Reviewed 178 expired cards in RevTk, I got about 12 wrong which is more than usual but overall its not too bad. I keep mixing up study and learn so I'll have to spend some time on correcting that. I reviewed frames 900-1000 for the first time and only got 5 wrong. Mr T helped a lot as did the wheat primitive.

Nearly halfway through the first book now. I'm feeling the need to start learning Japanese outside of RtK now but I still haven't learnt the kana, so I'll need to fit that into my schedule.

Yo, hang on for 10 more days =D with RTK only.
Then give yourself 1 week or 2 for the kana, then go for the sentences.

Ah, you probably can start listening to Jap already.

mentat_kgs Wrote:Yo, hang on for 10 more days =D with RTK only.
Then give yourself 1 week or 2 for the kana, then go for the sentences.

Ah, you probably can start listening to Jap already.

Heck, at the level of effort he's currently putting out, a weekend to learn the kana wouldn't be infeasible.

Also I definitely second the suggestion to start listening, if you aren't already. It's a lot of fun starting to pick out more and more words- even though I haven't attempted an iota of active vocab acquisition!

I also think I've read somewhere on this forum that around frame 1500 you should be able to start reading and mining sentences, if you don't want to wait.

Keep up the great pace! :-)

jorgebucaran Wrote:Hahaha :lol: good one.

Who's laughing? You know, you mentioned in another thread that you would like to go study martial arts at a temple. When you get there the monks will probably make you stand for a few days in a ridiculously tortuous stance and laugh at you. Depending on how mean they are they might beat you with sticks or throw stones at you if you come out of your stance.

What's learning 50 more Kanji a day compared to that? Remember, this is kung fu for your brain!

Of course I jest... the monks will probably not do this, they certainly will.

blackmacros Wrote:Heck, at the level of effort he's currently putting out, a weekend to learn the kana wouldn't be infeasible.

Heisigs Kana book. 1 weekend and your sorted tbh. Same kinda method as RTK. If you believe his hype it will take you 6 hours to learn both. Then you just throw them into Anki and review them as you would with RTK or just start reading things. I get a lot of reading practice with emails. Especially as a beginner people write to you in mostly Hiragana with the Kanji in brackets. (or so i've found)

Of course he can handle the kana maybe in one day! I'm just suggesting a small break.

stoked Wrote:

Quote:Should I have used Anki from the beginning? Well I will never know. But I will understand when I use it for mining sentences.

Naw, I started out with RevTK as well. It's great. I just prefer having everything in one deck: Japanese, French, Greek Mythology, etc. I love random changes in review sessions, they keep me focused. So for me it's Anki. It looks like this:

http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/8210/ankiq.png

2 is the shortcut for hard. If you fail a kanji and then get it right in the second round and press 2, you'll see it again the next day, even with cycle elimination...

Pretty much outdated (9 days ago), but I love that stroke order diagram !
Where did you get that from ?

KanjiStrokeOrder font (do a forum search)

Thank you, mafried.

Just finished 1100 to 1200, phew. That's a lot of combs, brushes and mops etc... Also Heisig suddenly decides to start writing walls of text for each character. If anyone else is doing hundred a day I recommend setting aside extra time for these frames.

Kanjimood, I'm really excited for you! I'm not patient enough to draw out the kanji learning either, and can't wait to learn the kana, grammar, and then sentences. I'm at 1639, right now. You're gonna pass me up by the end of this week, I'm sure! Just think, though - once you've studied them all, then you can review to your heart's content - a much faster process than actually putting them in the brain to begin with!

btw - Heisig's kana book boasts six hours of study to learn ALL the kana. We'll see if that applies to me. I have it. It stares at me from my bookshelf every day, waiting for me to finish kanji so I can pick it up!

KanjiMood Wrote:Just finished 1100 to 1200, phew. That's a lot of combs, brushes and mops etc... Also Heisig suddenly decides to start writing walls of text for each character. If anyone else is doing hundred a day I recommend setting aside extra time for these frames.

It's funny how different people adopt a certain set of images/kanji more readily. For example I breezed through those frames in almost half the time it would normally take me to do 100. But the wheat primitive you mentioned as being so helpful to you was a very difficult section for me to deal with, and I lacked very many truly fun or vivid images.

I'm trying to do 100 a day. I can't though because I have to do a research on unemployment for the sociology class (big work :|). But I try to learn as much as I can. I think I'm on frame 180 or so. (since Saturday), and I have some questions.

I'm getting the whole idea of learning the story, and it's working (for some kanji at least, for the ones I already knew I don't even bother). Kanjimood, you said you only though of the story like 3 times a day. How's that possible? I think of the story far more times until I can remember it.

I can already recognize the kanji I know when I see them, but I can't recall sometimes the keyword. Is this normal? When I review I only learn the new kanji until I know the ones I failed in the review. Should I do it other way?

