What is Reddit's opinion of
Kanji Koohii?
From 3.5 billion Reddit comments
100 reviews of this app found across Reddit:
There's just no one thing. The various programs by CB4960 (subs2srs, Japanese text analyzer, etc), Anki, Memrise, Tae Kim's approach to teaching grammar, Core 2k/6k for vocabulary, etc. all are big things that supercharge learning/skill levels.
Still, I'll answer with the one thing that made Japanese as a written language seem actually approachable and that was Remembering the Kanji VIA the Kanji Koohii website that I used 10 years ago.
Remembering the Kanji as a stand alone book is good but has a number of flaws that almost all fixed when you use the online resources dedicated to that method. The community on the forums at that time were also diverse, amazing and helpful.
I agree that sexual mnemonics are unhelpful. Others have mentioned https://kanji.koohii.com/ and I would second that; you can create your own mnemonics (which is what RTK is about), but if you get stuck you can adopt one shared from the community.
Be warned though, that you will still encounter some sexual and often misogynistic entries. You (obviously) don't have to use them, but it's an unmoderated resource so there's an occasional mnemonic provided by an unfortunate pubescent boy.
The real goal though is to come up with your own mnemonics, they tend to stick better. And as a plus, Kanji Koohi has an inbuilt flashcard review system.
It's a good thing that the readings are not included, otherwise you probably would not be able to retain all that information. You can learn the way kanji are spoken within words, you'll be fine.
I'm using RTK, couldn't recommend it enough. Use it with https://kanji.koohii.com for maximum impact
Don't hate me, but gross mnemonics are so good as mnemonics, if you personally dislike them (as it seems), then the chances of you remembering them are even higher, which is what we want.
And with time you won't need them anymore, you don't need do remember them forever, only until you don't need them anymore to remember the keyword for each kanji.
I'm currently using KKLC (kodansha kanji learner's course) and there are no offensive mnemonics, but I did make a few "offensive" mnemonics for myself when I could think of them, it helps so much with many weird kanji. I'm not using any anki deck for KKLC, but I know there is at least one. And you can always use kanji.koohii.com for many shared stories.
I use the website Kanji Koohii (https://kanji.koohii.com). It’s a good place to get inspiration especially if you use Remembering The Kanji. You have to make a free account but it’s worth it for the variety of mnemonics. That being said, I use this as a backup to my own stories since they never stick quite as well when someone else makes them.
Hey, that's the "Stats" screen in Anki for my RTK deck. I found myself checking this page every couple days just to see my amount of "Unseen" cards go down, and that was a great motivator for me.
Some tips: * Really try to embed the exact keyword into your head. The nature of approximating keywords from Japanese to English is that there are going to be some similar keywords. I continually find myself mixing up Condolences/Consolations, Disconcerting/Disquieting. Good mnemonics can really help. * I absolutely love https://kanji.koohii.com for helping me find stories. I try to come up with my own as well, but hearing other people's stories when Hesig stops providing them is a godsend. * Per a lot of the high rated stories on koohii, I find that the stories I remember the best are those associated with personifications. Mr T, Data (from Star Trek), and "Caveman" and their exploits really help me have a concrete story for some of the keywords.
I second using the kanji koohii site. I shared and copied stories on that site while going through the RTK course on Memrise.
I recommend powering through all ~2,200 kanji within 3 months and only focusing on that course, as specified by Heisig, for the best retention. Don't neglect writing them as well. I finished after 7 weeks of dedicated RTK study and moved on to Genki.
Well, I'm also currently through RTK (#700) and when I can't come up with a story on my own I straight up steal or modify one from Kanji Koohi or from this site (which is basically a reunion the most starred Koohi comments). English is not my native language so most of the time the effort of translating those to Portuguese is enough for me to remember afterwards. Furthermore I would recommend reading a lot of stories and modifying sentences based on the first thing that comes to mind when you are trying to remember them. Good luck on your journey!
The PDF+Deck is good enough. Pull stories from https://kanji.koohii.com/ if you need them; but by the time you get to the blurry pages you don't need mnemonics as badly because they are all composites of other Kanji.
There’s Kanji Koohi and Japanese Stack Exchange off the top of my head.
If you can already read Japanese, 漢字辞典 Online also lists かみ as a 人名読み/名乗り.
Also, allow me to apologize. I realize the tone of my previous comment was a bit rude. I was just legitimately surprised.
Yeah, definitely not necessary to buy the book. You can grab a free deck off the Anki website or use something like Kanji Koohii. That website also provides more kanji stories.
Oh yeah, I should have made it a hyperlink. I mean the website Kanji Koohii which is an online SRS where you can exchange stories for the kanji. I can't really recommend it since the other people's stories are sometimes rather crass and ugly.
Your method of using a popular Anki deck is probably better than mine. I've often considered whether learning at least one reading with each kanji would have been better. No idea though! The advantage of how I did it is that you spend less time pressing the space bar because there's more information you acquire naturally.
Another argument against RTK would be that although I can fluently read, I forgot almost all 2200 stories. Well, I stopped SRS, so that makes sense, but that means they won't help that much with writing. Also it's worth mentioning that to some extent kanji can also be learned through reading entirely. For example I haven't systematically learned the 嬉 in 嬉しい but I never have trouble reading it, same with 珈琲, 此処, 蒼い, 珊瑚礁, 袴, 佇む, . Maybe it would make sense to only learn the most frequent 1500 through SRS?
RTK based sites such as Kanji Koohii https://kanji.koohii.com/manage/flashcardlist?rows=50&sort=seq_nr&order=0 have hundreds of storys for kanji. Kanjidamage (and Wanikani) dont even come close.
For some reason, window.open() does not work in a card template on Anki 2.1. One possible solution is to create anchor tags(<a href="..."></a>) dynamically and click them programmatically. If you use Anki 2.1, try this:
<a href="#" onclick="openLinks();return false;">Open external links</a>
<script>
var js_number = "{{text:Number}}".trim();
var js_char = "{{text:Character}}".trim();
var openLinks = () => {
[
https://kanji.koohii.com/study/kanji/${js_number},
https://jisho.org/search/*${js_char}*,
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/${js_char}
].forEach((href) => {
const link = document.createElement("a");
link.href = href;
link.click();
})
};
</script>
I thought only the forum was shut down. Kanji koohii, the actual kanji learning site that also contains the user made mnemonics is still supposed to be available.
