May
27
＊＊`A poster named Wayne made some improvements to the deck, and has re-released it under the Anki Shared Decks as “Lazy Kanji Mod V2″. I heartily recommend everyone download this version, as it is 1) more easily customizable, and 2) he’s made some brilliant modifications of his own that you ought to give a try and 3) he’s added a ton of useful information to each of the cards, like links to stroke order references. I’ll also mention you can download the Stroke Order Font and with just a few tweaks have stroke order right on the card. However, if your uncomfortable doing that, or if your working from a mobile device making it difficult to install new fonts, his solution is an excellent one. Anyways, this is the deck that “I’m” using now, so you should too.
Due to a variety of factors involving chronic pain/fatigue and an inability to get medications I need, I found my kanji studies grinding to a halt around #700 in RTK. When my meds ran out, I just could not get motivated to keep going. All that typing up stories, writing kanji, and trying to remember keywords that meant the same thing despite having completely unrelated kanji was just too exhausting, and made my hands and wrists ache. Then Khatzumoto-sempai came up with something that sounded like just the thing for me, Lazy Kanji, which turns the process of memorizing kanji into something more like repeatedly dialing a telephone number until it’s memorized. With renewed hope, I made an initial attempt at some Lazy Kanji cards.
However, what I quickly discovered was that it became too easy to forget about breaking the kanji up into its component parts and I was relying on rote memorization and visual memory. In other words, it was too slow, and even more painful than writing Heisig-novels. A little bit of thought fixed the problem though. A simple modification to the front of the cards could, with little effort, bring back all the benefits of Heisig’s mnemonics without nearly as much work.
So, here’s what the cards look like:
Front
党
The TEENAGER went to a _______ in the LITTLE HOUSE.
Back:
party
The task looks like this. First, write the kanji. Attempt to write it just from glancing at the sentence, if necessary, however, it’s alright to look at the kanji. That’s why its there on the front. Then, look at the kanji and say the keyword out loud. The keyword can be any synonym that carries that meaning. So party, gala, shindig, bonnaroo (joking) would all be correct.
Grading: If I get the keyword and I can write the kanji just from the sentence, I mark it very easy. If I have to glance at the kanji I mark it easy or hard, depending on my feeling about it. Missing the keyword entirely gets it marked wrong.
Adding the fill-in-the-blank sentence does two main things. First, it serves as a reminder to break the kanji up into its components, which is the strongest part of the Heisig method in my opinion. Second, it works as a bit of “context”, providing a mental hook which is easy to grasp on to and gives the brain something familiar to grasp at while learning something that initially looks like random squiggles to it. But, because of the combination of SRS and blending writing and recognition, it is no longer necessary to use complex or wordy stories to memorize with. A simple sentence that links all the primitives together and to the keyword in some sort of logical structure is all that is necessary.
My deck, which contains all the kanji from RTK1, is a shared deck on Anki, and can be found by searching “Lazy Kanji + Mod”. Some of the “stories” are idiosyncratic to my strange tastes and sense of humor, but most of them are generic enough to be useful to anyone. Having worked through all the kanji making the cards, and hundreds of them in late stages of review, I can definitely say that Lazy Kanji is efficient and far more enjoyable than the more traditional method. While your grasp on the kanji will NOT be as strong initially as someone who worked through the book the normal way, over time it will balance out. That’s the power of the SRS combined with motor memory and adult logic.
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[...] would you want to bother with specifically memorizing the primitives? Those using the Lazy Kanji method: –Become more aware of the various components making up the kanji. Because the Lazy [...]
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by 亜眼努, Eric West. Eric West said: "this [Lazy Kanji] is seriously the easiest way i’ve come across to learn the kanji" http://bit.ly/hE4win [...]
A very sensible system. I think I will try something like this for RTK2.
I was a little skeptical at first (I believe I commented in your thread on RevTK!), but now I can see exactly how this kind of approach to kanji would be effective. Eliminating the irritation of RTK’s synonymous keywords alone is a huge step in the right direction – after all, the kanji cover a much wider spectrum of meaning in actual use, anyway.
