ColdCore
Member
Registered: 2012-01-05
Posts: 22
Hi,
A few weeks ago, I finished RTK1. I did 20/day and always had a pretty decent retention rate of around 85%.
Now that I'm done with RTK1, I've decided to postpone RTK3 until I finish Tae Kim and some vocab. But as I sit here revising my old RTK1 cards, I keep noticing that my retention rate is decreasing!
A week or so ago, the lower bar turned yellow, and now, it's at 74.3%, and I feel disgusted with myself, yet I don't understand what I'm doing wrong. I _always_ write my kanji as I check the answer, so the problem really lies with actually _remembering_ the stories/kanji.
Is this normal? If not, what do you recommend me to do in order to increase it again? I'd like to have my 85% back; I'm not asking for the full 100% or so here, just enough to get by without the demotivating yellow colour.
Thanks in regard!
Miyumera
Member
From: Toronto
Registered: 2010-08-14
Posts: 172
I find this too but I feel it's just because as the kanji get put into more advanced columns the time between review is increased. I think it's normal to forget things if they haven't come up for a month or something (maybe even more for columns 5+, I haven't kept track.) It's not that you have forgotten it entirely, it's there in your head somewhere and you just need to review it. For a story i have completely forgotten, and I'll know if it was a shaky story from the beginning, I'll just revamp it with a new image/story by identifying the weak spot of the story and making it represented by something more prominent. The SRS will take care of the review when you fail that card since it will come up more often til you get it. bottomline is, you can't do much about forgetting but you can revamp the story by looking for the weakest link in them. Then you just continue to SRS and never stop.
Last edited by Miyumera (2012 September 28, 4:35 pm)
EratiK
Member
From: Paris
Registered: 2010-07-15
Posts: 874
Yep, it's normal, no need to feel disgusted with yourself. You should remove that yellow bar, wherever it's from.
Usual solutions are because the keyword is a problem, so you modify it, replace it with Japanese, add a hint...
If it's the stories, you should alter them in an even more visual/personal way, and see what works.
ColdCore
Member
Registered: 2012-01-05
Posts: 22
Thanks for the support everyone, I feel better knowing more of you have faced the same. I'll continue my reviews and try harder to correct/improve the stories.
As for the little yellow bar: I meant the bars that show your retention rate on Anki. I've already disabled them during reviewing itself, but I can't seem to find a way to remove them completely (though I should, as they're demotivating to be honest).
Thanks again!
Last edited by ColdCore (2012 September 28, 5:09 pm)
nihongonotame
Member
From: Africa
Registered: 2012-02-23
Posts: 38
Yes I think I have faced this too. But I think it's sometimes because of the way you made the story.
I noticed when the mnemonics is a Full IMAGE that you can visualize, it's pretty more powerfull than just a sentence mnemonics, tough sometimes the last one turn out to be nice.
But once you will start getting in contact with some japanese material you will be seeing more Kanji and thus reviewing them again and again.
Remember the goal isn't to achieve a 100% retention, no but it's to keep in touch with those Kanji's.
Btw, when you fail a card, you push the HARD button or AGAIN button?
ColdCore
Member
Registered: 2012-01-05
Posts: 22
Thanks for your input,
I can definitely relate to that: I also notice the image is really blurry sometimes.
For some kanji, this works, such as 墓 (231) grave. My story with that one is just an image of this regular grave in a nice, sunny graveyard. I don't have any kind of story of "I went to the graveyard on a sunny day and I was greeted by a St.Bernards dog that popped out of a grave near me" or something similar.
But for others, I've noticed I should perhaps try to strengthen the image a bit...
When I fail a card: it depends on _how_ I fail it. e.g. If I have the order wrong, I just hit HARD. If I have an element in it wrong, I hit AGAIN. If I forgot to add a little stroke to an element, I hit HARD. When the element is really screwed up, I hit AGAIN.
Is that ok?
Inny Jan
Member
From: Cichy Kącik
Registered: 2010-03-09
Posts: 720
ColdCore wrote:
When I fail a card: it depends on _how_ I fail it. e.g. If I have the order wrong, I just hit HARD. If I have an element in it wrong, I hit AGAIN. If I forgot to add a little stroke to an element, I hit HARD. When the element is really screwed up, I hit AGAIN.
I think you have been easy on yourself in the past and now you see results of that.
If you got the order wrong that's because you mixed up a primitive and that's bad - no mistakes with primitives allowed.
If you forget a little drop in the character it means that your character is wrong (you didn't have that drop in your story?!) and you should hit "again".
Being strict with yourself will slow you down but your retention, in long run, should get better. But be sure that you really want that high retention. Is your goal to be able to read, or you also intend to be able to write? For reading only, I wouldn't worry about retention of writing out the kanji - with time you will discard many mnemonics that you are struggling with now. For writing you need try harder.