(still very sad over losing the forums though, I wish they had stayed available read only.. :-( )
You shouldn't do both at the same time. You'll only be reviewing things you already know. You probably shouldn't even add RTK or KKLC to Wanikani, really, but it may be worth trying out other systems anyway.
If you need help deciding which method to use, the biggest difference b/w KKLC and RTK is that KKLC expects you to learn pronunciation and vocab, RTK doesn't. The reason then to use RTK over KKLC is that some people believe learning pronunciation with the kanji stresses your brain more than necessary, so you should learn pronunciation separately, ideally through experiencing new vocab while consuming native media after you've learned all the kanji shapes/meaning. Wanikani is most similar to KKLC, because it teaches vocab with the kanji.
If you think you want to try the RTK method, you can actually do RTK with the KKLC book, just ignore the vocab/pronunciations. Alternatively, kanji koohii is a free online resource that also uses the RTK method which encourages you to buy the book but doesn't require it.
> However, my imagination hit its limitation, and my brain is fried.
Go to kanji koohi and there are millions and billions of random mnemonics for almost every kanji character.
Pimsleur is very good for speaking confidently and producing the correct sounds. The sooner you try it out, the better! It's only 30 days worth of lessons, so it's not a huge commitment.
^(Shortened versions of the audio kind of defeat the purpose of the course.)
I went through the first 2.5 levels early on into my studies and found it immensely helpful due to the way it breaks down the pronunciation of each word and utilizes spaced-repetition. Is is a bit boring tho, tbh. Try using it while you wash dishes/walk the dog/etc.
RTK... Definitely use a Memrise or Anki deck for it and utilize https://kanji.koohii.com/ to help create stories more efficiently. I do not recommend spending more that 90 days on that course. If you are not struggling with the kanji presented in Genki, I'd wait til you're done with those books before tackling it. Going through it makes reading so much less intimidating and learning vocabulary becomes easier as well. Just my 2 cents!
Yeah, it'll be slower when you start learning beginner vocab, and you might get similar kanji confused but it's possible. You can use something like the Migaku Kanji-god addon to help. Just learn new kanji with vocab.
If you do decide to keep doing RRTK (I personally found it really helpful), here are some tips:
When you get hard to remember keywords, just change it.
>卓 is “eminent”
I just changed that to Eminem waving a magic wand, early in the morning to help him write lyrics.
If you go to kanji.koohii.com you can see the stories other people have suggested for keyword names to make them easier to remember.
Like Spider-Man for 糸 THREAD, because he shoots thread/webs from his hands. Wolverine for the X SHEAF primitive (his claws slashing an X mark) like in 刈 REAP, 区 WARD, 凶 VILLIAN etc.
Obviously if you don't like RRTK you don't have to do it.
The main benefit for me was that I don't confuse similar-looking kanji anymore, like 右 石, 緑 縁, 塾 熱, 賃 貸 賃, 嬢 鎌 謙, 熟 塾 熱, etc
Or, this series of kanji: 干 牛 午 矢 失 天 夫 未 末.
It would have been really hard to keep them separate, if it weren't for RTK.
Also RTK taught me how to use mnemonics which I can use for anything, like to help remember difficult kanji readings, hard-to-remember definitions, etc. This alone was worth it for me especially because I have a bad memory. Using mnemonics also helps me to remember things outside of language-learning too.
Yes, if done in the right way. Handwriting can help to build connections in your memory, but it can also burn you out and provide no real benefit if you do it mindlessly.
I wrote down all the kanji as I recalled them when reviewing flashcards on Kanji Koohii, which became visual proof that I had actually managed to recall the kanji at the same time as being writing practice. I couldn’t cheat—if I half-recalled a kanji, the fact that I hadn’t remembered it would be right there on the page, which encouraged me to focus and actually get each one right.
Writing the same ones kanji repeatedly to improve your handwriting is not important unless you are looking to become a calligrapher. For most learners, it’s a waste of time.
I'm impressed you managed to spend only 2min per kanji. I need about 5min per kanji in total so I can only learn 25 kanji (or one lesson) in 2h - 2h30 and still keep a high retention rate though you did kanji to keyword and I did the opposite which Heisig insists on.
It seems easier your way but maybe the other is better for long term retention ?
Heisig stories are often using culture I never heard of. I am no English native and I have no religious culture nor I am familiar with many English expression used or old Chinese proverb.
Koohii helped but I find most top voted stories to be pretty mediocre. Heisig stresses that the stories need to be seen as pictures, not as combinations of words or word play which most koohii stories are.
Some of them also have weird choice of words such as pig-iron (銑) which contains the word crude that just parasitises your mind with another kanji when you could just remove that word. Heisig also does that quite often. I'm not sure why.
I used Pimsleur while I went through RTK (loved that combo), then transitioned to the Genki Textbooks.
My main advice is to not spend too long going through RTK and to start reading regularly afterwards, even if it's difficult at first. I highly recommend using SRS-based flashcards (anki or memrise) and the Kanji Koohi website to create stories quickly. Try to evoke the stroke order in your stories when you can. If you are not learning to write, you may want to consider the shorter recognition RTK (RRTK) anki deck that's online.
I shot for 90 days with a focus on writing, but was able to "finish" in just under 60 days. Of course, the reviews continued for another month while I went through the first Genki book and began reading simple native materials.
If you plan on spending 6+ months learning kanji, please pick a resource that teaches through vocabulary (KKLC, Basic Kanji Book, WaniKani). I really love what RTK did for my ability to read early in my studies and always tell people about the method, but time spent on it is time spent not learning usable Japanese.
Since you are doing RTK, I highly recommend starting to read 10min daily towards the end of Genki I and continuing to do so alongside Genki II. NHK Easy News is the most popular beginner reading resource, but there are some other options too.
I really feel like RTK is what allowed me to start reading so early, setting the pace for my later studies. My advice for RTK is to utilize kanji koohii site for stories, use SRS, and go as quickly as you can manage. If you think it will take more than 3-4 months to get through it, consider switching to the shorter RRTK or the longer KKLC/Wanikani/Basic Kanji Book or anything else that teaches through usable Japanese. Seeing people sharing how they took 1yr+ for RTK method when they could be learning kanji through vocabulary in that time... oof.
