Introduction 

Background

After completing RTK 1, I continued to use flash cards to review the writing of all of the 2042 characters in the book. After RTK 1 should come RTK 2 but in my opinion the method described in RTK 2, although interesting and useful, isn't sufficient or effective enough. This webpage describes the method I used to try and integrate the efforts that I had made with RTK 1 with the rest of my Japanese studies. I'm going to make the work that I've done freely available and hopefully other people will find this useful.

Task

After assessing things, I realised that I knew how to write 2042 kanji but that I didn't know how to associate them all with Japanese language. Instead, I had associated all of the kanji with English words whose meaning was an approximation to the true meaning of each kanji. A great first step, but what next? Heisig said that after completing the book, the English keywords would fade away and the Japanese language associated with each kanji would replace them. But how was this going to happen if I'm using flash cards every day that contain the English keywords?

I set myself this goal:

Continue to practice the writing of the characters using the imagery and stories from RTK 1 but associate kanji with Japanese language instead of English

The Solution

What I did was very simple. I went through each of my flash cards and I replaced the English keyword with Japanese. Here are some examples:

Before, my flash cards looked like this:

Question	Answer
Big	大
Pillar	柱
Radiance	輝

Now, my flash cards look like this:

Question	Answer
おおきい	大きい
はしら	柱
かがやく	輝く

With the help of several members of the community from the Reviewing the Kanji Forums, I have compiled a list of Japanese prompts that replace the English keyword prompts. (By prompts, I mean the question part of the flash card that prompts you to produce the answer part)

Very simple but it's been amazing how much of a difference it has made. Before I discuss the details, I'll describe some of the benefits that I've found.

Results

Despite completing RTK 1 in 2006, I only really got started with this project last year. I have been reviewing using Japanese keywords for 10 months now and I can honestly say that it has made a huge difference to my reading and writing ability in Japanese. Specifically, I have noticed the following improvements:

• When I hear Japanese being spoken, I often will unconsciously visualise the associated kanji. This did not happen when I was reviewing with English keywords.
• I can often guess the pronunciation of new words that contain kanji I know.
• I can now talk to Japanese people about the kanji I know how to write by using the Japanese prompt.
• I can now honestly say (to potential employers etc.) exactly how many kanji I can write.
• I rarely have to look up kanji by radical or stroke count because I can usually type at least one pronunciation into my electronic dictionary or my pc.
• No more frustrating confusion with the English keywords that have similar meanings
• No more frustration with English keywords I didn't agree with e.g. town = 村, village = 町 ??? 

If you're still interested then please read on.

How can I get started?

Obtaining the data

The data is available in various formats. Personally, I use Anki and I have created .anki files which you can download and immediately open and start reviewing. The raw data is also available in a spreadsheet file, which you can view and edit and is probably the best source for you to use if you would like to import into another flash card program. There is still lots of room for improvement so if you would like to contribute to the project then please read the guidelines later on, and then get in touch.

• Anki file can be found here or download here: JRTK.anki.
• Spreadsheet containing my chosen words and sentences can be downloaded here: RTKJapanesePrompts.xls.
• Master spreadsheet containing all data contributed to the project can be viewed and downloaded here.  Click on File and then Export to download and save the spreadsheet to your computer.
  
• If you would like to contribute to the project then get in touch. Either post at this thread, or use wrightak
• at gmail.com
  

How do I study?

Now that you've got the data, you can of course use it in whatever way you wish but the following is the method that I found helped me to learn the material in the most efficient manner.

1. Stop reviewing with the Heisig keywords and go through the kanji in Heisig order again. I found this to be the most efficient way and I have discussed why here.
2. With each kanji, there is a Japanese word and sometimes an example sentence. If you don't already know the word, find out what it means by using either a quality dictionary (discussed here) or the koujien. Then look at it's usage in the example sentence.
3. Take another look at the story that you created using the method in RTK 1. Make sure that you are happy recalling the imagery from the story and writing the character, given the Japanese prompt. If you want, adjust your story.
4. After repeating the above steps for a bunch of kanji, review them in your flash card program. The flash card presents the Japanese word in hiragana in a large font, with the example sentence underneath in a smaller font. The answer is the target kanji followed by the Japanese word written in kanji. Write the word out on paper after looking at the question and then check what you've written.
5. This goes without saying but always review old cards that are due before adding new ones.

The above represents the main steps that I used after I had found suitable keywords and example sentences (which took a lot of time and has been done for you :) ). Some people use different approaches and I have discussed them here. On the same page I have also discussed some more details on the reviewing process.

Example screen shot of a question in Anki:

After clicking on "Show Answer":

The "1850" is the Heisig frame number for this kanji and is a link that takes you to the relevant page on kanji.koohii.com so that you can work on your story if need be.

See the next page for a discussion on how words and sentences were chosen.

Choosing the Prompts

How the Japanese prompts were chosen

Looking at the examples on the first page, the choice of Japanese prompts was pretty simple for these kanji. There are many cases where the choice is more difficult. The following are problems encountered:

1. The kanji in question has no kun-yomi and only occurs in words with other kanji.
2. There are many Japanese words with the same kana but different kanji.
3. The kanji rarely has the meaning of the original English keyword.

To make things clearer, I'll give examples for each of the above and describe what I did about it.

