How I Use Remembering The Kanji (RTK) 

Excellent book. There was one reviewer that criticised RTK, because for some insane reason, he actually thought that RTK had claims that it would make a person fluent in SPEAKING Japanese. Multiple people had to point out that the book is about REMEMBERING the KANJI and be able to use them, NOT spoken Japanese. I really don't know where some people have strange ideas enter their head and become adamant about it.

Haha I was laughing out loud @2:59 I'm just at around 380 kanji, but some of the keywords are completely foreign to me haha. It's like learning English and Japanese at the same time ;)

This is one of the very first few videos I watched about AJATT as I was deciding to start RTK and I just got to the kanji for self-effacing and remembered this video. Can't believe its been 2 months for me already!

Interesting how you flip the story to the front. I imagine that makes it much easier to not skip over it just because you recognise the kanji. Very helpful, I may try this during my revision. Some really good tips in here, thanks for sharing!

Thanks! I didn't really know how to start with RTK and Anki, and this really helped :)

I started RTK in September and luckily Matt vs Japan released a video 2 days before my planned start day where he talked about the negatives of RTK and how after 6ish months people start to forget their kanji. So I decided to quickly make a switch from doing regular RTK to just Lazy Kanji and no writing. So kanji on the front and I also had my story on the front and tried to remember the word. If I didn't get the word from just the Kanji I would fail the card but I had the story to read just to refresh myself before my second go on the card. I finished RTK in about 2 months and can recognize all the Kanji in Japanese texts (of course I can't read them yet). it's been nearly a month since then and I've just been doing my anki reps, but 2 days from today i'm going to be restarting RTK the regular way and actually learning how to write this time. In the end my Kanji studies alone are taking me nearly half a year but this is technically the same thing that Khatz and Matt did and it worked out for them. after that I'll probably start on my grammar and sentence mining and actually start learning to read the kanji. Anyway long post here but I just wanted to share my Kanji Journey. If you have any advice I'd love to hear it!

evert time i write out a new character i make up a story right away next to it.

I am studying RTK too, but I cannot do it with any ambient noise, I need more concentration xD lucky you that can watch an anime meanwhile. Cool video, and cool tattooes, btw! :3

I was just doing the old flash card approach, but this notebook strategy looks like it'd be super helpful! I am going to start trying this out! - I am just beginning, only on #60 or so, so I can't really say that the flashcard way is ineffective because I have yet to delve very far into the book, but more so the fact that this way just looks objectively a lot easier.

Hi, I have watched couple of your videos and find them very useful, thank you! I am very new to Japanese, although not to language learning in general, and there is one thing about kanjis which I find very difficult for me as a fresh starter. I find learning a particular kanji's abstract on-s and kun-s close to useless, they do not stick in my memory. It is much easier for me to learn couple of useful (so no words like "self-effacing" I am afraid) examples for the main readings (I limit myself to not more than 1-2 most common kun and on from joyo readings list). The problem is that those common words very often contain other not-so-common kanjis themselves. Just a simple example to illustrate my problem: practically all starter's kanji lists start from words like water, fire, tree etc, and one of the most logical and intuitive ways to internalize their on-reading would be to learn the names of days of the week. Yet those contains .you. bit in the middle, an obsolete character for a planet with 18 (!) strokes [and which is analyzable as sun + 2 symbols for feather + an almost never used character for an old, fat, tail-less bird] . So in order to remember the on-readings of very simple characters I was forced to investigate the whole story of the .you. character which I could do without at this stage, however the days of the week were too important and too useful to simply skip those examples. Do you have any tips/ ideas how to learn the on-s and kun-s of basic kanji without being side-tracked by very advanced kanjis just because they like to combine together?

How do you you get your anki decks? Do you build them yourself or download the from somewhere?

thanks for sharing your process. When i opened the book I was a bit lost: how do one do the actual learning? Your video was very helpful to me.

Didn't you used to have a second channel or other videos that discussed your military background and an introduction to what being an officer in the Navy is like? What happened to them?

What is the process for adding the four fonts on Mac? Matt's video only details how to to do it on a Windows machine.

Would it help you to understand reading a Japanese light novel? Since you know the meanings of some of the words?

I'm just starting and sort of confused how to start... particularly the primitives confuse me. Do I need to study and write those down separate from the kanji, do I just read his explanations and try to remember but only do the kanji? I'm quite lost on how to start.

Currently siting around #425 as a high schooler after 2 months of trying. And so tired of my way of doing this. ( creating the story from scratch after each word and character in the book. Then after a chapter wright the English word in a list on a page to review later. After a week I go back and review about 100 or so and get most of them. Because of studying a bit a day like your reps. ) This method looks so much easier than the 3 hours a chapter I spend on this a day. Only to make slow progress and realize that I still can’t speak or listen to anything properly.

Curious how often per day you do your Anki reps. As they come up (i.e. in 10 minutes...) or do save it all for a set time each day?

How did you mange to switch the English and Kanji around for all your cards?

I wanted to be able to speak these charcters too, any tip on that ?

So I've just got the book and I'm wondering how did you know the hiragana/katakana of the kanji. Was it just going into google translate and putting in the word? :)

I love how much of a weeb you are. I felt all your examples. xD

while using the app with the deck mentioned in the videos, it shows me both the kanji and the meanings while studying, how to change the setting so that it shows me only the meaning of the kanji?

Does this book also teaches the kun an On readings?

I’ve been using wanikani but it’s a little much for me. I want to complete rtk first cuz it’s just single word kanji and I want to be able to read stuff

I know this video is old, but you sure put a lot of effort into something you didn't like doing very much. Most people don't physically write down all the kanji they are learning or edit the cards with their own stories. :p That must have doubled your study time!

What happen to navy Dave

how do you remember the pronunciations though?

I'm way too broke to buy the book sadly. BUT I found out that there is a free pdf version of RTK online, if that helps anyone. There is a free pdf version of book 2 and 3 aswell.

No one wants to be a stroke-order nazi! That made me laugh :) Your videos are really helping me getting going, thanks mate!

So your the one on discord

i skipped rtk is that bad

im at 800 or so right now, after doing about 30 per day and the daily anki reviews are starting to get brutal 😔😂

how do you know which primitives a certain kanji is comprised of??? do you just guess? nobody has been clear about this yet!!!!

I suggest MIA method but u probably already learned Japanese by now so lol 😂 said

wait so you don't memorize the reading yet but work on it later on? I think I've been wasting my time

How can you mark it "hard" when you only get part of the Kanji wrong. Your not really learning anything if your not going to see it again for 21+ days. Also stroke order is important, but at least your doing it correctly from keyword -> Kanji. I personally mark it wrong if I get a single stroke wrong. I dont write them down, only air write them. BTW. Ditch that ball point pen and get yourself one of those brush pens, they are cheap and ideal for writing kanji from Amazon.

I bought the book but I don’t know how to use it because I want to learn how to say them, not just write them.

Clumsy Video

I’ve came close to burning my RSH 1 book multiple times coming across Heisigs horrible word choices and stories. Feels like I’m getting hit with the ultimate troll.