Furanshisuko wrote:

Hello everyone,

I'm on lesson 10(the trees!!!), 200 kanji down and since it's so few I have yet to fail an anki srs rep.  That seems good but I usually remember the kanji from the keyword right away without trying to recall the story.  I'm wondering if i will eventually get to the point where my recently learned kanji will be easy but the old ones will fall away because i barely end up using the stories?  I write each kanji 2 to 3 times(a few more if it looks horrendous), the keyword, and the story in my notebook and place the story here for easy reference, then after 20-30 kanji i use the heisig anki file to add w/e i learned for the day plus do reviews.  Should i focus on making more memorable/imaginative stories to ensure i recall the older kanji down the road?

ありがとう、
フランシスコ
Francisco

yes, do focus on making more memorable/imaginative stories because it will save you time in the end.  Don't forget to use the stories on this sight, its a fast and easy way to get good stories.

I think it's fine to go fast if you want.  RTK1 naturally starts fast for everyone, since you don't have many reviews yet, the stories are provided for you, and the kanji have relatively fewer strokes.

Man, how many times did I read this thread...

I kind of made it a goal do progress in a way that leaves me hungry for more when I get to 2042. i think there's no reward in hating Kanji when you're done with RTK 1.

So for me it's: nice and slow. Savour the moment, and if possible keep going with RTK 3. Today I'm at 812 and I'm doing just fine, I still love it.

It's a nice ride and a great way to spend your evenings.

All the best to all of you brothers and sisters in Kanji.

Reached 1220 by now and the KanjiGym Light software showed how many kanjis i have to repeat/which i mix up with others... Quite horrifying!

how many kanjis do you forget? is it normal to forget certain kanjis one cannot remember as good as others? I'm a bit shocked now and wonder whether it'd be more clever to start with rtk2 right away.. I was always thinking rtk1 gives you a deep insight into the meanings of the kanjis, making your handwriting fluent and more or less native looking, but in fact that's very minor, isn't it? Maybe I need to have a break and start heavily revising orz~

@gyouza: No need to rush yourself. If your reviews have piled up then do what you can for the day but don't push it too hard. As soon as it feels tedious just stop and continue the next day. You'll get them down soon. In the mean time just put adding new cards on hold and work on those those reviews until your at 0 due then continue back on your way to the end.

@tori-kun: How many cards are you adding daily? Maybe you should go at a slower pace if your retention is getting really low. Another suggestion is to simply concentrate on your current set of kanji and just do reviews on those until you feel confident enough to movie.

Man, it's endless. I add and add and add, but it just never seems to come to an end.

Feeling low for the first time. I'm at 867 and the last 200 have been hard.

助けて！

Danke, Silith. Ich hoffe wir schaffen das...

Thanks, Silith, I hope we'll make it...

Forget about motivation and just do it, stop thinking.
You can be done in a couple of weeks, but if you stop now, you'll regret it even longer.
Maybe you don't realize two months are like 10 000 hours away; your revision can be done in, what, 100 hours max. See? Plenty of time.
Shut up and do it.

Anyway once you will get started, you will want it to be over with. You won't need more.


Edit: I always forget anki reviews take longer than RTK reviews (at least, it's what I understood from the forum).

Last edited by EratiK (2010 September 14, 10:55 am)

I was in a similar situation; I took Japanese classes after a few months of starting RTK, and concentrated on my "Japanese Classes" deck rather than my Heisig deck for six months.  That left me with 800+ cards due!  Eek!  And the cards that showed up whenever I opened up iAnki were ones I didn't remember, and I could never get through a session with (what felt like) more than one or two successes.

What I ended up doing was effectively starting from scratch using this site's web SRS, while still plugging away at iAnki.  Using Koohii helped my motivation because it showed me cards that I did remember, so I didn't feel like I'd been wasting my time.  It gave me lots of successes, which always helps motivation.  I could do a whole lesson's worth of Kanji at a time and remember a good chunk of them.  It really felt good, and got me back into the joy of Kanji!

Meanwhile, I was chipping away at my Heisig deck on my iPod.  Because I do all my reps on my iPod, it's easy to find a few minutes here and there (waiting for the bus, on the subway, etc.) to do some reps.  Eventually, I broke through the wall of cards I couldn't remember (presumably they were the last ones I had added before the 6-month break) through to the ones that I could.  Things became easier and easier, and I could go through dozens of due kanji in a day, split between three or four sessions of what would otherwise be "dead" time.  Once I got a good grip on my iAnki deck, I stopped using RevTK.

It took several weeks, but I eventually got that 800 card monster all the way down to zero, and now most days I completely finish my kanji reps.  The only days I don't are Mondays, because I forget iAnki on the weekends!

I'm now working on getting my Japanese Classes deck in hand, too, but it comes fourth after Heisg, Hiragana and Katakana.  And I'm going to make sure I keep it that way, even if I take classes again this year.

Still feeling low, I find it hard to motivate myself. Learned 5 new Kanji today. Didn't do any reps.

助けて！

truando wrote:

Still feeling low, I find it hard to motivate myself. Learned 5 new Kanji today. Didn't do any reps.

助けて！

Singing don't worry (du-du-du-dum)
about a thing, (du-du-du-dum)
cause every little thing,
s'gonna be alright (s'gonna be alright now!) (Bob Marley)

No problem, watch some anime (know Shikabane Hime? (屍姫))
An extreme measure is to get drunk on sake and raw fish.

And do the reps, okay? (reps are more important than adding).
I kept watching tv today, but I'll still hold to my program. I'll do some before I eat, and if I'm good, I'll reward myself.
Do a little, huge reward, that's my credo (and an advantage is you cannot be hypocritical with yourself too long).

Hold on!

Last edited by EratiK (2010 September 15, 2:49 pm)

I just completed lesson 26 in one sitting today... that's 59 kanji!! I'm feeling pumped up, tomorrow I may tackle all 76 of the next lesson at once!
I'm speeding up a lot, I feel like I'm getting much better at making memorable stories, it's all about making weird mental images. Heart and mental states were a complete pain, too abstract samey concepts and bad components, but now with stuff like mountains, eagles and bamboos everything is a piece of cake. Stuff like 必 keeps popping up from time to time though, I'm a bit hard pressed to visually incorporate that in my tales.
Anyways, I'm a bit afraid that this pace is too fast and I may be forgetting some stuff... but that's what reviews are for!
Almost at the 1021 mark, that's half the book! I'm not gonna believe it when I finally finish it!
/livejournal, sorry

Today, after not being able to review yesterday, I reviewed all of my due reps in 4 hours (!) and I am back at zero again.

I needed a lot of stamina to go through this, especially considering the bad retention.

But now I feel better. This was a very crucial moment and I was close to quitting the whole RTK thing. Today was key.

This forum helped me a lot. Thanks!