is used in a number of kanji, and each is a reminder of that kanji. You can't be sure that had Seduce came up before Imperial Edict that you'd have gotten both right due to your state of mind.

As mentioned, these are coming back up for review later no matter what. You're eventually worrying about 2000 to 3000 (or more) kanji, so don't sweat it too much. Treat each card on its own.

Like several others have already said, I'd pass it since you could recall your entire story and it was simply the writing of "seduce" that you got stuck on. If "seduce" then came up in the same review, I would probably then fail it and work on my story before throwing it back into the review cycle; if it doesn't come up, make a note to study it as soon as the review is over and then forget about it until you next see it.

Pete171 Wrote:Like several others have already said, I'd pass it since you could recall your entire story and it was simply the writing of "seduce" that you got stuck on. If "seduce" then came up in the same review, I would probably then fail it and work on my story before throwing it back into the review cycle; if it doesn't come up, make a note to study it as soon as the review is over and then forget about it until you next see it.

I think this is a bad idea. If you forget "seduce", you should, ideally, start over with the "seduce" card. But if it doesn't come up and you don't remember to fail it by the time it does, then you won't start over with it (whether you "study" it afterward or not), and now you have a problem. It's easier to simply fail "imperial edict" and pass "seduce".

There have also been occasions where I correctly said the elements of the story aloud as I wrote the kanji, and I was well familiar with the individual elements, but I ended up writing something other than the elements I thought I was writing. (I still fail the card in this case.) So writing down "seduce" wrong doesn't necessarily mean you forgot "seduce"; it could have been a problem specific to "imperial edict", in which case, failing "imperial edict" is obviously the correct choice.

When I review, I always answer the question "Do you remember the kanji?", not "Do you remember the kanji's story/elements?". After all, when you write a kanji, you have to actually write the kanji; writing down "words... seduce" isn't going to cut it.

- Kef

Just wanted to say thanks for all your input everyone I appreciate it.