Removing Unnecessary Kanji From “Remembering The Kanji”
Remembering the Kanji (RTK) is a great method but it has 2 fatal flaws. The way to solve the first flaw of similar keywords was discussed in one of my earliest posts, Using Anki to Master Japanese 1: Becoming the Kanji King. This next flaw is equally significant: RTK has too many useless kanji.
I’m aware that the concept behind RTK is to order the kanji so radicals build upon each other. But there are a good number of kanji that just have no use. As if learning 2052 kanji wasn’t bad enough, how would it feel to know that there will be a good 150-200 that you will rarely ever use. You don’t want to waste your time learning things you don’t need to.
Extraction method
Just so you don’t think I’m pulling out random kanji that I “think” are not helpful, I have used a number of factors in my consideration of them.
1) They rarely appear in any form of writing
2) In my very large anki deck, they show up in around 0 to 3 cards.
3) There is often only one word that the kanji is ever used in, and that word is seldom used.
4) Because I never saw them anywhere outside of RTK in my Anki reviews, they have been repeatedly marked as wrong for 3-4 years.
5) I’ve analyzed and pulled them out one by one as they became due in my Anki. Every time I noticed a Kanji repeatedly being due that I had learned years ago, it stood out.
A Few Things To Keep In Mind:
– You have to remember that what makes RTK + Anki work so well is that the kanji is also constantly reinforced through the sentences and all your interaction with real Japanese. If the only place you ever see the Kanji is in RTK, regardless of the power of Anki, it will not stick with you long.
– If there is a word that uses the kanji that you want to learn, that is fine, put a sentence in. There is nothing wrong with learning words with these kanji in them.
– Because I only pulled out kanji one at a time when they became due and I felt they needed to be removed, there is a chance that some useless kanji didn’t make the list since it just hasn’t appeared due yet in my deck. If you think any belong on the list, make a mention of them in the comments section.
– You may say “Wait! I know a word with that kanji.” Yes this is true. Obviously there are words with these kanji. But please trust me on this. I’ve read 100s of Japanese books over the years. These aren’t worth going out of your way to learning, especially in the beginning of your studies. You will eventually learn some of the words that have these kanji through natural reading. No reason to force the process on early in RTK.
– And of course, while I may have put a lot of time and thought into removing these, this is all still just my opinion. Go to a Japanese person, and I’m sure he will say “How dare you doubt this kanji, it has the following uses . . .”
________________________
0025 昌 prosperous
0027 旭 rising sun
0032 亘 span
0034 凸 convex
0060 頁 page
0096 孔 cavity
0114 肖 resemblance
0115 硝 nitrate
0155 圭 squared jewel
0175 墨 black ink
0176 鯉 carp
0178 厘 rin
0182 胴 trunk
0189 宵 wee hours
0198 桂 Japanese Judas-tree
0199 柏 oak
0213 暦 calendar
0218 沫 splash
0242 荻 reed
0270 銑 pig iron
0288 軌 rut
0304 冠 crown
0308 享 receive
0311 亭 pavilion
0342 詔 imperial edict
0345 詠 recitation
0352 諭 rebuke
0367 桟 scaffold
0378 賦 levy
0406 帆 sail
0410 幌 canopy
0411 錦 brocade
0424 曇 cloudy weather
0426 霜 frost
0430 嬌 attractive
0440 嫡 legitimate wife
0451 渇 thirst
0452 謁 audience
0453 褐 brown
0454 喝 hoarse
0478 剖 divide
0481 韻 rhyme
0501 曽 formerly
0511 賓 V.I.P.
