Miyumera
Member
From: Toronto
Registered: 2010-08-14
Posts: 172
Hey all ,
So my dilemma, comes as a result of being off on vacation to India for two months and not having internet during those times to review. I finished RTK 1 and 3 so 3000 + kanji are done. Before I left for India most were in the 5 or 6th column, but two months later I've come back 1700 kanji due -_-. a lot of kanji stories are on the tip of my mind and I have to review primitives as well. Should I just work through the columns as they are and look up primitives elements i've forgotten, or I was thinking to just clear the whole deck and start from scratch. I know the second round will be much faster since I know the stories are somewhere up here in my head, i can feel them there.. but starting over is still a task itself. 
What would you guys do ?
ryuudou
Member
Registered: 2009-03-05
Posts: 406
If you actually finished RTK 1 + 3 and it's only been two months then you could probably start sentences/vocab and let the kanji be reinforced that way.
Otherwise I think it's possible to get through the reviews. If you did 100 a day (very reasonable, about 20-30 minutes review time) then you could have it done in 17 days + another 10 days or so to account for the failed cards that will be rescheduled. Half the first part of the time equation for 200 a day, and etc.
It's not all lost, so don't stress.
chamcham
Member
Registered: 2005-11-11
Posts: 1444
Start over.
Remove all cards from your deck. (it still keeps all your stories).
Add all cards back.
Review them and delete any cards that you know very well (click on the wrench icon in the upper right and then delete the card).
When you're done, you're left with all the cards you had trouble with. Then just keep up with reviews every day, but limit them to a fixed amount of time (I'd recommend 30 minutes).
Last edited by chamcham (2012 December 27, 1:01 am)
erlog
Member
From: Japan
Registered: 2007-01-25
Posts: 633
Just work slowly through the backlog. Remember that by getting to the end you've already done the hard part. As long as you put a little bit of time in everyday that backlog will go away. It may take a month or two, but you need to stop worrying about that.
Studying Japanese is a long term process. Instead of thinking about ways to fix your backlog quickly, think about creating habits that put you on a path toward your goal on a longer time scale. Put in your 20-30 minutes per day with your Anki deck, plug away slowly at it, and move on to working through other parts of your Japanese study.
I'm working through a 2400 card backlog now(for something Kanji Kentei, not RTK), and I've gotten it down to 800 cards over a few weeks. These things happen. Backlogs happen. Just continue plugging through, keep moving forward, and you'll get where you need to be eventually.
You just have to trust in your plan and your process while putting in the appropriate time.
erlog wrote:
I'm working through a 2400 card backlog now(for something Kanji Kentei, not RTK), and I've gotten it down to 800 cards over a few weeks. These things happen. Backlogs happen. Just continue plugging through, keep moving forward, and you'll get where you need to be eventually.
Erlog, I've been wondering how your Kanken studies have been going. You should update the Kanken thread from time to time!
I worked through a 400 card rtk backlog last week and it was tough (although I imagine some people do double this in a day!).
I agree with erlog and others about this. Use Anki2 and work through your backlog but put a cap on the number of cards you study in a day. For instance, only review 100 cards a day. Switch up the order you do your reviews in. For instance, it might be good to study at least 40 or 50 cards in "shortest interval" everyday. This will hopefully hit the cards you failed on the previous day. Don't do any new cards until you clear out your backlog.