Other than all the school work I have to do (and it's a lot) I try to exercise a bit everyday and that also takes time, as I also wish to play a bit of Nintendo DS's GTA CW, when I ride my indoor bike I play it and exercise at the same time, but I wish I could stop the time anyway lol.

Crap, I had more questions, but as usual, I forgot them.

Thunk: I too look forward to that stage of reviewing characters only.. that's one reason I wanted to do Rtk 3 straight after 1. But I guess if those characters don't even show up in beginner sentences its probably better to wait awhile..

blackmacros: Now that I've reviewed 1100-1200 again they don't seem half as bad, especially the first 50.

CarolinaCG: Two or three times a day at separate times yes. There's no need to think about them until you remember as that's not what SRS is all about. Learning by trying to remember everything short-term is inefficient compared to SRS. I don't get a real good grip on most characters (form and story) until the following day when I see it in my SRS app.

And yeah I think its normal to not always remember the keyword. That will improve when we start reading sentences.

CarolinaCG Wrote:I think of the story far more times until I can remember it.

Are you actually seeing the story in your mind? It's not about remembering the stories, it's about being able to have a vivid image of something which might help you remember which kanji the particular keyword leads to, why the kanji looks like this etc.

CarolinaCG Wrote:I can already recognize the kanji I know when I see them, but I can't recall sometimes the keyword. Is this normal? When I review I only learn the new kanji until I know the ones I failed in the review. Should I do it other way?

Just continue going in the keyword->story->kanji order, recognizing it in kanji->keyword will come later, don't worry

And even if you know some kanji, it might be better to make up some story too, because this way you won't forget them as easily. I know a lot of kanji, because I didn't start with Heisig method right away, however everytime I recognine kanji I know, I try to come up with a story or recall the one I used back then.
Anyway, good luck!

KanjiMood Wrote:CarolinaCG: Two or three times a day at separate times yes. There's no need to think about them until you remember as that's not what SRS is all about. Learning by trying to remember everything short-term is inefficient compared to SRS. I don't get a real good grip on most characters (form and story) until the following day when I see it in my SRS app.

And yeah I think its normal to not always remember the keyword. That will improve when we start reading sentences.

That happens to me too. I can only recognize the kanji the following day after having learned it, course I can remember some in the same day, but having lots of troubles.

Tarah Wrote:Are you actually seeing the story in your mind? It's not about remembering the stories, it's about being able to have a vivid image of something which might help you remember which kanji the particular keyword leads to, why the kanji looks like this etc.

Yup, there's a thread called "one kanji, one picture" that same thread is helping me a lot, I see the stories in my mind a lot faster, not because of the image there, but because of the sentence for each kanji. 2 days ago I thought I couldn't see it, but now I can, and it sure works better.

Tarah Wrote:Just continue going in the keyword->story->kanji order, recognizing it in kanji->keyword will come later, don't worry

And even if you know some kanji, it might be better to make up some story too, because this way you won't forget them as easily. I know a lot of kanji, because I didn't start with Heisig method right away, however everytime I recognine kanji I know, I try to come up with a story or recall the one I used back then.
Anyway, good luck!

Okay, I'll do that for the hardest ones I've already learnt, since I forgot some of them. And this is where RTK rocks

I can't wait to have the book on my hands! I'll order it tomorow, hopefuly.

Thanks KanjiMood and Tarah!

Just thought I'd add my opinion, which I think seems to be fairly in line with what KanjiMood has been saying throughout the thread.

When adding Kanji it is *much* easier to get through 100 a day or whatever your goal is if you don't get hung up on trying to find the perfect story or image for the kanji. Visualise the elements, jot something down and move on. Its ok if you feel like you don't have a solid grip on the image or whatever- that is what the SRS is for. When you go back and review (particularly when you fail a card) *that* is the time to tweak and perfect your story. Over time the SRS will sort out any kanji that you have trouble recalling properly, so why waste time worrying about it when you first add it?

blackmacros Wrote:Just thought I'd add my opinion, which I think seems to be fairly in line with what KanjiMood has been saying throughout the thread.

When adding Kanji it is *much* easier to get through 100 a day or whatever your goal is if you don't get hung up on trying to find the perfect story or image for the kanji. Visualise the elements, jot something down and move on. Its ok if you feel like you don't have a solid grip on the image or whatever- that is what the SRS is for. When you go back and review (particularly when you fail a card) *that* is the time to tweak and perfect your story. Over time the SRS will sort out any kanji that you have trouble recalling properly, so why waste time worrying about it when you first add it?

Exactly. It seems that a lot of people spend more time worrying about learning than just learning.

Gahhh.... I did the first 60 today.
I so wanted to do more, but I now realize my mornings are tight. -.-
I'm motivated to make time for Kanji learning, so I'll set up my morning schedules differently now. My only problem, was my grandmother passing, and going to her funeral yesterday. Emotional stuff + pile up of homework that kept me up till midnight + tight morning schedule = not as much Kanji as I wanted to do. I felt like I could do more. It's really rough.