Heisig doesn't have names for all the primitives. Just the first few hundreds or something if I remember correctly.
This site has a big community of RTK doers and they have a page on each kanji with mnemonics and names for primitives. There's probably some decks on the anki website which has the most popular mnemonic stories from here.
disclaimer: it's 5 years since I used it last so some things may have changed.
Since you don't learn any actual Japanese while going through RTK, I put an emphasis on writing during those two months. I constructed all my stories using wording that evokes the correct stroke order, which sometimes just meant changing the order of stories from Kanji Koohii, and wrote each new kanji out several times in my notebook while saying the story.
Every once in a blue moon, I'll refer to my spreadsheet of RTK stories to refresh my memory on how to write an especially tricky kanji during a Kanji Study review, but for the most part those stories have fallen off and I can picture them in my mind without extra steps. I credit that to my love of reading. Seeing kanji used in context frequently has been key for me.
I start with 5, and then do more depending on how I feel. Doing them before bed works for me, or in the morning before I do anything else. I would do more, but I am also learning these alongside my main Japanese textbook.
Make sure you check out Kanji Koohi, it's a free resource to use alongside RTK. Some,of Heisig's stories are pretty ridiculous and far out there, so it helps having a bunch of other user submitted stories to draw inspiration from!
I felt the same about WaniKani.
Personally I like using RTK along with this site.
Uses spaced repetition like anki and it just feels easy to use. Go as fast or slow as you want. Some of the user submitted mnemonics can be better than the originals too.
Mnemonics were a mixed bag - a lot of them were okay, but then there were the outright shitty racist ones.
They were user-submitted ones from https://kanji.koohii.com/ so you can still go there and pick the best for you. This is probably better than only having the two that used to come with the deck.
The components are there:
> bright; light
Buy (or find somewhere in the internet) RTK book. Look through pages up until your current kanji and try to remember the meaning of primitives.
Then you can make your stories for already learnt kanji during your review session.
You can also use https://kanji.koohii.com/ for inspiration.
What are you guys saying about https://kanji.koohii.com/study ?
It's site where you can look for some kanji and see the meaning and a comment from other people for memorising it
Check out Kanji Koohii. It's a free community where people share mnemonics and alternative keywords for RTK. You can copy and paste the kanji and radicals from there. That site helped me fly through the book.
I've been working on it and failing, best bet so far is Heisig's remember the kanji. This is a good spot but you need to sign up:
​
Remembering the Kanji isn't a silver bullet, but it's useful.
I'd recommend this site in complement where users can share their own stories and sometimes have better mnemonics and keywords than the book.
If you haven't tried breaking the kanji down into radicals/components and making mnemonics yet, that could be your solution. This is the method RTK uses, btw, though you don't have to go full RTK to benefit from it. A basic example: 休, meaning rest, has the radical for "person" on the left, and the radical for "tree" on the right. Thus, to remember the kanji you remember "a person RESTing at a tree". This one's pretty simple and intuitive, but you can break down even complicated kanji into its parts and make really bizarre mnemonics. For some examples, browse https://kanji.koohii.com, a site that's designed to work with RTK but can be used on its own.
An old Japanese language tool/community which used to revolve around Remember the Kanji by James Heisig. It’s lost some relevance in recent years due to new materials like Kodansha’s KLC and WaniKani but a lot of other really useful information and tools used to get posted there. It was one of the first communities to really embrace subs2srs.
http://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/ja/files/2012/12/RK-1-6th-edition-sample.pdf Start here, be sure to read the text between the chapters. Buy the book for the rest if you like the system .
https://kanji.koohii.com/ Use their flashcard system and check every character for a mnemonic that feels intuitive for you.
Finish the whole thing in two to three months.
Same here... I feel like I spend more time trying to recover what I've already forgotten than I do learning new kanji. The stories in RTK definitely help. There is a whole community out there on Koohii where people share/vote on their own stories/mnemonics.
I'm actually working on a four volume kanji planner to help keep me on track next year... the goal is 40 kanji a week, 2000 in a year. If you're interested, send me a private message and I'll send you a link with a pdf of the draft.
Another option of learning Kanji is James Heisig's Remembering the Kanji, a book on learning 2200 Kanji through storytelling with their component parts. It starts off giving you example stories, then you are groomed to make your own stories for more vivid memorization.
I used it with a companion website,
https://kanji.koohii.com/study/kanji/1
Many users have submitted their own stories, so if you're having trouble writing your own you could read you could borrow someone's else's.
There's a flashcard system in place similar to Anki that uses the same Spaced Repetition System. You are shown a flashcard and you get it right, you'll see it again in 3 days, then a week, then 2 weeks, then a month...
I learned 2200+ Kanji in 10 weeks using the book RTK, Koohii, and SRS. Spent 2-3 hours everyday (around 25-35 Kanji). Completion is dependent on the time you're willing to spend daily.
Google the heisig method and check out RevTk
Thats how i learned
Write each kanji by hand. Itll cement what youve learned as well as teach proper stroke order.
About a decade ago when i first started learning, the recomended order was katakana->hiragana->kanji-> grammer/vocab/phrases. Might seem counter productive but i found it a lot easier to learn when i already knew what the kanji meant.
Hi,
I bought Genki I and II, the whole set of textbooks, workbooks, and answer key, for learning grammar. It also has exercises for input (reading comprehension of articles written in kana and kanji, listening comprehension exercises), and for output (translate an English sentence to a Japanese sentence, writing out Kanji). For Kanji, I also bought the Kodansha Kanji Learners Course book. I also use Anki on my computer and phone to create flashcards of vocabulary and Kanji.
If you're looking for free resources, you might try the following: * Grammar: Tae Kim's Guide to Learning Japanese * Hiragana and Katakana: DJT Kana * Kanji: Kanji Koohii for learning individual Kanji via mnemonics, similar to Remembering the Kanji
You can use a site called Kanji Koohii, it's made around RTK, you can go through in each kanji (and add them to their own SRS system) and see other User Shared Stories and use them as your own etc... Check it out ;)
No, RTK only teaches you kanji. It teaches you in similar way as wanikani, but it forces you to create your own mnemonics (you can also find them on koohi) and it doesn't teach you kanji's reading.
