Deleted all 1739 of my cards a couple hours ago and am now at about 250.

I really hesitated to do it, but after struggling for near to a year just to get to 1700, I decided maybe it would be a nice little refresher if I went back to stuff I truly knew.

I made a vow that I wouldn't start over, but I think I needed to. It's disappointing that I had to start over so late in the process, but honestly I bet I didn't even know half of those 1700 cards. (not to mention I probably had over 150 with more than 10 fails)

Kinda makes me wonder if I did it wrong the first time actually. I definitely didn't have the willpower to create great stories like the ones on the site; and even using the ones I took from here, it was still really difficult. Maybe it's because I didn't really take to writing them as much as I should have.

I do have a couple questions: Now that I've started over, what kinds of pass rates should I be looking for? I'd hate to spend another year on this, but given the last dismal performance I'd like to be able to do these things by heart. I'd like to find a balance of speed and retention ability. I used to do about 10 new a day (usually not *daily*, just whenever I added them), but since I've already been there and done that with most of these I should be able to step it up.

And something that really stumps me: How do you guys manage to go so fast while keeping your recall rate up?

Thanks in advance for reading, answering, and putting up with a ranty RTKer.

atylmo Wrote:And something that really stumps me: How do you guys manage to go so fast while keeping your recall rate up?

I know who you are asking this of and it's not me, but I hope this may be of some use for you, as a different perspective.

When I would read here on the forum of people doing 30, 40, 50 or more cards in a day I had to wonder about how effective they could be in creating truly memorable and thus effective stories for remembering that number of kanji. Now, I know some people can do this because their visual memory is extremely effective. But I don't think that most or even many people can do those kinds of numbers day in and day out. We don't hear much from these people on the forum, I would guess.

So, don't worry about how other people are doing, how many they are doing, and so on. You are right that you need to have effective stories to remember the kanji well, so concentrate on taking the time you need ( all the time you need ) to make stories that stick and progress at the speed that allows you to establish a recall rate that shows you are remembering well enough to keep moving forward at that rate (that should be over 80%, ideally over 90% but it doesn't need to be more than 95%).
I find that the failures I have, particularly the ones that fail multiple times, are ones with stories that are ineffective because they are too abstract or too generic to recall well. The time taken for a good story is time well spent.

Good luck the second time around. I'm sure it will go better.

(Edited for typos)

Take advantage of the restart to do it over with Japanese keywords.

Seconded. I'm now using the japanese anki deck courtesy of wrightak. It's slower going but a brilliant refresher for RTK while topping up your vocab. I passed JLPT 2 thanks to RTK, but, like a lot of people, I got into the "I can read, but not write that much kanji" camp. I'd forget the simplest ones..-勉強なんて！
I'm pushing myself toward ikkyuu this summer (!) but I really don't want to fail having paid 5000Y for the privilege, so it may get put on the backburner again.
It may be of note that I didn't continue my reps for RTK from a week after finishing, and moved onto anki, vocab, grammar and all that rubbish.

Ooh sweet idea Jarvik7 and smithem, didn't think of that.. Will take a look. I checked out wrightak's deck before but it went over my head.

@markal: I tried not to worry about keeping up with everyone else (even though I did anyway); it's just that I knew my method was ineffective ages ago but I pressed on regardless just to see the page show "2042" And now I'm in the hole twice as far as I was.

I went waaay too fast with the stories, and have a really bad visual imagination, so my stories made, as Heisig said, "too much sense". It just seems like it would take me hours to craft a story for one kanji, and to do that for 2,042 of them is the equivalent to me of writing a book, which I could never do.

My biggest problem was that when I would get a good story, it would always inevitably end up with another keyword/primitive in the story that wasn't actually *in* the kanji and then I'd get my wires crossed. It's very hard for me to control word choice in stories to keep different keywords distinct, especially while making a vivid story.

Eg: For 'undefiled', 潔, I would always get it mixed up with 'longevity', 寿, not because of the keyword but because of a story by radical_tyro I used for 'longevity', which involved a girl putting glue on her bush to protect her longevity (which I misconstrued as keeping her undefiled by staying a virgin). I then ended up using part of that idea as a story for 'undefiled'. Poor Venom.

Yeah.

Well, to be honest, *I* certainly didn't go that fast. And during the times when I did go really fast and did hundreds of kanji in a short of time, I definitely DID NOT have great retention rates. In my experience, don't take TOO MUCH time worrying about crafting your stories in the beginning; after repeated fails/reviews in the SRS, your brain will work it out.

