I must say my confidence took a knock when I took someones suggestion not to review shortly after studying(I found this identified crap stories sooner - more focus), the next day I did 20 new cards and remembered 4. Granted, I only had time to study for a short while.

I've realised there are alot of different methods to tackle RTK and that we've all go to find our own path, but how much failure can anyone get?

If I can do 20 cards and remember 4, how many does someone who does 100 fail? 60?

60 + 100 day, plus more reviews + fail, it's mind boggling.

Not to mention 'learning' the whole Kana in a few hours, still can't figure out how people manage that. It's hard enough trying to imagine the characters when I hear Japanese.

Does SRS work in the sense that no matter how much you suck in the beginning, the frequency of seeing failed Kanji eventually gets burnt into your mind? Reviewing seems like full on study in itself atm.

I'm under the impression that if a person can just 'get through' their failed cards, they'll have learnt something for the day and can relax for a bit. I imagine retention does get easier when instead of drawing each stroke in your mind, you can place familiar kanji and radicals together to get a clearer picture.

The only results I have to go by are by learning Hiragana on smart.fm, initially I sucked. I couldn't tell the difference between half of them, but now theres just a few i'm a bit slow with. I used some paper flashcards here and there and looked at charts now and then. The thing is I barely studied, I didn't write half of them down.

I guess it helps I have things on hand to see it used in context, however half the Kanji i'm learning aren't being used so retention seems much harder. (I am writing these down btw)

It's not that I have bad memory either, no matter how much fun you make it - RTK IS a drag.

Learning kana in a few hours is easy, I did it while I was working at a convenience store in university. That doesn't mean that it was permanently seared into my brain though, I kept reviewing daily (by trying to write the entire set from memory on scrap paper). At this point I had still never heard of SRS.

When I was doing RTK, I did one chapter per day for the first half, and 100-150 per day for the second half of the book. I'd do reviews/failed cards in the morning, then study x new kanji, then take a nap or play a game or mess around on the internet. Before sleeping I'd run through the studied cards in a non-SRS (kanjigym) and add them to revtk. Finally the next day I'd do my first real review in an SRS of the previous day's kanji. My retention rate was around 94% I think.

The key elements of that method are (I think):
-Having a routine
-Doing a large amount of cards in one day (momentum, focus)
-the nap (no really, I find that sleep really helps to cement study)
-the review before bed (a same-day review is always good, and before bed gives it the cementing effect too)
-Writing the kanji during reviews (muscle memory, can visually check if it's correct instead of trying to remember how you traced it on your palm)

Notable things that I skipped were:
-Making really good stories, I half-assed it (stories are a crutch that you'll soon throw away, so don't spend so much time making it a very sturdy crutch. Just make it good enough to hobble around)
-Writing down my stories (same as above. Also, if you can't remember a story and need to look it up in a notebook, it wasn't a good-enough story anyways)
-Writing the kanji down when I first learned it (no point unless it has a tricky stroke-order or many strokes)

What's your question, again? Sorry.

Thanks Jarvik, Kanjigym was exactly what I was looking for! Nothing was really cementing when I changed my method and 2x srs(it was like I was longing for kanjigym) was getting a bit silly. Time to pick up the pieces and settle on an SRS, after using Anki I kinda miss using this site.

Although I used RevTK, it was because Anki didn't exist yet (or at least I didn't know about it). If I was starting RTK now I'd use Anki for reviews and revtk just for the forum and stories.

I was using RevTK with Anki as my 'kanjigym'. I certainly like it, but i'd be horrified if it bugged out on me. I'm not skilled enough to configure it to my liking(or fix it) so this site seems much more user friendly for the time being, i'm sure it'll be more useful further down the road. Cheers again.

NibelungValesti Wrote:I must say my confidence took a knock when I took someones suggestion not to review shortly after studying(I found this identified crap stories sooner - more focus), the next day I did 20 new cards and remembered 4. Granted, I only had time to study for a short while.

Does SRS work in the sense that no matter how much you suck in the beginning, the frequency of seeing failed Kanji eventually gets burnt into your mind? Reviewing seems like full on study in itself atm.

Yes and no.

Point one (and everyone will agree on this), the point of SRS study is more about finding a rhythm. I found one, and it's painfully slow, but it's chugging forward. Do the same for yourself- look back in a week and see if you've really moved forward. Print out or purchase a kanji chart and highlight it, post it where you can see. Next week, look at those kanji again. Do you feel good about where you are? Then keep going, regardless of the pace. Yes, doing 100 a day is infinitely better in all aspects, and I'm trying real hard to get there.

I've found that I was being WAY too hard on myself about kanji, and this is where I agree with a recent Khatz rant. Sometimes the keyword didn't stick in my head, but I look at the kanji, and I go oooohhhhh yeah duh. If you get the gist, pass it. I think you should only fail yourself on an SRS if you click to the kanji and there's just nothing there. If you fail too many, your restudy list is impossible. If you fail too few, you just have to throw them back on the pile later. Aim for the latter.

