The last time I actually noticed how many cards I had was when I was at 500. Someone asked me what I why I was taking so long to write each character and I replied, "Hey, I have to deal with 500 of these things, cut me some slack." I've gotten to 1000 now, but it has taken me longer than I would have liked. I enjoyed every minute of it, but I still want to start making actual words.

I have a 95%+ or so recall rate, but sometimes it takes up to two minutes for me to remember how to write a character. I think this is because usually I write long, rambling stories that wouldn't make sense to anyone but me (I don't share these particular stories). I can eventually remember some part of these stories and write the character, but perhaps it would be better to write shorter stories that I either remember or don't.

I'm thinking it is better to move through more quickly at this point, so I'm starting to make my stories shorter. My new goal is to forget at least 20 characters per day.

I HAVE picked up the pase quite a bit lately.

This chart used to look like an exponential growth curve. Each successive pile had about twice as many cards as the pile before it.

Timebox, limit yourself to 10 - 20 seconds per card remembering. Otherwise, fail it.

hereticalrants Wrote:The last time I actually noticed how many cards I had was when I was at 500. Someone asked me what I why I was taking so long to write each character and I replied, "Hey, I have to deal with 500 of these things, cut me some slack." I've gotten to 1000 now, but it has taken me longer than I would have liked. I enjoyed every minute of it, but I still want to start making actual words.

I have a 95%+ or so recall rate, but sometimes it takes up to two minutes for me to remember how to write a character. I think this is because usually I write long, rambling stories that wouldn't make sense to anyone but me (I don't share these particular stories). I can eventually remember some part of these stories and write the character, but perhaps it would be better to write shorter stories that I either remember or don't.

I'm thinking it is better to move through more quickly at this point, so I'm starting to make my stories shorter. My new goal is to forget at least 20 characters per day.

It will get better when you actually start to learn, read and use kanji actively. Most of the kanji I know I didn't learn through Heisig, but because I've seen them a million times I can remember off the top of my head how to write them.

Right now you're just writing little symbols that don't really mean anything other than the keywords attached to them; they have no context and are completely disconnected from anything substantial. I think, when you actually start dealing with words and sentences, the character will become more concrete in your mind and you'll be able to produce them more easily.

I think it's pretty typical for learners to stick to just learning the kanji exclusively, and then move onto words, but if you want to start learning vocabulary, I say just do it. I think you'll be able to remember your kanji better if you start actually using the kanji.

Yeah, obviously I remember the kanji that I have learned to read by watching music videos (歌詞付き） a lot more quickly, but I like the Heisig system, and I want to get through the common kanji first.

To do it more quickly, I've just decided I'm going to spend a lot less time writing stories and accept that I'm going to have a lower retention rate.

If I'm drawing a complete blank, I fail the card within 10 seconds, but usually I have some fragment of a story to latch onto...the problem is that my stories are so long, that's not enough, so I've found myself sitting in the position that Heisig describes for the character "enlightenment" for extended periods.

I think I've only actually written that character twice, but I remember it as well as any of them


Ok, leechblock is telling me that I only have 2 more minutes on the forums this week... Time to go back to the kanji...

[Katsuo]

Heisig mentions somewhere in the book about closing your eyes and focussing on the main elements. After writing down a story, I often follow it with a short summary phrase that includes the keyword and primitive names. This is useful for speedy recall, and if I need to resort to the detailed story it's still there in memory.

I've been doing that since around kanji number 700.

I seem to be doing very well at forgetting the character 払.

Seriously, this small little kanji is mocking me.

It's almost as bad as the character for complete, 了, which I have failed repeatedly despite it only having 2 strokes.

hereticalrants Wrote:I seem to be doing very well at forgetting the character 払.

Seriously, this small little kanji is mocking me.

It's almost as bad as the character for complete, 了, which I have failed repeatedly despite it only having 2 strokes.

No worries, both are very common so you won't forget them anymore once you're done with RtK and jump into real Japanese.

I´m already in real Japanese (audio) most of the time now, but yeah, I know what you mean.


UPDATE: My stories are significantly shorter and my retention rate has dropped to 85%.

I'm about to commence a "kanji-a-minute" experiment. If retention rate is lower than 75% I won't continue it.
We'll see if I can cut daily study time down to one hour. Review time remains at about two and a half (while watching Japanese music videos/whatever).

In general, forgetting more will allow you to remember more with an SRS.

2 minutes is way too long. 20 seconds or fail.

