At the end of April I "finished" RTK1. By mid June I was doing well, reviews were going nice, SRS/mining was going good, I was in full swing.......

Then I had to leave my comfortable life of Japanese study for a fishing job in Alaska. All Japanese study was effectively put on ice.......

The only thing I had with me was my notebooks where I created my original RTK stories. At the very least I planned to read through them, in the hope that it would stop some of it from disappearing. I DIDN"T DO IT! Yeah, I know, STUPID move on my part! At first I spent a little time looking at them, but eventually stopped altogether. I lacked the motivation (boring as hell) to go through the notebooks. I also was working my ass off during the peak of the season (for a few weeks only getting to sleep for 1-2 hours at a time, 2x a day, and working the rest). I'm not making excuses or anything, just relating the situation. After the season ended I was busy traveling and seeing friends/family, and never got back in the groove. I had an amazing summer, but my RTK/J studies took a nasty nosedive!

So now I'm back, and ready to reclaim the mountain that is Japanese! But after a grueling uphill battle (over 18,000 reviews), I find myself in a pretty sad place. With 1700+ reviews due I took a crack at it, just to see how bad it was. I knew it wouldn't be pretty, but after about 200, I had only passed 13. 13!!!!!! Most of them I had something there in my head for, often most of a story, but not enough to pass.

So I deleted my deck. I think I need to start over. I think it will go relatively quickly. In some buried part of my mind I KNOW THIS STUFF! I think I could go over my stories and do 100+ a day. But I'm wondering if you people think it's worth it. In the SRS when I learn real Japanese, a lot of the time the Heisig key word doesn't play much of a role (if any). Being familiar with the Kanji is a huge benefit, but the key words themselves......

Is it worth it to reinvest re-learning keywords again, even if it goes super fast? Should I re-do RTK with Japanese key words (I'm guessing someone has made a J-key word anki deck I can perhaps grab)? Or should I just focus on catching up my SRS (which I'm sure has also brutally suffered) and perhaps look up kanji here as I go? Perhaps someone out there has been through this themselves, and can offer a creative solution. I know I can get back on the horse, I just am wondering how best to proceed, so I can get back to learning new Japanese in the the most efficient way possible. I figure I need to reclaim what I lost before I can add new stuff.....

I know some of you probably have first hand experience with a situation like this. You lived it, and got through to the other side. Please help me, as I'm feeling some serious study vertigo, and I'm not sure how best to proceed.

ありがとうございます!

First: Don't Panic!!!

With over 18'000 reps already done, you have already learned a lot and just because you got a bad result when you tried to get started again doesn't mean you have forgotten everything. It's just that it's hard to get started again. Each kanji will have primitives that you haven't written in months so you make lots of mistakes but once you get used to it again it will get better.

Just start again without stressing yourself too much at a comfortable pace. At the same time, since it won't be nearly as difficult as the first time, just learn more real Japanese. It's important for motivation to be learning new things.

But I don't recommend getting rid of the keywords, don't make things more difficult than they have to be. Just start at a steady pace again and things will sort themselves out.

Hi
This is my personal opinion...then do whatever you want
For not overwhelming yourself restart with the english keywords,you have to refresh a lot of kanji and the difficult ones will be after 800 or so...maybe now you want to do the rtk a little more speedy, as it is the second time
This is not the most beneficial task but the more handy in your situation
I'm redoing rtk for the second time and I'm at 1500 but for me doing it with japanese keywords was too much
ｶﾞﾝﾊﾞｯﾃﾖ

Codexus Wrote:Don't Panic!!!

Haha, to be sure (makes me think of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy LOL). I'm trying to be Zen about the whole thing.

cescoz Wrote:With over 18'000 reps already done, you have already learned a lot and just because you got a bad result when you tried to get started again doesn't mean you have forgotten everything. It's just that it's hard to get started again. Each kanji will have primitives that you haven't written in months so you make lots of mistakes but once you get used to it again it will get better.

