Is writing the kanji while reviewing pointless?

I can't keep dedicating the time I've been dedicating, so I'm looking to cut corners. Has anyone tried visualizing instead of writing out the kanji while reviewing? And found it makes no difference, and saves time?

I've been going strong for a month, but I'm about to fall one day behind...which for an all-or-nothing person like me, that's a big deal.

My schedule for this is:

Monday-Tuesday - review all kanji I've learned to this point
Wednesday-Sunday - learn 250 new kanji

And the cycle repeats. I make manual flashcards, which is time consuming enough as it is (I'm a mom with babies). Can't camp in front of the computer during the day, but I'm sure online study would be faster.

So - can I memorize them just as effectively while cutting out the incessant writing thereof?

[ファブリス]

Then write them in the palm of your hand with the index of the other hand, like the Japanese do. The "motor skills" will show you where the memory fails, whereas relying your imagination will play tricks and you' ll think you got a character correct when you don't (this applies specially to the more complex characters). It's not that easy to visualize a step by step writing of a complex character.

But the point is... even writing in the palm of your hand should take about the same time as writing it on paper, only more convenient if you don't have paper and a pen.

So it's down to whether you want to be able to write those characters from memory or not, and whether it's worth cutting corners there? I know not everybody enjoys the writing part that much, so it's your choice.

You should give just "looking at them" a try and see if it actually helps you with your memorization. I personally write them out mainly because I have a lot of extra time but I have noticed that I can still memorize kanji without even having to write them down. Usually just by seeing it over and over again I begin to just learn them.

Heisig says you just need to write them once in the learning of them. I do enjoy writing them, but I was trying to visualize a bit, and found I could do that too. However, ファブリス is right. If the kanji is complicated, there's no way I can visualize it. It's like a math equation that I have to figure out as the story elements appear. I think if I could do an SRS on the computer, it'd cut out a lot of my reviewing. But I can't spend that kind of time on the computer.

Guess I'd better keep on keepin' on, and just try to not let the 1-day behind take the wind out of my sails.

Thanks for your responses. I'm thrilled to death that I found this forum. No one around me appreciates what I'm doing. They just chalk it up to my weird obsessions.

I don't understand how writing in the palm of your hand with finger is faster than writing with pencil on paper. The time saved is the time spent picking up pad and pencil and then putting them down--I really don't think the all of 10 seconds total makes or breaks it in people's lives. It seems that not writing at all, however, could certainly make a difference in time.

I wouldn't do it. Writing for me helps solidify the character in my mind. Plus, I want to be able to write the characters as well as learn their meanings. But I've got a HUGE backlog of reviews and fails right now, so it might be worthwhile to skip some steps for a few days to catch up.

I write every time, but mostly for my handwriting's sake. If I'm super pressed for time, I just do recognition... but I believe in trying to use every sense when memorizing the Kanji.

You don't see it? No pencil. No paper. You don't ever run out of finger and palm. You don't need to erase anything, you don't even need to look down. You can even skip the palm and just do finger in the air. There's nothing magical about writing it out that the finger can't replace. (At least not in my experience.)

Thunk is a mom with babies. She doesn't have time to mess with things like pencils and paper, which are easily destroyed by said babies. Even a finger covered in drool and god-knows-what-else babies can produce can be brandished in the air in a spare moment to trace out the most complex kanji in between changing diapers. (If you wanted to, anyway.)

Or if you want, you can use their bellies instead of your palm, and tickle them. (Depends on how big they are, though.) Multitasking!

The important thing is just doing the character with the correct stroke order once per review, to solidify it. No need to do it more than that, but it does wonders over the long term. Also, I'd recommend some sort of computer-based system eventually, because it's more efficient at scheduling reviews at the minimum necessary interval. (So you don't wind up reviewing material you don't need to.) But you have babies, so yeah... a drool-proof computer or something. Hmm.

Thunk Wrote:Is writing the kanji while reviewing pointless?

I can't keep dedicating the time I've been dedicating, so I'm looking to cut corners. Has anyone tried visualizing instead of writing out the kanji while reviewing? And found it makes no difference, and saves time?

I've been going strong for a month, but I'm about to fall one day behind...which for an all-or-nothing person like me, that's a big deal.

My schedule for this is:

Monday-Tuesday - review all kanji I've learned to this point
Wednesday-Sunday - learn 250 new kanji

And the cycle repeats. I make manual flashcards, which is time consuming enough as it is (I'm a mom with babies). Can't camp in front of the computer during the day, but I'm sure online study would be faster.

So - can I memorize them just as effectively while cutting out the incessant writing thereof?