For words I would suggest to learn them in context from sentences. Simmilar as in AJATT or Fluent Forever in a i+1 manner. Meaning you find a sentence that has only 1 thing that you don't know and i things that you already know.
I mean in the end if Wanikani is working great for you I don't see problem using it. Just be careful when you encounter problems you shall try to find a method to get rid of them.
Honestly, not spending the money on Wanikani is worth it in the long run. It's just too expensive for the learner trying to learn on the cheap/free.
If you CAN afford a book (I think it's like $30 or something? I bought it in Japan with yen so that's roughly how much it would cost in in my native Canadian doll) Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course is amazing and I used it and the shared Anki deck that's freely available to blast through the kanji barrier in a pretty short amount of time (with lots of intense study, mind you). If you can't afford that (totally understandable), KanjiDamage is free. It's a strange resource that a lot of people here hate on, which is understandable if you use only that, but if you use it in combination with the treasure trove of user-generated mnemonics mnemonics from https://kanji.koohii.com/ while also creating your own, you can definitely cobble together a kanji learning strategy that'll get you there for free as long as you're dedicated and keep to it.
Just be careful that you actually pick one strategy and stick to it. Any strategy works if you're dedicated, but when you flip-flop, they don't work and you waste time and get down about it and risk giving up. This is what initially happened to me with Wanikani; took almost 2 years getting to level 20, hating it most of the way, tried a bunch of other crap all along and then finally decided of KKLC, sat down and did the work, and now there's very little I can't read (kanji-wise, grammar is a work in progress).
Kind of beside the point of your question, but if you do decide to try Heisig use this site: https://kanji.koohii.com/study . It has user created stories as well as the common words associated with the kanji. I've done Heisig and it basically moved me from unable to read anything and have absolutely no clue what anything was around me to being able to start associating the words I knew with their kanji AND being able to figure out a lot of the meanings of things around me.
TLDR: I loved Heisig, this site saved me hour and hours of time making up mnemonics.
WaniKani is an all-in-one kanji and vocabulary package. It's a bit pricey, but if you commit to it, you will have learned all the kanji and most of the vocabulary you will ever need in a very reasonable 1.5 to 2 years. The alternative is Anki flashcards and a separate kanji-learning method such as Remembering the Kanji which you revise also with Anki or a dedicated site like Kanji Koohii.
Whenever people ask these questions here the answer is always that some people loved it and some hated it. Ultimately I think there is no way around trying yourself. Stick with the most popular choices - for Kanji that's RTK and WaniKani - and try them both for a bit. I think long term that's well worth the effort.
For what it's worth, I personally disliked WaniKani a lot, because after a while it seemed like it would take over my life, whereas RTK is more light-weight and you can pace it as you please, which fit my needs much better. I studied it via Koohii which allows you to upload a custom list of Kanji to study and then only did the most frequent 1000 Kanji in batches of like 200 each (i.e. I learned the most frequent 1-200 Kanji first, then 201- 400, etc). That worked well for me personally. You learn the readings from learning vocab, so I don't think you need to learn them directly with the Kanji.
On a side note, you can use the RTK method via an Anki deck and sort the cards by Kanji frequency or use a website like Koohii and import Kanji in any order you want. If you study them in the original RTK order, I think the author says it is meant to be a one-off effort where you just take 2 months and do them all at once, in which case the order doesn't matter.
I struggled for years after coming to Japan with similar problems as the OP, but once I came across the Heisig method which is geared towards foreign adults of the language and the Reviewing the kanji site that supplements the system with spaced repetition, I was able to get to the stage where I could write all 2000 or so 常用（じょうよう）kanji after about 8 months, with 30 minutes study a day. Kanji is no longer a problem for me and now read native level materials regularly.
I have become a zealot for the system since then and recommended it to many others but it doesn't seem to click for everyone. It definitely suited me though.
Thanks.
> I think it may be difficult for you though, since there is a decently large emphasis on a) the order you learn the kanji
Yeah that was my impression too. I think if I wanted to do RTK, I'd have to do it all over again, which isn't pleasant. I'm currently trying to decide whether I want to bite the nail and just do it or stop isolated kanji practice and obtain the rest through immersion and vocabulary.
> If you decide to go though RTK, https://kanji.koohii.com/ is a very useful resource.
Did you go through RTK with your own mnemonics or did you use premade mnemonics like from koohii? I suspect you probably did both to some degree so which do you think is more effective/efficient?
I’m just about to finish RTK (Lesson 54/56) without much else Japanese knowledge so feel free to AMA on my perspective. RTK will definitely teach you how to produce a kanji from a keyword, and how to deal with the components of the kanji. RTK has been an arduous yet rewarding process. I think it may be difficult for you though, since there is a decently large emphasis on a) the order you learn the kanji and b) that you go through RTK before anything else (even the kana, which I would not recommend). If you decide to go though RTK, https://kanji.koohii.com/ is a very useful resource.
I think if you have to do a lot of custom study sessions in anki, if that's what you are talking about. Then i think you are probably not making good enough stories in your head for the kanji. Try to read the preface of RTK1 again or check with https://kanji.koohii.com/ if you really cannot come up with vivid picture evoking stories.
I think its normal for the stories to fade over time, but not after 4 days. I did RTK about 6 months ago and some good stories still come to mind like on the day i made them, others not so much. But as others have said it's not really necessary to know every single one, its just more of a way to get familiar with kanji to recognize them easier in the future.
I personally prefer following the RTK method, which works really well for me, but not necessarily exactly the book itself. https://kanji.koohii.com is a great website to do that. It's the Heisig method but with crowd-sourced stories. You can study the Kanji in any order you like so you can just copy+paste the list of Kanji found in Genki 1 and learn those first.
https://kanji.koohii.com/ ?
It has the 3000 kanji in RTK vol 1-3 (and I think quite a few beyond that actually).
They are in RTK order but you can search for specific kanji and add whichever one you want to your study list.
It's only in production order though.
Also never tried the mobile version but I'm sure it's fine.
Contact the school and ask them their expectations.
With that info people can give you a more accurate answer.
But anyway, I think Genki has 315 kanji, if you want more after that you can use RTK, KKLC, https://kanji.koohii.com/, wanakani, or just read a lot and learn kanji from vocab and flashcards.
