Betelgeuzah Wrote:What you have done is pretty remarkable. I wish I could do the same.

My problem is getting stuck in one kanji when I should be moving on, and taking needless breaks while trying to memorize a hard letter.

I think what would help is a some sort of a pacer software that would let me know every time I have to move on. Like, set an alarm for 2 minutes at time. I haven't come across something like this yet that resets with a click of a button though.

You can do this, that's why I am making the videos to prove how doable this is.

You don't need to do it all at once thought. You can just tell yourself alright for a week I'm doing just kanji reviews on anki and adding 150-200 new ones a day. Assume that you will have no life for a week but it will be worth it considering all the time you will save that you wound have spent doing it in months. Just like decide on a week and go at it until you add 1,000 new kanji. then take a week off and just review.

About the speed per card, I'm either pass or fail a card within 3 seconds. you see the word and the kanji just pops into your mind or it doesn't, if it does pass it if it doesn't don't. that simple. to succeed you have to fail a lot. I fail most cards 20-25 times before I pass them but by that time I know them. Don't get hung up on any one card, just keep failing it and reviewing it with the other failed cards and it will stick.

nadiatims Wrote:Not to mention that it really doesn't matter if you can't keep up with the reviews. Just get through the material quickly and move on. Keeping all the kanji fresh in your memory like this only seems important because of the review process itself, RTK becomes useful for...doing RTK. The idea that you go through RTK, space all the cards away and then you "know" kanji is a false one anyway. You'll be continually learning different readings and plenty of new characters as you start reading. The amount of kanji review inherent in the reading process and in any post RTK flashcarding pretty quickly makes RTK redundant.

Can you explain this a little, I mean I get what you're saying about the reviews being added from the other learning sources but here is what I don't get:

The point of RTK is to learn how to draw the knaji with the right stroke order and just know the kanji in general right. So the keyword is not very important?

So should I just pass the frame if I know how to draw it correctly and have a fuzzy but general idea of the meaning or should I wait until I know the meaning perfectly too?

EasyJapanezy Wrote:So should I just pass the frame if I know how to draw it correctly and have a fuzzy but general idea of the meaning or should I wait until I know the meaning perfectly too?

The keywords are only approximations at one meaning. Anyway the standard way of doing RTK is keyword->kanji so you're not really testing recognition of meaning anyway.

My main point is that when you start reading and learning a lot of words, the amount of review you'll be getting of each kanji, its assorted readings and meaning in context will absolutely dwarf what you learn from RTK in both volume and quality. This is especially true if you take a mass vocabulary approach which is something that many users here have generally reported as very useful. Furthermore if you write down words as part of your learning process, you'll preserve the ability to write them quite well. When you've flash carded say 15k+ or even just 5k unique words mostly reusing the same 2k odd kanji, that adds up to some serious repetition. I'm not saying RTK is completely pointless. It's not, it teaches you the stroke orders, radicals, composition in a sensible order and means that when the time comes to learn some new vocabulary you've at least probably seen the characters before. But just as I'm assuming you didn't memorise the spelling of every English word you'll ever need (or even just 2000 of them) before learning English you don't need to nail down the kanji perfectly right now. It's not like the analogy of building a house on solid foundations, it's more like planting a tree. The roots continue to grow and become stronger and better interconnected just so long as you keep applying water and sunlight.

EasyJapanezy Wrote:you see the word and the kanji just pops into your mind or it doesn't

I forgot to mention this point, but that's what happened with me as well. The stories don't last in your mind very long. You just know what it's supposed to look like. I'm willing to hypothesize that writing down the character every time strongly contributes to this. (I could also be completely wrong, too). Is that what you're doing? I'm curious.

By the way, you've done very well up to now. Taking a day off won't hurt. This might sound absurd, but you just might have to get used to the idea of finishing it in 16 days instead of 14.

netsplitter Wrote:

EasyJapanezy Wrote:you see the word and the kanji just pops into your mind or it doesn't

I forgot to mention this point, but that's what happened with me as well. The stories don't last in your mind very long. You just know what it's supposed to look like. I'm willing to hypothesize that writing down the character every time strongly contributes to this. (I could also be completely wrong, too).

