Over the last month or two I've been slowly switching my keywords to Japanese. With so many people having memorized the RTK1 Kanji now, it seems likely that more people will start traveling down this path soon. I thought I'd write a bit about making the switch here so that 1) People don't repeat my mistakes and 2) hopefully it sparks a discussion that leads to some good advice or inspiration.
I (obviously) use the keywords greasemonkey script and also the script that brings up the kanji info pages when you hover over the kanji itself. When I want to find a new key word I click over to Jim Breen's page, do a search for compounds after clicking "common words" and "position:any" and then choose words from there. I try to use my best judgment about readings I actually need, but sometimes it's difficult. After choosing words I plug them back into this site. For example 胸 is ムネ・度キョウ.
At first I switched only the cards I got wrong. However, that meant that on average I was only seeing 10-15% of the cards I was reviewing. So then I switched to reviewing normally but clicking no for any card where the keyword was in English. That approach was thorough, but it wreaked havoc with my review schedule and gave me so many cards to study that I found myself avoiding the red cards all together. Then I realized (doh!) that I could click on the keyword while reviewing and access the kanji on another tab. This is the system I use now. It works, and it doesn't artificially increase my stack of red cards, but it really breaks up the flow of a review session.
Problems I have:
1) Accessing Jim Breen's page takes too long. I wish there was a greasemonkey script to take you directly to the kanji compound page with "common word" and "position any" already selected. (please please please
)
2) Instead of key words I should be using example sentences. I won't do it though, too much work.
3) I need to spend more time memorizing the words I choose. I have a few kanji whose readings I have no idea about, so after giving them Japanese keywords I just keep failing them. Over and over....
That's about it. Any questions or advice much appreciated.
I (obviously) use the keywords greasemonkey script and also the script that brings up the kanji info pages when you hover over the kanji itself. When I want to find a new key word I click over to Jim Breen's page, do a search for compounds after clicking "common words" and "position:any" and then choose words from there. I try to use my best judgment about readings I actually need, but sometimes it's difficult. After choosing words I plug them back into this site. For example 胸 is ムネ・度キョウ.
At first I switched only the cards I got wrong. However, that meant that on average I was only seeing 10-15% of the cards I was reviewing. So then I switched to reviewing normally but clicking no for any card where the keyword was in English. That approach was thorough, but it wreaked havoc with my review schedule and gave me so many cards to study that I found myself avoiding the red cards all together. Then I realized (doh!) that I could click on the keyword while reviewing and access the kanji on another tab. This is the system I use now. It works, and it doesn't artificially increase my stack of red cards, but it really breaks up the flow of a review session.
Problems I have:
1) Accessing Jim Breen's page takes too long. I wish there was a greasemonkey script to take you directly to the kanji compound page with "common word" and "position any" already selected. (please please please
)2) Instead of key words I should be using example sentences. I won't do it though, too much work.
3) I need to spend more time memorizing the words I choose. I have a few kanji whose readings I have no idea about, so after giving them Japanese keywords I just keep failing them. Over and over....
That's about it. Any questions or advice much appreciated.
Edited: 2007-07-10, 7:25 pm
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