Plus, ANYTHING that can make kanji reviewing less tedious is a godsend, in my book. Far too many people (myself included) have neglected their kanji reviews simply because the vanilla way of doing so becomes so mechanical and dull.
I’d be all over this if I hadn’t already switched to Japanese keyword kanji reviews.
Hmm interesting, I might have to give this a go.
With the classical method that I finished I can write the kanjis from the key word but still have a bit of problem to recall the key word when I see the kanji.
I think this should speed up the solving of my problem.
Thanks
I’ve been using something similar to this, but with the stories on the back, and have found that my recognition of the kanji in the wild has improved dramatically. I’m only around 700 kanji, but having done RTK1 the vanilla way once through before, this way is more effective and enjoyable by FAR! Cheers!
But that’s cheating?!
j/k I wish I discovered this before my current redo of RTK.
Just wondering how well you’re able to actually write the kanji from memory.
Anything I’ve reviewed to maturity i can write from keyword to kanji with no problem, without needing a story or anything.
Just going to say this…
I love you.
Definitely doing this! I needed a more fun way to do RTK, seeing as I keep dropping it, and Kanji Damage just has too much info for right now.
So…Thanks so much ^^ This looks like a really good way to do it.
I like this idea, I’m going to give it a try. Thanks for sharing your deck. I’m up to 550 using vanilla Heisig, and your method definitely sounds more efficient.
You mentioned in your post that you suffer pain in your wrists from computer use. As a software engineer by day and general computer addict, I had this problem too. If you are still suffering, please email me, I can let you know what worked for me.
Another modification that i currently use would be to move the kanji character to the answer.
How many ways can I say I love you? Doing Heisig was becoming like forcing myself to eat veggies; I knew it was the best thing for me but I just couldn’t get ‘um done.Your Lazy Kanji cards on Anki was the cheese sprinkled on top to help me gulp down and enjoy my kanji veggies again!!!Did I mention that I loved you?
Kendo can you please explain to me the process of learning new kanji with this method?
I go to the kanji in the book, and what next? No story making right? So what do I do then?
Well, if you download my deck with Anki, by searching for “Lazy Kanji + Mod” you can just start working through it. If you also read Primitives Deck and follow those instructions, also downloading it to Anki and working through that deck concurrently with the Lazy Kanji + Mod Deck, you really don’t even need the book anymore. Otherwise you will only need the book for learning the primitives. If you had already started on another deck, doing Heisig, just continue those reviews and suspend the cards in the Lazy Kanji deck which are equivalent to the ones you’ve already done.
If you don’t wish to d/l my deck, I recommend reading through this post again, carefully, and follow the instructions I laid out for how you make the cards, as well as the instructions given about how to answer and grade them, ie. when to fail them, when to mark them hard or easy, etc.
As you can see by looking at the example card I gave, you don’t have to write a full story for the kanji, instead, you just need a simple single sentence that includes all the primitives and leaves a blank for the keyword, so that when you go to answer the card you have a little bit of “context” to conjure up the keyword from.
thank you SO MUCH for posting this method on here and your deck on anki!
before, i was doing my kanji in a very uptight way (normal rtk with stories hidden — if i have to look at the story, it’s wrong), and then i moved to a slightly less uptight way (story on the answer side of the card so i see it all the time, but i still have to produce the kanji from memory without seeing the story).
i was dreading doing my reps each day, and i just found it to be super annoying. overall, it just wasn’t working for me. it probably would have eventually if i stuck with it, but it was getting increasingly hard to do that. so, i switched to your method, and now i can go through tons of reps easily, and learning new kanji is easy and fun. i’ve only been at it for 10 days, but i honestly feel like my retention is a ton better too.
this is seriously the easiest way i’ve come across to learn the kanji (and it’s not like vanilla rtk was especially hard!). i could not recommend it more highly!
hi kendo, i’d like to try you method but i can’t start coz i can’t find the deck. where can i find it on anki site? thanks
Hi ran ;P. You have to download the anki program, and then import the deck through the “download” function in the program. In anki, go File->Download->Shared Decks. A search box will come up, search “Lazy Kanji” and it will be the top result.