Very true. Many of the cards I knew the story (or some vague version of it), but could not remember how to draw the primitives. As soon as I failed it I when "oohhh yeah, I KNOW THAT!". I really haven't forgotten or the information, it's just....... elusive.

cezcoz Wrote:maybe now you want to do the rtk a little more speedy, as it is the second time

Yes I have the stories written down in note books, so I think I can go through it and relearn (or use them to help find them in my mind) the primitives, in order (sequentially rebuilding).

cezcoz Wrote:I'm redoing rtk for the second time and I'm at 1500 but for me doing it with japanese keywords was too much

Yes sounds like good advice. I knew there was someone out there who has been in my shoes, and tried it. That's what I love about this forum.

Codexus Wrote:Just start again without stressing yourself too much at a comfortable pace. At the same time, since it won't be nearly as difficult as the first time, just learn more real Japanese. It's important for motivation to be learning new things.

Perhaps a time boxing type strategy would work. Do an hour (or more) of RTK, an hour of SRS, and add what I can. I think you are right about the importance of learning new stuff, it's just I don't want to make things too crazy. Part of my challenge is I'm also back in Uni after a 9 year absence, so the days of being able to study Japanese only are over.

I haven't quit to the point you describe, but I have "come back" with lots of expired kanji. So, I may have some perspective that might be right for you as well. I also have a smattering of japanese. I've been toying with the idea for some time of re-doing RTK in Japanese. The idea of deconstructing the kanji into components and having stories to relate them together is equally valid regardless of the language of the keywords and the language that the stories are in. But if you don't have the language for it, then it would defeat the beauty of the divide and conquer strategy of RTK.

But I haven't done that (yet). What I did do, was to commit to getting that expired stack down. So, Leitner is trying to get you to review at the cusp of forgetting, right? So, then I will review expired cards from the bottom boxes first, and let the better learned kanji in higher boxes go even longer. But I set a milestone of "10%" of the number of expired kanji to review each day, reducing that number by 10% each day.

I also kept the "failed" stack empty. Let me describe that. So, I'm working expired's, and some I do remember, even after to long, and so I advance them to the next box. Other's I fail. What I do with the failed, is I learn them, pretty quickly, since I already knew them once, and they quickly go to box #1. These will expire soon, and will be reviewed on schedule, see? Even though I have lots of expired ones, I still committed to have the newly readded ones reviewed on schedule, even as I chip away at the backlog of expired ones.

I finally got down to "no expired" and I was prepared to do all expired every day (and then I review them all together in "random" order).

I hope you find this comment helpful, and I do realize that "to each his own" and "your mileage may vary".

I got back in slightly differently. The 2nd time, I didn't feel like I needed to be in a rush to finish all of them again - you know the "must finish RTK before I can move onto sentences" kind of feeling. Instead I was already well into sentences and had no trouble continuing to do them while refreshing RTK.

Also, the 2nd time following the Heisig order is less important - since there's already a lot of familiarity with the primitives and the method. So, I started adding more based on priority than in RTK order.

First priority I wanted to add the kanji I needed for the vocab I was learning at the time - e.g. because they were in a sentence I was currently mining, so those kanji were the most useful to refresh first, and I also added kanji that were primitives used in those.

Second priority - going through the other kanji but with some frequency order because frequent kanji give the most bang for the buck. For this - I added the kanji in the RTK Lite list order first, and then started adding the rest.

@CharleyGarrett

Yeah I see how that could work well. But in a moment of weakness I deleted my deck. Kind of wish I hadn't done that. But thanks for the response.

@vosmiura

I think I will probably do something similar. One thing I used to do when creating my anki sentence deck was look up the Kanji here for the key word, and put it in the answer . It seemed to help sometimes, and when I get back into catching up on that end (I have been too busy to resume Nihongo stuff just yet) I may do it again, editing them in to the sentences I already have. It would refresh the RTK I'm using I suppose.

I think with the RTK I will just start at square one, using the Hesig order to rebuild the damn thing. I think my biggest problem may be not remembering how to draw many of the primitives, and it will not take much work to get 'em back. I think your right about not needing to feel rushed too. I think of Japanese as a marathon, not a sprint, and when you view it in perspective, RTK is a small (but important) part of the journey.

I just walked the dog and did my ritual MP3 listening session, and it came back pretty good. I think my initial reaction was "holy shit this is worse than I thought it'd be!", but getting my feet wet, and getting feedback here is bringing me back to earth.

All good advice my friends!