Learning at a slow pace?

Thurston New member

From: USA Registered: 2011-11-05 Posts: 2

I feel like a lot of Heisig's stories aren't applicable to me and not very memorable. After I learn new kanji (usually 20) I'll come here and see what the top rated stories are for each kanji and select one of those to use as my brains "default". In the beginning I would make up my own stories then come on here and see some top rated ones were easier to remember than mine and over time I have just stopped creating my own and go to the top rated for all my stories. Because of this I feel like I am learning a lot slower than I should be and I don't know if it is a good habit or not.

I often read posts online about people learning upwards of 60 a day (some 100) which blows my mind since doing 20 usually takes me around an hour.

My exact process when learning them is:

1. Look at kanji / read Heisig's story and information.

2. Practice writing it a 2-3 times.

3. Repeat until I've done 20.

4. Come on here and add the new cards.

5. Go through each card, select a top rated story I like and practice writing it 2-3 more times.

What I would like to know is am I learning them slower than average and if so what should I do (or not do) to improve? Any advice / suggestions would be much appreciated.

Almost New member

From: a Registered: 2011-07-21 Posts: 8

I'm not into the whole story thing myself. You probably are going slower than average if you feel like the method isn't working well for you. Then again, it doesn't matter if you're going slower as long as you have some kind of progress. If you can find something that works better do that... if not there's nothing wrong with being less efficient.

Betelgeuzah Member

From: finland Registered: 2011-03-26 Posts: 464

You gotta speed up the pace son.

1) put an alarm for 2mins. That's the time you have to learn a new kanji, MAX.

2) start the alarm, look at the next kanji, come here and check the top stories.

3) while writing the kanji down a few times (becomes less important once you get familiar with the primitives) make up a mnemonic in your mind until your alarm goes off. Difficult kanji, easy kanji, whatever it is, 2 minutes is what you have.

4) restart, the alarm, move on to the next kanji.

Being efficient is what you should aim for. lolHeisigstories/your own stories unless people here recommend it for some kanji.

That's my 2 cents anyway. Don't mess around if it's not absolutely necessary.

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Katsuo M.O.D.

From: Tokyo Registered: 2007-02-06 Posts: 887 Website

Heisig states it's possible to finish in 4-6 weeks if you make a full-time job of it. If we take that to mean about 8 hours per day, then at 20 per hour you would be doing around 160 per day and thereby finishing in about 2 weeks.

It seems he is expecting a rate of around 8 to 10 kanji per hour, and you are going pretty fast.

Regarding your method, you appear to be learning Heisig's story/image in no.1, then replacing it with one from this website in no. 5.

Personally, I would read Heisig's idea, skim through the top few ideas on this site, and then select one, or make my own.

eggcluck Member

From: Suzhou, China Registered: 2010-06-28 Posts: 40

I am going to chip in and say just going for the top rated story is not the best of ideas in my opinion. Many of the top rated stories are there by viture of being the oldest. I stopped and read down a little, and I found that for my particular tastes some of those bottom stories to be much better than the top rated stories, but since they came years after the top rated one, they are at the bottom.

I took the route of 100 a day...its sadistic and the review piles made me cry. Yea I did it fast, but in the end I think I did myself a dis-service.

Betelgeuzah Member

From: finland Registered: 2011-03-26 Posts: 464

eggcluck wrote:
I took the route of 100 a day...its sadistic and the review piles made me cry. Yea I did it fast, but in the end I think I did myself a dis-service.

I found this manageable when I was at like 1400 kanjis or so learned~ 50-100 a day for the next week+ and I was done. Reviews took a while to calm down but they were never too much to bear.

Thiel New member

From: New York Registered: 2011-01-31 Posts: 6

I think the people that can pull off 50 or more Kanji a day are those with a veritable crapton of free time. I could never do that with my schedule. More power to you if you can make it work though. Those review sessions must be nauseating.

Forcing myself to rush through with a real quick story never seemed like the best fit for me either, so I take my time and make sure I've got a somewhat memorable story before continuing on. It takes longer, but I feel more familiar with the stories this way. It usually takes me about 30 mins to get through 10 of them, which seems to fit with how much time you're spending.

I was also never fond of cramming back in school and always found it detrimental to learning, but maybe that's just me. I'd go nuts if I had to cram that much in one night.

I'm probably learning at the slowest possible pace ever (partly due to not focusing on just RtK), but I really don't find it to be that big a deal. Any studying is good studying in the long term.

franciscobc84 Member

From: Brazil Registered: 2011-02-05 Posts: 40

I think you're doing fine. I usually do 20-30 each day (even though last month, when I was on vacation, i did 40-60). That's quite a consistent pace, you don't need to go faster than that.

Like the previous member commented, I also find it detrimental trying to rush the process and not spending enough time on each story.

Last edited by franciscobc84 (2012 February 02, 7:12 pm)

s0apgun 鬼武者 ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ

From: Chicago Registered: 2011-12-24 Posts: 453 Website

Please see my post here, info on the deck that already provides the top two stories here. It is a shared deck for Anki and cuts out the need for looking at this site or heisigs book.

http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?p … 11#p168411

The only way to improve your pace is to cut the things that slow you down from your routine. I recommend using a smart phone with ANKI program downloaded rather than an internet SRS or computer SRS. It makes it much easier to do RTK all day long.

I've completed 1000 kanji in 4 weeks by doing 50 new Kanji a day. I've since dropped it down to 25 new a day. My reviews are around 125 a day it takes me about an hour to get through the reviews and maybe another hour to learn the 25 new Kanji inside the SRS. 2 hours of your day is not much at all. I like to do the reviews in the morning and the new cards at night before I get ready to sleep.

After 6 weeks of RTK I'm only at about 300 cards "matured" in my deck but I can say my ability to recognize Kanji is amazing now. I actually enjoy trying to read sentences now.

Thurston New member

From: USA Registered: 2011-11-05 Posts: 2

@Almost I agree, any progress is good progress.

@ Betelgeuzah I don't think time boxing kanji in a manner like that would help in any way.

@ Katsuo When you phrase it like that it makes me sound fast! That's basically what I do, I'm glad to see that is somewhat the norm.

@ Eggcluck I see what you are saying but I think I'll stick to the top rated, scrolling to the bottom ones every times would just eat up more time. 100 a day?! o.o
That's another reason I don't want to learn too many a day is I'd be afraid of forgetting the stories and burning out on learning them.

@ Thiel I completely agree with you and its nice to see I'm not the only slow one

@ Franciscobc84 Slow and steady might not win the race, but it will remember it.

@ S0apgun I actually have Anki on my phone as well as my using this site as my SRS. Congrats!

Thank you to everyone for chiming in, really appreciate the advice.

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