Zarxrax
Member
From: North Carolina
Registered: 2008-03-24
Posts: 949
One of the toughest things for me is associating my stories with the keywords. It's not a problem for most kanji, but there are a few that I keep consistently missing. I've tried reworking my stories, but it doesn't seem to help sometimes. It's not that I have trouble remembering the stories--they are quite solid in my head. The problem is just recalling that particular story when I am prompted by the keyword. Does anyone have any tips for this?
Arkhe
Member
From: Canada
Registered: 2008-04-11
Posts: 12
I've had similar problems in the past, where I failed kanji repeatedly because even though the story itself was sound, when the keyword came up, I just couldn't recall it. My solution was to think of any short phrase that came to mind when I saw the keyword, and connect it to the story in my brain. I think it would work best with things that are already set phrases in your mind, such as lines from movies, sayings, titles of books, etc. that incluse the keyword, so you won't get confused with similar keywords. Hopefully this technique isn't something that worked very effectively just for myself.
For example, the keyword 'leap', which I had trouble remembering the story for when prompted with the keyword, the short phrase that I came up with was 'look before you leap'. For 'double' (which, rather than being unable to recall the story, I would confuse with 'duplicate') it was 'double or nothing'. Both of these give me a longer and more memorable sort of secondary keyword to hook onto that is easier to associate with a story. These short phrases help my brain make the connection to the story much easier, as when the keyword comes up, instead of just getting stuck on a keyword, I instantly recall the phrase that goes with it, which links somehow to the story itself.
Hopefully this made some sense and was helpful.
Last edited by Arkhe (2008 May 09, 1:23 pm)
Mcjon01
Member
From: 大阪
Registered: 2007-04-09
Posts: 551
I don't consider it cheating to read the story during review, but on the other hand, I'm using Anki for the express purpose of reviewing the kanji with the story on the front of the card. So I'm probably biased. And yes, I blatantly stole the idea from Khatzumoto.
I know a lot of people dismissed the idea of doing this as cheating, or making it too easy, but I decided to try it anyway (because I'm lazy 
), and so far the results are pretty astounding. I'll admit, yes, it does make things a lot easier -- easier in the way that Heisig is easier than doing things by rote. Since the story is on the front of the card, I never have to deal with mixing up or forgetting stories. I can just read the story, write the kanji, and then mark it as being "hard". Plus, even on the ones I remember, I have the story right in front of me to reinforce the imagery. Usually by the third or fourth review, the constant reinforcement has caused the stories to naturally and effortlessly (and vividly!) stick into my head, and I can conjure up enough imagery just from seeing the keyword to remember the kanji.
I've gone off on a tangent, though. On the original topic, in my experience, just making sure that the keyword plays a vivid role in the story itself has been enough to connect everything in my head. I'm only on frame 900, though, as of right now (hope to get to 1000 by the end of the day... even if that day ends at five in the morning), so my results may change.
