Hi there, I have been quite confused about the story's. After flipping a bit through RTK again i came across it. The part where Heisig shows a example of a flashcard. He flipped the story/hint. Which worries me about my current flashcard setup in anki.

Example of my flashcard setup.

http://i51.tinypic.com/10s6782.jpg

I put the story on the anwser side. And read it again everytime I reviewed a Kanji. Now after doing some reading here, it seems in the end the story will fade away. Which results Keyword>Kanji instead of Keyword>Think of story>Kanji.

I am worried I might have been doing it wrong. Thanks in advance.


Edit: While I am at it. I might just ask something else to that is bothering me. Do you fail the card when you forget a primitive? If you take the example I posted above for example: If you forgot the "silver" primitive in root. Would you fail it? Thanks.

I've heard of some people doing it your way but I haven't done it that way. The stories kind of disappear going keyword>story>kanji as well or at least I don't realize I'm thinking of the story but its there if I need it. IMO If its working for you and you can write the Kanji even without the story in front of you then it's working. There's no set way of learning Kanji but I don't like to see the story.

Your setup looks fine to me.

I don't think the story should be on the question side, that sort of defeats the purpose of active recall. Having the story on the answer side, on the other hand, is useful as a refresher if you've forgotten the kanji and need to fail the card. That doesn't mean you have to read the story if you already know it well, though. The stories are a means, not an end. Your goal isn't to remember the stories, it's to remember the kanji.

Bernkastel Wrote:Do you fail the card when you forget a primitive? If you take the example I posted above for example: If you forgot the "silver" primitive in root. Would you fail it? Thanks.

If you cannot write the whole kanji out from memory, then yes, I would fail it.

I fail everything.. I'm up to 1052 reviews a day.. No but i fail anything even slightly wrong. Not too concerned if i proportioned it funny though I just write it again and move on.

I did it the way Heisig did it in his book (I used paper flashcards and used them a few times in the beginning of the SRS): I wrote the story upside down on the keyword-side of the card. That way you don't read it right away, but it's there as an extra reminder. I don't know if Anki has an option to write upside down, though.

I don't know if you were joking about failing so much, but if you weren't: stop learning new cards right now and get the ones you've already done in your head better (for example with better stories).

Koos83 Wrote:I did it the way Heisig did it in his book (I used paper flashcards and used them a few times in the beginning of the SRS): I wrote the story upside down on the keyword-side of the card. That way you don't read it right away, but it's there as an extra reminder. I don't know if Anki has an option to write upside down, though.

Not sure about writing upside down, but it does have the option of changing the font colour to white, so that you can only read the story if you highlight it.