If you don't have the time ... the simple answer is to slow down your torrid pace. This is no race. I'd surely write them during reviews. I think cutting that corner is a mistake. I'd dump the flashcards, too. This site, plus maybe Anki, is enough. You'll get there. Relax and smell some flowers along the way.

plumage - yeah, that review stack of all 1000+ cards is a monstrous task every week. It accumulates.

sethg - good idea, but my handwriting is atrocious no matter what language I'm writing in. Not even gonna try to make it pretty.

rich_f - you feel my pain! You know! You're a parent, too? I keep them in ziplock bags, but my poor flashcards have been covered and smudged with all of the above. And I rarely have two free hands during the day. After the tedious, insane task of memorizing the kanji is done, I'll start SRSing on the computer, because it'll take less time to review. One more month. That's what I'm giving myself. Then kana, then chill and enjoy the process.

Wally - If I slowed down with this kanji stuff, I'd stop. I have my limitations, and have learned to work within them. That's why I gotta get it out of the way before that happens. I don't have the long-term discipline. I have short bursts of ridiculous levels of committment, and then I stop caring. In regards to my hobbies, that is.

Not a parent, but most of my friends are, and I've babysat my nephew and my godkids enough to know the drill. You can't have nice things around munchkins until they reach a certain age.

Thunk Wrote:Wally - If I slowed down with this kanji stuff, I'd stop. I have my limitations, and have learned to work within them. That's why I gotta get it out of the way before that happens. I don't have the long-term discipline. I have short bursts of ridiculous levels of committment, and then I stop caring. In regards to my hobbies, that is.

Well, everyone is motivated differently, that's for sure. For me, progress motivates. In this case, that implies steady movement forward toward the goal, and steady retention.

I would venture out on a limb and say, however, that language learning in general is not particularly suited to "short bursts of ridiculous levels of commitment" -- unless you have them often, and without much interval in between. (I'm sure someone will disagree with that, and indeed we are not all the same, but short bursts of practice which are then abandoned are not what establish facts in long term memory ... for most people.)

Thunk Wrote:My schedule for this is:

Monday-Tuesday - review all kanji I've learned to this point
Wednesday-Sunday - learn 250 new kanji

If your circumstances permit, any chance of spreading out the reviews into more manageable chunks? What amounts to 35/day is a quick pace. Tackling a week's worth of reviews in just 2 days would be overwhelming for anyone.

rich_f Wrote:Or if you want, you can use their bellies instead of your palm, and tickle them. (Depends on how big they are, though.) Multitasking!

Smile. Reminds me of a friend doing her DVD yoga with her baby under, beside and over her.

I almost never write kanji during my reviews. I write them once on the first review to get a feel for them, after that I don't need to. I lived in Japan for a while though so I wrote kanji constantly. Could be different for someone is only getting their writing done while reviewing.

But she doesn't live in Japan, she doesn't have need to write them every day otherwise. She's still learning them.

So she should follow Heisig's instructions. Write them once (and only once) per review. That's all.

rich_f Wrote:But she doesn't live in Japan, she doesn't have need to write them every day otherwise. She's still learning them.

So she should follow Heisig's instructions. Write them once (and only once) per review. That's all.

Question is of course, why? There are two reasons for writing kanji as you review them the way I see it:
1. For kanji-writing ability (writing good looking kanji etc)
2. For memory.

As for 1, it's a good reason... but why just one time for each review? Writing them tons of times makes it even better.

As for 2, I personally don't think it matters. It's all about remembering which primitives are used, I've personally never felt writing them out helped any.

I write them out when I review. I find that a little muscle memory goes a long way. Sometimes I'll be stuck on a kanji and know the first stroke and that will trigger the story. Or my imaginary memory will not remember where a certain primitive is placed but my spatial memory will know thanks to writing it down a few times.

When I'm having trouble with a kanji story I write it more in tandem with improving the story. Rounds out nicely for me.

welldone101 Wrote:I write them out when I review. I find that a little muscle memory goes a long way. Sometimes I'll be stuck on a kanji and know the first stroke and that will trigger the story. Or my imaginary memory will not remember where a certain primitive is placed but my spatial memory will know thanks to writing it down a few times.

When I'm having trouble with a kanji story I write it more in tandem with improving the story. Rounds out nicely for me.

Well, maybe so. Personally I'm one of those guys who started using Heisig so I didn't have to rely on muscle memory... I mean isn't it even mentioned in the prologue by Heisig that asians write han characters over and over a thousand times to force them into muscle memory but we shouldn't have to? Or something like that.

I'm kinda thinking that if you have to rely on muscle memory, you should fail the kanji and improve the story instead.

Thunk Wrote:...I think if I could do an SRS on the computer, it'd cut out a lot of my reviewing. But I can't spend that kind of time on the computer.

Then don't, but you don't need a software SRS. Use the Lietner system and some boxes to hold your paper flashcards. These days it's hard to remember that SRS has existed since before the computer.

Tobberoth Wrote:I'm kinda thinking that if you have to rely on muscle memory, you should fail the kanji and improve the story instead.

I'm the same as welldone101 - I write them out when I review. Though it does help me to remember them many times, I don't rely on writing them out. Eventually certain kanji become so ingrained in my memory that I can visualise them perfectly, but I still tend to write them out to improve my kanji aesthetics.

