It all depends on your method really.  I have pretty good retention on the 3 or 4+ stuff, which really is why they are in there in the first place, but younger stuff can be as low as 35-40 and as high as 90-95 depending how you do it.  The important thing is being honest with yourself and seeing some cards makeing their way into later piles from the hard work.  That's all there is to it, tough to mess it up, easier to give up than mess up I think ^^

I've finished RTK1, and I get around 10-15 on average to review a day. I usually get 90% right. The only thing is there are some stubborn kanji I can't learn, so my red pile stays around 400.

I really dont want to know. I only know Im much better with old old ones. Ignorance can be a bliss. I'm frustrated enough that I never seem to remember those from one day ago AT ALL. Means Im going very slow..

I think the retention scores are not important. They totally depend on your system. I don't go for high retention rates and instead push my reviews through as fast as possible. So my rate is lower. I could go slower and have a much higher rate I guess. All that matters is that eventually all my RTK cards will be mature cards. I don't care bout the rest. I'll get there, ya know. I will!

Don't try too hard. Studies have shown that it's more productive to review material again if it's too difficult to recall. If the answer to a card doesn't come to you within a couple of seconds, you should probably fail it and review it later, instead of struggling to recall the answer.

http://ichi2.net/anki/wiki/TheTimerAndShortQuestions

That's what I do. If I don't know it within a few seconds > fail.

It gives me lower retention rates but forces me to think FAST! 

Last edited by stoked (2009 February 05, 7:55 am)

My retention was allways around ~70%. Almost never above 80%.

For kanji that have been in the rotation a while (my deck's only 21 days old, but ), I'd guess that if I were to just study those I'd get about 85-90% retention, possibly more.
For kanji that were added more recently, though (4 days ago or sooner), closer to around a 40-50% retention rate. This has been the case since the start, though, and I've noticed that after a kanji's been in the deck for a week or so the rentention rate increases dramatically and I start to recall it whether I want to or not. I'm like, "wait, when did I actually know that kanji?! AWESOME."

That differentiation of 'young' and 'mature' cards is so cool to me, it makes me think of these organic memories gestating in the warm recesses of my brain. Actually, that sounds kind of gross.