Actually, I think there's no harm in the original poster's suggestion. Heisig himself says we should review in some order other than that provided in the book, and a reorganized grouping would constitute such an order. My only suggestion would be that the original poster try to create such a grouping himself, so as to learn it more actively.

Also, I disagree with the claim that the "overwhelming majority" of Heisig's keywords are "pointless." Every day I browse through my kanji dictionary, covering up the translations, to help me review. The majority of the time, the Heisig keyword is one of the main definitions in the dictionary. When that's not the case, it's usually in the ballpark. As Heisig says, the idea is to give us one meaning; once we have that, it's a lot easier to enrich our understanding by adding more. And of course, we have to learn compounds.

Finally, I've been faithfully doing SRS here, but I actually find I learn and retain better if I use paper flash cards and pen-and-paper. (In other words, I'm doing this two ways: as Heisig suggested it, using paper; and using Rev TK.) With paper flash cards, I sit and write each kanji as I test myself. And I create my own primitive SRS, creating stacks of restudy cards and stacks of easy ones. By contrast, with RevTK, I "write" the kanji on my palm, and that's not as good practice. Also, with Rev TK, I find I spend less time fixing my own story in my mind, and more time rather passively accepting other people's stories. Now, RevTK does a great job of spaced repetition, so I plan to continue it; and now that I have two shoeboxes of cards, I can't bring them everywhere to study. But I guess I would also say to the original poster: there's nothing wrong with just using old-fashioned flash cards, and reviewing the tougher ones more often.

Groot Wrote:Also, I disagree with the claim that the "overwhelming majority" of Heisig's keywords are "pointless." Every day I browse through my kanji dictionary, covering up the translations, to help me review. The majority of the time, the Heisig keyword is one of the main definitions in the dictionary. When that's not the case, it's usually in the ballpark. As Heisig says, the idea is to give us one meaning; once we have that, it's a lot easier to enrich our understanding by adding more. And of course, we have to learn compounds.

Gotta ask what dictionary you're using for this proof. Reason being, Heisig's keywords were used by Jim Breen so they've found their way onto many freely available dictionary programs.

I wouldn't have used the term "vast majority", but Heisig's keywords are off the mark in terms of actual meaning more than enough to be annoying. In addition, there are times a kanji keyword was vague or described a kanji that had multiple meanings.

The keyword is there to help create a flashcard like set-up. Having a fuller understanding of the kanji does not interfere and in fact can help it.

Groot, I do all my reviews with Anki, but I ALWAYS write on paper. Why would you only do that when your using paper cards?

Quote:Gotta ask what dictionary you're using for this proof.

I'm using primarily the Kodansha Learner's Kanji Dictionary, by Jack Halpern. I thought that was a fairly well-respected dictionary, no? It certainly seems well-crafted, but I'm no expert. Here's a link: http://www.amazon.com/Kodansha-Kanji-Lea...636&sr=8-1

And yes, I see a number of keywords that aren't quite "right," but they still put me in the right ballpark, in general. From there, I can expand my understanding, and refine it. It's a huge help to know even one arguably-related keyword, I think.

Quote:Groot, I do all my reviews with Anki, but I ALWAYS write on paper. Why would you only do that when your using paper cards?

That's a fair question. The way my PC is set up, it's sorta hard to write and compute at the same time. I sit at an angle, and the keyboard and mousepad interfere with the available desk space. I guess I could try writing, but I'd have to rearrange myself every time. It's a lot easier just to draw kanji in the air, or on my palm. But I really find I need the writing to cement things -- and, well, to practice writing.

Also, maybe I concentrate better sitting at the kitchen table, index cards on one side, and my paper (with empty boxes for writing kanji) on the other? Also, I am really doing this quasi-full-time, so I don't really mind having a "paper" session and a "computer" session. Wouldn't recommend it for everyone, though!

Groot Wrote:

Quote:Gotta ask what dictionary you're using for this proof.

I'm using primarily the Kodansha Learner's Kanji Dictionary, by Jack Halpern. I thought that was a fairly well-respected dictionary, no?

It's a light edition of the best English kanji dictionary, but that's not saying much. In my opinion there are no good English kanji dictionaries.

Quote:

Quote:Groot, I do all my reviews with Anki, but I ALWAYS write on paper. Why would you only do that when your using paper cards?

