So I get back from a 10 day vacation where I did no reviews, cos I couldnt.

At the 700kanji mark my retention rate is terrible. Like, 40%. I only remember the kanji I studied the "traditional" way. I do really want to continue this method but im soo totally unmotivated.

Maybe Ill remove kanji 400-700 from the anki and relearn them

bah

I'm kind of in the same boat. I just added 200 cards in like 3 days (100 one day, then 100 2 days later) but I'm getting like 33% right on them. But what I'm doing is just failing the card without freaking out about it, if I remember the story when I see the kanji I try to focus on it a little bit, try to mentally remember some hook into the story from the keyword, and move on. If I can't even remember anything about the story I check the story again, then move on. The ones I get right move on to the next pile, and will be reviewed soon enough. The failed pile, I go through again just like before, not paying too much attention to how much I get right. I don't think I'll need to fail too many times in a row for them to start sinking in.

drivers99 Wrote:But what I'm doing is just failing the card without freaking out about it

This.

It'll take time, but you'll get through it.

just out of interest... are you guys making up your own stories for each and every kanji or do you just use whatever stories you find on here and make none of your own up?

mezbup Wrote:just out of interest... are you guys making up your own stories for each and every kanji or do you just use whatever stories you find on here and make none of your own up?

I have mixed stories. First I see if a story pops up in my head, but mostly I immediatly read through the stories on the website. If I still have not found a story that I like, i take some time to create one myself. Sometimes - after using a story for quite some review - somehow a new and personally better story pops up in my head, and then I'll use that one.

For the many very short stories, I feel that I somehow learned the sentence instead of using my imagination for that sentence. Now that I try to focus on my imagination playing with the primitives in my head, I have a better retention rate.

It's a good idea to give certain kanji more "thinking" time when you don't find a good story that fits you.

yeah, I made stories for about 1700 and I found so long as I did my reviews when I was meant to the retention stayed at 90%... but if say I learnt some and then didnt review for a week, the ones I had just learned were pretty much gone

My retention has always been low, at 60 to 75% usually but sometimes at 40% or less. I am at 1717 and had a pile of about 330 wrong, which I am still working on clearing. I have it down to 150 now and have not added anything new for 2-3 weeks. The way I did it was just use the stories on this site but I switched to making my own for all these wrong ones. Kind of late but I started trying to make more solid mental images, which I probably should have been doing from the start.

I think for the most part I just remembered the text of the story and the elements that went with the keywords without forming any kind of concrete image. It takes me a lot of time to make an image that I can recall out of memory in detail so I am not sure if it would have saved me time or wasted more time had I done it from the beginning. Sometimes it can take me close to 5min, which doesn't seem very practical. It is worth it for these kanji that I just can't seem to remember.

Also, I find that I can sometimes remember the story, the keyword positioning but I can't remember what the keyword actually refers to. I've started going ahead in the book and focusing only on the new primitives, and sometimes also coming up with my own primitives for kanji that I get wrong a lot that I can just go back to throughout the day and brute force memorize in advance before doing any new or relearning the wrong kanji with them.

Just an update for anyone interested. Im sure this post is the beginning of failure with this kind of thing.

2 weeks after I stopped reviewing, I just got on with it, reviewed all the expired cards, 70% retention, though I removed the upper 200 cards and Im working thru them now (albeit quickly).

Back on the wagon! Its fun!

alphie Wrote:Just an update for anyone interested. Im sure this post is the beginning of failure with this kind of thing.

2 weeks after I stopped reviewing, I just got on with it, reviewed all the expired cards, 70% retention, though I removed the upper 200 cards and Im working thru them now (albeit quickly).

Back on the wagon! Its fun!

Yay good work. The sooner the better.

My retention rates are usually from 80 to 100, but that's because I don't add many words per day (I fixed the number at 12 in order to complete the book by December 31th; of course I'm not doing just RTK, I'm also studying other stuff). I'm having some trouble with the kanji of the second part, maybe it's because I have not gotten used to it yet.

Its natural that you fail so bad. Whole purpose of this method is to see a new kanji very often (you fail it a lot) and with time you see it less and less. The easier kanji's will take less time, harder will take more.
Its not surprising that you fail miserably after adding a LOT of new kanji and then making your first review 10 days later.... You might as well not bother adding them at all.If you'd work normally through those 10 days I bet you'd not be seeing any of them soon.