Maybe give regular RTK a go and see if that works any better for you.I like https://kanji.koohii.com/
From what I understand about RRTK, RTK is like the opposite, when reviewing you get the keyword and have to write out the kanji.Personally I find writing them out to help a lot as otherwise I can't really tell kanji apart that well.There's a lot of words that I know very well but never really noticed their kanji until I learnt to write them.Like 心配 , despite knowing the word I'd always need to double check to make sure it's しんぱい, but now that I can write 配 I recognize it immediately.
Anki's strength is its customisability, which makes it easier to use for the months and years you should be planning to use it for.
Anki's default is 20 new cards a day per deck, and you can freely change that setting to be more or less. However, you do not want to turn it up higher - remember that everything you review today will come back again in a few days, and then again and again after that, so if you pile on too many cards every day, you will get absolutely buried in daily reviews, get burnt out, and find it impossible to continue. It's a marathon, not a sprint. The time scale is months and years.
If you're using Remembering the Kanji to learn kanji (and you absolutely should be using it or another mnemonics method), Kanji Koohii is more convenient as a flashcard tool that also lets you look up and save mnemonics.
Ouch, I understand your struggle.
I'm learning kanji following the RTK methodology (through kanji.koohii.com) and reviewing words and grammar points through Anki.
It's been a bit over a year now and numerous times I missed a day or a week and it was a real pain to jump back in. In some ways, afterwards, it was great victory. But during this "catch up" period, it's the worst!
I'm not sure I figured out yet what's the most efficient way to learn (for myself, of course). But one thing that helped, as others suggested is to reduce or turn off new cards until you're back on track. Today, I'm more aware of my schedule and I even do that in advance, before holidays for example, when I know I won't have enough time to review AND learn new things. Also, when the time doesn't allow me to review with proper timing, I'm a bit more gentle with myself, like saying a card is "hard" even tough I barely remembered it, instead of saying a strong "no". This helps me avoid piling up the cards to re-study, while it doesn't really harm my progression or real results :)
I hope you'll find the best way to make it work for you, good luck!
I worked through RTK1 in one run over five months and tried to make it as funny and hilarious as possible. On the one hand it‘s more entertaining and on the other hand mnemonic stories that are crazy seem to stick much better.
A good resource for maximum madness is kanji koohii where people share their stories: https://kanji.koohii.com/
Kanji was the most entertaining part of learning Japanese for me so far. I kind of miss it.
But as others already wrote - if something gets to annoying, take a break.
You should practice both Hiragara and Katakana just enough that you can read them with a pretty decent accuracy. You just need to know them well enough that you can move on to "real" study and content. There is no point spending a large amount of time on then as you're going to be using them pretty much all the time while learning Japanese so your ability will develop over time.
As for Kanji, you have a couple options.
The most common option I see recommended these days, and the one I would recommend myself, is to not try and learn Kanji, but rather learn words. When you come across a new word, learn it as a word, Kanji included.
Another option, which is fairly common is to use something like RTK, Kanji Koohii, etc... to learn an English keyword for the most common Kanji. Some people do the 500 most common Kanji, some 1000, some do all the 2000+ Kanji officialy used in Japan. Knowing a keyword for the Kanji can often help you learn words (as described above) more easily. However, the trade off is you will be sacraficing time on this which could be used on "actual" Japanese study.
Almost everyone seems to agree that there isn't much benefit to learning Kanji readings out of context. The only time this would make sense is if you either really love Kanji, or have some kind of test which requires you to know the readings in isolation.
This is very good advice for when you get further through RTK, but you see basic kanji like 日 so often that the stories become obsolete very quickly. It'll basically become second nature.
If you can get your hands on the book or just use a pdf, you can see some of Heisig's stories. Some of them are bad, but you'll find some that make sense to you and you can use those as examples. Or you can find the most popular stories on kanji koohi
- Anki review when I wake up for vocab and learned grammar.
- Kanji review with kanji.koohii.com. (I have already learned all the standard use kanji)
- One reading exercise or a full chapter's grammar notes in Tobira plus logging the vocab for the next reading in Anki. (I skip all the non-reading or grammar parts of the book)
- Some form of listening practice. (currently using mostly Japanesepod101.com and supernative.tv)
Currently I need a lot more listening practice.
You can use different approaches. Mostly it splits on 2 methods. You can use mnemonics to learn general meaning like RTK, kanjidamage Anki deck, kanji.koohii.com and so on. Or you can learn with vocabulary. For example, if you use double cards like "to eat - たべる" and "食べる - to eat". A huge amount of courses on memrise use such approach, but there are probably many similar SRS online sites.
You can also make a kind of mix. For example, if you start reading earlier and learn both in the process. You naturally learn to recognize kanji-meaning, but also vocabulary, because you check translation.
https://kanji.koohii.com/ for learning Kanji. Fairly intuitive once you get the hang of it. Also has a built-in flashcard system. It's built for use with the book Remembering The Kanji 1 but can be used without the book as long as you understand HOW to use mnemonics.
Use the stories from Kanji Koohii, they works fine for me, I didn't make up my own stories.
Also here you can find more advice on how to go about kanji: The Moe Way - Kanji
I would recommend that you don't learn kanji alone in isolation, but to always learn in along the vocabulary.
There are many choices for websites which can teach you to recognize kanji, including:
- Wanikani. It's pretty polished, and doesn't use RTK keywords (so it's a plus), but can be price-y for some people. Very popular nonetheless.
- The classic Kanji Koohii. They use a subpar SRS algorithm (the Leitner system) and RTK keywords, but it's free, and there are many stories to choose from. You need to learn the vocabulary on your own though.
- Kanjidamage. I never really used it, so can't really say much about it, but some people like it. They have an Anki deck.
- <shameless plug>My own learning webapp. It's still incomplete, but it'll teach you both vocabulary and kanji in tandem. It might not be the most appropriate for beginners yet, as it still needs some polish.</shameless plug>
I really enjoyed using Memrise decks instead of Anki when I was going through Genki. The decks shared by the user sputnik1220 are really nice. You learn the pronunciation and kanji written form separately, with space to add mnemonics "mems" on each card. The gamified elements of Memrise (leaderboards, colorful ui, positive reinforcement, etc.) helped to keep me motivated.