That's a fair question. The way my PC is set up, it's sorta hard to write and compute at the same time. I sit at an angle, and the keyboard and mousepad interfere with the available desk space. I guess I could try writing, but I'd have to rearrange myself every time. It's a lot easier just to draw kanji in the air, or on my palm. But I really find I need the writing to cement things -- and, well, to practice writing.

Then find a way to make it work. I for example use a remote control to control Anki using a script I made, and write with the other hand. If you don't have a remote, just hide the mouse somewhere and do the writing where your mousepad was, while you control the keyboard with your remaining hand. Doing reviews in an SRS, and then doing them again on paper seems like a waste of time and might harm the spacing. Even if you say that you have the free time to do both, it still cuts into time that would be better spent reading, listening, or studying vocab.

kendo99 Wrote:errr i didn't write that? I more or less mocked that...but i didnt quote it either

Sorry, I was manually typing in the name for the quote and i got your name confused with OP's name since they're both new to me and contain numbers.

Quote:I for example use a remote control to control Anki using a script I made, and write with the other hand. If you don't have a remote, just hide the mouse somewhere and do the writing where your mousepad was, while you control the keyboard with your remaining hand.

Yes, I guess I overlooked that one can run RevTK without a mouse -- there are keyboard shortcuts for flip and yes/no/easy. Maybe I'll try it. I could move the mousepad out of the way and substitute my writing-paper for this.

I still like the flashcards for other reasons, though. My kid enjoys pulling them out and making me write while she announces words. She rattles them off, I write fast; it's a nice challenge. I plan to make all 2000 flashcards; I'm up to 1100 or so now, might as well finish.

As for the dictionary, I'm glad to hear that I have the learner's version of the "best" dictionary, even if you say there are no good ones. If nothing else, I'm certainly impressed with the high quality of the printing materials. It's a pleasant book to hold in one's hand. I never thought I'd spend time just browsing a dictionary, but I do it every day with this.

I appreciate your preference for paper flash cards on a non-practical level, though I want to add that technically muscle memory/空書 (air-writing)/mentally thinking about the strokes works just fine for helping to encode and recall kanji (the same learned internal motor representations are activated for both reading and writing kanji). Scientifically speaking! ;p Although if you're just learning them, I do think actual writing if possible should be good because it recruits more fine motor neurons or whatever. But I think that's not really a big difference. I'm basing these interpretations on what I've read such as: http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?p...2#pid81142

I noticed someone added a scribble pad plugin thingy for Anki as well, so I guess there's even ways to use a tablet or whatever tech the kids use these days.

Tangent: There's also an Anki plug-in that allows you to suspend cards based on a kanji frequency list?? I didn't know this. That could be very useful if it works w/ new Anki and can be modified... kind of like that stuff Bombpersons wrote (but I couldn't make work) when I was rambling in the 'smart.fm corpus?' thread...

Edit: In fact, now that I think about it, I think it might be best to work on 空書 except totally mentally (rather than accompanied by fingers) in order to build and activate those internal motor programs, in the same way I think subvocalization is a skill to be developed...

Quote:Tangent: There's also an Anki plug-in that allows you to suspend cards based on a kanji frequency list??

Ohh, that sounds interesting. I haven't tried Anki yet. I suppose I will some day, as I hear such great things about it. Certainly that frequency feature would be a bonus.

Quote:I noticed someone added a scribble pad plugin thingy for Anki as well, so I guess there's even ways to use a tablet or whatever tech the kids use these days.

Funny you mention this. I tried a new approach to my review last night: using the iPad! I loved it. I put RevTK on the iPad, on the left side of my kitchen table; and I wrote kanji with paper and fountain-pen on my right side. It worked great. This was never feasible with the iPhone, because I always had to pinch and expand every RevTK entry to use it (both to see it and to push the right buttons). With the iPad, it's "full-sized" already, so it's really convenient. I think this may become my standard way of using RevTK, because the idiosyncratic placement of my desktop keyboard makes it tough to use this PC. I guess I've found one more unexpected use for the iPad. (I've already discovered several others.)

And I'm sure some kanji-writing apps will come to the iPad. There are already some for the iPhone.

Groot: I also used paper flash cards during my road through RTK1. If it works for you, then keep doing it. For the people it doesn't work for: don't do it.