-If I see a keyword and go "holy cow I know I know this one", but the kanji isn't coming to mind, I probably mark it Yes. Flipping the card has me eyerolling at how I could ever forgot something so obvious. I know I'm having an amnesiatic spell right now but it really is in my head somewhere. 90+% of the time I see it the next SRS and it's fully there.
-If I don't get much from a keyword, but I flip the card and the kanji still has me facepalming, I study for a bit or rework my story then mark it Yes. There's maybe an 80% chance I'll get it next SRS.
-If neither the keyword nor the flip seems to cement it, I take a breather, look away from my monitor, and see if I can picture the story / stroke order in my head. If it's a go, or close to it, I pass it. There's maybe a 50% chance here, but that's a lot of kanji I don't really have to fail.

For stories, if you're doing 100 a day, you don't have time for really detailed scenes anyway. Learning that specialist is "ten-rice-glue" might be all you need. Function over form. Shorter stories are generally better anyway.

As for stroke order, I don't know how well-known this trick is, but draw on your open palm with a finger. It's a roughly square area, and gives you a great tactile feel for doing things right. Your drawn-on hand will learn what stroke order feels right, and the oddballs will literally feel wrong. Plus, you can even do it on public transportation and it just looks like you're doing the imaginary calculator thing. The palm test is a great way if you're iffy about remembering a kanji- sometimes you won't be able to enunciate the story in words, but you'll find you can diagram it perfectly. Trust your instincts.

I was thinking a chart would be a good idea, I was making one before I jumped the gun and scrapped it for fear of keyword memorisation instead of Kanji retention. But logically it does no harm, if anything it's casual exposure and encouragement. (So long as mental notes are taken that they aren't definite meanings)

Khatz method seems quite fair, I fail cards all the time if I miss 1 stroke! I don't think that in itself is bad since you just remember to put that stroke in next time, stupid stuff obviously leads to too much work. I noticed in Heisig order, if I fail one i'll remember it's form for another kanji so there is some merit in following his lessons before setting your own pace I find.

I guess SRS is really where you've just gotta find your groove. I went back and re-studied from when I started getting flakey and actually had fun with it, it does take a while to see results I agree. I like this site in terms of when you fail, you get a separated stack(just had a flashback for Separate there!) - for newbs at SRSing it's perfect.

I never thought of using the palm in that way, to save paper and writing sure - but feeling? Now it makes even more sense! Thanks for the informative reply, i'm sure anyone else new to this will find it helpful to.

Yeah, Heisig himself mentions the palm method -- I do it all the time. But I still find I cement things better if I actually write.

NibelungValesti Wrote:I was thinking a chart would be a good idea

Personally, I've found having a kanji poster / chart / whatever to be immense. There's so many things it does- casual reminder, motivation, the fun of looking at later kanji and seeing primitives appearing later, etc.

Groot Wrote:Yeah, Heisig himself mentions the palm method -- I do it all the time. But I still find I cement things better if I actually write.

Agree 100%, but personally, I never got a feel (haw-haw) for the stroke order until I tried my palm. When you feel north-to-south, west-to-east, etc, it adds some excellent perspective. Sometimes I do both. I might practice on my hand until I'm sure I've got the strokes down, then try to write it correctly and legible and everything.

What works for me is putting my story in Anki on the answer side of the card, and then for new cards when I forget it I read over the story and just bury it instead of failing it. IMO, all failing new cards does is make your ratio suck which makes you feel crappy.

I spend as little time as possible on the stories, usually I just scribble down the first impression I get and leave it at that. Later, it gets typed into Anki and fixed if it really sucks, but it's not very often I change it. I could probably do without writing it twice, but I find it's easier to review failed cards when the story is right there.

And as for a review rhythm, I tend to just do it whenever. I usually do it while watching TV, but I do it during most of my classes at school and at random moments throughout the day. Having an iPod Touch makes this super easy, because I can do it pretty much anywhere.

Groot Wrote:Yeah, Heisig himself mentions the palm method -- I do it all the time. But I still find I cement things better if I actually write.

It probably helps more to write it as it gives your brain a tangible/concrete visual signal as well as muscle memory usage and active memory recollection usage of your brain. Using just your hand doesn't give as good of a visual signal as your hand is actually producing nothing, but it still gets your neurons firing to remember how to write it.

I've had a similar problem. For me what works is doing them quite a few times on paper (while saying the keyword and keeping the story in the back of my head)

If you feel like you haven't learned much yesterday, redo the kanji the next day. Maybe it slows you a bit, but I find having too many SRS cards you can't identify (and fail to identify over and over again) really hurt both learning speed and motivation.

But what do I know? I've only been at it for a week

我と共に生きるは霊験なる勇者……出でよ！
その身に刻め！神技！ニベルングヴァレスティ！

ヴァルキリー!
「ヴァルキリープロファイル」ですね？

Even though I could barely read it, I recognize that last line anywhere.

Yeah, the first line is what Lenneth says at the beginning of a battle and the second one is the Nibelung Valesti quote.