Hey this way is awesome!!! I ran through RTK once through and it was like pulling teeth. I started today and I easily recalled alot of kanji. I saw while in Japan that because of technology (text messages ect..)just recognizing the kanji you win the battle. I am going to run through RTK with this method and see how it goes. thanks for this it helps alot.
Hi i would like to know how your reps go. Say i wanted to learn 20 kanji a day would i just repeat the same 20 kanji for hours on end or how should the reps go. Should they be spaced out-do 15 minutes stop for 5 then do 15 more? I’m very confused on how to go about doing the reps.
thanks
No, you don’t need to repeat them over and over. Just load the deck in anki, set it for how many new you want a day, and work through them. If you don’t know the answer, or get it wrong, mark it wrong and it will come back up in a little bit. Once you get them right, mark it hard or easy and move on. The SRS will bring them back up when you need to see them again. I reccomend checking for reviews twice a day if possible, but as long as you go to your computer at least once a day and work through all the cards you have due for review as well as the day’s new cards, you’ll be fine. You definitely don’t want to waste a bunch of time doing the same ones over and over. If you have extra time, learn more new cards instead.
Kendo,
I have been using your Lazy Kanji Mod Anki deck for about a month now. After reading your blog, I was apparently using it wrong. I didn’t write out the kanji. I was only learning the keyword from the story. When I started writing out the kanji, I found that it was impossible to read story without seeing the kanji in my peripheral vision. Unfortunately, the kanji and the story is in the same field. So, I separated the kanji and story into two fields. I then set the color of the kanji to white, so that the kanji is invisible until selected. I also added a link to an animated kanji stroke order website. By clicking on the kanji, I can verify I wrote the kanji correctly.
Thank you for your deck!! I hope the Lazy Kanji method works better than the standard Heisig.
Wayne
That sounds like a nice modification to the deck. Have you thought about making it a shared deck so others could benefit from the work you put into it?
Hi.
I have one suggestion (for now).
Make Kanji sign WHITE(!) Loooots easier not-to-peek.
Sorry for my non-native level English
Nice site ….)
hi kendo.
mm, maybe i’m stupid, but i just can understand how to use your method.
the most of kanji don’t stay in my memory. or i can remember them by reading the setences with primitives, but can’t remember when see them not in srs.
the other problem is that i am on my ~250 kanji now, and now i have to review ~160 kanji a day. seems that i am doing smth wrong.
can you write the right order of operations for this method?
sorry for bad english.
I wonder if u can tell me, how quickly did u do those 250 kanji? If you are going through those quickly, then yes, reviews are going to pile up very very fast and also, it will take many reviews before the kanji begin to sink in to a deeper level. I think if you carefully read this post, you’ll see that I’ve explained exactly how to go about using the deck step-by-step. I dont think I could possibly explain it any more clearly than that. I can try to break it down though.
1. Look at kanji
2. Read sentence.
3. Look away from kanji.
4. Write the kanji.
5. Say the keyword while looking at kanji.
6. Check your work, using the guidelines I listed in this post.
Kendo,
I have added my changes to your Lazy Kanji Mod to the Anki shared deck. It’s called Lazy Kanji Mod V2. I made the following changes. 1) Made the color of the kanji the same as the background color. It is invisible until selected. 2) Added links to two dictionaries for stroke verification. 3) Added link to Review The Kanji if you need to find a better story. 4) Added frequency number and school grade. Heisig treats all kanji equally but the 1,000 most often used characters appear 93.3% of the time. So we must be sure we learn these. 5) Added English meaning. I thought Heisig made up the keyword, but it looks like he just used the English meaning.
Kendo.. Please review and give me feedback.
Thanks,
Wayne
yeah, i re-read the post after i wrote the comment and found that i was inattentive. i even made the grading incorrectly. then i followed the instruction, and felt that things went much better. now, i am at my ~450 kanji on the 21st day of using the deck.
thank you, and sorry for bothering!
Sorry for some weird reason i wasnt notified of your comment until today. Anyhow It looks excellent. I’ll edit the post to mention that I’m recommending your deck. ご苦労様でした。
Just thought i would comment and say neat design, did you code it yourself? Looks great.