Well, I'm going to write my sentences, as you suggested, Kanjimood. I already wrote the Kanji, keyword, and primitives by them, but it didn't feel like enough. It felt like I was just trying to rush through them all. My first plan was to go through them with Kanji, keyword, and primitives, then later go to Anki and fill it all in, my sentence-creativity being at work there, but I soon realized that was hours of work that didn't need to be done.

I'm starting to make goals though. Like, I want to finish all the Kanji THIS month. That might not happen, but it'll help motivate me. After that, I want to mine 1000-2000 sentences in the next month(already having the kana 85% under my fingers. I just have some trouble with katakana, but that was because I rushed through it a while ago. Remember never to rush through things. It never helps), while listening to Japanese tv/music the entire time. And in the summer it'll be much, much higher. But, my two long-term goals for now are these:
1.Become able to hold conversation with the exchange student I'll be hosting next year.
And
2.Become able to hold my own in Japan, when my Japanese class makes a trip to Japan for two months next summer.
Obviously, I wont be that fluent at all at that time, but I wont be alone in Japan, so....

Anyways, I'll keep working on my schedule. I'm working into the very early morning hours tonight, to finish the first 100!!!

Brokenvai Wrote:Gahhh.... I did the first 60 today.

IMO, it gets much easier after the first few hundred, by that point you're starting to really get a handle on the process.

It's such a shame that this is the case, you really can't help but feeling let down by our educational system that visualization and associative memory aren't taught early on.

Brokenvai Wrote:I'm starting to make goals though. Like, I want to finish all the Kanji THIS month. That might not happen, but it'll help motivate me. After that, I want to mine 1000-2000 sentences in the next month(already having the kana 85% under my fingers. I just have some trouble with katakana, but that was because I rushed through it a while ago. Remember never to rush through things. It never helps), while listening to Japanese tv/music the entire time. And in the summer it'll be much, much higher. But, my two long-term goals for now are these:
1.Become able to hold conversation with the exchange student I'll be hosting next year.
And
2.Become able to hold my own in Japan, when my Japanese class makes a trip to Japan for two months next summer.
Obviously, I wont be that fluent at all at that time, but I wont be alone in Japan, so....

Anyways, I'll keep working on my schedule. I'm working into the very early morning hours tonight, to finish the first 100!!!

An inspiring post I should say. I too have a tight schedule, lots of homework and etc, but still, I wanna finish this book in this and in the next month (or less, hopefully). I divided my goals:

1st: 500 kanji
2nd: 500 kanji
3dr: 500 kanji
4th: the rest.

Next year (summer 010) I'll apply to a exchange program, 5 weeks in Japan with a host family, by then I'll be in an intermediate level (since after RTK, I intend to finish Genki 1+2+workebooks and an Integrated approach).

Let's learn Kanji! Go go go!

CarolinaCG Wrote:An inspiring post I should say. I too have a tight schedule, lots of homework and etc

If you can find even a few 10 or 20 minute periods throughout the day to study Kanji, its quite possible to get through 50-60 kanji per day fairly easily- even with a very busy schedule.

For example, it takes me about an hour and a half of study to get through 50 kanji. A 20 minute class break, 3 times a day and then an extra 30 minutes before bedtime and all of a sudden I've learned 50 kanji without feeling like I've spent any time on it at all. Due to this, going back to Uni from holiday hasn't had as significant an impact on my kanji study as I had thought it would.

Hopefully you find that encouraging for your own studies :-)

Brokenvai Wrote:Remember never to rush through things. It never helps),

While it is great that you have some firm goals in mind and certainly a ton of motivation, just make sure you keep (your own!) very useful advice in mind. You don't want to be rushing through, just to reach a goal, if going at that pace is going to be detrimental (ie. too fast, stressful or whatever).

Having said that, keep up the great work! As has been mentioned, it only gets easier the more you get used to the process.

RTK3 is something weird. Everytime I find new kanji I check here for stories.
I have around 500 non joyo kanji in my sentences deck but I'd guess only about 10% of them are in RTK3.

RTK3 has a very very poor choice of kanji. I'd ignore RTK3 and go for the sentences.

mentat_kgs Wrote:RTK3 is something weird. Everytime I find new kanji I check here for stories.
I have around 500 non joyo kanji in my sentences deck but I'd guess only about 10% of them are in RTK3.

RTK3 has a very very poor choice of kanji. I'd ignore RTK3 and go for the sentences.

Agreed, I've added several non joyo kanji as well and several of them were not in RtK3.

Coming here to the site and checking stories is pretty great though, makes me wonder if kanji lite wouldn't have been a good idea anyway. Really, why would I want to learn kanji I haven't seen used yet?

I've read somewhere of a guy that built a list for himself based on a frequency list.
Also he really complained about the joyo.
I don't regret a single moment for doing RTK, but probably there are better ways to do it.