I was recently talking to someone who said he was doing 500 kanji reviews an hour, though in order to maintain that speed he was not writing anything down, only guessing at the kanji.

I've always thought that when SRSing one should read the keyword, then write down the kanji and compare answers to make sure you were doing it right. I'm at about frame 650 and have been doing it this way but was wondering what you guys think about these two ways.

I know some people say you should blaze through the kanji as soon as possible though it seems to me that being able to accurately reproduce the kanji would require writing it out each time during SRS.

What do you guys think/do and which way do you think is more effective?

When I was studying, I started off writing them down each time.

You are at frame 650, so you're still kind of in the early stages. Trust me, by the time your at 1500, you won't want to keep writing them down.

I think you should compromise. Write down a kanji for the first couple reviews, but as it goes into the long term memory and I don't think it's necessary to keep writing it - especially when the primitives are practically in your muscle memory.

The goal is to learn the kanji, finish the book, and remember them after you're done. If you loose motivation because of lengthy review sessions, your more likely to fall short of this goal.

crayonmaster Wrote:When I was studying, I started off writing them down each time.

You are at frame 650, so you're still kind of in the early stages. Trust me, by the time your at 1500, you won't want to keep writing them down.

I think you should compromise. Write down a kanji for the first couple reviews, but as it goes into the long term memory and I don't think it's necessary to keep writing it - especially when the primitives are practically in your muscle memory.

The goal is to learn the kanji, finish the book, and remember them after you're done. If you loose motivation because of lengthy review sessions, your more likely to fall short of this goal.

I agree, RTK all you want out of it, is to be able to write kanji and associate a single meaning for them. Nothing more, nothing less. People have added reading/monolingual keywords. But I think it's not the best course to mess around with that. Although it is good as it acts as a reminder.

crayonmaster Wrote:I think you should compromise. Write down a kanji for the first couple reviews, but as it goes into the long term memory and I don't think it's necessary to keep writing it - especially when the primitives are practically in your muscle memory.

I think that's how I'll continue because reviews can be pretty unmanageable when writing down each and every kanji.
Thanks for the advice!

I think it all comes down to what you want to do personally. I personally wrote every kanji every time I reviewed it from the start of RtK to the finish. It's been 6 months since I finished RtK, and I still write all my kanji during my reviews. Is it tiresome at times? Yeah. Is it frustrating when I know I KNOW the kanji if I see it somewhere, but forget a primitive when I write it? Yeah. But this is what practice is for in my opinion. I've really noticed now that while reading Japanese, I recognize so many kanji/words rather quickly, but when it comes to writing them, I draw a complete blank or it takes me 30-60 seconds to remember how to write it. This is what I hope writing all my reviews will eventually help fix one day.

In the long term, I think it helps keep it reinforced in my mind. It's a great feeling when you can look at a kanji or keyword and instantly recognize it. For me, it's an even more amazing feeling when you see a keyword or vocab word/reading and can instantly write the kanji.

One of my goals is to be able to write rather efficiently one day, so I guess it makes sense for me. If writing isn't really something you'll ever need or want to do, I surely wouldn't hold it against people if they didn't write out their reviews. Writing out your kanji (and vocab in my case) can be frustrating at times, and it (usually) adds a hefty amount of time to your overall time spent reviewing.

The few times I did RtK reviews without writing the kanji, I felt like I got into a "safe mode" or something. I'd see a keyword, mentally picture the stroke order and final shape, then check my answer. A lot of the time though, I felt like I forgot a small stroke or added an extra stroke, and when I checked my answer, I'd say "Oh yeah, that looks right, I recognize that!" when in reality I had actually made a mistake somewhere (albeit a small one).

tl;dr
IMO, if writing is something you expect to need/want in the future, write your reviews. You can never have too much writing practice when it comes to kanji. If writing isn't your thing, it probably is fine to write the kanji the first few times, then mentally picture it from that point on.

I'm with Offshore. Also, I think writing them down is important for correcting little mistakes you might not notice when reviewing them in your mind or even with your finger.

ta12121 Wrote:I agree, RTK all you want out of it, is to be able to write kanji and associate a single meaning for them. Nothing more, nothing less. People have added reading/monolingual keywords. But I think it's not the best course to mess around with that. Although it is good as it acts as a reminder.

Do you think I should just plow straight through RTK1, or also learn other Japanese on the side like grammar and sentence structure?

Because I have this book: にほんご９０日 which is written in all Japanese that I've been using to learn sentence structures.

If your intent is only to learn to read, I don't see much harm in skipping the writing part.

