Maybe I'm going really really slow compared to everyone else but I seem to add about 10 cards every week or week and a half. Should I be pushing myself harder? I'm up to 400 kanji right now but I've also been doing this since January.

If you're studying about one kanji per day, your not gonna finish for another 5 years...

This is something you need to decide on your own. I recommend starting small, like 20-30 cards then build up slowly to a higher number.

Yeah i guess I need to step up my game a bit. My problem is that I forget new cards for the first few reviews after adding them. I'm worried that they're going to pile up quickly.

domokun1134 Wrote:Yeah i guess I need to step up my game a bit. My problem is that I forget new cards for the first few reviews after adding them. I'm worried that they're going to pile up quickly.

Try to read outside the srs as well. Don't worry about the forgetting part,eventfully it will stick

And also make sure you come up with good stories that will stick. Make sure you get a vivid mental image. Just writing the kanji down a few times won't do the trick.

I add whatever I feel like. During RtK I sometimes added zero cards in a week. Other times I added 20-50. Some weeks I added over 100. I never had a consistent number, and thus, it took me 10 months to finish RtK.

Nowadays, I hardly add anything. Basically any vocab I come across that I don't know but I keep seeing over and over. Aside from a couple comics and videogames I have, music I listen to, and Internet-related stuff, that's all my Japanese studies go towards: a hobby.

As much as I'd love to be in Japan one day, or even have the opportunity to be able to speak it in my area or school, I don't. Until I get in a situation where my daily life requires it, I'm not hardcore about it. I get tons and tons of immersion, but not much active studying, lol. Of course, my Japanese ability goes up at a snail's pace, but that's OK with me because, like I said, it's just a hobby of mine right now for the foreseeable future. It's really everyone's own choice. If you learn 10 cards a week, that's your choice. I do think you could up it to at least 30-50 a week though. Like someone else said, it's gonna take forever to finish at only 10 cards a week.

I started last October and I'm up to 1045 as of last night. I try to do 5 a night, but if I have trouble with a group of kanji I might not add any for a few days. I review daily however.

What others say about trying to visualize the story for the kanji is absolutely key to using the RtK method. Also remember that this is a method that focuses on remembering from the keyword to the written kanji and not the other way around. Don't worry if you can't remember a keyword when you see a kanji.

During the reviews my pass rate varies from 70% to 90%. I know I've done a bad job of visualizing a story when I fail particular kanji more than a few times. Then it's time to perhaps tweak the story.

What I find sometimes is that a story will morph in my mind over time. I'll recall a story and write the kanji. If I look up my story I may discover that my story as recorded on the site and the one I'm using are somewhat different.

domokun1134 Wrote:Yeah i guess I need to step up my game a bit. My problem is that I forget new cards for the first few reviews after adding them. I'm worried that they're going to pile up quickly.

Heya fellow Staten Islander!

So let me ask, did you read the introduction to the book? In it, Heisig explains the method and how he recommends studying each card (or that might be a little later in the book, look for it). Either way, make sure to follow this method. Sit there and really visualize the keyword and elements, and then let a story come to you. Make it as ridiculous as possible with as many ties to things that you enjoy as you can, and you should find the whole forgetting thing will not happen as much any more.

domokun1134 Wrote:Maybe I'm going really really slow compared to everyone else but I seem to add about 10 cards every week or week and a half. Should I be pushing myself harder? I'm up to 400 kanji right now but I've also been doing this since January.

If this is the pace you work best at, and you can keep it up for four or five years, I think that's fine. But if you're going slowly because you're trying to learn each kanji and keyword as perfectly as possible, I'd go faster.

I feel that the time that a person is doing RTK1 (as I am as well), is a very precarious time that you want to escape as quickly as possible - if you take a sabbatical in the middle, you may lose everything. A lot of people here have restarted and re-attempted RTK multiple times.

Also, RTK is, in some respects, more of a temporary scaffold for learning than a foundation, so it's not worth gold plating. In RTK1, Heisig writes that the "inadequacy of the key words" in the book is actually an advantage, because it allows for the original key words to be more easily forgotten, "gradually giving way" and being replaced by a "substitution of a Japanese word or even a number of words". So Heisig wants you to unlearn much of what you've done in RTK1 anyway, when you're ready to move on.