0514 栃 horse chestnut
0521 蝶 butterfly
0527 妃 queen
0536 竜 dragon
0558 礁 reef
0560 准 quasi-
0563 雌 feminine
0617 寡 widow
0629 惰 lazy
0631 憾 remorse
0647 抄 extract
0699 隻 vessels
0715 茎 stalk
0721 淑 graceful
0741 鉱 mineral
0763 硫 sulfur
0765 允 license
0769 拙 bungling
0783 頒 partition
0786 翁 venerable old man
0800 裳 skirt
0809 殉 martyrdom
0834 寧 rather
0839 扶 aid
0881 征 subjugate
0917 穀 cereals
0930 楼 watchtower
0932 漆 lacquer
0939 笠 bamboo hat
0940 笹 bamboo grass
0967 伯 chief
0970 佳 excellent
0979 倣 emulate
0988 仁 humanity
1017 畝 furrow
1041 弊 abuse
1042 喚 yell
1062 堀 ditch
1070 尺 shaku
1079 扇 fan
1085 啓 disclose
1097 款 goodwill
1101 崇 adore
1125 斤 ax
1132 逝 departed
1138 斥 reject
1157 唐 T’ang
1166 儒 Confucian
1177 斗 Big Dipper
1182 庸 commonplace/ordinary
1196 奔 bustle
1201 暁 daybreak
1204 畔 paddy ridge
1211 謄 facsimilie
1225 矛 halberd
1234 弘 vast
1253 孝 filial piety
1262 猪 boar
1270 帥 commander
1272 棺 coffin
1286 践 tread
1290 髄 marrow
1295 阿 Africa
1299 陪 auxiliary
1314 堕 degenerate
1324 搾 squeeze
1325 窯 kiln
1330 岳 Point
1342 羅 gauze
1357 紡 spinning
1368 絹 silk
1419 苑 garden
1427 酉 sign of the bird
1430 酵 fermentation
1433 酪 dairy products
1434 酢 vinegar
1454 濫 overflow
1463 爵 baron
1469 朗 melodious
1498 梓 catalpa
1499 宰 superintend
1514 睦 intimate
1517 菱 diamond
1518 陵 mausoleum
1523 劾 censure
1529 壌 lot
1566 鋳 casting
1569 椿 camellia
1570 泰 peaceful
1573 奉 dedicate
1584 錘 spindle
1591 琴 harp
1601 廉 bargain
1610 遷 transition
1614 楠 camphor tree
1639 侯 marquis
1666 瀬 rapids
1667 勅 imperial order
1674 倹 frugal
1681 薫 fragrant
1684 痘 pox
1718 須 ought
1732 斎 purification
1747 蛮 barbarian
1761 媒 mediator
1763 棋 chess piece
1766 碁 Go
1787 譜 musical score
1809 亜 Asia
1838 蒲 bullrush
1842 郭 enclosure
1858 逓 parcel post
1867 嗣 heir
1869 舶 liner
1876 艇 rowboat
1891 衷 inmost
1902 函 bin
1912 藩 clan
1923 脹 dilate
1930 禅 Zen
1944 烏 crow
1945 蔦 vine
1950 媛 beautiful woman
1960 塑 model
1964 剛 sturdy
1966 陶 pottery
1968 謡 Noh chanting
1971 墾 groundbreaking
1988 篤 fervent
1995 虞 uneasiness
2001 慶 jubilation
2006 寅 sign of the tiger
2027 朕 majestic plural
2031 遵 abide by
2032 罷 quit
2033 屯 barracks
2038 丹 cinnabar
Now let the RTK part of your Anki deck be pure and pristine.
Founder of Jalup. iOS Software Engineer. Former attorney, translator, and interpreter. Still watching 月曜から夜ふかし weekly since 2013.
Some of those are among the ones I find easiest to remember :)
I think for several of these, they were included only to be primitives for other more common characters. 斤 is a good example.
Some may be easy to remember in the beginning-middle stages, since like you said 斤 is not very difficult. But 2 years later, the stories and keywords start to fade out of your head leaving you with just the kanji themselves.
When I saw ax in my deck come up after a long period of time, the first thing I thought of was 斧(おの). This is the reason why I advised in the post on Anki and kanji, that you always add in Japanese keywords.
RTK put in primitives to learn and build upon. But since in Anki, they represent their own kanji, I think they should be removed since you will probably never come across them in normal Japanese.
Good points.
