I just started studying RTK yesterday and I've got 94 kanji in. After the first the review, I have a 100% retention of all that I have learned, but I have used no stories. Should I start creating stories out of practice or is it ok to learn RTK without them?

o_O!

I guess if you have a photographic memory, there's no need for stories!

Ok thanks, I didn't know if that was typical for the first hundred.

the first few are easy because there's not much to confuse them with. Once you get more kanji piling up, it'll get harder. Another pitfall is when it gets really far in the SRS and you completely forget what the keyword means. This happened to me recently, all the old ones came up and I failed a few ("pile up?" "texture"? what is that???)

Guess the question is how are you testing yourself? Is it being shown the keyword then drawing out the kanji (pen or in the air or whatever)?

Plus, don't forget the initial review can have a high pass rate as you just learned the material. If you're still retaining after 3 or 7 or 14 days, then you know if you are memorizing them. In addition, as more kanji get added on then the real test of memorization comes into play.

Also, when you say no stories, do you mean you're not using even the ones provided by Heisig in his books?

Yes, I am using the stories in Heisig's book. I write down the Kanji and the keyword and then read the story. I was just wondering how important developing your own story was? Sorry for the misunderstanding.

You'll need stories. It's what the method is about. Otherwise we'd all just be memorizing Kanji dictionaries.

Most of my stories come from this site. Some people say it's best to use your own (which it probably is), but I haven't found any trouble using the ones presented here. They work for me...

If it works, it works. Most of my stories are tailored or flat out copied from others. I also used most of Heisig's stories, with maybe a small handful that changed later for one reason or another (ex: to prevent conflict with a later primitive or story or problems with remembering).

afrobot16 Wrote:Yes, I am using the stories in Heisig's book. I write down the Kanji and the keyword and then read the story. I was just wondering how important developing your own story was? Sorry for the misunderstanding.

I used stories from the book for most of the first 250 kanji. For the rest I got maybe 90% from shared stories, 10% of my own. If they work for you, there's no reason to make your own. Eventually you'll get a feel for what works for you.

I feel that after 1800 the stories don't mean much, as long as: (1) you understand them, (2) the mapping to primitives is apparent to you or outright in the story and (3) use an SRS methodology.

At first I felt that the story had to be perfect in every way, but later found some that just plain suck also worked as well. Mine are mostly from this site and less than 5% are my own (esp for thread wherein I used bra/panties).