The Strategy

Since I began learning jōyō kanji, I've reached kanji #330 in the Heisig order. It's debatable whether the Heisig method works for everyone. I've read some quite angry rants about the Heisig approach, but concluded that a lot of people like to vent on the internet because they learned using a method that worked for them and thus, that becomes the only method they will ever advocate. One of the biggest problems people have with the Heisig method is that it can come across as some kind of panacea. It isn't and the criticism that you only learn to associate keywords with the kanji symbol was something that I questioned before I began. By doing this, you won't learn the readings of the kanji; you have to go through the whole lot again to do that. However, you do learn to recognize the symbols in association with a keyword; which puts you in a strong position to learn the readings later. Or put it this way; trying to learn the symbol, what it means as well as its kun-yomi and on-yomi readings at the same time is a lot to be doing. Essentially, by learning kanji by Heisig's method, you are literally setting yourself up for an easier transition to learning their readings. Also, simply by being able to recognize the kanji symbols and their associated keywords, as long as the keyword is a rough translation of the meaning, you might get the gist of the written kanji ... and that might be useful from time to time.

The strategy I'm using requires me to learn 25 new kanji every day. I usually start at 7am with the Anki flashcard system offering me 25 new and however many I review is based on however many I had difficulty remembering in previous sessions. I'm currently at #330, however the number I have to review is 68; so I can roughly remember around 250ish given that some of the kanji I will be reviewing have subsequently become stronger in my memory. 

To describe the strategy I use, here is screen grab from Anki. It just displays the keyword: "Strange" and I'm supposed to recall the symbol if I've memorized it, or write it down with a story if it's a new kanji that I've not learned before. In the case of "Strange", it's one that I can recall. 

This is the first addition to the strategy that I've made myself. Ordinarily, the learner just visualises the kanji in their minds eye before clicking the button labelled, "Show Answer". Since I knew this kanji, I use a magic pad to write the kanji.

Then I click the button labelled, "Show Answer" to check what I've written is correct.

In this case, I remembered the kanji correctly and have the advantage of seeing whether I've written it correctly rather than just imagining I would have written it correctly. If I don't have a clue what the kanji is, it is either a new kanji that I haven't learned or one that I simply forgotten. If it's a new kanji, then I write my own story in my kanji log book.

If however, it is one that I've already tried to learn but have forgotten, I examine the story to see whether it can be improved to make it more memorable. I also make a note of the Heisig number of the kanji I can't recall because later on, I'll add it to a review list on my RTK (Remembering the Kanji) app on my iPhone. The Anki flashcard session takes me about one hour each morning and then I take a break from doing any kanji study for about ten to fifteen minutes. Then I lauch the RTK app for a quick review of the 25 new kanji that I learned that morning.

As you can see, in the Flashcard mode, the RTK app asks the user to write the kanji on their touchscreen. As you can see in the above example of the keyword "Capital", I haven't got it quite right. I've used the "House" primative rather than the kettle lid radical ... and also the bottom part, I've made the strokes a little short. This was a new kanji to me this morning, however, when I tested myself this evening, I've recalled the first primative from visual memory rather than imaginative memory - I know this because my story says, "Put the KETTLE LID down firmly and stand waiting with an open MOUTH. HO HO HO, CAPITAL radio is just soooo lame".  I remembered the MOUTH (the rectangle in the middle) and I remembered what I call "HO HO HO" (because it's the bottom half of the katakana character "ho"). However, for some reason the part about the kettle lid didn't make a very strong connection in my mind, so I'll try and make it more memorable by making the kettle lid do something weird ... "The KETTLE LID shot across the room into my open MOUTH just as the annoying presenter laughed "HO HO HO" on CAPITAL Radio".

I then log this story in my RTK app on my iPhone, which I review later in the day. I still forget quite a few kanji, but slowly I'm refining this strategy so that I forget less - the less I forget, the less I have to review over the next days, which then makes my initial Anki session take less than an hour in the morning.