I bought RTK1, and read the intro a couple of times, and based my progress and speed on what he says in the text. "I believe a person that does this full time could get it done in 4 to 6 weeks"(something like that), so thats what i was aiming for, i got up to about 730 after two weeks, and now i've started to hit a land slide.

I was completely using anki wrong i'm pretty sure, and just ignoring the whole SPACED Repetition aspect of the program. I'd do about 60-100 kanji a day, and then sit there and go through them in anki for an hour or two, over and over, even ones i already knew really well.


so anyway! My real problem is this, I'm at 730 ish, and i stopped learning new ones, because i've started to forget alot of random old ones, like in the 400-600 range. I remember all the very first ones instantly, like 1-400ish, and i remember the latest ones but i didn't create very good stories for them so i'm afraid i'm going to forget them eventually...

I feel like, all the ones that were put together with "state of mind" and then later with "fingers" were almost too easy to remember, because they weren't abstract enough, so i just remembered the basic straight forward concept and it didn't stick because it wasn't something memorable or weird or whatever makes the others stick.

My deck is F$#@ed, like its based on completely screwed up values, the ones that i probably SHOULD be learning, are the ones that are registered in it as "easy" and the ones that are coming up are the ones that are really recent that i know

So basically now, i don't know what to do, anyone have any suggestions?

Yeah, you're using Anki completely wrong. You're not supposed to review a card before it has expired. If I were you, I'd remove everything from Anki and start over, doing it properly this time.

Just because Heisig completed it in 4 weeks doesn't mean you have to. Adding 100 kanji a day is really time consuming, most people on this site add 20 or even less each day.

there's no need to go and review them after you've done your reps. If you end up failing 80% of your kanji next time, then so be it. That's a good thing. Actually, that's a great thing. That only means that you'll be seeing those kanji more often, so you'll get more practice. Trust me, after you've failed a kanji enough times, you'll be more familiar with it than those long interval kanji that you got right the first few times and won't see for 3 months. Don't sweat it. You'll be fine.

And, as for being worried about crappy stories, don't be worried. Unless they're TOOOOTALLY stupid, you'll be fine. I normally spent like 10-15 seconds-ish tops finding a story for each kanji and moved on. You'll start to naturally modify stories that don't work in your mind as you go along while doing your reps. Just don't worry. Failure is good. You'll be fine

Anki has a "reschedule" feature you can use. Open up the card broser, hit Control-A to select everything then Actions->Reschedule and select an appropriate min and max value (maybe 7 and 21 days?). You might want to mark them as new cards first to clear out internal values used for scheduling, then reschedule over an interval.

Also, forgetting previous kanji is normal and will be taken care of by the SRS in due time. It shouldn't be a reason to stop studying new ones, imo.

You've reviewed 1-400 the most, which is why they're sticking. The rest will come with more time and more reviews. I screwed up the SRS, too. I've been doing it manually, and only putting them in the SRS after studying a batch for a month (once a week for a month, that is).

I've been dedicating Monday-Wednesday to reviews, where I've been reviewing the most recent batches (batches are in weekly workloads of 250 kanji), until I can write them without hesitation before I move on to learning more.

BUT - It's been 8 weeks, and I'm at 1942. 100 to go. I'll be done tomorrow. At the latest, Monday.

So...yeah, I did it wrong, too. But I still did it fast. You can do it! JUST DON'T STOP.