I've had some difficulty lately with reviews requiring an irritating degree of effort . I have a sense that part of this is that the printed and brush 楷書 styles of RTK isn't really suited for pen writing. So, I've started imitating the handwritten style in the Yamasa dictionary (which, as near as I can tell is similar to 行書, but adapted for pen/pencil).

It sounds like raw writing speed isn't the issue in your case, but perhaps having something easier to write will make them easier to remember. Kanji are gestures, not just images.

I don't really know though; I haven't experimented enough to say something definite.

2 minutes trying to puzzle out a character? Fail it!
When I was doing RTK I failed a character if I couldn't remember it within about 5 seconds.

hereticalrants Wrote:I'm about to commence a "kanji-a-minute" experiment.

Failure. There is simply not enough time to get a strong image in one minute, and trying to do so defeats the whole system of learning by imaginitive memory that Heisig developed.

FAIL!

hereticalrants Wrote:

hereticalrants Wrote:I'm about to commence a "kanji-a-minute" experiment.

Failure. There is simply not enough time to get a strong image in one minute, and trying to do so defeats the whole system of learning by imaginitive memory that Heisig developed.

When I sit down and learn new kanji I ususally do each one in under a minute for about 20-30 minutes. Then I spend another half hour reviewing those stories until I get them down and add them to my anki deck.

So I guess I get 1 kanji 2 minutes.

1-3 minutes is what I usually spend on my kanji. Quick question. After you can recall a kanji quickly without going through your story in a review, should you still go through the story after you've finished the kanji without it? It seemed that's what Heisig said in his book, but I thought that the good thing about his method was that once you can recall the kanji you should just let the story fall out of your mind naturally, and no longer need it/use it. It seems like he's telling you to go out of your way to remember the story even if you didn't need it. Some advice from people who finished the book would be helpful.

iirc Heisig says the stories are a temporary crutch which will fall by the wayside. It's been awhile since I did RTK and I sold my books ($60 for vol1+2!) so I can't confirm it though.

BooTheGhost Wrote:1-3 minutes is what I usually spend on my kanji. Quick question. After you can recall a kanji quickly without going through your story in a review, should you still go through the story after you've finished the kanji without it? It seemed that's what Heisig said in his book, but I thought that the good thing about his method was that once you can recall the kanji you should just let the story fall out of your mind naturally, and no longer need it/use it. It seems like he's telling you to go out of your way to remember the story even if you didn't need it. Some advice from people who finished the book would be helpful.

What's important is that you do recall your story during your first few reviews, even if you can write the kanji without story, because you'll notice that when it's been 2 or 3 weeks and it comes up again, you can't remember it. The only reason you can remember it without the story is because it's the first or second review and it's very close to when you learnt it.

What Heisig means is: recall the story during the first few reviews, even if you don't need it, and you'll find that after a number of reviews you'll need the story less and less; first it falls apart to the elements and after a while you don't even need those anymore. If you still need the story then, it's always easy to recall, since you know the story very well too.

I always make sure I remember the stories, there's no reason to forget it. If I forget it and can still easily write the kanji on the 5th review, sure, I'm not going to fail the kanji. But as long as I can remember the story on review, I try my best to do so.

Jarvik7 Wrote:iirc Heisig says the stories are a temporary crutch which will fall by the wayside.

Absolutely.

However, at the beginning, you want to remember the story... you want to get the kanji into your long term memory before you let the story die, or you will have to start over when it turns out that the interval was too long and you don't have ANY fragment of a story or kanji left to work with.

It's easier if the story makes you laugh

You'll still forget it eventually, but certainly not in the first few reviews, and if you ever forget the kanji you'll have this nice funny story that you can go back to.

Even if a story isn't funny, I find that it livens up the reviews, anyway. Wouldn't it be really boring to do 200 reps of (keword->kanji,keword->kanji,keword->kanji,keword->kanji,keword->kanji, etc.) without any stories in there?

aberu Wrote:Timebox, limit yourself to 10 - 20 seconds per card remembering. Otherwise, fail it.

I think guy has the right idea. When I used to use Anki I would fail any card I couldn't remember in about 5 seconds, if not 3.

I don't always remember the kanji within 10 seconds. Sometimes it takes me a bit longer to remember one of the elements. But I know I know it, so I just think a bit longer and usually it comes back to me. That means a pass to me, and not a fail.

Ahhh, but often the characters I remembered the most quickly were the ones that I forgot on the next review.

Also, it was just as Koos83 says... I failed a card immediately if I had no clue how to write it. Oftentimes I could have answered the others more quickly, but I was distracted by the Japanese television program I was watching.

I'm going back to what I was doing before. All of this buisiness of trying to speed the process up is just sucking the fun out of it.