If you have trouble with the kanji part of vocab learning, what helped me was the RTK method where you associate each kanji to a keyword. I used the Kanji Koohii to help make stories, with a focus on writing, along with recognition flashcards. After familiarizing myself with kanji that way, I was able to fly through Genki vocabulary.
You don't even have to go through the full set of ~2200 kanji to feel the benefits (there are abbreviated decks like RRTK and even a <450 card RTK deck. Some people just study radicals, too.
You can do both at the same time without any issues.
That's what I did at first but changed tactics about 700 kanji into RTK, I couldn't keep it up, it just felt like it was going to be a really long time before I woulld get any use out of it. I then just started putting every new kanji I came across into an SRS with a context sentence which I found really useful for recognition + reading + Kanji readings.
I found RTK good for writing and remembering the stroke order but I don't plan on doing much handwriting, if you're the same you might be able to save some time by skipping RTK. But if you need to be able to write them then I recommend the site https://kanji.koohii.com/ they have some really good community made mnemonics that are better that Heisig's in most cases and have a built in SRS to keep track and review!
Is there any free online spaced repetition website/program that is not Anki? I'm currently using kanji.koohii.com to learn kanji in the RTK order and its been an absolute blessing to be able to just go on the site and have it easily formatted and free for me to do as much as I'd like to while to tracks my progress using SRS just like Anki does. I'm having trouble memorizing vocab from Genki 1 and would love to have an easy resource that's formatted the same way, or similar to that website so that I can easily go onto it and study and review as much as I want to. Most sites I search require a subscription of some kind to be able to use it for more than 100 cards at once.
RTK and similar approaches are good for kanji. You can notice rapid growth at the first several months. But it gives only the meaning of kanji, not compounds or real words. In other words, you will recognize kanji and sometimes you will be able to guess what it means.
I would advise to learn 1k or 1.5k kanji first. That's enough to cover 90-95% of all kanji. Remain you can learn later in context or to continue RTK/similar approach.
You might be also interesting in kanji.koohii.com , which is connected with RTK.
If you are just starting, I recommend trying an audio course like Pimsleur and going through RTK. I was in a similar position, struggling to make sense of kanji, which made it harder to remember the vocabulary in my text books. I took two months to go through RTK using Kanji Koohii and an SRS app (I used memrise, but there are anki decks too). Absolutely flew through my text books after that.
60 days and kanji won't be an obstacle anymore, plus you'll get great pronunciation from going through that audio course on the side.
Japan is a highly literate country/culture and knowing kanji will speed your studies up big time.
When I first started Genki last year, I had trouble retaining the kanji/vocab and decided to try RTK. The book instructs you not to do any studies alongside, so I shelved Genki for the time being. It was a bit frustrating to not actually learn Japanese while doing all those reviews, so I started doing audio lessons (Pimsleur) on the side after I settled into my routine. That worked well for me.
I used an RTK Memrise course and Kanji Koohii so I could go as fast as possible. I did mainly keyword->kanji production cards with a focus on writing (my story wording alluded to the stroke order).
I "finished" in 60 days and continued my reviews until the beginning of Genki II, which is when I started reading with kanji more regularly through NHK Easy News. It was like night and day the way I was able to fly through vocabulary. You get really good at making mnemonics, so it's easy to make them for the pronunciation of words at that point. Having some knowledge of the kanji to anchor those words to is a game-changer.
I'm really pleased with the results and now (studying for N2) I don't do much dedicated kanji study. I really like Kanjistudyapp on android for writing practice, but mostly I just read a lot and make connections that way.
RTK is a cool method. In regards to the other reply here, just use Kanji Koohii and an SRS flashcard deck (like Anki or a community Memrise one for RTK) to get through it quickly.
Most people aim to complete it in 60-90 days. If you plan on writing them out, try to invoke the general stroke order into the wording of your stories for better retention. You'll see how some people do it on koohii.
If you're newer to learning things quickly and having them stick, Dominic O'Brien's books are good primer.
As for Heisig: learn the method itself and start using your own stories as soon as possible. I made the mistake of using his stories as a crutch in the early phases, and it compromised committing some early characters to long-term memory. Its important to remember that memory is based on association/location/imagination, which is unique to each person.
Kanji Koohii is a good website for spaced repetition and flashcard construction.
You will probably struggle at first with making your own stories, but if you keep practicing, you can eventually make compound stories tied to a location that contain all related kanji. Its not an easy skill to master, but really committing to it instead of taking the easy way out (just copying someone else's stories) saves a lot of time in reviewing.
There is also this, after you're done with RTK.
I think you're in the right path, but remembering the other pronunciations will be very useful too in the future. And to help on memorizing radicals and characters, based on my experience, I don't know if it's the best way but there's this site called Kanji Koohii, it's like a kanji dictionary kind site that's mostly based on Heisig's Remembering the Kanji book, what I do is I copy a kanji character from anki that I don't understand and paste and search it there, then you'll see stories or comments by other people for a certain Kanji character that you're looking for, which will help you memorize it better. Btw, good luck!
Most people I know that finished aimed to complete it in 60-90 days; just do the math and figure out how many kanji that takes a day. I recommend using an SRS flashcard deck like Anki or Memrise (there are community created decks). I did production cards with English keyword on front, kanji on back.
You should use Kanji Koohii to assist you in making stories faster. Many of the stories and alternative keywords shared there are very helpful. My focus was on writing, so my method when creating a story would be to invoke the correct stroke order (top to bottom, left to right, etc) in my wording.
It gets easier after the first 100 or so, but you will hit walls where your retention drops. When that happens, just power through it and DON'T SKIP REVIEWS. If you find that you need to slow down, just stop adding new cards and do your set amount of reviews for the day.
I started learning Japanese last year and was struggling to remember Genki vocabulary, so I put my studies on pause to familiarize myself with kanji. The book says not to learn Japanese while going through the course, so it can be done quickly, but I also went through Pimsleur 1+2 while I walked my dog. I wanted to learn some Japanese during those two months!! Anyway, I rushed through it and when I came back to my textbooks it was so much easier to remember vocab. Kanji really acts as an anchor in my mind now when I encounter new words. Plus, being good at making vivid mnemonics for myself didn't hurt either when learning how to pronounce words.
I dropped reviews around the end of Genki II, when I started reading more. Now I just read a lot and use Kanjistudyapp to maintain my writing abilities.
