Beginner here. Apologies if this is covered somewhere - I did look!

When initially going over the Kanji in the RtK book - writing them down, making sure you've got the stroke order correct, etc. - how long do you wait before reviewing them on the koohii site?

For my first day I did it almost immediately, and then immediately again with ones I failed. I think this may have been in error. If so, how long do you wait before trying again? (Or for the first time, for that matter.) After all, it's one thing to recall something correctly a day later compared to minutes ago..

Conversely, hopefully there's no harm in saving failed Kanji for the following day's review?

Unrelated question: a cursory glance at the forums suggest that this Anki program is popular. Is it superior to the on-site review, or more of a supplementary program? Or is it used for a different purpose altogether? (Learning the Onyomi, Kunyomi, etc.)

You can review whenever you want, really - but I'd go one of two ways.

Make up stories in the morning (or the night before and write them down, but in any case, start your memorization path in the morning) - seven minutes later, review; one hour later, review; an hour before bed review; the next day start reviewing with your SRS program. You should have extremely high retention, at the cost of reviewing multiple times the first day.

Or - just make up your story, and within the hour, add it to your SRS and review it, then just keep going. You'll have a lower retention, but it will take you very little time to get the ball rolling, and sooner or later you'll start remembering.

This site and Anki are both SRS programs. If you're only reviewing RTK kanji there's nothing wrong with this site. Anki, however, allows for SRS reviews of things -besides- the RTK kanji, so you'll probably want it after a bit.

But what is SRS you say: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaced_repetition_system

Everyone probably has a different method for this first step. I don't think there's an agreed upon best practice, so do whatever you feel is best for you.

I think the most important part to understand is that the SRS program will take care of your actual learning, so just get the cards in your deck however you want and stay on top of reviews.

Personally, I look over a new kanji once, make up a story, draw it once, then add it to my deck. The next day I'll study it as a "New Card". You can imagine I forget them a lot at first, but over time they start to sink in. So for me, one day is my interval.

Hmm, are there any particular good times/bad times for memorization/study/review? For instance, you have some free time in the middle of the day and want to spend some extra time working on it - what would you say would be the best way to spend it? Is learning new kanji only recommended in the morning? (I tend to just do everything at night, with one or two reviews when I can during the day.)

Don't review when you are are drunk or really drowsy. I never feel like much comes of reviews during those states.

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/...puter.html

In the morning you have most energy. If you wake up early (5-6 AM) there is also silence... so why not do japanese that time. If that is your priority.
In the evening you are already tired.

I leave about a 20 minute gap between first exposure to a new word (or kanji, when I was doing those) and first reviewing it in Anki. The way I see it (and do it) is this: if you couldn't remember what you learned after 20 minutes, you sure as hell weren't going to remember it in 24 hours*. It's much more efficient to discover that you don't know it as early as possible so you can fix it as early as possible. Keep failing a "new" card until you can pass it. (Anki will delay it a short interval for you; not sure what this site does). This routine ends up being the actual learning.

That's just what I do, anyway. I don't think it matters too much how you get your cards out of the "new" pile since you're going to review them very soon anyway. I just think it's better to get them out of there as soon as you can.

*Putting aside memory consolidation magic that might occur during sleep.

Gaijinme Wrote:http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog … puter.html
...
your goal is to be the first thing people do when they start their day

A goal I can get behind.

vix86 Wrote:Don't review when you are are drunk or really drowsy. I never feel like much comes of reviews during those states.

On a similar topic, how does this apply to when depressed and such? I had/continue to have a worrying problem with my computer a couple of days ago, and the next review I added a record number of cards to the fail pile. And today I learned something even worse (Which I will refrain from mentioning to avoid the possibility of upsetting anyone, no need for that on this forum, I think.)

Should I just stick with studying when I can for the next few days? (Or possibly longer.)

Only if you feel up to it.

Don't strain yourself or anything, this is just studying. Pretty much anything of importance should come before it.

That said, I think any studying is better than no studying though. Just because your mind may be elsewhere, due to external factors, doesn't mean those synapses aren't firing. So if you can find the time, go for it.