2200 Kanji revised. Mastery will still take a few more months, perhaps. BUT I’M DONE. I COMPLETED RTK. 3 MONTHS OF SOLID HARD WORK EVERY MOTHER LOVING DAY. I NEVER MISSED ONE REVIEW DAY. WHICH MEANT STAYING UP TILL 2-3 AM MOST DAYS. ALL THAT CRAMMING ON THE BUSES.
Life has been hectic, but I still managed to do it. SO if I can do it, you can do it too! Trust me.
I will post more about how to go about doing it,
But for today. I am done!
Valeant benefi ci,
Poenas dent malefi ci!
Just like someone who’s failed there driving test the first time, I feel like I’m in a decent position to offer advice on how to use Remembering the Kanji (RTK).
Choose your interval
First you need to decide how much Kanji you want to learn per day, your interval. When I first started I was doing 33 per day but now I’ve learnt to take it a bit easier so I’m doing 25. (3 months to complete all 2200 Kanji).
Choose your method
This is what I have found works best for me. It’s up to you how you do it. The most important thing is that you stick to it!
Step 1) I revise the 25 Kanji for the next day the night before.
Step 2) I then review these 25 Kanji the next day, normally after breakfast, along with previously learned Kanji.
Step 3) Return to step 1
By reviewing the Kanji the next day, I give myself a day between the first review, which for me is an effective way to gauge how well the Kanji’s story or mnemonic has stuck to memory. If it hasn’t stuck I alter the story or find a more concrete image. More on this in a later post.
How to Review
The book has an inspiring introduction, but we warned, it’s not as easy as it sounds. In Heisenberg’s day, or at least when he wrote the first edition of RTK, he used paper flash cards. You would manually write the English KEYWORD at the front of a piece of card, and the story and the KANJI CHARACTER at the back. Thankfully it’s the future now and we have Anki.
Anki
Anki is a piece of software you can use on your computer, laptop, or smartphone. It’s free and can be download from ankisrs.net.
For the curious, SRS stands for spaced-repetition-software. It’s the name given to flash card software that use specific algorithms to decide how often to show you the flashcards, depending on how easy or difficult you are finding them.
Normally you would have to input the Kanji one by one, but thankfully people have already made customs “decks” you can download for free that follow the RTK order of Kanji, (daijoubu, this is easy to do).
Setting up Anki
Once downloaded and installed, open Anki.
Make a name for your profile.
Click “Get shared” button at the bottom (or wherever they move it to).
Type RTK in the search box
Find an appropriate deck, I’m using “Heisig’s Remembering the Kanji 6th Edition”
Note there are 3 RTK books, RTK 1 is the full ~2200 joyo Kanji, RTK 2 is a way to learn the Japanese readings, and RTK 3 is the extra ~1000 Kanji which includes the “name Kanji” and extra in use Kanji if you want to pass JPLT 1. Furthermore, RTK (1) has 6 editions, which are revisions making the keywords better or adding new Kanji, ironing out mistakes etc.
Feel free to try a few decks, the deck I’m using is very plain, only containing keywords and Kanji, some decks even have the Japanese readings, and stories to help you remember it from various sources etc.
After the deck is downloaded it should appear in Anki.
Click on the deck and click the “options” button below.
Type your interval in the new cards per day. E.g. for 25 new cards per day, type “25”.
Press OK.
You are done!
Reviewing
To review simply, press study now and follow the prompts on screen. Every day it will add 25 new cards (or whatever you set it up to do), so keep your revision up. If you need to take a break, simply go to “options” and change new cards to 0. This will mean you still have your old cards to revise but it wont add the 25 NEW cards on that day. However only do this if you absolutely have to. Missing days just isn’t fun and leads to laziness. I’ve done it twice so far and it was painful.
Now cram for 3 months and you’ll be done!
Advanced
New Kanji released in 2010
If your using an older version of RTK i.e. the 5th edition or the fourth edition it wont have the 200 or so new kanji the government issued in 2010. These are only in the 6th edition. However Heisenberg, the kind bastard, made a free PDF that includes the new supplementary Kanji. Currently available here.