RTK is totally worth the effort if done quickly, imo. Good Luck!~
It takes 3-4 months if you're diligent about learning 20 kanji/day (very doable), which is an order of magnitude faster than the rote memorisation methods most classes and textbooks use. It can feel like a slog to spend your first few months of learning Japanese not actually learning much real Japanese, but once you finish the course, it really pays off in the long run.
Use it alongside https://kanji.koohii.com/ to make your life easier.
The deck is only half the story - you need to dedicate time to learn the mnemonics in the first place before you review them with SRS.
FWIW, my study tactic with RtK was to dedicate ~30 mins every morning to learning 20 new kanji, then I'd review the flashcards in the evening. https://kanji.koohii.com/ can be better than Anki for this revision, because its SRS flashcards tie in to all the other features on the site (saving and borrowing mnemonics).
English keywords are the best because you can use Kanji Koohii and can use other peoples storys: https://kanji.koohii.com/manage/flashcardlist?rows=50&sort=seq_nr&order=0
What is your thought on Heisig's method Remembering The Kanji? I exclusively use his method to learn kanji (through the website kanji.koohii.com/)
I think it's easier to progress in this method because Wakikani might make you learn kanji without explaining all its building blocks before.
Have you tried different methods? It might be RTK doesn't work too well for you. For example, try memrise.com , which teaches you vocabulary in pairs. Written with hiragana, and at next session written with kanji. Or more image type books, which draws kanji as kind of funny pic, instead of story. In any case, you can always check kanji.koohii.com , which has a variety of stories.
Considering your worries, it's not really how memory works. People can't completely forget something when they already learned that. It becomes harder to recall after long time, and it's absolutely natural reaction. But after short review it pops up. In other words, it takes some time to learn words and review, but if you did once, it's much easier to "re-learn" if you forgot it. People made SRS for a reason, because one day you can remember it well, but won't be able to recall at next. It's just more effective to review when you still can, than spending time to check translation to realize "oh, it's that word". Sometimes, however, it might need adjustment, which is possible with Anki. People are different and it might differ too. In any case, even if you can't recall some words, it doesn't mean you don't learn at all. Each review adds time to retention and most of people need at least 5-7 reviews to remember majority of words.
I would also advice to see what gives results to you and where you spend more time. To spend 1 hour for 10 kanji is rather extreme example. I mostly was learning kanji with Anki deck and my average was about 1minute/kanji with reviews. So check was exactly gives you the most result, and what you like to do. It's fine not to get the perfect result, but learn in several times faster.
It's kinda controversial, a lot of people love it and lot of people hate it but Heisig Remembering The Kanji works really well for me. I think it works best if you're using it along a separate language course like Genki.
RTK teaches you how to write 3000 kanji and to assign a meaning to them in English (sometimes quite tenuously) based on the Japanese. This makes it a whole lot easier to remember kanji in Japanese words when you later learn them in Japanese vocab! Some people say you can get through the whole book in a few months. For me I've been at it for just over a year and Im about 1000 kanji in. Just take your time with it! It's like a good way to lay the foundations for proper kanji learning later on. I really recommend it!
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There's also a great website to use with RTK called Kanji-Koohii. https://kanji.koohii.com It's designed to be used alongside RTK but maybe you could get by without the book.. I'm not sure!
I am also starting to learn Japanese as well using RTK. I started at 3rd week last January and I am now at frame 818. I use https://kanji.koohii.com/ to get some inspiration for images/stories if I could not make my own. I do not spend 4-6 hours a day. What I do is spend at least 2 hours per week skimming and rush through RTK (200+ Kanji) and using the website above, I would save my favorite images/stories. That way I spend 60-70 minutes per day(according to Anki) on flashcards at around 20 new kanji per day.
So, I only write primitives a couple of times, the main goal is to learn the mnemonic. The site kanji.koohii.com/ is used for SRS, and after RTK stops providing small stories, I only use the site and the community mnemonics :)
I used the same method but with the 2200 of the 6th edition.
I used Anki and kanji.koohii.com for the mnemonics.
I wouldn't call it learning the meanings though, since a kanji can have multiple meanings and some of the keywords are misleading.
It's a good scaffolding though.
Now I'm learning N4 vocabulary and kanji are helping me. I'm building vocabulary upon them.
I have suspended a lot of my RTK anki cards, since I have words and readings attached to those kanji and the English keywords won't help me anymore.
A lot of people do not like RTK. But I think it's really beneficial, especially when you're afraid of Kanji. It just requires patience. You have to do this for 3 months at least without learning real Japanese. You also have to be aware that it's not a perfect method. It has its flaws. Like I said, some keywords are misleading. But I would do it again if I had to start over.
Have you tried to split? For example, I was learning kanji in several steps. First, I was learning how it looks and main meaning. After that I was learning in which words it's used. Look at RTK or kanji.koohii.com for an example of such approach. But there are many similar methods.
May I just add : beware of some of the keywords. Sometimes it can be misleading. And the top stories at kanji.koohii.com are not error-proof. Always use jisho.org to be sure.
Also, a kanji has multiple meanings depending of the context, RTK do not cover all of them. If you learn a new word and the kanji seems "out of place" refer again to jisho.org.
It worked for me, never regretted it. One of the main advantages is that it is a lot of fun. Coming up with mnemonic and reading the ones people post on https://kanji.koohii.com/ made me laugh hundreds of times. I miss it a bit, learning vocabulary and grammar is much more serious now. The main disadvantage is that you have to learn 2200 Kanji before doing everything else because the order is designed to learn the Kanji as efficiently as possible. So uncommon Kanji come early on and very common one like 駅 or 食 come quite late.
For real pros and cons just search for Heisig here. There are endless discussions about it and the topic comes up again and again and again here. In the end it's more a matter of taste. RTK is not perfect but it is not bad either. And you can say that about every method of learning Kanji.
I've been using RtK, and having to make your own cards and make up your own stories certainly makes it slower. However, I feel like I've been learning a lot. Other users on Kanji Koohii have come up with some really great stories and mnemonics as well as put in a lot of good info on some characters, such as how they can be better broken down into other more obscure or historical characters. Researching the etymology of characters on Wiktionary has likewise been very informative.
