For the past few days I have been looking for an effective way that I can personalize and memorize the on-readings to all of the kanji that I have just learned to write thanks to RTK1.

At this point, I am still trying to wrap my head around Hesig's intended RTK2 learning method. I have also taken a look at the Movie method as well as the Kanjichain method. I like what I read in the Movie method as well as the Kanjichains, but came up with a different approach which (at least tonight) has worked for me.

Before I invest too much time into this technique, I wanted to throw it at the Kohii community and see if on the surface anybody can see whether or not this is just going to be a complete waste of time on my part. Any criticisms/advice would be greatly appreciated. Well, without further ado, may I present...

-KanjiQuest-

The idea behind all this is to take on-reading sets and turn them into your own, user created RPG (complete with monster hit-points!) To begin, each KanjiQuest has the following elements;
-A Kingdom
-A Hero
-A Quest-giver
-Weapon(s)/companions
-A monster/villian

The idea is to assign kanjis from each set to the elements used within the story. Kingdoms are essentially the place where the story takes place, and get their names from the sets you are trying to memorize. For example, kanjis that have the reading of エキ will be used in a story that takes place in the Kingdom of エキ. So, looking at my list, the following kanji have the エキ reading; 駅　液　益　易　疫　役... there may be more but I guess these are the major ones.

Now for the hero, don't assign a kanji. Just let him be "Generic Hero" someone that can show up in each of your adventures. For your monster, go ahead and use a kanji if you want, or a kanji to describe a feature he has, my monster was some sort of 液 (and I cross that off my list). He leaves a trail of goo everywhere he goes.

So I now have 5 remaining kanji 駅　益　易　疫　役 and will build my story with that. "Our hero arrives at the 駅 (station-cross that off). There he is met by the quest-giver who tells him that killing this monster will be 易 (easy-cross that off). Now the quest-giver can be a person, a sign on the road, a dream... whatever you need, just make sure that in your story you have something to set your hero off on the quest and utilizes a kanji in our list. The quest giver then tells you that the only way to kill the monster is to get a missile from the village-people 役 (the idea here is that you can use a kanji itself, or elements used in making the stories used in RTK1... which I have done here... and I have my weapon/companions).

I now have 2 kanji left 益 and 疫 which I need to incorporate into my story. Lets look at our list of essential elements and make sure they have been taken care of:

-A Kingdom エキ
-A Hero (generic)
-A Quest-giver　易
-Weapon(s)/companions　役
-A monster/villian　液

The idea with the roles is when you are thinking of the story you have a mental checklist of things you know need to be addressed when reviewing. Hopefully acknowledging them in your story will trigger the flow of the story, and help you fill in the gaps.

With every role taken care of, I am free to use those 2 elements anyway I want. Ok, so before leaving the 駅 the quest-giver tells the hero about an 疫 (epidemic) and leads him/her to an animal saying, "It will be to your 益 (benefit) to eat whatever lands on this plate from between the legs of this horned animal (again, elements I used in my RTK1 story) in order to be immune to the 疫.

So, now I have my quest and I have used all my kanji.

Here is where the hit-points come into play. There are 6 kanji used in this story, this means our monster has 6 hit points. When we play "The Kingdom of Eki" we need to note that the monster has 6 hitpoints or that there are 6 kanji in this story. You can set your own pass/fail criteria. Our hero has health too... Each kanji in the story represents 10 seconds of your hero's life. In this story he has 60 seconds to run through the quest and kill the monster. A story with 3 kanji would give you 30 seconds where a chain with 18 kanji would give you 3 minutes... I think you get the picture.

Anyways, the idea is to hopefully see a kanji and be triggered to run through the quest in your head remembering elements as they are necessary.

What do you think?

It is a nice Idea, I will try it.

But I didn't know why you give hitpoints for the monster or better what to do with the hitpoints or the time of the character. (I know what a hitpoint itself is)

Teskal Wrote:It is a nice Idea, I will try it.

But I didn't know why you give hitpoints for the monster or better what to do with the hitpoints or the time of the character. (I know what a hitpoint itself is)

I figure the hitpoints are just a clever way of saying to yourself, "I want to clear this list with x% accuracy." Nothing more than that really... just trying to mask mundane studying techniques by giving it a fancy RPG element!

As for the time limit (hero health), it is just a way to push yourself to think faster and work harder. Writing from memory 10 kanji in 50 seconds is a lot more of a challenge then writing 10 kanji with no time limit. Trying the 10 seconds today seemed a bit short. A lot of the kanji take 10 seconds just to write out!

Thank you for trying it out. Please let me know how it works for you.