Syncing, using Anki on smart devices
Using Anki on your phone or tablet. Download the Ankidroid (or something with a similar name) app for free on android or IOS. You can sync from your desktop or if you’are not using a desktop just follow the instructions in the “setting up Anki” section above and set it up on your phone or tablet.
If you want to you revise on you desktop, laptop, but would also like to continue your progress on your smartphone (great for a busy life), you can SYNC your progress across platforms. Just click the top right button (which will say sync with anki web when you hover over it), make an account on ankiweb. Then it will sync your progress.
Go to the device you want to sync to, click the sync button. Login with your account and it will download your progress to your device. Remember to SYNC when switching between devices (my desktop does it on exit but my smartphone doesn’t), so you don’t mix up your progress, or do the same review again when you’re on your phone (it’s annoying when it happens).
Final words
I will post how to make up stories in a later post (at one point you have to start using your own stories), and what resources you can use to aid you. Don’t get into the lazy of habit of just using Anki without the book, you will not only miss out on different reading for certain primitives and other tips the books gives, but ultimately the lack of discipline will be your demise, as it was with me the first time around.The daily review takes me about an hour. Learning new kanji at night, 30-40 mins. So make sure you make the time for RTK. A few months of hard work to cram all the Kanji into your head. It’s really a no-brainier.
First of all I need to apologise for disappearing. This blog was intially to chronicle my mission to learn all the Kanji in 3 months using Heisenberg, RTK book and when I failed and life got too busy I stopped, so naturally the blog stopped too.
However I am back and stronger than ever! Which is a lie because I have a sprained ankle but I digress..
I’ve secretly been using RTK again and will surpass 1300 Kanji tonight. But that’s not all, I’ve also been using Pimsleur’s audio teaching method for practicing speaking and listening and, and, The Great Choko library as a way to find appropriate reading material for my level. I’m also doing a Japanese GCSE. woop…..
So here is the reason why I decided to come back to RTK.
For those unfamiliar RTK stands for Remembering the Kanji, a book by a guy with a PHD, revered as the great DR. Heisenberg. Unless his a real doctor, which would be awkward.
Anyway it breaks the Kanji into smaller components he calls “primitives”, which sometimes are the Kanji’s radicals and sometimes not. The way to learn a specific Kanji is to make a story out of it’s primitives, which should help with placement (which primitive goes where) and ingrain into your visual memory. The whole point is it is meant to beat rote memorization and therefore you can cram a lot of them into one day. It’s a mnemonic method.
With RTK you only learn an English keyword to associate with each Kanji. You don’t learn any Japanese whatsoever. What’s the point? Well Heisenberg argued that it’s harder for westerners to pick up Kanji as we don’t share the alphabet like Chinese and Korean (used to). If we have the kanji at our disposal, it makes picking up the hardest aspect of Japanese easier, the writing system. And this is the reason I came back to the RTK method.
Whenever I’d learn a new word, I’d see Kanji I remembered from my previous study of RTK and it made learning the word a lot easier (It also showed how powerful the mnemonic method was which was actually quite scary). I didn’t have to faff around with stroke order, or copying it hundreds of times, the Kanji was just there. Granted RTK is not an easy task, but with a sprained ankle and a few months to spare I thought, well what do I have to lose? (The answer is hair, I’m losing lots of hair, RTK is not easy!). But is it worth it? I think so.
I’ll update with some more details of how I’m supplementing my study, what I think of Pimsleur and keep you guys updated about progress. Anyway, the more you learn, the more you know? Right?
So, round about now I should have finished my 2000 Kanji, but I’m still at 700 and forgetting them fast what happened?
I got a job. And I stopped doing my daily routine, putting it off until I just never started again. I also lost sight of my goal of achieving it in 3 months. So now, I’ll give myself a new goal, one that is more manageable with my current schedule. I will learn 5 Kanji a day (a big drop from my 35-40 Kanji a day I used to do), and pending a new smartphone on my birthday (at least I hope I get one…or some sort of smart device) I can get Anki on my phone or some apps and help learn on the go. My current phone almost explodes at phone calls..
Learning the Kanji is fun, and the ones that have stuck are so easy to recall it’s silly, others I’ve just lost. I’ve been learning my Katakana and attending Japanese class weekly, so it’s not all doom and gloom. But I need to get back into the groove.
