Learn Kanji Fast with "Remembering the Kanji" and Anki 

Please note that my website domain has changed since I made this video! Any resources I refer to on matthewhawkins.co are now on britvsjapan.com instead! Thanks for watching guys and hope you found it useful! :D

Skip to 4:17 if you already have Anki installed, lol.

Saw your reddit post and blog post, and this is just great. Props to you for supporting the wider Japanese-learning community. Inspirational, to say the least.

My story was that I *CRAFTED* a *SHELLFISH* statue as a *TRIBUTE* to the Gods.

Dude I don’t even care about Japanese in particular but that technique of remembering a rando idea you got in the middle of the night? insanely useful. Thanks so much!

This was immensely helpful. 作ってくれてありがとう。

Hi Matt, I’ve been using Dreaming Spanish RU-vid as a way to immerse and acquire Spanish. 6 months in and I’m conversational in Spanish which is insane. Next year once I feel comfortable enough in Spanish I’ll be using the same immersion technique for Japanese. I’ve watched your progress videos which are inspiring as Japanese, to me, seems like a language and culture which is VERY difficult to break into. Anyway you clearly prove it can be done so I’m excited to start my own journey. Peace. Look forward to watching all your vids to prepare myself.

The idea of making a primitive deck is really great and helpful to people like me, who struggle making a primitive deck and don't have any time to make an entire deck. Thanks and keep up the videos! :)

Hey BritVSJapan thank you so much for useful advice and explanatory video and RTK and anki!

Great video man, I always had trouble with finding the actual primitives so thanks alot for the link and the deck!

I appreciate this video a lot. I wasn't sure how to get my set up started.

craft -> Lovecraft shellfish -> sea creature -> octopus Lovecraft + octopus = Cthulhu _the cultists' _*_tribute_*_ to Cthulhu_ 🐙👏

Great job as always!

Thank you! That was really helpful.

Super helpful! Thanks for this :)

I found this video extremely helpful thank you

Would love a video on the best way to start making sentence cards. I'm about 3/4 through RTK and am starting to think about how I want to make them, it would be great to get info from someone who knows what they're talking about when it comes to that.

I have the book but these cheat sheets are so useful. I'm going to combine your info with Matt vs Japan's card format. :D I made it over a quarter of the way then I had a busy month....have to catch up on all of that now, so going to switch the format and see how it goes. Going to really give it a go this second time around!

Thank you very much

I downloaded the deck, it's great, your amazing and inspirational!

started learning the primitives and ordered book 1, super excited. I already know a lot of words and basic to intermediate grammar, but I want to learn to write so i'm "starting over"

Thank you

Another great video from tfblade

Hey hello Matt, I've just finished RTK 1, and began sentence mining Tae kims book (I've been studying for 2 years traditional way (genki) so I already know a bit of grammar) but I came to a dilemma in this 2 days that I'm mining, I find myself being able to read the kanji, but when I try to write the new word I'm learning for each sentence (the i+1) I can't remember which kanji it uses, so I came with the idea of making a "kanji vocab deck" side by side with the sentence deck with "hiragana in front and kanji in the back". Is this a waste of time? Do you write each new word you came across or you just keep reading them without practicing writing anymore? Because when I see the kanji I know what word is and can read it, but when I see it in hiragana, can't write it in kanji by memory. I hope I made myself clear, thank you.

Good work man. Thanks for the decks.

after I finished the primitive deck, should I still review the primitives on their own alongside the heisig kanji I just started? Thank you for your video, you really helped me.

ah yes the good old production RTK days! Worst 3 months of my life but it was definitely worth it xD

thanks for the post can you link the deck here please

The stroke order font doesn't show stroke direction which is very important for many characters

Nice!

Hi, I've set up Anki for the first time to learn Kanji following your video. When I upload your Super Simple RTK deck, it only shows 3 Kanji. These three show as [added]. All the other Kanji are [skipped]. What does this mean and what can i do please?

Should i insert the story when i encounter the kanji for the first time or should i do it before starting the deck?

Hi Brit, what's difference about recognition rtk and rtk I'm confused Should I learn rrtk and then rtk?

How do I review specific sections in the anki decks. Cuz I want to review Lessing 16 -20 all at one can I do that?

Hello, BritVsJapan nice video. So I had a question that was not addressed in the video and just wanted to know if you could clarify some confusion I had with the order of the learning method to learn with the RTK method and Anki. Basically, you start by learning all the radicals/ primitives through the cheat sheet and Anki. Then you move on to proper kanji that consist of these radicals and make stories and add them to Anki (or use your pre-made decks or other ones online). However, my concern is; to learn, be able to write and remember Kanji wouldn't it require you to use Anki AND write the Kanji on proper paper on the side whilst going through the Anki decks? Meaning that you would have one digital copy of the Kanjis (Anki) and one virtual (as flash cards or in a notebook). Is that what you did?

