Hi, I'm currently on the trek in completing RTK1. I'm at the 659th characters and seem to retain over 85% of them. But now I'm in part 3 of the book, I'm having some difficulty creating short stories or imageries. I'm wondering, is there such a thing on relying too much on other people's stories and imageries? I do modify them a bit to my imagination. Also, does it help writing down the stories, or is it a waste of time?

In my experience so far, I have found that using other people's stories work best for me (maybe I'm just too lazy), but it takes at least a couple of reviews to kick the newly-learned kanji up to at least an 85% retention rate. RTK1 gets tougher when Heisig no longer provides stories, but you will soon get used to choosing or forming your own stories. I have felt no need to write down any stories, as I believe that doing so will waste time. (After all, the purpose of RTK1 is to use imaginitive memory to remember the kanji, not use rote memorization to remember stories to remember kanji).

As a side note, you will find that as you progress through RTK1 you will meet difficult primitives, some of which helpful members have altered in order to make things easier to learn. This is especially true from around kanji number 1000 and onwards. After all, the goal is to remember the meanings of kanji, not the primitives.

Good luck and don't give up!! =)

There is no problem with relying on the stories of other people. In fact, I rarely came up with a story of my own, and used other people's stories (found on this site) almost exclusively.

I even use the stories on this site now, and I've only learnt 300. I sometimes find the stories Heisig comes up with too vague, and since I wasn't raised religiously I also don't get all the biblical references. Some stuck with me from religion education in primary school, but a lot of them are lost on me.

Some of the stories on this site also crack me up, and it makes it easier for me to remember them. I read one about 'desk' which is the primitives 'tree' and 'wind' and someone wrote: 'When I sit at my desk I always get wood and break wind.' That is totally inappropriate, but it made me laugh so hard I never have any trouble remembering it now.

I say: go with the stories. Over time, you don't need the stories and images anymore and the kanji just comes to you on its own.

I slighlty differ in opinion from the above 3 posters and would say try use your own stories where possible. I became lazy the further in to the book I went and simply started copying "good" stories for many kanji. I have much lower recall rates for these kanji.

However, having said that, do make use of the (many great) stories/tips of other users. The key though is to make sure the image/story is vivid for you personally. What may be a great story for some may not necessarily work for you.

I'd second Rooboy.

On the second time round with RTK, I spend about 15 mins relaxing on the sofa dreaming up stories for the next 20 kanji before allowing myself to input into SRS. I normally come up with some weird stories that work for me (although I guess they'd be nonsense to most people...)

Sometimes one story from the Study page jumps out at me as a good one, but normally I much prefer using my own.

But then again if you like another person's story, no reason not to use it if you think it will work well

edsmaffs Wrote:I'd second Rooboy.

On the second time round with RTK, I spend about 15 mins relaxing on the sofa dreaming up stories for the next 20 kanji before allowing myself to input into SRS. I normally come up with some weird stories that work for me (although I guess they'd be nonsense to most people...)

Sometimes one story from the Study page jumps out at me as a good one, but normally I much prefer using my own.

But then again if you like another person's story, no reason not to use it if you think it will work well

Hey edsmaffs, do you still use the RTK review program on kanji koohi, or do you prefer an SRS program like Anki?

I use both, I've just restarted RTK1. This probably won't last long though.

What I found when I had many cards added was that I was being swamped with twice as many reviews as I would have liked. I decided to stick with Anki because I'd had a formatting system set up that allowed me to automatically have the stories written in white so I could read them if I wanted. Unfortunately due to a computer crash (Vista...) I lost it all and had to reinstall OS. Hence me restarting RTK, using the Sync feature on Anki and trying to get onto a Linux system ASAP.

My advice would be to pick one or the other and stick with it. I prefer Anki because it's easier to personalise the formatting and such, although it can be quite a long time before you next see a new card. The review system on here has the blue lesson boxes, which can be nice and motivating

And this site is easier to access from any computer as well. Fabrice is good to us