However, if you seriously intend to learn to write in Japanese, I'd strongly consider writing each kanji out as you review.

For me, personally (with a planning pad now nearly filled entirely with kanji, almost two years later), writing out each kanji as I review them helps to solidify the kanji in my brain, helps me in recognizing the character when I come across it, and constantly improves my atrocious Japanese handwriting. As a very visual learner and long time gamer and musician who knows the benefits of muscle memory, I find that writing the kanji out helps me considerably.

As for blazing through - well, if you're comfortable with the large amount of daily reviews you will invariably begin wracking up, then by all means go for it (writing by hand or not). I would recommend checking out iSoron's awesome SRS simulator to find your sweet spot before really going nuts, though.

CompGeek812 Wrote:

ta12121 Wrote:I agree, RTK all you want out of it, is to be able to write kanji and associate a single meaning for them. Nothing more, nothing less. People have added reading/monolingual keywords. But I think it's not the best course to mess around with that. Although it is good as it acts as a reminder.

Do you think I should just plow straight through RTK1, or also learn other Japanese on the side like grammar and sentence structure?

Because I have this book: にほんご９０日 which is written in all Japanese that I've been using to learn sentence structures.

You can do stuff while doing RTK, as long as you identify each meaning you don't understand. But a good reason why people wait till they finish is b/c yea may not know a good portion of the individual meanings and then there context/readings to worry about when doing sentences.

I'd say there isn't anything wrong, but just take your time while doing RTK. Then go full force after RTK 1 is done.

Offshore Wrote:tl;dr
IMO, if writing is something you expect to need/want in the future, write your reviews. You can never have too much writing practice when it comes to kanji. If writing isn't your thing, it probably is fine to write the kanji the first few times, then mentally picture it from that point on.

Very true, I didn't even consider how much handwriting I'd eventually be doing. It would probably be better if my kanji handwriting didn't look like I was actively have seizures while writing it (thats what it looks like when I look back to my first few notebook pages ).

Gee, I wrote out every kanji while working thru RTK1, and a month or so after finishing, I still do so. It really doesn't take me long to write them; if it does, that's a sign I don't know the kanji well enough. It takes me longer to remember the story than it does to jot down a few strokes. And writing seems to help my retention. Like the original poster, my goal is mainly to read, but I've put this much work into learning the kanji, I figure I might as well write them correctly too.

Burritolingus Wrote:I would recommend checking out iSoron's awesome SRS simulator to find your sweet spot before really going nuts, though.

Wow that is fantastic, I never knew there was a simulator for finding a good rhythm. Thanks a lot, gonna play around with this for a bit.

writing, is good but I know how it can feel like so much work at times. Sometimes I keep telling myself years from now I'll be looking back and saying "It was all worth the time and effort I put into japanese!"

CompGeek812 Wrote:I was recently talking to someone who said he was doing 500 kanji reviews an hour, though in order to maintain that speed he was not writing anything down, only guessing at the kanji.

I would guess this person has a worse retention rate than if they wrote them down.

For me writing the kanji is the most fun and rewarding part of rtk. It's good seeing my writing quality and speed get better. If you really know the kanji then it doesn't take long at all to write them.

I generally write a kanji once if I know it and 4 times if I fail the card, whilst going through the story (I always make the story go with the correct stroke order).

I finished 5 months ago and I still write down my reviews every day. I get between 30-50 reviews a day, but that's because I'm careful with the Easy button. I'm using it a lot more now, but I didn't use to at all up until a few weeks ago. It takes me about 15/20 minutes to do my reviews. I also write it 2 or 3 times if I fail it, and then again when reviewing the failed cards.

If you intend to be able to write kanji, do write them when you first see it and when you get it wrong, at least.

Burritolingus Wrote:If your intent is only to learn to read, I don't see much harm in skipping the writing part.

If your intent is only to learn to read, I don't see much harm in skipping RTK altogether. Just about any method will do including "pick things up as you go along"...

If jotting down the kanji as you review is taking anything like a significant proportion of your reviewing time then you need to practice writing more anyway!

pm215 Wrote:

Burritolingus Wrote:If your intent is only to learn to read, I don't see much harm in skipping the writing part.

If your intent is only to learn to read, I don't see much harm in skipping RTK altogether. Just about any method will do including "pick things up as you go along"...

Good point You can always come back to RTK at some point in the future when you want to learn to write kanji.

On the other hand, RTK benefits not only writing, but reading comprehension as well, so why not kill two birds with one oil spill stone?