And don't worry about those few kanji that you fail every couple of days for like 6 months. I have about 30 of those. I think I've failed them thousands of times, but whatev. The confusingly similar english keywords are often behind that. Just forget about it. I guess I'd second Jarvik's recommendation, too. Do Japanese keywords and use the opportunity to learn more vocab and stuff in the process.

Finally, slow but steady wins the race. I tried to do the whole "just add a few/a lot whenever I can" thing. Don't do that. That mentality made me finish in twice the amount of time it could have taken me. Have a set, doable amount (small if need be) that you do every single day. It may feel like torture for a while, but it's definitely the best way to go.

I'm trying out the Japanese keyword deck right now, just trying to get a feel for it, and I must say it's quite an adventure.. I predict many painful dictionary lookups in my future.

I'll try to stick to a set amount, but ugh..yes it will probably be torture for a while. I did ok for a bit and then I just kept getting lazier and lazier and eventually my 10 cards a day turned into "Review cards added 7 days ago" and it wasn't a smooth ride at all.

Thanks igordesu

Learning kanji is a test of will power for sure. I can't imagine tackling it if I weren't so motivated.

I don't know how you study, but I have found it helps me to personify the kanji. For example, taskmaster is incredibly common, no? I assigned my mean-as-hell vocal instructor to that kanji, so everytime it comes up, I have him interacting with the other primitives, and the story creates itself. Assign people/characters you are familiar with to certain kanji. Heman is "power", Pinnocchio is "someone", Master Roshi is "old man", etc. You get the idea.

And instead of perfectly worded lines that include all the keywords, I usually visualize the actual primitives with their own personalities. If "eye" is in it, then a bouncing eyeball is in my story. Disembodied, giant fingers appear every time "finger" pops up, etc.

Then once the elements form, I literally close my eyes for a couple minutes as I'm visualizing it all, focussing on the primitives. If I don't close my eyes, the picture in my head isn't clear enough for it to stick.

I'm at about 1300 right now, and have been doing this five weeks. I have manual flashcards, and have been reviewing them all once a week.

I personally had the same retention when I went 20 a day and when I went 40 or 50 a day. As long as you spend an equal amount of time on each kanji making a proper memorable story/image/rhyme or whatever, it doesn't matter how many you do each day.

The more kanji I did per day the better retention I had. More kanji per day = more time per day spent on kanji = more time in a kanji frame of mind. Towards the end of the book my entire day was just kanji punctuated by naps (hence the 100-150/day rate) and occasional JLPT vocab study. Yay for summer vacation.

Ow yeah!

where can one get this deck?

atylmo Wrote:Ooh sweet idea Jarvik7 and smithem, didn't think of that.. Will take a look. I checked out wrightak's deck before but it went over my head.

@markal: I tried not to worry about keeping up with everyone else (even though I did anyway); it's just that I knew my method was ineffective ages ago but I pressed on regardless just to see the page show "2042" And now I'm in the hole twice as far as I was.

I went waaay too fast with the stories, and have a really bad visual imagination, so my stories made, as Heisig said, "too much sense". It just seems like it would take me hours to craft a story for one kanji, and to do that for 2,042 of them is the equivalent to me of writing a book, which I could never do.

My biggest problem was that when I would get a good story, it would always inevitably end up with another keyword/primitive in the story that wasn't actually *in* the kanji and then I'd get my wires crossed. It's very hard for me to control word choice in stories to keep different keywords distinct, especially while making a vivid story.

Eg: For 'undefiled', 潔, I would always get it mixed up with 'longevity', 寿, not because of the keyword but because of a story by radical_tyro I used for 'longevity', which involved a girl putting glue on her bush to protect her longevity (which I misconstrued as keeping her undefiled by staying a virgin). I then ended up using part of that idea as a story for 'undefiled'. Poor Venom.

Yeah.

I advanced at 25 kanji per day (I did 50 for like 1 month). I never made up a story (well, I made like 2 or 3), I took them all from this site.

I didn't waste that much time with each story either. I just made a connection between the story (or most of the times, definitions, wordplay and such) and the kanji. That seems to have worked fine for me. I finished the book about 1-2 weeks ago and I have to review like 150-200 kanjis per day and I fail at most 10 of them (and just because I confuse keywords and stuff like that). I think that's a good thing.

I also think that one of the most important things is that you must never stop adding new kanji. Not even one day. For some reason that made me remember every kanji better, I don't know why.