My RTK reviewing with English keywords now (now that I’ve finished RTK1 quite a while ago) is recognition only. I’m working through a production deck with Japanese keywords. So I think I should be OK :)
The only couple of drawbacks I’m finding to cleaning up these kanji is that, no. 1- although these kanji by themselves may be of little use down the road, in the short term, they are very useful for reinforcing other kanji that are built off of their primitive meanings. The other drawback (and I understand that this doesn’t apply to Anki) is that when using the Remembering the Kanji website flashcard system (which, I use both this and Anki in combination), it makes gaps appear in your progress chart and when you go to add a new kanji (entering +1, +2 etc.), it will go back and start re-adding all the other characters that you deleted when cleaning out the less useful ones. Because of this, I’m going to leave them in my RTK website flashcards, but delete them from my Anki deck. Once I’m on to the sentence phase, and particularly, when I have a very large deck, this won’t matter much, but for now, I thought I would add my input on why it might not be a bad idea to, at least temporarily, leave them in…
Although, with that being said, I’m only a couple weeks from starting on RTK3 and I’m wondering if you have any plans to do a similar filter for that one as well…
Okay, I’ll look into adding a post on that sometime soon. I’d set it up the opposite way though. There are so many deleted cards that I’ll list the cards that you should actually keep.
I’d just like to point out that I’d also be very interested in which RTK3 kanji are worth learning. I was planning to learn them whenever i encountered them, but knowing up front which I might encounter would be useful.
Check out my RTK mod deck here: http://japaneselevelup.com/2011/09/04/japanese-level-up-rtk-mod-anki-deck/
Look at the kanji with numbers higher than 2042. These are the RTK3 kanji that I still found valuable. It is a very small number as you’ll see.
Hi, Ive found your article very insightful. I’m trying to study using RTK and Anki , now at my 2000th kanji so have already learned most if not all of these ‘useless’ kanji.
I wondered whether your evaluation of useless kanji takes proper Japanese names in to consideration? It’s just that I live in Japan and I would like to be able to read people’s kanji names someday. If I stop trying to learn all these kanji, will it not hinder me in this area? I know Japanese people can get very creative with kanji thanks for your feedback.
Becki
Good question. Yes it does take Japanese names into consideration. The useless kanji rarely appears in any names. I did leave in the kanji that don’t really appear in any words, but appear in the common names. You’ll learn most of your name kanji from reading books. I plan on getting more into this topic in a future post.
Nice to know.. I wondered about those missing for a while :P
but there are more.. what about these (just took a quick look through the first 60):
0017 I
0019 Companion
0033 Concave
0042 Measuring Box
0060 Page
Are they missing, or have you removed them and not included them in the list?
I think the owner just forgot to write them here. Because the list does contain 1901 kanji, as mentioned on the first post.
Probably… though it makes it a bit difficult when f. eks. “measuring box” is a primitive in “rise up” or “page” is a primitive in “stubborn”..
well I guess I’ll just have to deal with it and learn those by heart :P
Thx for this. I will use it but I found it strange these got deleted:
0478 剖 divide , 0451 渇 thirst , 0060 頁 page , 0430 嬌 attractive , 0406 帆 sail
I’d be careful about this, because certainly not all of these kanji are really useless. To name a few:
“0034 凸 convex” you’ll encounter rather often in Japan, as it is used in the sign “凸凹注意” warning drivers for curves ahead.
“0213 暦 calendar” is used in words like 西暦 and グレゴリオ暦 to describe our Gregorian calendar and contrast it with the Japanese calendar (with 昭和 and平成 etc.)
“1295 阿Africa” is used quite a lot in Japanese place names.
“1434 酢 vinegar” is really the word for ‘vinegar’ and can for example be found in just about any recipe for making sushi.
Sorry, “凸凹注意” rather warns for an uneven road surface.
The kanji on this list are of course used in some words, as you pointed out. But I still believe it is always a question of usefulness versus best use of your study time when it comes to kanji.
Thank you so much for these decks! It saved me a ton of time.
You definitely forgot to write down some kanji, though. I just noticed 203 and 204, and 221. I feel bad pointing it out since you’re nice enough to share this deck with us, but I wanted to mention it since it’s jarring to have kanji I haven’t gotten to yet suddenly pop up in my daily anki, and then I have to figure out how to readjust the number of new cards a day so I don’t keep confusing myself.
