BooTheGhost Wrote:Also, when do you do your first review? I've read a lot of different opinions on the forums and it seems most people do it right after they're first done, but a lot of people consider it better for long term retention to wait a day before doing your first review?
I review just learned kanji on the same day because newly learned cards are easily forgotten.
Also I only learn 15~20 at a time before reviewing. I might learn 40 in one day but split them into 2 "learn > review" batches. I do this because "recency and latency" effects mean that, in a study session, the brain tends to remember the first and last things best. This means the stuff in the middle is more likely to be forgotten. Smaller batches mean I remember more on the first review. I don't think this really makes a difference to long term retention but it feels better getting higher first review scores!
I spend, on average, 10 minutes learning each kanji (creating or selecting story > 1st review > restudying failed cards). Perhaps I spend too long on each but I find it's important to try and create a good story at the outset. If I change a story because I keep failing it, I often find the old story interferes with recall of the new story. That's generally not a big problem though. After a few reviews with the new story the old one is eventually forgotten. Sometimes a strange thing happens whereby, when I first ditch a failing story, I find I can suddenly remember it on the next view but cannot recall the new story. It's almost as if the old story is begging not to be discarded! On one or two occasions, I've actually gone back to the old story!
If you don't like the Heisig story or there isn't one, try and create your own story. If nothing comes to mind, you can almost always a good or even brilliant one on the study page.
If you do a lot of new cards each day, a lot of the cards which come up for review each day will inevitably be unfamiliar ones. These ones are easy to forget. And since you've just started out, many of them are still newly learnt so don't worry too much about your review score. I normally get 70~90% in my reviews. I don't worry if I fail recently added cards. It's only a problem if I keep failing a card. One thing I find useful is to peruse the list which appears immediately after completing a review session. This shows how many times you have passed and failed a card. I check this looking for cards which I've recently failed frequently. This indicates a story which needs more work - either tweaking or discarding for a new one. Sometimes seemingly good stories just keep failing on me for no obvious reason. You can't easily predict whether or not a story will work until you've given it a "test drive" of at least a few reviews. Even stories which keep failing will, if you really like them, eventually "stick" if you persist.
There are many kanji which have similar meanings so Heisig inevitably has to choose similar keywords. As you progress through the cards you will encounter these more and more. For example: pick up (667), pick (733), pluck (1106). You will inevitably get some of these confused. When this happens, I compare the problem pair during restudy.
I'm on around 1900 now and the ability of the human mind to remember so many separate stories amazes me. Sometimes, if I review when I'm tired, I score lower (50-60%). And sometimes I will fail a kanji that I've reviewed correctly many times (and has therefore moved up to box 6 or so). Again, no worries; some of these ones will inevitably be forgotten since they haven't come up to review for weeks.
I also often fail to recognise already learnt kanji "in the wild". But this is improving steadily.
Finally, as others have mentioned, do them at a pace you are comfortable with. I don't set a target per day. I just do as many as time and energy permits. You need to take into account the number of review cards too as this will eat into the time available for learning new ones. The reviews are vital for memorisation so, if you're too busy, prioritise the reviews, even if it means you add no new cards on some days. This last few days I've been adding around 35 new cards per day and the expired card stack has been around 95 per day. That size of expired stack takes some time to review and restudy.
If there are times when I feel a bit disappointed with my retention rate, I just put it into perspective and recall my retention rate before I discovered Heisig. I used to forget virtually all the kanji I tried to learn. Learning 2000 + seemed like fantasy. Now it's a realistic goal which I'm getting closer to every day- bit by bit.