What your describing are visual mnemonics. While they work for around 200 or so easy kanji, they wont work for the rest of the obscure 2000+ kanji .
Also visual memory can play tricks on you and it fades after a short while, that's why the recommended way is story mnemonics.
You don't need buy anything or pay for any web site.. you can learn them all in around 6-7 months for FREE with Anki.
Get Nihongosharks RTK kanji deck for Anki, tweak it so it has the keyword on the front, Kanji on the back. To get help with the stories for the Kanji go to Kanji Kohii LINK. There are thousands of stories to help you find the perfect mnemonic.
This is IMO cheapest (cost $0) and fastest and quite possibly the easiest method.
It's not perfect but show me a Kanji learning method that is and can get you up to speed in 6 months.
I recommend you this page https://kanji.koohii.com/study/kanji/%E5%9C%A8 you can use it with the book "Learning the kanji" and trust me it works, to memorize and write the first 2000 kanjis.
This site was specifically made for the Remembering the Kanji books.
People share stories for the Kanji and can upvote them (The highest upvoted ones tend to be quite memorable). It also has an integrated SRS (Spaced repetition system) so you don't need a separate deck and can just learn it on there.
I had success with Remembering the Kanji as well (although I used top rated user stories from https://kanji.koohii.com/ instead of coming up with my own stories). In retrospect I didn't need to use RTK for all 2000 kanji. Some folks have created smaller lists of the most common kanji only ("RTK Lite") and this is what I'd recommend for newcomers.
RTK doesn't teach you everything you need to know about kanji. But going through it helps you learn kanji efficiently, so when you see a new kanji you've never seen before, you can remember it easily because it's just made of 2 or 3 parts of kanji that you do know, instead of 20 random strokes you've never seen before.
I went through RTK as fast as possible (~60 days) using a Memrise course and Kanji Koohii to make the process smoother. I tapered off my reviews after I learned a decent amount of vocabulary (2k words) through my textbooks and native reading materials. I'm about 6 months into my studies and reading stuff like NHK Easy and simple manga.
I really love mnemonics and have to say that RTK made it so much easier to internalize textbook vocab.
Remembering the Kanji helped me a lot. However, it isn't a silver bullet and can suck at times.
Kanji Koohii was also really helpful because users can submit their own mnemonics. Ex: using "Mr Bean" for the key 豆 was extremely helpful.
And finally, as everyone always recommend, spaced repetition with Anki is a must.
There are Spanish and German translations of RTK, but I'm not aware of any other similar books. I just translated the keywords that I didn't know to my native language (Finnish) and replaced some stories with my own. You can browse Kanji Koohii to find better stories.
>I also have many doubts and question, some of them regarding the language, I usually wonder if learning a third language from a language different than my own would affect the efficiency of my learning in a negative way, would Japanese always be associated with English in my head or at some point it will exist without relying on it
As long as your English is good enough to understand the books and other learning tools you're using, it shouldn't be a problem.
Are you using an SRS (spaced repetition system) program? SRS flashcards space out when you review things so you aren't reviewing everything every day. They also keep track of how well you remember the flashcards, and give you cards you have trouble remembering more frequently.
Anki is pretty much the gold standard, but if you don't want to download anything the website Kanji Koohii has all the kanji available as flashcards in RTK order. The only caveat is they can't just put in Heisig's stories, since those are copyrighted, but there's literally thousands of user-made stories available to choose from, and you can input your own.
Also, SRS is notorious for piling on review cards if you miss a day of study, so it's vital that you keep up with your reviewing. If you're already using an SRS program and are still getting too much to review, the only thing to do is slow down your intake or spend more time studying.
Make sure you practice writing each kanji as you learn them, check out Kanji Koohii, and utilize SRS.
The book tells you how to proceed. Most people here shoot for 90 days to complete the whole thing.
>I probably started RTK1 within 4-5 days of starting Genki because I could not remember kanji for crap despite drilling it for an hour a day with vocab those first few.
Same! I tried starting with a textbook, but couldn't get the kanji based vocabulary to stick at all. That's why I decided to hunker down and knock RTK out all at once (plus that's how the book recommended using it). Afterwards, Genki vocab was a breeze.
>I'm not sure when I'll start with NHK Easy reading.
It was slow getting started after Genki I, but doable! You can know all the words and still have trouble. The best way to get better at reading is to just read! Using apps like Tangoristo or Sync make it easier to read and grab vocab and people share translations in /r/NHKEasyNews. At the beginning I would read one article like four times (read, check translation, read, follow along with audio) and maybe send recurring words to my anki deck. That would be enough for the day. Now I try and read a few articles a day, when I have time.
>What were your anki reviews like?
I was using a Memrise course (keyword->Kanji) and stuck my stories from Kanji Koohii on the cards. I started with 20 cards a day at first, but sped up as I progressed. I was pretty much doing reviews in all my idle phone time. I remember averaging 300 cards up for review a day and typically didn't even try to get it to zero until after I was finished with the course. I vaguely remember peaking at maybe ~700 ish cards up for review, but I really didn't worry about that. I just made sure to do it every day and would have my flashcard app open while redditing, watching TV, or waiting to get my nails done. I think I was down to ~60 cards a day when I felt ready to drop it and focus solely on vocabulary.
I honestly didn't keep track of the numbers, I only know how many days it took because I had counted back to the date I posted about starting on a language learning forum.
I started around the same time as you, but did RTK at the beginning. It really took the stress off and now, after going through beginner Genki, I'm reading /r/NHKEasyNews and about to start Tobira.
If you have time to go through RTK, I did it in about 60 days. I used Memrise for my flashcards, Kanji Koohii for mnemonics, and wrote them each by hand as I learned them. I stopped doing reviews after I started feeling comfortable reading.
The whole point of RTK is to "demystify" kanji by making you familiar with how to write them in a short amount of time. If you are going to space out the learning process and take breaks, you would be better served in the long run to learn kanji in the context of words. There are courses like KKLC, or you can just start by going through the kanji in Genki first.
If you want to fully dive into the RTK method, aim to complete it in 90 days. Make sure to utilize the Kanji Koohii website. People share their mmemonics there and it's a gamechanger for reaching the speed you need to get through it. To get the most out of it, make sure you are also writing them by hand and constructing your stories in a way that invokes the correct order ( describe it top to bottom, left to right).