I use RevTK and I was wondering if I could have some input.
I have a graph paper notebook, and what I do is when I'm studying new kanji, I look up the stroke order on jisho.org, write it once, and write the mnemonic I'm going to use next to it. I do this for every one.
Then when I review, I write the kanji once before I flip the card. I then write it several (5-10) times to get a feel for the stroke order. I only do this if it is a new card, otherwise I just write it once. I do this to get a feel for the stroke order as well as hoping it helps slightly with discerning and remembering stroke orders in the future.
My method works well, my retention rate is very high (so far), and a lot of the time I don't even need to show the mnemonic, but it takes a very long time. Am I doing something unnecessary? Should I change something or is it worth the extra time if it is working fairly well?
Thanks for your time!
-VDP
You've got the right idea with the writing, as it's very useful for learning and remembering, and something you should always do with new kanji/words, both when studying and when reviewing, but less and less the more you know a given character/word/etc. You'll get a feel for when it's overkill or useful.
But you don't need to write out the mnemonic. Thinking about the relevant components of the story while writing each primitive is good. Then when you're reviewing, use the keyword to recall the kanji, reaching into the story as you need to on that conceptual level that's attached to the parts of the character. Eventually the story will fade and you'll barely be glancing at the keywords as you instantly recall the entire kanji.
Edit: I wrote comments above/below this also: http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?p … 17#p140117
Edit 2: http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?p … 97#p140297
Last edited by nest0r (2011 May 18, 5:03 pm)
nest0r wrote:
Edit: I wrote comments above/below this also: http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?p … 17#p140117
Edit 2: http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?p … 97#p140297
Wow, very good articles and links in your posts. Although the conclusions of the studies aren't at all surprising. Thank you very much for that. I will take it into consideration.
overture2112 wrote:
My handwriting is poor (since I basically never use it), but so is my English handwriting (which I also rarely use). You can always improve handwriting later if you actually care (but you won't unless you're weird).
My english handwriting is very poor as well. I regret not trying to make it legible and 'pretty' from the beginning (but as a young schoolkid, who really cares about that?). I don't know what's weird about wanting to have neat handwriting. I would love to have beautiful japanese penmanship. I guess I'm weird 
.
I guess I too am in the weird category, because I do care, and I'd rather get it right up front than have to unlearn sloppy writing habits at a later date.
I write a new kanji 1 to 5 times, depending on complexity, not so much for memory but to get the balance / proportions right.
I always write the kanji on a scratch pad when reviewing. It only takes 1 or 2 seconds each, so a 60-card review, for example, takes only 1 or 2 minutes longer than without handwriting. Afterward, I have a sheet of paper that I usually think looks pretty cool (a reward of sorts), and which I can use to judge how well (or not) I've kept characters in alignment and proportion ... before I throw it away.
Different strokes (sorry) for different folks, but I enjoy writing and don't understand the antipathy. Although I type more, I still write every day. I take notes in meetings and during phone conversations, brainstorm or present on the whiteboards in our offices and hallway, stick PostIt notes on stuff (or write directly on some objects), leave notes lying about here and there. I often do first drafts (or portions thereof) of memos and papers by hand. I do admit to having doodles, diagrams, and other scribbles mixed in, which is better accommodated by 2-dimensional paper and pencil than the linearity of typing.
But as nest0r said, you'll eventually develop a "feel" for when it's no longer (or still) useful to you. It's good to take a sanity (or idea) check now and then, but ultimately, just do what feels right for you.
Larrikin
New member
From: Richmond
Registered: 2011-05-11
Posts: 7
Whenever Im learning a new kanji, I write the kanji out atleast 5 times. For reviews I write them atleast once. I feel like the main point of RtK is to learn to be able to keep the kanji Im learning straight in my head, while improving my writing abilities. If I'm not writing the stuff down in practice, it kinda defeats the point, since the meaning isn't always exact and Im not learning the readings from RtK.
AlexandreC
Member
From: Canada
Registered: 2008-09-26
Posts: 309
If your method works to help you remember the kanji, then that's great, as long as it doesn't take too much of your time. Obviously, knowing all the kanji is of little value if you can't string a decent sentence together. How long does it take you per kanji? If you multiply that by 2000, how much time is that?
In my opinion -- although it depends on your personal goal --, most learners would do well to cut down their kanji learning time in half and devote that time to practicing oral skills.
Cranks
Member
Registered: 2010-10-21
Posts: 477
nadiatims wrote:
bing bong. What above poster said. Just finish RTK to get rid of that initial unfamiliarity with kanji and start learning real Japanese. You don't have to nail down a perfect story for each kanji (they likely won't matter after a few months anyway), be overly fussed about stroke order, minor discrepancies in fonts etc. And you don't have to bother doing RTK3 or writing each kanji a bunch of times each review. You have your whole Japanese learning life to further master your kanji skills, but kanji alone is nothing.
Bump.
You could just skip Kanji if you like. Who needs reading anyway... 
Actually, I'm serious. If you only care about listening and speaking then it is possible to get by without Kanji (probably not Kana, though.) It's definitely not as easy (#that's such a debatable comment right there#), but it can be done, depending on your goals, of course. (3 months of Kanji prior to learning anything useful is a big time sink, really.)
Either way, finish up and finish soon. You'll feel good about it and you can get on with working on listening/speaking, which are probably more important if you want to talk to people (you're not one of those reading/writing only types, are you?)
On a side note, I always find it funny that as a community we have adopted reading as our starting point rather than building auditory vocabulary through consistent listening/watching to comprehensible level appropriate re-listenable content with the aid of SRS and Furigana combined with consistent oral output through sentence patterns and grammar structures that leverage new vocabulary and spiral outward from most basic to more challenging with the aim of fluently reproducing and remolding them in real time (I just said, "Dude, just talk to yourself in the mirror" - who said you needed someone to talk to? Fluency is fast speaking ability. You can get it via mass output with the occasional correction form a skilled native.)
Probably, the only issue would be when you hit N2 level or so and you need to read without Furigana. You'll find most textbooks don't have any past that level - that is if you use textbooks at all (being N3 something, I don't really know yet if I can answer whether it is possible to go beyond N3 without hitting Kanzen and friends, although for listening I can say 'yes'.)
I hope I gave you something to consider.
Last edited by Cranks (2011 May 25, 11:25 am)
