I made it to lesson 11 in about a week and a half. Here, James begins the lesson with some advice on studying and making sure you're following the technique properly. He outlines a few potential issues about your studying habits and emphasizes the importance of your procedure. I wanted to get some feedback on some successful Kanji studyers and pick your brain on how you felt back at this time.

-I am confident with all 234 up until this point.
-I only occasionally miss a few select abstract Kanji such as fathom or tolerant (abstract in the sense of his memorization method for them)
-I am able to identify all 234 from key word or from the Kanji itself.
-It takes me no longer than a few seconds to remember then write down each Kanji.

Am I in a good position to continue or is more face time with these basics Kanji needed?

Additionally, are these points of concern?
-Approximately 20% of the Kanji I know immediately not because of the story, but just because I remember them so well. Am I skipping through the story so fast I don't recognize I'm using the story?
-Some of his stories I am not using at all because they are confusing to me. (less than 10 Kanji for this) For example, 奇, strange, I remember it by thinking "It's strange that a dog can do that." Will this hurt me in the future?

Edit: Also, I am writing them down many more times than he requires/suggests. Bad?

Thanks for any feedback!

It does look like you're ready to move forward, however...

- At this stage you should definitely be going Keyword --> Story --> Kanji, even if you feel like you can write the kanji without the story step. The issue is that the further along you get, the more important the ability to tie kanji to stories becomes. Seriously, once you're 1500 characters in, if you aren't making sure everything is grounded in stories you're going to be getting really confused (and you'd be wasting a lot of the time you're putting into studying right now).

- As far as using his stories, as long as you have a story for each kanji that works for you then you shouldn't worry about it. Just remember his advice that vivid stories tend to work better than reasoning. "It's strange that a dog can do that" is a sentence, not a vivid story. Once again, seems unnecessary now, but as you move forward the kanji that will be easiest to remember will be the ones where you've taken the time to really picture a scene.

- It's not /bad/ to write the kanji more often, it's just a waste of your time. Write it once or twice when you first learn it, and then write it once each time it comes up when you're reviewing. If you're SRSing, then you'll be seeing each kanji often enough that you'll get the practice you need.

But let's say you knew a kanji beforehand by heart (because it is really frequent or w/e), would you still need to learn THAT story?
I'll give you a stupid example but I've been studying Japanese on and off for quite a long time and some kanji just have sticked in my head, like... let's say 何, 文 ,字 or even the 明.
Would I need to learn those stories or just their keywords? (I actually know their meanings in most　situations and their most common 音読み and 訓読み, aswell as their writing order.)

I did for some Kanji I knew just for the hell of it. But No those specific Kanji you listed I don't have stories for.

I think that the story is not needed if you now things by heart like 'one', 'tree', 'day' or 'mouth'. They're so simple it's pretty hard not to remember them. If you need a story to remember a single horizontal line is 'one' after a week and a half or more, you may have other issues to deal with. Just saying.

You don't need it, but I find it comforting to have a story for each kanji, even if they're trivial (such as 一 = "Roman numeral I lying down"). When reviewing a lot of kanji I tend to zone out and get in this cycle of story -> image, and when a kanji comes up which I know but don't have a story for, it breaks this cycle and forces me to consciously think about what I'm doing.

Flopjack Wrote:Am I in a good position to continue or is more face time with these basics Kanji needed?

Continue. 100% perfection isn't required or desired. I'd rather know 90% of 1000 kanji than 100% of 250.

Flopjack Wrote:Additionally, are these points of concern?
-Approximately 20% of the Kanji I know immediately not because of the story, but just because I remember them so well. Am I skipping through the story so fast I don't recognize I'm using the story?

20% of the first 230 is about 50 yeah? I'd say it's pretty normal for about 50 of those kanji to be so simple that you don't have a story for them. Anything that's a primitive in a lot of other kanji really doesn't need a story, or I found that to be so anyway. It'll get drilled into you by sheer repetition. I knew most of the JLPT4 (old 4, N5) kanji list before i started RTK, so i never had a story for any of those.

Flopjack Wrote:-Some of his stories I am not using at all because they are confusing to me. (less than 10 Kanji for this) For example, 奇, strange, I remember it by thinking "It's strange that a dog can do that." Will this hurt me in the future?

Many will say yes. Honestly though, more than 50% of my stories aren't any better than that. My approach has been pretty minimal effort stories until the first fail. If something simple sticks, then i just leave it at that.

Flopjack Wrote:Edit: Also, I am writing them down many more times than he requires/suggests. Bad?

Unnecessary. The desire to do that will vanish pretty quick i think though. I remember i used to write new kanji i learned 3 times at first. Dropped to 1 pretty fast, lol.

OK, so I feel pretty good after these replies. The only issue I'm still lingering on is the fact that a few semi-complex Kanji (within those first 234) I'm either skimming the story (so to speak) or skipping it because I know them well already. Could it be that the step after mentally stepping through the story is simply immediate memorization? For example, you know 一 or 日 or 本 because they are very simple. So when you come to 村 you pause for a moment to learn then, but it's not too complex so you rapidly pick it up. I simple recognize it by the shape and just plain memorization after a few times of review. I read it as tree glue but I know it means town. (I actually learn this from Dead Space, a video game. The name of the space mining vessel is Ishimura, 石村, or Stone Town! Those Kanji appear as the ship's logo.)