Also, "I dutifully studied Japanese week after week for five years, but I can't read anything, and the only Japanese word I know is "ri", an ancient measure of distance" just sounds too sad! A student of the language deserves better than that.

I have an upper limit set at 40. I like to keep things under control.

In general for Anki my rule is 35/day is a good pace with manageable reviews. Anytime I go beyond that for an extended period of time and it becomes burnout material. Anything less than that and it feels like i'm going too slow. 35/day is roughly 1000/month so it works out well over the period of a year. It's all about momentum, get it, keep it.

I don't work on weekends too.

mezbup Wrote:35/day is roughly 1000/month so it works out well over the period of a year.

I'd certainly say 12,000 kanji per year works out pretty well!

Mushi Wrote:

mezbup Wrote:35/day is roughly 1000/month so it works out well over the period of a year.

I'd certainly say 12,000 kanji per year works out pretty well!

Hehe I'm sure he graduated to actual words.

Womacks23 Wrote:

Mushi Wrote:

mezbup Wrote:35/day is roughly 1000/month so it works out well over the period of a year.

I'd certainly say 12,000 kanji per year works out pretty well!

Hehe I'm sure he graduated to actual words.

Spot on.

I add in 100 bursts but my average is around 35/day. This way I see significant progress for my effort (another 100 done is a big deal even at 5k) and I can compensate for days I really can't add anything.

Well my main reason for going this slowly is because I made "RTK time" about 30 minutes of my lunch break at work. I can ramp it up though. I'm going to attempt to start adding between 5-10 cards a day, which is 7 times faster than what I was doing before. I dont want to overwhelm myself yet, because every day I like to have no cards due and no study cards.

Mushi Wrote:Heya fellow Staten Islander!

Whoo! There's someone else like me on SI? I thought I was the only one who had any interest in Japanese around here.

domokun1134 Wrote:because every day I like to have no cards due and no study cards.

So basically you want to learn Japanese without doing anything?

No I mean at the end of the day. Meaning I did them all.

I add 10 new cards per day per deck, but I also have 10 different decks, 5 of which are Japanese and the rest divided among Spanish (2), Russian, Mandarin, and French. So I guess actually my Japanese decks are 50 new cards a day. I study the new cards before reviewing to maximize exposure to unfamiliar/new words.

I started RtK1 with a goal of 30 cards per day, with an emphasis on completing lessons over a set amount of cards. That number dwindled, as I become progressively busy with other things. Later on, when I was on winter break for 2 weeks I was adding 50-100 cards per day. (Made it to around #2500 before burning out)

I definitely got easier as I progressed, but it didn't take any less time to add cards. I think 2.5 hours for 25, 10 hours for a 100 (for RtK). I think it took others about the same amount of time to add cards.

There is definitely no reason to linger with RtK. Get your stories right, add the cards and move on. You will eventually learn them after enough reviews.

Been addign sentences ever since, I find them less intensive, but perhaps I've simply become used to SRS and stuff... I'm aiming for 25-50 per day. I've added 20-70 p/day for the last month, and skipped about 5 days.

So basically I shouldn't be worried about how many due cards and how many study cards I have and just keep adding them? I'm afraid to let them pile up like that and get into a neverending pit. I wish I had 3 hours a day to devote to kanji but I dont. Is there any caveat in just letting the build up and reviewing as I can?

domokun1134 Wrote:So basically I shouldn't be worried about how many due cards and how many study cards I have and just keep adding them? I'm afraid to let them pile up like that and get into a neverending pit. I wish I had 3 hours a day to devote to kanji but I dont. Is there any caveat in just letting the build up and reviewing as I can?

If time is your number one constraint, don't worry about numbers. Start each day with reviews, as soon as you finish use your remaining time to add more cards. After a while you will find an equilibrium that works best for you.

If possible, I recommend doing everything in intervals. There are a few threads this. For example, if I have 150 reviews do, I take a break every 50 to add new sentences or to do something other than reviewing. The change of pace increases productivity significantly.