Hi,

This might be a stupid question, but... I'm about to start with RtK, but was wondering about the different meaning(s) of a kanji as a primitive. For instance, the kanji 月 for keyword "month" will take the meaning of "moon", "flesh" or "part of a body", when it's used as a primitive in another kanji. So, my question is: How do you study these meanings as primitve with SRS? Do you always add them to the story of the kanji in question or just put them into parenthesis after the keyword... or something else?

If I'd add meaning(s) as primitive to the story of the kanji, I guess it could eventually lead to a quite long stories (if the story lists the keyword, the element(s) and the meaning(s) as primitve).

The extra meanings that it can carry as a primitive are (from what I can tell) just to make it easier to make up stories for the different kanji, and sometimes to differentiate a primitive from a variant primitive, or to make a specific note about placement.

Just through doing the reviews and making up stories in which it has different meanings, you will get enough review to remember that it can be flesh or moon or body, etc. You won't have to take extra time to study the primitive meanings, they'll engrain themselves in your head so hard you'll have difficulty trying to forget them.

Learning the meanings of the primitives isn't important at all, don't worry about it. It's kanji you want to learn, not parts of kanji, the parts are just there to let you create them ^^

Ok, I kinda thought so, since I saw basically nobody incorporating those primitive meanings in to their stories. Thank you!

My beginning seems very encouraging, though. I studied 30 kanji yesterday, reviewed them once in Anki and had no trouble remembering how to draw them today. I guess it'll get more difficult later on, but it's still surprising. Now, if I could just come up with the stories a bit faster... although, this site is a big help in that regard.

Don't worry, it will never go any harder. There are few harder lessons, but that is only because of their length.