Different people learn different ways - personally, I learn best by using Heisig's method along with kinesthetic learning (writing them out).

You all give such good feedback. Thank you! Mafried, thank you for that link to Lietner. I was just manually going off what the anki demo said, but this lays it out better, because it's geared towards flashcards.

Okay. I got figured out. I've learned that I can only instantly visualize a kanji if I can write it well and fast. In other words, if the kanji is "easy" to remember, I don't write it. If it doesn't instantly pop into my mind, then I write it out. That's cut out a lot of the study time. I just burned through the first 276 kanji in Heisig's book in 1 hour! Granted, they're the easiest to remember by this point. I only missed one. Hope the rest of them eventually get that easy.

Thanks again. ^_^

Tobberoth Wrote:Well, maybe so. Personally I'm one of those guys who started using Heisig so I didn't have to rely on muscle memory... I mean isn't it even mentioned in the prologue by Heisig that asians write han characters over and over a thousand times to force them into muscle memory but we shouldn't have to? Or something like that.

I'm kinda thinking that if you have to rely on muscle memory, you should fail the kanji and improve the story instead.

I kind of look at it more holistically than that. I mean, the brain is a whole package kind of device. I remember smells, sounds, how a piece feels on the keys when I play, where the W is on the keyboard, and imagination. So I attack kanji with the same idea.

Imaginative memory lets you unlock sight, sound, and shape using only your mind, making it a very powerful tool. Spatial memory I unlock using my fingers to shape the kanji, and I do it powerfully as if I'm drawing a strong emotion. Writing huge and artistically on a surface. Musical memory I unlock by listening to emotional music I like while studying a certain lesson. When I see similar keyword I can differentiate them with the music they conjure up in my mind.

The asian method of muscle memory is an extreme method, just as Heisig is an extreme method in the other direction (although to that same extent it's phenomenally more useful for adults with life experience). Non prejudiced thinking led me to try Heisig in the first place so I use the same thinking when I consider that a method which works pretty well for some other millions of people will help me out too.

All that being said. Muscle memory is completely unreliable in the long run and I fully expect it to fail me at many points throughout my life. I don't really mind though since I'm not relying on it for much.

I am of the opinion that writing kanji is important when reviewing.
It's not just about muscle memory. It's about immersion in the language.
I feel much more in the "japanese frame of mind" when I am writing the characters manually, as opposed to typing them in the computer. For me, I see it as a possible tactic for AJATT, in a situation where there is nothing "japanese" surrounding me (when i'm at the university computers, for example, instead of my bedroom).
Writing the characters in the air seems perfectly ok, although as it was mentioned before, there's little or no difference between that and writing on paper.

However, if pressed for time, it's a perfectly plausible tactic to only write the characters that do not immediately come to mind when reviewing.

I spend my time creating Flashcard sets in a program called JFC (it's a free computer flashcard program).
As I progress in the book, I usually create files compressing 2 or 3 consecutive lessons, totalling around 90-200 kanji in each file, for review.

If you'd like, I would be more than happy to share my file sets with you, which comprise the first 1183 characters, divided in about 10 files (I didn't count).

If this interests you, let me know. I am on a short Easter vacation, so it would take me some days to send the files, but if you don't mind waiting a little bit...

Writing kanji in your head, on your palm, on paper, with a finger, pencil, pen, brush, etc. It's all a preference that each of us are going to pick with time.

I like to write my stuff out as it's a blast to see pages begin to fill up over time.

As for muscle memory, it does start coming to you. On a few occasions, a kanji didn't "feel right" when I wrote it. Lo and behold, it wasn't. It's nowhere near the level of native Japanese that learned via rote. Plus, I'm probably never going to write out anything but a note or two in the real world (big assumption here about the unforeseeable future). However, it seems a nice skill to have. Again, just a personal preference.

bebio - that's totally sweet of you. Thank you for the offer. It sounds very resourceful, but one of my dilemmas is that I don't get much computer time. I'm a mom. Hence, the manual flaschards.

Nukemarine - It does look cool! There are floating sheets all around my house, covered in black ink, both sides, sideways, upside down, whichever direction the sheet had some free space on for me to write my kanji. Anyone who comes over and sees them gawks at me in stupefied awe. It is humorous, and flattering. I live in Little Saigon, and my Cantonese neighbors don't even write or read Chinese symbols. They're more impressed with me than I am.

(quick yay! moment - I read "East Sea Roadway", amongst many other symbols on the Chinese Calendar they give me every year for their herbal shop. It was VERY exciting!)

Hey - are the intrepretations of Kanji and Hanzi the same? Considering kanji was drafted into Japanese culture over 1000 years ago, I would assume there would be a great deal of variance. But I don't think there is. Am I right?

I think they are mostly the same or similar. There are some differences as well as some that do not exist in either language. 東海道(とうかいどう) is a very famous old road in Japan by the way. You can even look it up.