Betelgeuzah wrote:

more often than I'd like to admit I can't recall keywords when looking at a kanji. I can remember the story surrounding it but the word itself just doesn't click.

I wouldn't  worry about this. You are at the stage now where you can start reading real Japanese, going from the kanji to actual Japanese words that you know or are in the process of Learning. As you probably realize by now, keywords  are not vocabulary; they are merely mnemonic devices to help you write / distinguish kanji.

EDIT: There is more discussion of the pros and cons  of reviewing from kanji to keyword  on this thread.

http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?p … 24#p156924

Last edited by Harpagornes (2012 January 04, 6:44 am)

I think I'd be hard-pressed to remember any keywords at this point. As far as writing practice goes, though, I found that the more I learnt, using Japanese keywords was simply easier: less confusing, less frustrating. But I haven't written for quite some time.

I think wrightak's deck isn't the only premade JRTK-ish deck around these parts, so if that's your thing, you might also want to try searching the forum. If you're like me, you might want to choose your own Japanese keywords instead; I found it made it easier to recall what kanji was being referred to.

For me it's weird, I can recognize the characters but I do have trouble writing some of them but I'm forgetting the stories, like crazy. So not sure what to do but people say I should switch to japanese keywords. I do delete keywords that I don''t find useful as well, so the number of keywords does decrease.