20:08 is it not both ways in this deck? And are this the core kanij?

I have a problem , when I use sub2rsr and I generate the file I have only the folder for example " death.note.media" and not the one with tsv

If I make a deck is there a way to keep it in order so to say. Like I don't want it to give me something from page 200 when I am on page 30. Or does it show the kanji in the way it is created?

Excellent! I'm up to 200 (doing 25 a day) great tips thanks.

I'm using this deck with Kanji Colorizer

how do i apply these strokeorder fonts. there are just downloads but no explenation.

Im new to this,so,i have to use both the book RTK and anki just to not forget the actual kanjis through stories?

When I put the kanji the size is really small. How did you get that size?

I see that approach of making ALL your own stories.. I guess that's what Heisig did? Though I feel like Heisigs stories are so genius (and some even grounded in the actual history!)... I'm not sure if I'd be able to make so good stories.. And I agree. Writing is kinda important. I used to use an old app where I have written kanji and I must say when you learn to write them, you have a much deeper relationship to the kanji. Also I wanted to ask which edition is the deck for?

Nice video! How do I add a kanji from "remembering the kanji" to my deck when I don't know how to find it on the internet so I can copy paste it?

Def would love to see a after RTK vid

Nice video! Lately I'm reviewing the rtk cards even if I already started to make my sentence cards. I saw on your blog that you, like MattvsJapan, like podcast (and maybe audiobooks too?). So, how do you listen/study with them? Do you listen an entire chapter and then watch the transcript? Do you just listen to it without looking at the transcript? I think a good explanation video or blog post would be extremely useful for every ajatters.

Hi Matt, I started using your simple RTK deck since it makes the process very speedy! However, some of the kanji seem to differ from my book! For example, in my book the kanji "curse" is listed at #108, but in your deck it's listed at around #2000. How can I fix the order of these few misplaced kanji?

I have downloaded your deck but how do I get it sorted by the Heisig number? Also, German is my native language but I feel pretty comfortable usind English, could I use both languages to make Kanji-stories or should I stick to only one? Thank you for always providing useful information for us, you are definetly my favourite ajatt-RU-vidr!

Very good guide. Could I ask how to install the fonts? I've watched Matt's vid too but they just don't seem to work in the decks

Matt, do you have any suggestions on when to STOP reviewing RTK cards? I've finished RTK1+3 three months ago, and I get the feeling the benefit of me continuing to review these cards is getting smaller and smaller. I think my ability to write kanji by hand would take a big hit if I stopped reviewing, for sure. But, other than that, I get the feeling that spending more time immersing would help me flesh-out my understanding of kanji, instead of drilling the same one meaning of each kanji over and over again. Also, more time spent immersing would speed up my overall progress with Japanese, not just with the kanji aspect, and it would be more fun. I guess my worry is that, if my assumption is wrong, I would have to go back to reviewing RTK in the future, and I'd find a gazillion reviews piled up. Do you have any suggestions? Thanks

What do you do after ? Like you finish RTK then do you go back right after and learn readings?

Can someone please tell me what edition of RTK this deck is for? If it is not for RTK 1 I may as well create my own deck...

Should I wait to use anki after finishing the book or use it while I’m reading it?

Hi, I have been studying for 20 days with the book "Remember The Kanji" and Anki. However, sometimes I forget the position of the kanji as primitive, for example this kanji 音 is sometimes on the right 暗, sometimes on the left 韻, I would like to know how to solve that problem. When I review the kanji I can remember the story perfectly and its kanji , but sometimes I do not remember the position of the kanji, there are some kanji that always appear in the same position, in that case there is no problem but there are others that vary a lot, sometimes left, sometimes right or sometimes up like the example I gave earlier.

is it possible to get the fonts to display on anki on my iphone?

Do you write the story down on the Anki card or just make the story in your mind?

What's the best way to contact you Matthew?

Hey Matt, thanks for this. I have been doing 14 new Kanji per day - gives me a good balance with lots of other projects going on. This will take me 5.2 months just to do RTK1. Is it okay to proceed to n+1 sentences after RTK1? It will take too long to do RTK3 after 5.2 months since I am already getting anxious a bit (I think I'm ~#1200 in so far). Thanks for your thoughts!

