I've decided on the following, which is working well for me: Learn as many per day as I can manage while still keeping an 85%-100% pass rate on reviews (85% is my target pass rate for my initial review, 95% is my target pass rate for cards in boxes 2-4).  A month and a half of experimentation indicates that I can introduce 20-30 new cards per day and maintain that initial pass rate.

I review all the expired kanji first thing after getting up, and add a logical number of kanji to my inbox.  "Logical" means trying to hit 20-30 new kanji by adding up to the next major primitive.  Today, for example, I did 695-714 (basically: "crotch" through but not including "claw"), for 19 new kanji.  I studied the kanji with book, pen, and paper flashcards over lunch.  I test the kanji just before going to bed -- today I had 100% initial pass rate, which is expected for < 20 new kanji.  Above 30 and my pass rate drops precipitously, which I think is a factor of how much time I spend studying: I'm trying to limit my time commitment to 1~1.5 hrs per day, and going faster through more kanji decreases my initial retention.

I also try to learn as many per day as possible. That doesn't mean that I'm making myself fill in 100 per day (but if you can, good for you!). Some days I know that I won't add much. Of course, I've gone through months of not adding or reviewing anything and then have had to restart, so perhaps my advice isn't best! Now however, I've found a good pattern that I hope will take me through to 2042. I'm up to 1892 now and generally get around 90% (sometimes lower) in my daily reviews. I'm also rather strict on whether I pass each review or not, so I figure 80-100% is a good percentage. (I wouldn't fret about missing 100%, though. It's better to get 95% of 2042 kanji consistently correct than 100% of 25 kanji.) Anyway, the system I've found that seems to work is going through as many per day as I can, figuring that around 20-30 seems to be ok. In a way, it depends on if I'm able to get really good stories or not. If I run into a primitive that makes things really easy, and if I have a lot of free time that day, I'll add a ton of cards. There's a few days that are busy, and I specifically add just a few cards or none at all rather than rush through and mess them all up in reviews. Today, for example, I only added 7, but made sure to review them well. It's important to keep of with expired card reviews, though. I've learned that the hard way. No matter how many you add, it's easy to get discouraged if the reviews pile up!

Some people seem to like using Anki for RTK, but I've stuck with this website. I can't speak for everyone, but I get the impression that either way is really fine... whichever one suits your style. The important thing is keeping up with reviews and adding new cards at whatever pace you end up feeling comfortable with.

[edit: I seem to make typos a lot.]

Last edited by Murjab (2008 December 12, 7:58 pm)