For example, I tend to pause on 宴. After seeing the key word I think: OK, in the house the woman prepares all day for the banquet, but I pause on the order of the primitives. I don't get it wrong, I just pause to remember, just for about two or three seconds. Some other Kanji like 案 have a similar story but the placement of primitives is different. Is this a bad sign?

My concern is, like some of you outlined, getting into like the 700+ range or whatever my potential tipping point may be and the Kanji starting to blur in my mind.

I guess an easier question I could ask would be directed to some of you 1000+ish Kanji peeps out there. Looking back and seeing some of the more complex Kanji made up of pieces you knew through pure memorization or other hosh posh ways of memorizing them, did they give you trouble? Did you find yourself going: "Oh no, I didn't memorize his stories so I can't nail these more complex Kanji down!" and backtracking for the proper foundation?

Side note on the writing thing: Yeah, I'm finding myself writing them a number of times. I've filling a notebook to the brim, literally, with Japanese shenanigans, including my Kanji studies. I typically write a Kanji between 1 and 10 times, usually hitting around 3-5 and 1-3 times during review per Kanji. My Japanese friends encourage this and I feel it does give me a better feel for the Kanji. James, in his book, talks about how the Japanese have a muscle memory for Kanji and to acquire a little bit of that can't hurt, right?

Without muscle memory, I would never be able to play music on my guitar. So who neds to remember kanji when your hand can do it for you?

Quote:I read it as tree glue but I know it means town. (I actually learn this from Dead Space, a video game. The name of the space mining vessel is Ishimura, 石村, or Stone Town! Those Kanji appear as the ship's logo.)I read it as tree glue but I know it means town. (I actually learn this from Dead Space, a video game. The name of the space mining vessel is Ishimura, 石村, or Stone Town! Those Kanji appear as the ship's logo.)

It actually means village. It's one of the mistakes in RTK (Village and Town should be swapped).

Town should be: 町
Village should be: 村

Flopjack Wrote:OK, so I feel pretty good after these replies. The only issue I'm still lingering on is the fact that a few semi-complex Kanji (within those first 234) I'm either skimming the story (so to speak) or skipping it because I know them well already. Could it be that the step after mentally stepping through the story is simply immediate memorization? For example, you know 一 or 日 or 本 because they are very simple. So when you come to 村 you pause for a moment to learn then, but it's not too complex so you rapidly pick it up. I simple recognize it by the shape and just plain memorization after a few times of review. I read it as tree glue but I know it means town. (I actually learn this from Dead Space, a video game. The name of the space mining vessel is Ishimura, 石村, or Stone Town! Those Kanji appear as the ship's logo.)

For example, I tend to pause on 宴. After seeing the key word I think: OK, in the house the woman prepares all day for the banquet, but I pause on the order of the primitives. I don't get it wrong, I just pause to remember, just for about two or three seconds. Some other Kanji like 案 have a similar story but the placement of primitives is different. Is this a bad sign?

No, i don't think so. Muscle memory will teach to you write the common ones fast.

Flopjack Wrote:My concern is, like some of you outlined, getting into like the 700+ range or whatever my potential tipping point may be and the Kanji starting to blur in my mind.

They will. The bigger problem is the keywords. It's worth flipping ahead in the book to see if there are any near synonyms before making your story. Stuff like rebuke, chastise and admonish still trip me up (only from the heisig keyword, i can tell them apart in actual japanese).

Flopjack Wrote:I guess an easier question I could ask would be directed to some of you 1000+ish Kanji peeps out there. Looking back and seeing some of the more complex Kanji made up of pieces you knew through pure memorization or other hosh posh ways of memorizing them, did they give you trouble? Did you find yourself going: "Oh no, I didn't memorize his stories so I can't nail these more complex Kanji down!" and backtracking for the proper foundation?

Nope. There have been times when it's been evident that my story was crap or the lack of a story was a problem. For those i just made a new story (read: copied one from this site) and moved on. The problems will be with isolated kanji throughout the book, not a total failure of all them in your memory.

Flopjack Wrote:Side note on the writing thing: Yeah, I'm finding myself writing them a number of times. I've filling a notebook to the brim, literally, with Japanese shenanigans, including my Kanji studies. I typically write a Kanji between 1 and 10 times, usually hitting around 3-5 and 1-3 times during review per Kanji. My Japanese friends encourage this and I feel it does give me a better feel for the Kanji. James, in his book, talks about how the Japanese have a muscle memory for Kanji and to acquire a little bit of that can't hurt, right?

Meh, Japanese people take how many years to learn kanji? They will often encourage you to rote learn them because that's how they did it and it's the only method they know. I sometimes get a sense of denial from them... like, they went through the pain of rote learning so they refuse to believe there are better methods because it might mean they wasted a bunch of time.

The problem with mixing the methods is that the you're partially rote learning them... temporarily. It'll get you past the first couple of reviews without having a story... then it'll blow up in your face in 6 months time. If you can get away with a crap/non-existent story and still get it right during reviews *without* rote learning it, then you probably don't need the story.

You will acquire muscle memory over time. Most common words i just write without thinking. And by common i mean words like 定義 not 本.

Thanks for the comments everyone. I think I'm over thinking this. To simplify, what are a few signs I should watch out for?

So far I'm at 100% retention of 234... wait, I just did another lesson... 249 Kanji. I'm taking things slow and steady with ample review. I don't go to the next lesson until I have all the previous ones memorized forward and backward and frequently review previous lessons. Unless this method is headed for disaster, in which case please stop me, I think I'm good.