Hi Matt, fellow English bloke here from Bristol, I really want to start AJATT-ing as someone who wants to master a new language, but has dedication issues I feel this is a great way for me to do it, I'm currently in the research stage and found you through MattvsJapan, as someone that is in a long term relationship do you feel AJATT would still work for me? Kind Regards, Will

Nice thumb nail! Looks better than your others. Thanks I needed this!

hi there, i am attempting again to learn kanji. previous failed attempts stem from me being unsure as to how exactly the story telling process works. i have watched many explanations on it and although there is some great info on it (your vids included - thank you), i still have holes missing in the perceived process. there are 3 specific areas that trouble me and i was hoping either yourself or one of your viewers could be so kind to validate / explain. i have the book "remembering the kanji", use ANKI, have wanikani and bunpro, but recently have been using an android app called "kanji study" it's great as it suits my lifestyle as i can jump on multiple times each day for short stints. making me write kanji really helps with my retention. my lack of understanding of the story process is: 1) when and to which kanji do i apply stories too? i see many people have their own objects associated with kanji i.e donald trump, a pineapple, a helicopter, spiderman etc. are these assigned figures ONLY to be assigned to radicals? so when kanji containing more than one radical presents, I can use my own assigned radical names to make my story? Is this correct? If so, that would mean that before learning any kanji made up of more than one primitive, I should perfectly learn all the radicals and ensure my own assigned labels of them are remembered. I am realising i have done something wrong now as i know a few hundred kanji but it is getting more and more difficult to remember them as i dont have any stories as i have never assigned labels to any of the primitives. So, when I learn the radicals meaning, it will still hold the intended meaning, i.e shellfish radical will always mean shellfish when seen as a kanji by itself, but if i reassign the meaning to... let's say, watermelon. then each time the shellfish primitive is used in a kanji including that radical and at least one other primitive, then my story would involve a watermelon? sorry if this seems basic and obvious, i just want to get it right as i dont want to invest so much time and realize that i git the basic concept wrong (which is what i did at my first attempt lol) so as an example: if the radical "tile" i find that i dont want to use and instead when that radical presents, i find it easier to remember "elephant", while the radical for "woman" as i have already locked that away to memory, i can use that in my stories. if a kanji appears with both the woman and tile primitive, then my story would include something about a woman and an elephant that would help me remember the meaning for the said kanji? 2) when there are complex kanji, i find it difficult to differentiate which radicals are being used. if there are 5 for example, sometimes i only see 4 and making a story won't necessarily always aid in helping me remember how the multiple radicals interact to make the kanji. many radicals i easily identify eg thread, mouth, woman etc but when there are a lot of horizontal and vertical lines crossing over each other, i find it difficult sometimes to identify primitive components. even in writing this, it seems perhaps more clear, i need to rename the radicals only, then i wouldnt be forced to try and make up a story with thread, mouth and woman in it, hmmmm light bulb moment aha. back to learning radicals. 3) when kanji is used to make words eg the ENTER and MOUTH kanji to make ENTRANCE. Am I still trying to make stories up with compound kanji? or do i just use the mnemonics process for single kanji only? Thank you :)

Hey Matt, I have been using your super simple deck since the day your published it. I am about 500 kanji in...something I noticed because I use imiwa? and Japanese dictionary sometimes when I need help with primitives radicals when building stories, and what I noticed is your list is not RTK1 ed 6, it’s pre-ed6 or at least the card number index matches earlier RTK. Just something you might Want to mention because it doesn’t follow the Ed 6 book so some kanji will be hard to find in the book if using it.

Hey man. Might sound like a dumb question but if I download the deck and use it whilst working though RTK how do I make sure, when I'm doing my Anki reps for a day, that I'm only doing it with the Kanji I have currently learnt. As opposed to all 2000 odd.

You guys should go to Matt vs Japan’s vid about RTK and use his card format with these decks

I haven't been able to find any useful info on this so I'll ask it here; I believe the joyo kanji are the "everyday" kanji for newspapers and such, what are the extra 1,000 for and where are they used? Obviously there's lots more than that with even less frequent use, so how important is it to do the extra 1,000 kanji in RTK early? Or, is it better to smash through the joyo kanji and then go through the extra kanji either as they appear or after some time doing sentence cards and the monolingual transition?

Hey Matt, I am really hoping that u could reply to this. By using your RTK deck, do you think it's enough to read novels/or any reading materials like u stated in this vid: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-t2H63wUoVlU.html since it's also around the 3000 mark? because im not planning to invest too much time into kanji on anki(3 months+ max)

Thank you, I started japanese a month ago from scratch, now I will use this method as a base to build my own :) I feel almost ready to start consuming content, the problem is finding the right stuff at my beginner level, meanwhile I'm using some apps and books (and now all this) :D

This is a dope video, and exactly what I was looking for. I'd rather use Anki than go through the book and make flash cards manually. Also you and your gf are cute asf, many thanks for the videos and articles

Matt from MattV vs Japan have just deleted the videos i needed most!