I've noticed this too, some of the mature kanji have started showing up in reviews (last seen months ago). I have no idea what the story was that went with the kanji I just know what it is and how to write it.

Quote:The point of RTK is to learn how to draw the knaji with the right stroke order and just know the kanji in general right. So the keyword is not very important?

So should I just pass the frame if I know how to draw it correctly and have a fuzzy but general idea of the meaning or should I wait until I know the meaning perfectly too?

Heisig introduced keywords, so your brain can follow the following path in order to discover how to strike the character:
keyword → plot → story → focal elements of the story (primitives) → strokes

or quicker (if possible) way:
keyword → primitives → strokes

If you allow for only:
keyword → strokes

then, as Heisig put it, “you are are asking your visual memory to do the work” (see Lesson 11). Myself, I can't see how “keyword → strokes” is different from rote memorizing. And keep in mind that Heisigs keywords are, as nadiatims mentioned, just approximations. You will be finding these characters later in different contexts (compounds), so your understanding of the “meaning” will be evolving.

Here is day 8

I'll be done by tomorrow, this cramming thing is really burning me out.

Inny Jan Wrote:If you allow for only:
keyword → strokes

Wait. I don't think any of us are doing that. The "shape" of the kanji includes which primitives are in it and where they are placed. It's hard to forget the primitives given how frequent they are. I mean, you're not going to draw a primitive and still think of it as "those lines that go here in this kanji". More like "there's a door on the left of this one". It would, indeed, be a bad idea to memorize individual stokes!

And besides, the story is a leverage to putting the character in your brain. It's perfectly okay and the right thing to do to completely forget it. I sincerely hope nobody intends to remember the story for the rest of their lives. You might be right that I will completely forget the characters a year from now (already happened once!), but I intend to learn actual words that use them before I will let that happen.

Inny Jan Wrote:Myself, I can't see how “keyword → strokes” is different from rote memorizing.

Well, it's not rote unless you repeat the same thing, possibly hundreds of times. Anki actually tells you how many reps you've done. My worst is 繕 with 24 reps. I have 25 cards with 17 or more reps, and everything else is below that. So really, I think that's ridiculously efficient. (But keep in mind I've only had this deck alive for almost 4 months now, haven't touched it for nearly a month, and don't intend to use it anymore, but they're still good numbers.)

EasyJapanezy Wrote:I'll be done by tomorrow, this cramming thing is really burning me out.

Nooooo

That was a little sad. I guess I'd go nuts too if I were in my room all day. Oh well, at least you have a good feel for the kanji now.

good going!!!

i haven't done RTK at all, so i probably shouldn't be giving advice on this, but i think maybe the best thing to do would be to finish it like you said, knowing the stroke orders and moving onto real japanese....

but, figure out where you last felt comfortable and not burnt out, remove all the frames you added since, and carry on with full reviews of only those cards. Go ahead and learn real Japanese at the same time. Then, maybe in a couple of months when you know more, you can do another 1 week challenge and get the rest done in one shot then.

That way, your hard work won't go to waste, and you'll still be able to write the kanji. (you don't actually need Heisig for learning to read them).

@netsplitter

People were rote memorizing kanji for years. Heisig put a bit of spin on it, and in 1977 published his method were he uses mnemonics. In late '90ies people became aware of SRS. Given these two advances (1. mnemonics, 2. SRS) learning kanji became quite achievable to us, Westerners. If you remove mnemonics from this system you are still left with SRS. So, it's not that this “rote memorizing” is going to fail on you – you still will have a cushion. But even your experience indicates the number of repetitions you need to do in SRS for characters for which you don't keep story around and that that you do is higher.

I'm not saying you shouldn’t do that – I'm rather trying to point out possible problem. It may be that in some time from now you will be coming back to those hard kanji and eventually learn that damn story. Or, it may well be that your exposure to real Japanese will be such that this will not be needed at all.

IceCream Wrote:good going!!!
figure out where you last felt comfortable and not burnt out, remove all the frames you added since, and carry on with full reviews of only those cards. Go ahead and learn real Japanese at the same time. Then, maybe in a couple of months when you know more, you can do another 1 week challenge and get the rest done in one shot then.

