I have just printed out the sample pdf but I cannot see where it is explained precisely what you do to apply the method.

Do you:
1. Look at the English key word
2. Read the note - I guess the early ones don't have stories- one or twice
3. Mentally link the note or story to the kanji
4. Practise writing the kanji until you can remember the stroke order
5. Go through 20 or so and then review by seeing if you can remember/write the kanji by looking at the English key word?

It may either be that I have missed the explanation or that it is blindingly obvious tio everyone but me. Thank you in advance for any help

http://kanji.koohii.com/learnmore.php

The point is indeed to create a story out of the parts of the kanji and connect that story to the keyword. Don't worry, in the first hundreds of kanji, Heisig does this for you until you know how it's done.

Writing a kanji tons of times really isn't needed unless you want to, it's quite easy to remember regardless. Good training to write good looking kanji though.

Pretty similar, yeah.
"3. Mentally link the note or story to the kanji" <-- If this is all you do it's going to be kind of difficult.

What you want to do is link the keyword to the primitives used in the kanji, in order to remember what the kanji is. ie. For "reed" 荻, I thought I would have a difficult time, but there was a story about chasing the DOGS into the FLOWERS and then lighting it on FIRE. I can link this with "reed" because I know someone whose last name is "Reid," and he's kind of an leprechaun, and he would do something like that.

Practice writing until you know the stroke order -- I can't comment on this, because I started RTK after already having a good "feel" for stroke order, so I usually don't have to practice.

The reviewing part is what some people might disagree on.
I go through and I make stories for all of them, write down the stories in English in my notebook (seems to help my stories stick by like 150%).
Then, once I finish that, I go through only once to review, just to see if any of my stories totally sucked balls.
Lastly, I go on the next day and I do the SRS thing that RevTK has to offer.

Rinse and repeat every day.

1. Log into RevTK; review all expired cards;
2. Study a new set of kanji; add them to RevTK;
3. Wait until the Sun sets; then wait until it rises again;
4. Go back to step 1.

Thank you for your replies.

I am just about to start the programme so hopefully this will all be clear eventually but I have just read in the site introduction that the review is from key word to kanji so when doing my inital learning and review- ouside that of RevTK- it appears that I am checking if the key word elicts recall of the kanji. Is this correct?

I seem to be making rather heavy weather of this but I cannot recall comprehensive instructions in the Heisig intro.

Yeah, you should go Keyword -> Kanji, because once it becomes internalized, the other way around will be taken care of.

[fuaburisu]

Correct. Upon reading the keyword you should start remembering the story that you associated with it, and then from the story, the character components (that Heisig calls "primitives").

Asriel's point (with the example about 'reed') is important here -- you want to pick a story which you're going to remember when presented with only the keyword. So it's worth taking a moment to think about the keyword and what it's naturally associated with for you, so you can use stories that make use of that. Do check the stories on this website as well as the ones in the book; even where Heisig provides a story this doesn't make it the absolute easiest for *you* to remember...

(Heisig does say 'keyword to kanji' only in the book, but as far as I can see he says this first at the start of lesson 5 (!). There's also a summary-of-the-process at the start of lesson 11 which might be helpful.)

That's very helpful. Thank you everyone for assisting me.

Asriel Wrote:Yeah, you should go Keyword -> Kanji, because once it becomes internalized, the other way around will be taken care of.

Perhaps more importantly, even if it isn't, being able to produce the keyword is frequently unhelpful. The keyword is related to a meaning of the kanji, presumably so that we're getting a little bit of force multiplier here, but it's very important not to mistake it for the meaning of the kanji.

It's a tool to get you to the ability to recognize/produce the kanji, not a valuable component in and of itself.

~J

peterm Wrote:4. Practise writing the kanji until you can remember the stroke order

I believe he says just write the Kanji one time, and then move on......

yes, but it's important to write the kanji the times necessary for it to be at least readable. A Kanji written with bad calligraphy is not such a big help. I'm not saying to write a kanji 100 times, but say, 10 or 20 times.

I agree with what bebio is saying about writing it so it's legible, but with a little tweak.

I've found that kanji is very systematic, and once you realize how stroke order works, and how the pieces generally all fit together, you won't even need to write them 20 times.

There's a point where just writing them when they come up in your reviews will be enough.

Yeah that process is pretty much how you roll through the kanji. Although it can get dull sometimes >.<

I am one month in on the kanji and I have noticed that some days I have a real hard time memorizing. And then on other days I just breeze through them.

What I have done with kanji that I have a hard time with is make up a completly new story for them. Usually that works but if it doesn't then I will write in over again and then write it on a post it note and stick it at the bottom of my computer monitor right beneath the configuartion bottons.