1K subs! :D

Matt, Sorry for the multiple comments. Here is another great tool to use alongside your anki deck: hochanh.github.io/rtk/. Just check it out...when you run into a kanji that you need help figuring out or writing a story, then just go to this website, search the keyword and it gives you hiesig's description and story as well as the top 4 or 5 stories from kohii. I find it so helpful I really don't open the book any longer unless I want hold on to paper or read his chapter/section introductions.

When I downloaded the deck, I could only see 2 cards, so I decided to make my own. I wanted to add the font that shows the order of strokes. How do I do that?

Is this different now that the new MIA method is around, for example lazy kanji is good ( can't believe I just said that)

so what I did for over a year is learning Kanji with a premade deck, which had the readings, some example vocab and also stories to remember the Kanji easier... the problem is... I kinda feel it's alot of information... and I also had the flashcards implemented for reverse learning.. so I also had the cards for Kanji - Meaning and also Meaning - writing the Kanji... Is this maybe too much? I kinda waste half an hour for only Kanji review...

So how do we know the kanji readings?

Probably the most simplified explanations on Ajatt I have found so far. Great content and right to the point. One question: You say it isn't that necessary to learn the Primitives, however, if you are going to make stories for each Kanji using the primitive's "keywords", then wouldn't you have to learn the primitives first? I think you might have/kind of answered this question in the video, but it wasn't that clear. Keep up the good work!

How long should it take to learn the primitive deck

Should I come up with stories for the primitives too?

got a kanji test in the next 3 day and am here watching is at 2:13 :l

One day im gonna make videos about anki that doesnt take forever to get to the point

"The most frequently used 1,000 kanji comprise more than 90% of all kanji used in written Japanese." From the MIA website. They focus on the 1000 kanji first, then later you learn other kanji by context. Also they focus on recognizing the kanji rather then you writing them out, cuz who actually wants to know freaking stroke order? It's honestly way faster and more practical then this video. But yeah it depends what your goals are of course and whether you have more patience.

The stroke orders are not showing up even though I downloaded the fonts bruh

WARNING: Do not use the linked anki flash cards, it is not following the 6th edition of RTK books. For example Elbow is in place 2000-something instead of nr 46.

Hey, I was just wondering how do you figure out exactly which primitives are included in each kanji? do you just guess??? This is a great guide, but that is the only part that is really unclear for me. Please help anyone?

It's it more efficient to show the Kanji first and English as an answer? And why don't skip stroke order as well? If you already skipping readings might as well. Well if you don't need to write then 100% skip that boy Also, you might check KanjiDamage it's a bit cleaner in radical regard

I'm a little confused; shouldn't the kanji be on the front of the card and the keyword on back?

I'm going to do lazy kanji first on purpose and then do it all again the other way around and learn to write them after.

Learning 3000 Kanji in 3 months by following your strategy!! Challenge Accepted!!!!!!!!!!

Your deck is missing a bunch of kanji regardless of the 1000 extra. Not sure if you're using the chinese version (remembering the Hanzi) or not which is also 3000.

Great information. I was having trouble following you, as you kept trailing off with your voice in a sort of mumbling way. Thanks for the information though.

what about pronunciations if the kanji?

But how do you learn the onyomi and kunyomi reading

I’m confused, someone tell me, is the keyword the same as the meaning?

wait so when does reading them in japanese come into play

15:47 Out of context moment

What about pronucsiastion?

I've found RTK+Anki terrible and daunting as a process. I got to the point to know about 900 meanings of kanjis and it was just a chore to move on. At that point I knew just 1 meaning for each kanji (which is a big limit) and ZERO readings (besides the one I knew on my own already), and ZERO words. I switched to wanikani and yes, it's demanding in how frequently you need to do your reviews, but I now know the kanji meaning(s), readings (all or the most common ones), and hundreds (over a thousand so far, actually) words. In a more manageable and pleasant way of doing reviews. Anki is the worst app experience out there, it's just TERRIBLE, but in general, the RTK method is definitely not for me. All that work and I couldn't read shit, not even level 0 of graded reading.

Will have to use another flashcard app I downloaded a while back. Had to delete Anki because there was an "error" and it wouldn't allow me to create decks

But how do i know how to pronounce the kanji?