That way, your hard work won't go to waste, and you'll still be able to write the kanji. (you don't actually need Heisig for learning to read them).

That's probably what I'll do I just need to do something where I feel like I'm getting into real Japanese. Idk when but I'll finish it somewhere down the line.

EasyJapanezy Wrote:You can do this, that's why I am making the videos to prove how doable this is.

You don't need to do it all at once thought. You can just tell yourself alright for a week I'm doing just kanji reviews on anki and adding 150-200 new ones a day. Assume that you will have no life for a week but it will be worth it considering all the time you will save that you wound have spent doing it in months. Just like decide on a week and go at it until you add 1,000 new kanji. then take a week off and just review.

About the speed per card, I'm either pass or fail a card within 3 seconds. you see the word and the kanji just pops into your mind or it doesn't, if it does pass it if it doesn't don't. that simple. to succeed you have to fail a lot. I fail most cards 20-25 times before I pass them but by that time I know them. Don't get hung up on any one card, just keep failing it and reviewing it with the other failed cards and it will stick.

Actually I'm at 1400 now, planning to stop at 2000~. Not much to go. I was thinking of finishing it all during the Christmas holidays anyway, so it's not a big deal. I managed to speed up my pace though, 50-100 new kanji a day. The reviews will start to be a pain in the ass at some point but not overwhelmingly so I think.

Hopefully you'll keep updating this thread (or around the forums) with your progress, I thought the pace we're moving at here was already incredible considering the difficulty of the language to us Westerners but if you can manage to get the same results in just a few days of hardcore memorization... It will be amazing. Good luck.

Here is day 9

Never mind what I say at the end I was having really bad day. I explain it in the next video. It was just a bad day mentally, I was beyond drained. No worries though it only applies to RTK. I just need to switch to something else for a while.

P.S.

Has anyone here tried Core 2000 sentences. I love the formatting it's like this:

Japanese sentence with kanji, the kanji you are learning is highlighted in bold

click answer

The sentence id read out loud (HUGE HELP)
there is the original sentence
the Kana way of writing it under
In brackets the kana way of writing the specific kanji learned

I love the way these cards are set up, I feel like this is the quickest way to get fluent at reading Japanese (which is my immediate goal). When I learned English reading was the thing that just improved my understanding of the language grammar/vocabulary/customs the most. I remember plowing through the Goosebumps books after 6 months of being in the US, I was attending elementary school too but I didn't understand anything for a good 3-4 months.

I'm not really worried about the speaking part yet (I have no one to practice with anyways)


So what do you guys think about this deck, it's efficiency and all that? Has anyone tried it or finished it? Any thoughts???

Hi everyone,

Well to be honest I didn't read through all the topic, but i'd like to bring on a little experience that did occure to me arround april 2011.
Actually the final day of exams, I decided to do my hardcore kanji process.
I ran through JLPT2 kanji in 10 days. I didn't use Anki but another software on iphone which was more practical for me when learning during the night.
I was arround 250 basic kanji known, and I decided to do 60kanji/night between 22:OOpm until 1:30 AM everyday until i finished them.

I have to admit that i was pretty frustrated at that time, that i couldn't read loads of thing due to my lack of kanji, that's why i wanted to cram it even if it was very painful.

Here's what i did, respect the timing, I remembered not watching TV when it was 22:00 since the night was gonna be once more tough.
Every morning, woke up early and made reviewing from the early start each time !

That does mean that In the 3 lasting days, I was extremely bleeding, with heavy reviewing kanji.

Well , 10 days later, when my mom came back home here in France, I felt i achieved my goal silently, she thought I have just been playing and hanging out with friends till she came back but actually I was learning vocabulary all day long..

It was really helpful for since When i went to japan for one month in summer I could really used all what I learnt and read ... also Nikkei is useful (I remembered talking about analog 放送 that dissapear in japan with a girl met in MacDonald's, that moment I was very happy and i thought "damn, finally vocabulary that I went through)

The most important thing IMO is the belief that you can do it.
I must admit that my japanese extremely suck, (actually it will suck until I reach fluent level and then native level)
but I know nothing is impossible.