So onward, I wont start learning the meaning of the Kanji yet, to stick with the RTK method, and hopefully will have them all to memory by the Summer.
Wish me luck, and kick me up the but if I don’t do any work 😛
So Jet happened. will not say much about it except, the UK English test beforehand was hard, and the interview went OK.
Moving on, my new job as a teacher is rewarding. Students really relying on me, remember my name and seem to like me 
I also feel responsible for them getting their grades, yikes.
So started Kanji revision again today after a long break. Going well, at over 700 but revision time will be a lot shorter now since I work most of the day and the need to sleep early to rinse and repeat the cycle. Have retained a bunch of Kanji which is good, but just need to keep using Anki even if it’s only 30 mins a day. Will have to stretch my Kanji goal a little bit since I don’t have the hours in the day to commit to 30-35 any more per day. Let’s see what happens.
Good news is, I’m back! !!
So my Jet preparation is under way. Interview in a few days. Quite nervous. Haven’t been able to top my Kanji up yet, but hopefully the interview is a decent reason.
Been buying suits, practising smiling, English grammar, questions etc.
Started working in a school too. It’s been a hectic week, but when Jet is done plan on carrying on with my Kanji…otherwise force me!
Hehe will update once the mayhem ends. Well it never ends does it?
Running man episode 58 – “Stress”! For the reference…watch it!
So I have stressed myself out revising for jet, trying to learn how to spell (since jet is English teaching and there will be a short English test before the interview…). I’ve decided to stop stressing, or I’ll be depressed and beat up looking in the interview and they want happy cheerful individuals. So no more “Stress”!
Still gna revise spelling but going to concentrate on me and not cram lot’s of info about Japan into my head. There interviewing me after all not wikipedia. Just gta relax, suit up and feel sexy. I hope….ok I might stress a bit but that is normal..right?…
As for Kanji took a bit of a back-seat but stumbled through up to 600. 100 left and I can get back on learning it. Japanese tomorrow and a nice morning jog to start the day off. Woohoo.
So what I have noticed is that the further I go the less I know. The Anki revision helps me remember the older Kanji by repetition. Need to watch out for not remembering the keywords properly, and remembering the pictures…so not expecting heart + dagger to mean endure but actually picture something memorable (don’t ask me what), so I can remember the word endure.
I’ve also been preparing for my JET interview….so much to prepare. Interview questions (so many on the internet) and so on. Again, the more I seem to revise the less I feel I know…so started off very confident and now kind of scared. But hopefully I will get more confident as the time goes on, just got to make sure I put the hours in so I’m as prepared as I can be for the interview. Never prepared for an interview like this before….it’s like an exam.
I’m tired now. Looking forward to getting to 700 re-revised in the next two days so I can start learning my Kanji again 🙂 Although it will be a feta balancing those Anki sessions and interview prep. I can do this. I hope. Fighting!!!!!!!!
My revision week is going well, 400 under my belt. On schedule. Had a 4 hours interview today. Nan de?! So tired, but ofc wont be in bed till 2.
A bit tentative to announce this, since I made no fuss about it before, but I have just been invited to a JET interview in 2 weeks. Totally nervous, maybe will ask the dates to be changed…it’s too soon!?! For those that done know, JET is the Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme. I didn’t think I’d get it, since a girl was already invited in my Japanese class and I thought, well I didn’t make the cut. But got the email today. Nervous as hell.
I’ll try and make this blog not too JET-centric since there are many of them around…and probably nothing new to document..I’ll be reading up in interview tips. So…this should be interesting. But do put up with the occasional bursts of JET hysteria as it takes over my mind as the date draws near.
I need sleep.
Quick update: revised 300 Kanji, retention rate ~70%-80%, seems to get worse with the more recent Kanji. Also I struggle to recognise Kanji from pictures more…as Anki revises from keywords -> Kanji not other way around…otherwise my retention rate would be ~90%.
Interview 8:15 in the morning so in 8 hours, need to sleep. Passed stage 1 of my other interview…this is for a different job. Fingers crossed XX
Btw: Japanese class was awesome…and my grammar sucks so glad we have a lot of hwk 😀 Though people keep thinking I should be bumped into the more advance classes…
gaijinsunny 