Sorry if this is not appropriate for this board or just plain annoying. Just figured id pop in with my current weeks experience with RTK. I discovered this book after reading through AJATT, and while I wont be using his main method of all japanese and no english, many of his methods like SRS and other methods he borrowed particularly from Antimoon I will be using.

considering only 3-4 days of actually input, I'm up to 150 kanji. These are my current correct answer stats in Anki:

Young cards: 90.2% (259 of 287)
First-seen cards: 86.0% (129 of 150)

At first I was a little worried since I really don't have that good of an imagination and i often find myself using other peoples sentences. I kept missing particular words because I couldn't even remember the story I had used even if I could remember all of the key words.

I did 2 full reviews even though I probably shouldn't have considering the whole point of SRS is spacing out the reviews (I really like this SRS thing though, will probably use it alot when I can finally get the money to go to college) and i realized that while some cards, it took a while for the story and the meaning to really stick, others just slid right in like a well lub...well you get the picture. particular ones like 召, 削 and 奇, Cant get this image of a big ol' mountain dog carrying a bunch of large needles in its mouth out of my head >_< It's as bad as 器. Do you realize how hard it is to imagine 4 St. Bernards holding forks and knives without laughing.

Is it common to not have all of them immediately stick? I'm wondering if I should really try sticking to this method even if all i get in the end is a 85-90% retention rate, or if i should just move on to KO2001 (which i was planning on doing after RTK anyway) Thank you in advance and sorry if these kinds of concerns have already been answered a million times.

For me personally I always had the idea of "Well if I can only remember 60-70 percent that is still almost 1300 kanji." That's not too bad if you figure you can finish RTK in six or so months EASILY. Also, again for me, I find KO2001 easier knowing all the meanings of the kanji, and it helps the readings stick better for me.

Not all the Kanji stuck for me at first. But slowly as I kept at my reviews I found that Kanji I didn't think I would ever get come to be easily now.

In the end it is really about whatever keeps you going. If you can get all the way to the end of RTK (it feels really great!) then by all means keep on truckin! But if you find that even the thought of the book makes you hate Japanese, then do something else with Japanese (just realize that if you want to come back to RTK you might have to start over). No two people will ever learn a language the same. Try lots of stuff and see what works best for you.

CrimsonDX Wrote:Is it common to not have all of them immediately stick?

For me: yes! If I have a "weak" story, I will forget the kanji (or its story) in the next review, but I put all those kanjis to restudy in a spreadsheet, and I try to create a better story that suits me. And even more interesting, for the kanjis I remember, the story will get better in my mind over time, without thinking about it. So don't worry about it

Thanks for the replies ^_^

I don't think I could ever hate Japanese. I'm not one of those people who just picked it up cause it looked cool or because i needed a language for school credit (Pretty much 90% of my classmates in Japanese back in highschool where like that). I was watching subtitled anime, reading manga and playing localized JRPGS/Visual Novels for years before I ever started learning Japanese. Don't think I'll ever be able to lose this goal of wanting to be able to enjoy these in their original state.

Guess I never really think about the "Well if I can only remember 60-70 percent that is still almost 1300 kanji." idea. Makes sense enough of these kanji are sticking that it should still be a good amount to start with.

"That's not too bad if you figure you can finish RTK in six or so months EASILY." I plan to finish it in or under two months. May have been off to a rocky start but I can easily get in 50+ a day, and i enjoy doing the reviews. It's an awesome feeling recognizing the kanji.

85-90% retention is good. Anything below that and you're not taking enough time formulating stories/visualizing them... You should never have a bunch with under 80% retention. Now keep in mind that "85% retention" doesn't mean you're only retaining 85% of the total - that's just 85% of the recent cards. As cards mature in your SRS, you'll be passing them a lot more. When you hit the end of RtK and you stop introducing cards, you will see the retention rate creep up to 90-95% (or higher). But there is an upper limit - that last 5-10% isn't worth the immense amount of time it would take to get to 100% retention.

As a general rule, accept 85-90% and move on to more learning material. You will pick up stragglers and such later - you'll encounter stuff over and over and over and eventually it'll be easy for you. Looking back at my notes from a year ago, I can't believe I didn't understand the stuff I was studying.

Also you should try to set a pace -a very consistent pace. Don't overdo it, either... if your pace is 30 kanji/day and you find you have a lot of free time one day and get in 100-150 kanji, you're going to get murdered by reviews for the next week. 25-30 per day is what I'd suggest, unless you have a LOT of free time. As much as you like doing reviews, you -will- get sick of going through hours of them every day for 2 months. 30/day gets you done in about 3 months, btw. Remember that the further you get into the book, the more the reviews will pile up. So while it feels like you can get a lot done now, your free time will slowly be eaten away by reviews and massive review stacks can kill your motivation.

"unless you have a LOT of free time"

I pretty much have nothing BUT free time. 6-7 hours of free time a day on days I work. Usually only work 4 days a week so that's 3 days of pretty much an entire day.

I can see how not keeping a consistent schedule could mess you up. Will definitely have to remember to keep it consistent. Definitely wont use those 3 non-work days to try and cram in 100 kanji >_>

Ben_Nielson Wrote:85-90% retention is good. Anything below that and you're not taking enough time formulating stories/visualizing them... You should never have a bunch with under 80% retention. Now keep in mind that "85% retention" doesn't mean you're only retaining 85% of the total - that's just 85% of the recent cards. As cards mature in your SRS, you'll be passing them a lot more. When you hit the end of RtK and you stop introducing cards, you will see the retention rate creep up to 90-95% (or higher).

