Post your top five most failed kanji! This isn't just for curiosity, maybe by discussing some of the most failed, who finds what easy/hard etc, then it will help the kanji stick?

Anyway, assuming you use RevTK, go to 'review', 'view detailed list' and organise your kanji by fail, and list your top five, the final number being the times failed.

Up to frame number: 720

339 訂 revise 5
449 皆 all 4
463 乾 drought 4
87 昭 shining 3
156 封 seal 3

Revise, I can't believe it won't stick. I've got the perfect story, for some reason I keep putting a schoolhouse primitive over it!

All I've only just worked a story down for, and I think it's in the second box now.

Drought, I keep thinking 'oh I know this one!' and write 減. I'm sure it's just a matter of time now.

Shining... I don't even want to talk about.

And I've got seal down now. I think.

I'm just over frame 1600.

451 渇 thirst 6
297 処 dispose 5
1040 幣 cash　 5
1067 遅 slow 5
110 汐 eventide 4

Thirst, I never really had a good story for, but I've failed it so many times that I just remember it now.

Dispose I had down perfect until I started confusing it with discard...

Cash, I confused with other money keywords... to remember it, I use alliteration - when I see the keyword, I think Counterfeit Cash, and that reminds me of my specific story for cash.

Slow, I never had a good story for... something about going slow to avoid hitting sheep. I had to make it extremely visual for it to stick... those poor sheep...

Eventide. My story was good, but I kept confusing the moon and evening primitives.

I remember these all pretty well now, except dispose. I need a way to differentiate it from discard...

crayonmaster Wrote:I'm just over frame 1600.

451 渇 thirst 6
297 処 dispose 5
1040 幣 cash　 5
1067 遅 slow 5
110 汐 eventide 4

Thirst, I never really had a good story for, but I've failed it so many times that I just remember it now.

Dispose I had down perfect until I started confusing it with discard...

Cash, I confused with other money keywords... to remember it, I use alliteration - when I see the keyword, I think Counterfeit Cash, and that reminds me of my specific story for cash.

Slow, I never had a good story for... something about going slow to avoid hitting sheep. I had to make it extremely visual for it to stick... those poor sheep...

Eventide. My story was good, but I kept confusing the moon and evening primitives.

I remember these all pretty well now, except dispose. I need a way to differentiate it from discard...

You can't DISPOSE from a position of REPOSE: You need to use your walking legs.

DISCARD is something you do in a card game, too, with your fingers.

The two require a focus, for sure.

HTH

Wally Wrote:

crayonmaster Wrote:I'm just over frame 1600.

451 渇 thirst 6
297 処 dispose 5
1040 幣 cash　 5
1067 遅 slow 5
110 汐 eventide 4

Thirst, I never really had a good story for, but I've failed it so many times that I just remember it now.

Dispose I had down perfect until I started confusing it with discard...

Cash, I confused with other money keywords... to remember it, I use alliteration - when I see the keyword, I think Counterfeit Cash, and that reminds me of my specific story for cash.

Slow, I never had a good story for... something about going slow to avoid hitting sheep. I had to make it extremely visual for it to stick... those poor sheep...

Eventide. My story was good, but I kept confusing the moon and evening primitives.

I remember these all pretty well now, except dispose. I need a way to differentiate it from discard...

You can't DISPOSE from a position of REPOSE: You need to use your walking legs.

DISCARD is something you do in a card game, too, with your fingers.

The two require a focus, for sure.

HTH

Hey, not to bad, thanks for that!

Current top five most difficult in Anki (from ~1200):

carry: 9/18
aggression: 9/17
angry: 6/14
suitable: 7/13
extent: 5/12

All ones where I facepalm upon revealing the answer of course. I can repeat the stories easily (e.g. ROADs carry ARMIES, the ANTIQUES ROADshow is suitable for all ages) but the connection between kanji & keyword isn't quite there yet. Having said that, angry is the only one that I've been failing recently.

