I'm having a problem and it's seeming to be daunting. IK just got to the 500 character mark, but I have so many failed cards that I feel I'm not getting anywhere. I have 49 new cards to review in Anki to total 500(I studied them a week ago, no time to review them until now) and at worst case if I fail all of them that's a 60% retention rate.

I'm trying to learn 100 characters per day. Any idea's on how I can remedy or improve this situation?

100 characters would be way to much for me. If it wouldn't be too detrimental to your goal, I'd suggest lowering the number of Kanji you add each day.

I've been taking it easy at about 20 kanji every day. It's a comfortable rate, even if it will take me some time more before I near completion.

I'm an impatient person , I always dive headfirst into whatever I decide to do and go full steam at it until I achieve it.

My goal is to be conversational(in Mandarin) by the summer so I need to get the hanzi out of the way fast so I can start learning some sentences in an i+1 manner.

The lowest I think I'd be willing to go is 50-65 per day. Anything lower and I would give up due to feeling like i'm getting nowhere, which ironically is what is happening now at 100 per day due to failed cards :p

hi deathtrap!
you wrote:

deathtrap Wrote:I have so many failed cards that I feel I'm not getting anywhere.

(...)
The lowest I think I'd be willing to go is 50-65 per day. Anything lower and I would give up due to feeling like i'm getting nowhere, which ironically is what is happening now at 100 per day due to failed cards :p

you know the answer - try the 50 per day if you have to.

I do 50 per week and have about 12-20 failed cards each day.
I can handle them (the next day the failed ones get 100% correct)

if you're failing 40% there is something wrong with the way you are studying. Are you losing concentration? Are you not bothering to visualise an image for each kanji? Are you rushing through them?

Try breaking up the 100 you learn each day into 5 blocks of 20 and using the spaced repetition theory. For each block of 20 kanji spend 10 minutes learning them, then take a break for 10 minutes doing something which isn't learning or testing kanji. Then go back and test yourself on the ones you just learned, re-learning any you forgot. Then another ten minute break. Then finally test them again. You should be getting full recall at this point. The ten minute breaks in between each repetition are the key to memory formation here.

This method means you have to spend about 2.5 hours each day just learning new kanji if you want to do 100 a day, but you'll have a really good recall. You'll still have to do your anki reviews as well, which I'd suggest doing after learning the new kanji.

Some other important tips include:
- Make sure you get up early in the morning (I find 6am is the perfect time)
- Sleep well, but not for too long (a lie-in will prevent you from learning well that day)
- Feed your brain, this means eating a good healthy breakfast
- When doing your reviews, do them in timeboxes. This means review for a set amount of time, then take a break. The breaks really do help with recall. I find 20-30 mins a good time for a review session

~~ Okay, you were talking about Heisig >_<

Put the maximum failed cards limit to 5 or 10.

I personally put the fail multiplier at 0, so if I forget a card, I have to start all the way back from 0, so what I'll explain in the next paragraph is more efficient. But you can make it less harsh if you like.

Go to Deck Properties, and put 2 at something like 4-7 hours. If you forget a card, you rep it again, then give it a 2 - it will come up in the near future, and if you get it right later on, you can grade a 3, making it come up 1-3 days later.

I personally like Timeboxing in very small sessions (6 in one minute or 12 in 2 minutes), but if you find it hard to concentrate (you review for 2 minutes, then do something else for like... 30 minutes) then go for longer periods.

deathtrap Wrote:I'm an impatient person , I always dive headfirst into whatever I decide to do and go full steam at it until I achieve it.

My goal is to be conversational(in Mandarin) by the summer so I need to get the hanzi out of the way fast so I can start learning some sentences in an i+1 manner.

The lowest I think I'd be willing to go is 50-65 per day. Anything lower and I would give up due to feeling like i'm getting nowhere, which ironically is what is happening now at 100 per day due to failed cards :p

Technically, you can do 3000 cards a day, but you would not have "learned" them much less "memorized" them. You have to find your natural pace, not the pace you want but the pace you can achieve.

It's going to boil down to how many hours a day you want to study. From that, it helps get a rough idea on the "magic number". The magic number for me is 5 per 10 minutes of study time. So an hour of study time is 30 for me. What does this 30 mean?

I review all my due cards. If I reach 30 missed items I stop reviewing.
Every card under 30 that I did not miss, I'll study that many new cards. (12 missed means I'll study 18 new cards).
Study my missed cards (12 in this case)
Initial test on my new cards (18 in this case). I mark all my new cards yes.

What the above does is put a max of 30 items per day into Stack 2 (the 2 to 3 day review stack). It forces a natural pace so that you're not adding new items if too many missed items pop up. Just think of a missed item as a new item you have to learn, which is kind of true as your story did not stick the first time.

The above also works to force pacing with sentences.