Imaginative memory is latent in all of us but remains like a muscle in atrophy for most of us. Artistic individuals have a huge head start over left-brained students in this regard. How quickly one can progress and retain what has been learned has much to do with how much previous practice one has with imagination in other aspects of life.

I also think once a person finishes RTK this imaginative memory development will benefit one well beyond kanji study.

TGWeaver Wrote:where can one get this deck?

I got it on wrightak's Google Pages..err..page: http://wrightak.googlepages.com/

But it's also on Anki's wiki's 'Premade Decks' page: http://ichi2.net/anki/wiki/PreMadeDecks

mentat_kgs Wrote:Ow yeah!

That video was oddly awesome.

Thanks a lot everyone. I guess I really need to work on my imagination a LOT more.. I didn't take enough time in the beginning to work on it and when I got to the kanji that really required it, even using a shared story, I just couldn't keep it going.

Not to mention I guess I need to keep my momentum up. By not continuing steadily I ended up just feeling the 'eh, I don't have to do any today' syndrome.

Good news is, since I've beaten most of these frames to death already, I should actually be able to *finish* this time.

atylmo, I'm doing the same thing as you--starting over. I got to 1300 and then took a break and a holiday and didn't get back to the kanji for a long time. So I'm back with a new name and new mission. i wish you luck (and will get on your case if you slack off--haha)

Aye, I'll be after you too

Good luck. Should be much smoother this time.

Man, I just had to start over.

I had burned through all 2042 in 2 months before summer with a 95% retention rate, but then stopped reviewing by June when I abruptly had 4 boys to entertain during the summer. @_@

Now my oldest two are back in school, and I just deleted all my cards, and am starting over. I am HOPING that it'll go much faster. Bummed I didn't just keep it up.

Has anyone else here started over, and found the relearning to be a quicker process than putting them in your brain to begin with?

Thunk Wrote:Has anyone else here started over, and found the relearning to be a quicker process than putting them in your brain to begin with?

I restarted after 21 years & even at that interval found the process much easier than the first time through. Didn't hit a primitive or a Kanji that didn't somehow feel familiar until getting into RtK3.

Good luck to the re-starters. It'll be easier second time through.

I recommend trying to maintain an 80% pass rate. This is important not because 70% is horrible and unacceptable, but because once you start getting down towards 70% the reviews start piling up at an astounding pace, especially if you're using this site for reviews in which case any error will totally reset the card.

~J

woodwojr Wrote:I recommend trying to maintain an 80% pass rate.

Ooh that's good advice. I'm technically "finished" with RTK now, but my reviews still love to pile up.

Atylmo, you beat me....stalled around 1400, but recently got back into it, pushing for the finish.

Edit: spelling (twice)

LaLoche Wrote:Atylmo, you beat me....

Heh I forgot about our little competition until this thread popped back up. But trust me, you're doing way better than I am. My failed pile is at almost 300 and my reviews average like 60% or lower. :O

So yeah, I might be at 2042 in the stats, but I'm not really even close knowledge-wise.

I could start over again again...

atylmo Wrote:Deleted all 1739 of my cards a couple hours ago and am now at about 250.

I really hesitated to do it, but after struggling for near to a year just to get to 1700, I decided maybe it would be a nice little refresher if I went back to stuff I truly knew.

I made a vow that I wouldn't start over, but I think I needed to. It's disappointing that I had to start over so late in the process, but honestly I bet I didn't even know half of those 1700 cards. (not to mention I probably had over 150 with more than 10 fails)

Kinda makes me wonder if I did it wrong the first time actually. I definitely didn't have the willpower to create great stories like the ones on the site; and even using the ones I took from here, it was still really difficult. Maybe it's because I didn't really take to writing them as much as I should have.

I do have a couple questions: Now that I've started over, what kinds of pass rates should I be looking for? I'd hate to spend another year on this, but given the last dismal performance I'd like to be able to do these things by heart. I'd like to find a balance of speed and retention ability. I used to do about 10 new a day (usually not *daily*, just whenever I added them), but since I've already been there and done that with most of these I should be able to step it up.

And something that really stumps me: How do you guys manage to go so fast while keeping your recall rate up?

Thanks in advance for reading, answering, and putting up with a ranty RTKer.

One year? To get to 1750 on RTK?...You've got to be kidding me...

Sorry for the hate. But....if you aren't more motivated you may as well reevaluate your situation.

Yonoso - Don't forget that many people elect to do RTK in conjunction with other Japanese learning - not as a first step. And don't forget that not everyone is a single, unemployed student who can ignore family, social and civic commitments.