Hello everyone!

I'm at about my 600th kanji at this point and I've been using reviewing the kanji up to this. However when I power up the computer to study kanji at this site I sense a feeling of boredom or tediousness as I start reviewing, kind of like "my god, does it ever end?". I was wondering if perhaps switching to anki would make any difference to it at all?

Is there anybody where who have tried both and prefer the other who might be able to help? Also, does anybody have any tips for making the studying a tiny bit more fun? I am going to experiment a bit with "chain story" sequences (please refer to this link: http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=5804 ) and am hoping it might spice things up a little bit.

Any ideas or suggestions are very welcome.

Thank you all in advance.

I used this site for reviewing before I ever used anki.
But I think this site is a bit better, because you have good integration with the stories, and ability to review your failed kanji. I did eventually move my data over to anki after completing rtk, but I think the features here on this site are very useful when you are initially learning it.

As far as the fun factor goes, I find anki to be even more dry and boring than this site.

I use anki, and I prefer it because of the mobile client - I can easily open it at random parts of the day and do small chunks, so that it's not that much of a drone.

The number of reviews will be about the same.

Zarxrax Wrote:As far as the fun factor goes, I find anki to be even more dry and boring than this site.

THIS SITE ISN'T DRY AND BORING!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OP, keep in mind you don't need to do RTK. If you're finding something dry and boring, you don't need to keep doing it. You can learn Japanese perfectly fine even if you don't do RTK.

Maybe you don't really want to learn kanji that much. It's okay to stop. It'll still be there if you ever decide to go back.

Maybe get some text books, some native materials, and just start trying to understand things. Maybe try using lingq. It's kind of fun/novel and interactive.

There are also plugins for anki like AnkiWarrior that make reviewing feel more like a game or competition.

Edit: I suggest you read some of the articles on AJATT. Khatz basically says that you shouldn't do things you don't enjoy. Maybe use anki and start a vocab/sentence/grammar deck, but only add words/sentences you really want to know. If you ever start to dislike a card, just delete it.

[ファブリス]

bertoni Wrote:The number of reviews will be about the same.

To expand on what bertoni said, forgive me for over-simplifying here: in general with Anki's more finegrained SRS you will tend to have more early reviews, and less reviews in the long run. So all in all, you won't see a big difference in terms of number of reviews.

However I think Anki added an option for "max reviews per day". Atm on this site you have to learn to set yourself some limits, for example review 20 minutes a day and don't stress if there are still "expired" cards. Remember these SRS's can't read your mind. They are simply tools that help optimize what time you have available.

partner55083777 Wrote:OP, keep in mind you don't need to do RTK. If you're finding something dry and boring, you don't need to keep doing it. You can learn Japanese perfectly fine even if you don't do RTK.

Maybe you don't really want to learn kanji that much. It's okay to stop. It'll still be there if you ever decide to go back.

Maybe get some text books, some native materials, and just start trying to understand things. Maybe try using lingq. It's kind of fun/novel and interactive.

There are also plugins for anki like AnkiWarrior that make reviewing feel more like a game or competition.

Edit: I suggest you read some of the articles on AJATT. Khatz basically says that you shouldn't do things you don't enjoy. Maybe use anki and start a vocab/sentence/grammar deck, but only add words/sentences you really want to know. If you ever start to dislike a card, just delete it.

I appreciate your words very much. But I have to learn Kanji. I'm starting formal Japanese classes this august when I start high school and I want to be as much prepared as possible. I am definitely going to keep using RTK because it simply is the best method for me at the moment, since I know absolutely squad Japanese, besides those few 600 kanji and the kana, and maybe a few sentences I picked up from YouTube.

It would be nice if I could simultaneously learn some of the readings and meanings of the kanji I have learned and will learn, but I don't know how I'm supposed to do it or if it will make me burn out completely. But just to get some variation, you know?

Can you use AnkiWarrior with reviewing the kanji or is it specifically a sentence deck? It would be awesome if I could practice kanji and conquer Japan at the same time!

But I'm nowhere near ready to start reading native material.

I've tried both this site and anki. While I do kinda like the Leitner system, I prefer automated SRS. There's less overhead on my part. It's not that this system isn't complex or efficient enough, it's just I'm focusing partly more on when to review kanji and stuff as opposed to the kanji themselves.

Anki won't necessarily make the reviews anymore enjoyable, though. That's just the nature of the beast. You'll have to find creative ways like Anki Emperor or Lazy Kanji Mod V2 (I highly recommend this). Lazy Kanji Mod V2 already has stories for every kanji (presumably mainly from this site and perhaps from a few other sources). Obviously if the story sucks or you don't like it, you make your own up, but I find I'm only doing that 1 in every 35 kanji or so.

Also, you can decide what primitives you wish to prioritize. For instance, (lesson 20, kanji #2) kanji frame 510 is burn, which is "fire" on the left and "sort of thing" on the right. If you are shaky on "sort of thing", you can simplify it down into "crescent moon", "chihuahua/dog", and "oven fire (or whatever you call this one)". I mean, if you already knew this tip, sorry, but if you didn't, I think it can help you be more flexible in remembering kanji that are like that.

By the way, are you just starting a general 101 class in high school? Or do you mean you're starting private lessons -during- high school? Because if you're just taking Japanese for the first time, knowing the kana and knowing that many kanji, plus knowing all those phrases, will easily carry you through at least a semester with no effort on your part. You might just learn some readings and very general kana words.

Or are you in, say, Australia, where you've already been studying Japanese for a while? If that's the case, I still wouldn't worry. Classes are pretty easy and any work you're doing outside of class probably won't apply heavily in-class, since they usually kinda suck and sorta focus on grammar and rudimentary language elements (or rote kanji memorization).

@Kirby115

Thank you for your detailed inquiry.

I live in Denmark and am taking Japanese classes within the high school system, first one year of basic Japanese classes and then another year which builds upon what I will learn the first year. I know for a fact that they will teach us 250 kanji the first year but that they probably won't teach us in the Heisig order, so I want to know as many kanji as possible to minimize time and effort spent on kanji in high school.

Anki Emperor (or AnkiWarrior) has been mentioned before and it sounds like a very creative way of making studying kanji a lot more fun, but can you use the RTK deck with this mod or is it exclusively a sentence deck? Also, can you combine Lazy Kanji Mod V2 with Anki Emperor for maximum laziness? That sure would make things a lot less bland.

I appreciate your help a lot. Keep all the ideas coming!

Anki Emperor is completely unrelated to the material you're reviewing. It includes a list of buildings you select and "build" by reviewing, quite effectively motivating you to review more.

I've found RevTK much more useful than anki, I just prefer the layout of this website, it compiles kanji into lesson sets and has stories all in one place complete with a great forum. I found Anki slightly awkward to use, and didn't think much of the decks I downloaded, although I'll definitely use it for core 2k or 6k... I forgot the name.

I've downloaded Anki Emperor and have exported my data from RevTK into a csv. file. How do I import and use them in Anki?

Edit: I've tried importing into Anki and apparently with success, but neither my Remembering the Kanji or Lazy Kanji deck gets updated with the information. I must be doing something wrong. Can anybody help?