I can't do this without little stories now but it's really harsh that we can't make up our own flash card tests, and also I wish there was another web site like this one but the format of the second book - and does it work??? I need to know because I am failing at this second stage. I hope someone knowS A triCK :0

Download ANKI and you can make your own flashcards. http://ichi2.net/anki/

Edit:

Also if the second book isn't working for you then don't use it. Try a different method that works for you. I'm not going to do RTK2 myself. I'm just going to put sentences into my SRS. You could always try that.

Use Anki and try the shared deck called "RTK 1 and 3 w Kanji Definition and Yomi", it has the usual "keyword->kanji" cards, but it also has "kanji->readings" cards at the end of the deck (is this what you're looking for?)

oh thank you; I do HAVE to use RTK II because it's part of my course and we are tested every week,, last year when we did Kanji I got almost 95% average in the tests and this year I'm flunking a bit,,, can't think of a way to remember sounds with stories; we are only on the pure groups at the moment, going at about 130 or so a week, but I'm not remembering.... Anyway I'll look at this Anki now thank you!

oh dear I don't think this is quite what I need - what is this Kanji Village idea I hears someone mention?

Here, here and here.

I have no idea what RTK II is like, but I had an idea for just such an occasion of having to memorize large amounts of vocab...

There are only 50 or so letters in hiragana, right, and all words can be made up of them. You could try assigning nouns to Japanese words that start with all of the letters, and then making mnemonics/stories out of those (being sure to associate them with the keywords). For example, か＝漢字、き＝木、で＝電話，and so on. I'd also try using adjectives for composite vowel sounds - such as お＝おかしい for use in words like 大きい which have extended/altered sounds. Make sense?

Disclaimer: I haven't actually tried this on a large scale... yet. Such techniques have been used effectively though in similar tasks (e.g. children learning European language vocabularly).　

unicornpuddlefoot Wrote:oh thank you; I do HAVE to use RTK II because it's part of my course and we are tested every week,, last year when we did Kanji I got almost 95% average in the tests and this year I'm flunking a bit,,, can't think of a way to remember sounds with stories; we are only on the pure groups at the moment, going at about 130 or so a week, but I'm not remembering.... Anyway I'll look at this Anki now thank you!

What course are you doing and where are you studying, if you're using RtKII? That's quite unusual.
Was RtkI part of curriculum last year?

Remember Alaska?

donjorge22 Wrote:I have no idea what RTK II is like, but I had an idea for just such an occasion of having to memorize large amounts of vocab...

There are only 50 or so letters in hiragana, right, and all words can be made up of them. You could try assigning nouns to Japanese words that start with all of the letters, and then making mnemonics/stories out of those (being sure to associate them with the keywords). For example, か＝漢字、き＝木、で＝電話，and so on. I'd also try using adjectives for composite vowel sounds - such as お＝おかしい for use in words like 大きい which have extended/altered sounds. Make sense?

Disclaimer: I haven't actually tried this on a large scale... yet. Such techniques have been used effectively though in similar tasks (e.g. children learning European language vocabularly).　

This is actually basically the same idea that Schultz (of Tokyo Damage Report, a great Japan-related blog) used in his Kanjidamage dictionary:

http://www.hellodamage.com/top/kanjidamage/

I actually used his dictionary instead of Heisig, and learned a common onyomi for most of the jouyou kanji at the same time I learned the writings. It's not infallible, of course, but it absolutely helps in recalling the readings of many jukugo. Also, it's really not much more work if you start it from the beginning, so why not?

I think Schultz's dictionary is a great resource and one I wish would be more widely used. The only difference is he matches up English words with the readings, and essentially they act just like another radical in the mnemonic. For example かん is Genghis Khan, and こう is cocaine. Since these two are pretty common, you end up having a whole lot of stories that involve Genghis Khan or cocaine--fortunately these are pretty memorable topics.

Also his dictionary is just funny as hell, and alleviates some of the boredom of going through the kanji. He has his own commentary on some words and kanji, and he renames some radicals and add some of his own; these include "orgy", "Hitler", "kick in the nuts", "take a dump", "guy with two dicks", etc. Sounds juvenile, maybe, but believe me these are quite easy to remember. I finished going through his dictionary earlier this summer and am very happy the results. Check it out!