Therefore next friday, I will be very excited, since I will have 2 holidays weeks "Thanks god !" I already planned an hardcore programm from 7:00 am until 1:30 am everyday
It makes me so happy..

Last week I failed at N2, i couldn't finish it and when i saw other people faces I knew I wasn't strong enough to pretend to this level, no way I pass it.

But since that day I really wanted to achieve it... even if i'm bleeding or my eyes soring ... learning japanese till my body fall down...

well this might due to one of my dream,....but anyway, just think it's possible and you will make it.

Here is the end of the Kanji Challenge

I'm thinking about doing a similar thing.
I have a really small attention span too and I usually won't do RTK for more than a few days, then I'll forget about it. ^^
I'm planning on doing 146 frames per day, hoping to finish RTK1 in 2 weeks.
I'll start early in the morning (8am) and do some breaks if I really feel tired. (Go walk for a bit, eat something, etc)
I won't do only Kanji. I've also ordered the first volume of よつばと！ to practice my Hiragana reading. (I'm not trying to understand it yet. It's just a reading practice.)
I have also the Genki 1 textbook, workbook and the answer key ordered.
I'm hoping to have that next week so that I can begin learning some grammar.

I have literally nothing to do since I have a 2 weeks break at school starting next Monday. Since I'm always bored during holidays I figured I could do something productive for once and cram through RTK1.

I don't expect it to be easy, especially on the "long" term. I've already studied the first 60 or so kanji 2 or 3 times in previous attempts so the start will be a lot easier.
I'm planning to finish the book, but if I don't make it, it's not important. I just want to get it done as quickly as possible. If I can do 1000 kanji and then go on at a slower pace, I'll feel much more motivated.
I'll keep you updated of how that goes

EasyJapanezy Wrote:Here is the end of the Kanji Challenge

Well done and good luck with Core. I didn't finish RTK either and have never felt the need to go back and finish it off. Moving on to Core6000 seems like the right choice.

MrTimscampi Wrote:I'm planning on doing 146 frames per day, hoping to finish RTK1 in 2 weeks.

Good luck. I've got nothing on at the moment and have been trying to finish my remaining 500 character by Christmas, but the most I added was 74 in one day, and then I failed about 80% of them the next day, so it's tough going. If EasyJapanezy's attempt is anything to go by, you're going to find it pretty hard. I've noticed once I start to burn out I stop putting effort into coming up with good mnemonics and as a result spent my time counterproductively.

That's what I'm afraid of, mostly.
As said, I don't care if I don't finish it up in 2 weeks. I just want to get it done as quickly as possible because I'm really eager to start learning the language and be able to understand even a few words in songs, anime, games or even have an easier time navigating on websites
The early part of learning Japanese is boring if you do RTK. I mean, you can't understand anything ^^
That's why I want to go as quickly as possible on RTK (While still going for a maximum retention rate.)
I'll just have to find the balance between speed and memorization.

The small stuff I plan to do on the side is mostly to keep motivated and keep the learning fun. (Genki and Hiragana practice with よつばと！, which will also allow me to spot some kanji I learned.)
I want my journey to fluency to be fun and interesting.
Learning a language (or learning anything, really.) should never be boring. If it gets boring, you're doing something wrong.
That's what I believe. ^^
I'll probably begin my reviews tomorrow to get some out of the way, but I plan to really start next Monday

amillerchip Wrote:

MrTimscampi Wrote:I'm planning on doing 146 frames per day, hoping to finish RTK1 in 2 weeks.

Good luck. I've got nothing on at the moment and have been trying to finish my remaining 500 character by Christmas, but the most I added was 74 in one day, and then I failed about 80% of them the next day, so it's tough going. If EasyJapanezy's attempt is anything to go by, you're going to find it pretty hard. I've noticed once I start to burn out I stop putting effort into coming up with good mnemonics and as a result spent my time counterproductively.

How are you approaching learning new kanjis? I've powered through from 1400 to 1900 for about 100 a day with failure rate climbing somewhere around 30% or so, which is still manageable. The only problem I've come across is the brutal Anki reviews piling up.

Honestly speaking my stories are less than stellar too. It doesn't help that the primitives are tougher to remember. But it can be done.