1. As a rule, as long as it is not obscure, a word containing only one kanji has been chosen as the Japanese prompt on the flash card. This makes things simpler and means that you can concentrate on writing the kanji in question. However, this is not always possible. Take the kanji 完. Very common but it has no kun-yomi and rarely appears on its own. For this kanji, the prompt 完成 was chosen. A common word that captures the meaning of the Heisig keyword. In these cases, we have tried to choose common words that are easy to understand and that capture the meaning of the Heisig keyword.
   
2. For example, take 速い and 早い. Both have the same pronunciation but one means fast and one means early, which is exactly what the Heisig keywords are. Rather than avoid these words and choose something else, they have been combined with an example sentence to make the meaning clear. 

   Question	Answer
   はやい はやい電車	速い
   はやい 今朝、はやく起きました。	早い

   
   There is more discussion on sentences later on.
3. An effort has been made to choose words where the kanji has a meaning close to the original English keyword. However, in some cases this is either impossible or implies choosing rare and obscure words. We have tried to reach a reasonable balance between choosing common words and staying close to the original English keyword meaning.

Contributing to the project

Given the guidelines above, if you feel that you disagree with some of choices of Japanese words and sentences then please feel free to get in touch either by posting on this thread, or by emailing me at the address on the first page.

Alternatively, if you just wish to discuss then please do so using the same channels.

Continued

Issues, Questions and Thanks

Should I really stop reviewing using the Heisig keywords?

I started using Japanese prompts a long time ago with Supermemo. I had my RTK deck that randomly tested me on all of the kanji and at regular intervals, I would replace the Heisig keyword with some Japanese. This resulted in my reviewing with English and Japanese prompts at the same time. I found that progress was pretty slow and things improved rapidly when I just stopped with the English keywords.

If you choose to continue reviewing using the Heisig keywords, I would at the very least recommend deleting the cards that you learn Japanese prompts for. This avoids duplication of effort.

Why go through in Heisig order again? Wouldn't it be better to order by frequency of use?

Personally, I found that going through in Heisig order was by far the most efficient method and I think there are good reasons for this. By grouping kanji together by their underlying primitives, you gain a lot of practice writing the same primitive. If you go through in any other order then you may have many cases where you are recalling primitives that only appear once. You have to re-associate the imagery from your Heisig story with a Japanese prompt so repeatedly associating the same primitive with various Japanese words is more efficient than associating various primitives with various Japanese words.

You can of course change the ordering if you wish. Let me know how you get on!

How do I go about learning new words?

I used Kenkyusha's online dictionary a lot. After an email exchange with the editors of this dictionary, it turns out that all of the example sentences and phrases are written by Japanese people. It's not perfect but it is by far and away the best dictionary resource that I've found (with the exception of the koujien). I encourage other people to invest in an online subscription. The key to learning language is seeing it in action so example sentences/dialogues etc. are very valuable.

The best case scenario is where you already know the word and you can USE it. You may therefore wish to replace some of the words in the list with words that you know.

If I put the example sentences in my flashcards then I get the contents of the sentence confused with my Heisig story

One of the other contributors to the project brought this issue up. She has chosen not to put example sentences in her flash cards and only to put the word in hiragana with a hint afterwards if necessary. You may also find this approach appropriate and it seems that it was popular on the forum.koohii.com thread. 

After trial and error, and some thought, I decided to include the sentences in my flash cards. I put the target word in a much larger font so that when I'm reviewing quickly, I don't need to look at the sentence if I don't want to. However, my aim is to practice writing kanji so that I can write them in the Japanese environment that I live in. In reality, I'm going to want to read and write the kanji in context so I have to get used to the fact that the context is never going to match my Heisig story. 

I found that keeping the example sentence and the Heisig story separate weren't a big problem. Let me know your approach!

The Japanese prompt contains two kanji. When I answer I can only remember one. Should I fail the card?

I think that this is very much individual preference. If a Japanese prompt contains two kanji and I remember the target one, I don't fail the card. If I don't remember the other kanji and I think I should, then I usually don't give myself a perfect score on the flash card, but I don't fail it.

You may wish to alter the prompts. For example instead of having

かんせい　→　完成

you may prefer to have

かん成　→　完成

when the target kanji is 完. i.e. you display the other kanji in the question. If someone wants to compile a list of prompts like this then let me know!

I haven't completed RTK 1. Is this work of use to me?

This is a bit of a hot topic. The very firm opinion on the forums seems to be that this work is best suited to those that have completed RTK 1. The fear is that some people may give up on RTK 1 half way through if they try and use Japanese prompts from the start.

My personal opinion is that if you want to, you should try it. I would be very interested to see how it works out.

The list isn't complete!

I know! It's time for a few confessions. As of May 2008, I haven't finished adopting all of the Japanese keywords into my studies and I still have about 200 left. The results that I posted on the first page are for the 1800+ kanji that I am reviewing. 

Secondly, there are still some difficult and rare kanji where we have yet to post candidate words and sentences. Please help us and make some suggestions!

Google Spreadsheets is slooooooooooow

The master spreadsheet has bloated to a size that google spreadsheets was never designed for I think. I haven't tried it yet, but there is an offline version, which I believe effectively allows you to work on the spreadsheet offline and then sync. If you'd like to contribute then I think that might be the best method. 

Thank you

Thanks go to all those members of the Reviewing the Kanji forums who helped me compile this data. I've been surprised by how long it's taken and it would have taken longer without help. Since it took so long, I'm very eager to encourage other people to use the work we've done so that there can be some economy of effort.

Thora, Chadokoro_K, Synewave, JimmySeal - thanks!