Hello Kendo,
I’ve just started using your deck and I wanted to thank you for the great job!
But I’ve still got a few questions: how do you use it to learn totally new kanjis? Do you learn them first in RTK? or do you mark new kanjis cards wrong?
Thanks for your attention
I checked out the [Lazy Kanji Mod/Mod V2] shared decks, they are great, thanks to Kendo and Wayne!
One question though: If it it the first time I encounter the Kanji, how do I learn the components? In the Heisig book, there is an introduction for each new component.
Thanks in advance for your time and help!
well, you can continue using the book as you go OR you can use my Primitives Deck (actually fabius’s deck now, see the note on that post) to memorize all the components as you go. You can guess which way I’d do things, seeing as I made the Primitives deck…
well, when i did it, i suspended the whole deck to start, then as i unsuspended new cards i was about to learn, i’d look them over. Also, I made and did the Primitives Deck as I went, so that I was always familiar with new components as I encountered them. So you might want to take a look at that post too.
A very excellent idea, I might give this a try myself.
I’ve gone through so many reps of RTK and didn’t seem to get them in my head. I probably only know 200-300 kanji without even needing to think.
I know the primitives that make up the Kanji but I can’t seem to remember the “actual Kanji”
So, like you, I decided to experiment^^” I decided to flip the cards around, having the “Kanji” at the front side of the card and the stories at the back. Before looking at the stories, I would guess the Kanji. I’ve found this to work for me as I know I’ve retained a lot more Kanji this way.
Forgot to mention I’ve been doing RTK for 8 months already^^” I guess it’s one of those things that you have to do every day and it will gradually build up, slowly. Although we don’t know it ourselves.
Hi Kendo, I worked with RTK and came up to about 900 kanji, then let the whole thing die for a few months, exhausted.
Now I came back on track using Anki and your lazy kanji mod v2 within one week of 1-2 hours a day.
I quickly added up to almost where I was to get my SRS back and running.
My trouble is: When I see a Kanji “in the wild”, I just can’t seem to recall it’s meaning/keyword… I KNOW that I know that one, it just draws a blank in my head.
When I review I mostly just glance over the sentence presented and can fill in the correct word in the blank and of course produce the Kanji from the parts in the text.
It’s just… in the wild it seems not to work, as in, seeing the kanji rarely triggers anything in my mind =(
I make sure to guess the keyword or a synonym (I’m german learning everything in english, so some english keyword just happens to get several german equivalents from me additionally) and write out the kanji without further looking at the sentence. I then open the answer, look at the kanji there, say the keyword, maybe write it a second time…. it just doesnÄt seem to stick!
Should I better return to full RTK? I’m using the primitives deck to supplement and keep ahead my primitives, tho.
I figured the problem with lazy kanji for me is… it works just like RTK, except that it is impossible to become non-reliant on the story presented on the front… upon filling the blank, knowing the keyword… without a story set in mind the primitives never come on their own. I NEED the sentence, or else upon seeing the keyword, nothing happens at all.
This may well be the gamebreaker for me… and call for a LOT of reworking to do to get back to RTK =/
hi martin, sorry i somehow missed your comment, so I don’t know if you’ll see this late reply. My question is, how long have you given it? Are you reviewing the kanji for a couple weeks and then expecting to know the answer the first time you encounter them in the wild? Lazy Kanji, perhaps unlike RTK, doesn’t work that way. As I discussed in the post, its more like dialing a phone number many, many times until you have it memorized. The method and SRS just make this a lot more painless to do than writing them out hundreds of times each would. In fact, for me, some of the more complex kanji really only became truly ’solid’ after I learned words which used them, though I had familiarized myself with from Lazy Kanji. This doesn’t mean Lazy Kanji is a waste of time. No. Anyone who has finished Lazy Kanji will tell you that learning vocabulary afterwords is easier by orders of magnitude. But if you want a method with clear immediate results, then yes, you probably need to go back to RTK. If you can be patient, and view this as an organic system which is part of the larger system of learning Japanese, then Lazy Kanji is a much gentler, more maintainable way to go about things.
I love your sense of humour (It’s measuring box!). Also, it’s much easier to learn with this than Heisig, thanks!