Hm... for me I had around 93% retention when they were young, now as the space between reviews is on the order of months, it's dropped down to 83%, but I figure that's because I'm forgetting the english keywords a lot of the time, which doesn't affect my real japanese learning. Hopefully it'll go climb back up after the initial flurry of failures though.

Don't become obsessed with meaningless statistics. You're learning the kanji, that's all that matters.

I think the 'anything below 80% retention' comment is quite strange. For me, I notice it differs greatly. Usually I'm around 90-95% but there have also been days where it was 70%. Why that is, I can't say. I have noticed however, that the kanji you fail most, eventually become the kanji you know best, because you come across it so much.

Koos83 Wrote:Usually I'm around 90-95% but there have also been days where it was 70%.

Today it's saturday, I'm lazy but I keep on reviewing because the guy of AllJapaneseAllTheTime said that I must not stop, not even once. But I do it a bit reluctantly and I am at 65-70% when I usually achieve 90-95%. So... you're right

Quote:I have noticed however, that the kanji you fail most, eventually become the kanji you know best, because you come across it so much.

Once again you're right. This stupid kanji: 語, I hate it! I have no useful story for it! Of course I failed it at least 10 times, but as you say, it's one I know best.

Well, back to my (boring) reviews now...

Hmm my story for that kanji is: I say these words. But it took me a few times not to mix it up with the kanji for 'say'. Or was it 'word'? See, I go and mix them up again. XD

I would also caution against the idea that if you get below 80%, you're doing something wrong. You do often have bad days, I often get days where I hit 50%. All that does is show you which stories you need to develop more. RTK isn't about quality, it's about quantity As long as you keep chugging through the book, making sure that you have decent stories, you'll find yourself remembering them without a problem.

uh-oh...I think I was doing this whole thing wrong...I had the Kanji as the question and the story as the answer...Think I need to start over...

Now that I look at it this books is more for remembering how to write the kanji and understanding the radicals so it would obviously make more sense to see the story and then write out the kanji. If that's how this book is supposed to be used then it suddenly makes a hell of a lot more sense...*sweatdrop* A little confirmation would be helpful.

The main point is to be able to write the kanji out from memory, after seeing the keyword.

The stories are to help you get from the keyword to the kanji, until you know it well enough to not need it.

Dustin_Calgary Wrote:The main point is to be able to write the kanji out from memory, after seeing the keyword.

The stories are to help you get from the keyword to the kanji, until you know it well enough to not need it.

*sweatdrop* Just as I figured...wow, what a blunder... Looks like I have a lot of stories and cards to revise. Back to square 1 I guess but oh well. Now this whole book makes a lot more sense to me. Thank you for the clarification!

Anytime we are all new at some point.

Good luck with your studies

No, you're not really starting over. Exposure is the mother of learning. You've done good, and now you know how to do better. You've won a small victory. Really.

How many kanji had you learnt so far? :O

I was around the 150+ mark, so not too far in.

Oh phew!

Uhmpf, in my bad days I was getting 50%. In my good days I was getting 80%. You can do it!

語

Just write 日本語 (Ni-hon-go, Japanese, at the top of every page you write. Every page needs a title right!! Its a VERY common kanji.

Good luck!

I'm just starting myself, well.. I got to frame 300-something months ago and pretty much stopped on RTK. Since I started learning Japanese before I even knew of RTK, I'm much better at grammar than kanji so I've been able to keep up with reading stuff (yay furigana) so that I don't start forgetting stuff. But I'm starting to get aggravated with barely knowing any kanji and having a high intermediate level of grammar knowledge. So, time to start this back up again.

頑張りましょう

Koos83 Wrote:I think the 'anything below 80% retention' comment is quite strange. For me, I notice it differs greatly. Usually I'm around 90-95% but there have also been days where it was 70%. Why that is, I can't say. I have noticed however, that the kanji you fail most, eventually become the kanji you know best, because you come across it so much.

Are you me??? I don't think I could have described my own study habits any better than this post.

jajaaan Wrote:

Koos83 Wrote:I think the 'anything below 80% retention' comment is quite strange. For me, I notice it differs greatly. Usually I'm around 90-95% but there have also been days where it was 70%. Why that is, I can't say. I have noticed however, that the kanji you fail most, eventually become the kanji you know best, because you come across it so much.

Are you me??? I don't think I could have described my own study habits any better than this post.

Haha! Yes, I am your long-lost twin.

I think this goes for most people though. This morning I was quite surprised to get a 72% pass rate, since I'm home sick.

I think it also depends on what you mark as 'failed'. I mark it as failed if I have to look at the story (which some people mark as pass) or if I forget one little stroke, or if don't put the components in the right place, or if I can remember the story but not how to write the component (had that this morning with one of the 'banner' kanji; I couldn't recall how to write the banner, so it was failed, even though I could remember my story and every other component). It's all a matter of how strict you are with yourself. Sometimes I think: I'm never going to remember all of them, I keep forgetting them. But as long as my pass rate isn't as low as 10% or so, I can regain the confidence.