Please people, take heed. I finished RtK1 last September, got got bored of reviewing, so stopped around 4 months ago. At first it was fine - made no difference, could still recognise kanji instantly. I started studying hardcore for JLPT, so assumed that exposure would be enough.

But then the rot started - I started failing kanji > kana/meaning reviews. I also now get kanji mixed up..and have forgotten how to write most of them.

Not catching up with my 700+ reviews on this site, and it's HELL!! Only around 30% retention! Please, do not stop reviewing, EVER! Even if you only do 1 or 2 sessions a week, it's enough..don't make the same mistake I did

I actually stopped 6 months ago and I am also studying hardcore for the JLPT. I don't seem to have that much trouble with kanji. It does depend on the level though.

@aphasiac: do you take omega3 fish oil daily?

One day you'll have to stop reviewing... or you will die of going insane.

Off topic) Can someone be nuts, crazy and insane? Do they overlap or are they incremental levels?

On topic) If you have enough Japanese in your day it shouldn't be a huge issue. I see enough of the basic characters to read what I read so it depends on the individual I guess.

I did RTK - then lost most of it the same way (huge pile up and like 25% correct in reviews)

I redid RTK to fix it, but only got about 2/3 of it redone, before I just got tired of keywords, and wanted to put all my time into real Japanese. That was about a year ago - now I'm not sure if it's hurting me not, not having the English key words. I don't have a "hook" now, but I seem to remember the kanji pretty well just based on being so used to the patterns, and I do writing in my SRS too, which really cements them. I do wonder if I would have a more efficient time had I kept my RTK, and if I'm doing things too "rote". But is it worth the time to go do RTK at this point? Hard to say, but so far I just don't feel like I'm missing it too much (I hate some of those key words). It gave me what I needed the most - familiarity and comfort. After RTK kanji are like old friends...

Also - I sometimes look up a kanji on this site to get the RTK keyword, and get that "oh yeah I remember that one..." feeling.

aphasiac Wrote:Please people, take heed. I finished RtK1 last September, got got bored of reviewing, so stopped around 4 months ago.

Wait, you finished RTK last September but stopped reviewing last July? :S

Assuming you did RTK last year's September, and stopped around July this year: that's almost a year of reviewing - if the losses are as high as you describe already after four months after that.. wow. I guess I'll have to follow the advice to switch to Japanese keywords asap after finishing RTK and some vocab, and then SRS every kanji until it has an expected retention of 1 year... good to know.

700 is better than 2000....and since you have 30% retention it's only 500. Even better.

I stopped for about a year and had similar problems with confusing characters and what not, so I started the deck from scratch. My retention rate was above 90% though. I might not have remembered from seeing the character, but the keyword brought the images flooding back.

I'm down to 10 or less reviews a day now, and I'm more confident than ever with my kanji. It can be a bit overwhelming when they start piling up at the beginning (I find Heisig reviews the most boring of all), but it gets so much easier. You have to keep that in mind and soldier through it, or just set a more manageable quota of new cards each day.

Well,after i finished(i think 1.5 months ago) i stopped reviewing for like a week,but i immediately started to read(just finished my first book),now i review on and off,sometimes i do 20 or 30 a day and sometimes zero,my due cards are now exactly 559 cards,but im not really worried because the 1st and 2nd piles are mostly empty,so i will be gradually decreasing those numbers