@crayonmaster: for cash I picture Johnny Cash trashing a hotel room in a drunken rage, feeding all his TOWELS into a SHREDDER....

For all the dis- ones I imagine someone talking in slang, e.g. discard is David Blaine saying, "Check dis card!" as he used his quick FINGERS to trick you... in a COTTAGE.

harhol, how did you extract that list out of Anki?

Top 5 Pain in the Ass Kanji
Currently at 2042 as of 3 weeks ago, with 16,259 total reviews

徳 benevolence -5/16
穂 ear (of a plant) -6/13
導 guidance -6/12
錠 lock -8-12
個 individual -7-12

I just hate benevolence and ear of a plant.....but I think I'm finally getting them
same with guidance
Lock I'll confuse clams with gold/and or my burglar story....sigh
And for some reason there's a nasty blank spot with individual, but I think at this point I pretty much got it.

One more that still drives me crazy......spit! For some damn reason I keep switching the positions.....same problem with polish.....

But maybe posting here will help me get it right too, LOL!

For me, I find most of my fails happen due to one piece out of place, or missing. I'm also now seeing super old kanji that I used to have solid, but time has eroded a bit....but not too worried....the SRS will freshen them up and carve them in.

For me, give (呉) just refuses to sink in. No idea why. I must have failed it at least 5 or 6 times within the past few days alone.

I didn't really have trouble with the same ones as you TaylorSan so I can't really help you out too much :-(

For lock, though, I think of:

a lump of *metal* being so *determined* (imagine it concentrating so hard it looks like its constipated) not to open up that it can only be a LOCK.

TaylorSan Wrote:Top 5 Pain in the Ass Kanji
Currently at 2042 as of 3 weeks ago, with 16,259 total reviews

徳 benevolence -5/16
穂 ear (of a plant) -6/13
導 guidance -6/12
錠 lock -8-12
個 individual -7-12

For guidance, make sure you understand than in the bizarre world that is kanji, the guidance signs are attached underneath the roadway, rather than above it. It's one weird kanji, so it needs a weird story. (How about, "In kanji-land, you have to drive upside down to see the roadway guidance."?) Or something like that.

mafried Wrote:harhol, how did you extract that list out of Anki?

No extracting, I just went Edit >> Browse Items and sorted them by Ease using the drop down menu at the top right.

For guidance, I just think of a Sat Nav keeping you GLUED to the ROADWAY. Someone else's story I think, but it works for me.

Up to 2042:
343 詰 packed 4
330 攻 aggression 3
390 堤 dike 3
435 帝 sovereign 3
824 職 post (location) 3

I got a lot more 3's though.

Pass Fail
984 儀 ceremony 10 11
1398 御 honorable 7 11
450 混 mix 18 9

Mix I finally got to stick (in box 6 now), still working on the others!

Ha! Interesting question. Here's my five:

403 猿 monkey 17
402 遠 distant 15
690 扱 handle 13
946 算 calculate 13
866 励 encourage 12

I've finally got monkey and calculate down, I think. I've got some kind of mental block with the others, but I've learned that with repetition even the most stubborn kanji can be learned.

160 均 level 6
117 砂 sand 5
135 願 petition 5
154 垣 hedge 5
175 墨 black ink 5

Since whend did we get an onyomi column? Awesome!

Level is... odd.

I keep on switching the primitives in sand to few boulders, not boulders few

Petition I would also switch, and then I came up with "metal head" to remember "meadow head"

Hedge is always a bit weird

I forget that dirt comes under for black ink, and hopefully my lastest revision will correct that

discipline 修 5/14
diligence 勤 6/18
genuine 純 6/19
rejoice 喜 5/16
distribute 配 6/19

*sorted by ease*

They don't like mee. ;; Not sure why I miss these, I can think of all the sentences fine whenever I'm not being tested on them.

