Yea, I would definitely leave those problem kanji in the failed stack until the next day. Even if you keep on failing a kanji over and over, you should still eventually get it, because once you have reviewed it so many times, you will learn it by sheer rote memorization.

When I am having problems with a particular kanji, I also try to think about it throughout the day. I'll think about the keyword, and the story, and how to write the kanji. I find that this usually helps.

I start with the red stack.  Then when I go through the orange/blue stacks, if I miss one, I go directly to the story in another tab.  I review the story and change it a little if need be.  Then I won't quiz the red stack again until the next day.  Cards stay in the red stack until I can remember them after it's been 24 hours or so.  (basically it is like adding one more stack).

Just finished a horrible review session - 21 failed kanji. Bad day for me today.

Thanks for the replies

Hmm, this weekend I'll be away (Friday until Sunday) and I'm wondering how to cope with that. No internet access at all, so no chance for real reviews.

I thought about not adding any new kanji on Wednesday (those would have to be reviewed on Saturday, right?), but adding kanji on Thursday and Friday anyway (write the ones for Friday down and take them with me so I can at least look at them on Saturday).

I will be back on Sunday, but I'm a bit scared because I have to do more reviews now everyday (80~90) and I don't want to think about doing two days of reviews worth at once. In reality though, it's only one day I'm missing so I probably shouldn't worry too much

But, what's the best way to do this? Not add any kanji for a few days to get the reviews down? ... I don't want to finish half a month later than planned...

Savara

I'm having trouble with RTK at the moment.

27 failed cards today, not so bad as Sunday or Monday though (47 failed cards). I had to review 106 cards today, average is 60~80. Is all of this just after effects of 1 day away?... (And I didn't add as many cards last week and this week, as normal, as well).

Right now, I'm honestly scared what would happen if I did go on a holiday with my parents for more than 1 day (it would be like, 5 days).

And I'm also having a crazy amount of difficulty with remembering/learning new kanji. Maybe just a hard point in the book, or a mental block, or another after effect of the weekend (maybe everything combined).

I started somewhere last year, gave up after 100 kanji or so. Now I'm at 900-something, after really starting back in February/March. Then I'll read someone who has been going for a few *WEEKS* and is at the same point. I feel like a failure at the moment. For the first time since starting learning Japanese last June, I feel like giving up.

I won't, I can't even really imagine giving up. Reviewing words, sentences and kanji just has become such a habit, it would probably be hard to break Still... Maybe I just need to read another chapter of D.Gray-man or watch the last two eps of Hero Tales, and forget to worry about what I don't understand and just enjoy it for a moment?

...

Yeah, man, don't worry about it. It's not a race. Some people are just crazy and/or have much more free time and/or are overly suited to this style of learning. How long it takes you shouldn't be TOO much of a consideration. Even if it did take you a comparatively long time (and the time you've spent isn't comparatively long), it's likely still quite a lot faster than it would be on the traditional route. You're still saving time.

About failing cards. I think that probably warrants a review of the stories associated with the things you're failing, perhaps finding new stories or a new way to go about them. Try constructing your stories differently. If you're mostly relying on the words of a story, try to focus more on images. If you're focusing mostly on images, try to focus on clever little wordplays instead. Swap to keywords in your other language? Or even finding a different time of day to review them. My reviews are negatively affected by two things: being tired, and being stressed. The second one is most unfortunate, because it means after I miss a couple I get stressed and start missing ones I'd get otherwise.

But, that aside, try not to worry about it too terribly much. I started out with a near perfect review rate, and that set up pretty horrible expectations for myself. My reviews have since plummeted (only a little objectively, but like I said, bad expectations) and it makes me furious. But I have to realize it doesn't matter, and it's not a race to get cards into the fourth box and I still know the card more than I did before I learned it. Most importantly, forgetting IS a part of the learning process too. Everything you do here, including failing, is working toward your success.

Also, I can't quite remember exactly because I'm one of those fast ones, so I don't get my head on the specific numbers, but I'm pretty sure 900 was a hard area for me too, and I think I've heard others mention that as well. And I found some of the stuff either leading up to or crossing over 1200 (again, can't remember exactly) to be really awful as well. There's a lot of rough patches like that, some shared with most users of the book and some personal. Just tough it out. Even if seems like you're not internalizing them very well while you're learning new ones, that just means they'll be in the failed box later and you'll do a little bit more work on them then. As above, you still know them more than you did before; it's still working toward your success.

And have some fun with the language, too.

Don't feel bad about failed kanji. You're asking your brain to remember over 2000 chinese characters. You can't expect to be flawless.

If you're having trouble with new stories, don't fret too much. Everyone hits that "kanji wall" every now and then. My advice is to take a breather from new stories and focus on those orange and red stacks. Close your eyes and visualize your stories. Follow Heisig's advice in Lesson 11. The chore of reviewing will quickly bore you so badly you'll be fit enough to devour those new cards.

I agree with CharleyGarret and akrodha - you will get some Kanji wrong, don't stress about it.

I've had a day with 50+ failed kanji before, and it's not that bad.
Failed kanji don't usually require as much effort as learning a new kanji.

But I think it's very important to clear your failed stack each day.
If you let them build up you will lose all the work you put in before they failed.
I think of it this way - the sooner you get them out of the failed stack, the sooner they will be in the 4th stack!

I found RTK a lot easier once I realised I could trust the SRS.

Woooo!