916 誘 entice 5
799 常 usual 4
278 導 guidance 3
304 冠 crown 3
606 恩 grace 3

Nearly all of these I seem to know the story well as soon as I give up and flip the card over. Especially entice, great story but I seem to get it mixed up with beckon and seduce. Usual also gave me a lot of trouble, despite the obvious story: 'as usual, there's no TP in the outhouse, so I have to use a towel'.
Guidance I keep screwing up by putting the glue ON the road instead of under it. Grace, I just don't seem to be able to grasp at all. I have trouble making a good story from cause and heart.

It's interesting when I look at others' failed kanji: there seems to be little consistency. Most of those I find quite easy. Another thing I've noticed is that the singularly unusual kanji, like flower pot, tile, doubt, and dissolve, seem to be much easier than many of the 2-primitive kanji where one of the primitives is used very frequently (e.g. the multitude of person and thread kanji).

392 延 prolong 4
866 励 encourage 4
1226 柔 tender 4
1232 引 pull 4

Funny, it seems that the set of most failed kanji is pretty individual for all who have posted here. I actually expected to see some significant overlaps...

digicult Wrote:916 誘 entice 5
799 常 usual 4
278 導 guidance 3
304 冠 crown 3
606 恩 grace 3

Nearly all of these I seem to know the story well as soon as I give up and flip the card over. Especially entice, great story but I seem to get it mixed up with beckon and seduce. Usual also gave me a lot of trouble, despite the obvious story: 'as usual, there's no TP in the outhouse, so I have to use a towel'.
Guidance I keep screwing up by putting the glue ON the road instead of under it. Grace, I just don't seem to be able to grasp at all. I have trouble making a good story from cause and heart.

Mark GRACE used to play for the Chicago Cubs. If ever there was a lost CAUSE, it would be the Cubs. And GRACE is what you need if your HEART constantly "supports" a lost CAUSE.

There. No more problem.

squeaky_lill_mk Wrote:392 延 prolong 4
866 励 encourage 4
1226 柔 tender 4
1232 引 pull 4

Funny, it seems that the set of most failed kanji is pretty individual for all who have posted here. I actually expected to see some significant overlaps...

I expected more as well. But clearly there isn't much of a pattern. Surprised you have trouble with PULL, though. To me, it's nearly a pictogram. But everyone visualizes differently.

now that I saw about that on anki, most of my top 5 failed kanji are from the beginning of the book...hm...
晶 - at the beginning I used to put 2 suns above and one down, nowadays I put the sun avove to small, so I prefer to mark 'fail'
賄 - hm...it was a surprise actually...
韻 - I always miss this one because of the order...
栓 - for some reason I always think of the whirlwind primitive here
唱 - same with 'sparkle', sometimes I put the mouth too big, or the sun above bigger than the sun below...

I forgot the bottom of 躑 yesterday.

I am a failure

i've a 10-way tie for first place :S
了 complete (confuse with 全)
泉 spring (I always put the "simple" version of the water primitive under, like the one used on 原)
黙 silence
柱 pillar
舎 cottage
越 surpass (i tend to use float instead of parade)
帝 sovereign
乾 drought
達 accomplished (funny how i can always remember how to write たち (as in 僕達 or 友達), but fail this one all the time, the keyword just won't stick.)
還 send back

all of those have just 2 fails, which is way less than i expected.

my most failed? I seem to have a lot of trouble with 稲 (rice plant) - probably because I keep expecting it to have the primitive for rice in it, but it doesn't - it has the primitive for wheat in it. Now that I've written this post, I'm hoping I remember writing it, and that it will help me to remember what my problem with it was.

1954 嘱 entrust
1980 験 verification
1813 触 contact
1575 棒 rod
1864 伺 pay respects

Aijin Wrote:I forgot the bottom of 躑 yesterday.

I am a failure

I can say that 躑躅 are probably among my most failed kanji as well, frankly because I've never bothered trying to remember the stories I created for them, how often do you need to write 'azalea' anyway?