You are correct, 203, 204 and 221 are also unnecessary. Not sure if you’ve read it yet, but a month after this series of posts, I uploaded my fully edited Heisig deck, which includes a number of deletions not mentioned on this 3-part series and is slightly more updated.
Check it out at: http://japaneselevelup.com/2011/09/04/japanese-level-up-rtk-mod-anki-deck/
I checked your deck and 吾 and 朋 were not in them. I noticed through jisho.org that they were not common kanji anyways and decided to drop them. Which is something you did as well.
I’ve been using this list and the other previous posts to weed out my Heisig study from the beginning. I hope this is still up-to-date and in agreement with the authors’ perspective..!
Yup, this is still up to date and firm to my RTK beliefs. The only difference is this list doesn’t include any new kanji from the newest version of RTK.
Hi, thanks for this list. There are lots of words I see come up that I’ve rarely ever used. The word Fathom (149) really stumped me as I’ve never used that to measure in english. Also how would you go about with the Kanji that are used as primitives in other Kanji such as Page, or Span, as they are used a lot. As for adding the Japanese keywords, I’m on about 200 Kanji (just started really) adding my own stories as I go along, whats the best way I can implement this in my current deck? Thanks if you or anyone reply.
If you encounter an unusual keyword it’s often to make that keyword stand out from others with a similar meaning or to add a particular nuance that will make you story easier to create. Don’t worry about the English; it’s there to help you make stories and get an overall feel for a kanji. When you finish Heisig and start reading things will start to fall in place.
I probably can’t even count on one finger the number of times I’ve ever used the word “ridgepole”, let alone said “garment” without putting on a silly voice.
As for primitives that are also uncommon kanji, you still need to know them so you can use them in stories, of course, and they’re common enough and appear early enough that you won’t likely be forgetting them. Keep them in if you like, but maybe you could delete them later when you feel like you know them well or feel as though they’re getting in the way.
Finally, for Japanese keywords, I only add them if I keep forgetting a particular kanji, or there’s a word I keep forgetting that uses a particular kanji. I only really add Japanese keywords as and when I need to because it can, but doesn’t always, take considerable time to find a suitable keyword, and I can’t be bothered. I’ve found it really helpful to have Japanese keywords and recommend you add them as much as you need to.
Thanks for the reply! Very helpful. I don’t want to be typing out all the J-keywords so is there some way of just importing them from JALUP’s deck?
Found a way – I put both my deck and the Jalup deck in excel following this guide https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/ankisrs/UsTbn7Y5aGM/9UT3Yy2aQ4UJ
and copied all his keywords into mine. Then put it back in anki.
I don’t know use Anki really and I’ve never done Heisig but I’d keep these words.
0034 凸 convex : I never remember the reading but just by the shape alone, I know it’s convex. Doesn’t take more than 10 seconds to remember this one for the rest of your life.
0406 帆 sail : This one pops up a lot in literature, short stories, comics. I wouldn’t dump it.
The final two; just turn on the weather channel and you’ll see these and here them every day. Then, pick up a Murakami book or Otsuichi or Yoshimoto or any other book and they’ll have these books. Fairly standard. Basically any 常用漢字 with the 雨 radical, I feel can be learned all at once in a day. Then review them briefly with sources and you’ll know them forever.
0424 曇 cloudy weather
0426 霜 frost
The rest on this particular post I agree with. I’ve never seen these words in my life. And if they do come up, I’ll just look them up in a dictionary then and make a note. But no need to actively study them.
Just a question, the Kanji #457, I, together with the kanji for II, the roman numerals… What are their real uses, if we already have the kanjis for numbers?
I don’t see the two kanji in my RTK mod deck. I believe I removed these 2 kanji after this post series. It is reflected in the deck that everyone can download on this site.
Ok. I’m using the JALUP deck together with Reviewing the Kanji, and I’m removing from there the cards I can.
I agree with this list. The only exception would be “0834 寧 rather” but you don’t need to RTK this kanji. Just know the word 丁寧(ていねい) as that’s the only regular use word I know that uses that kanji.
Are you saying 寧ろ is not a regular word? It’s pretty common and a lot of the time I see people use the Kanji for it.
This list already takes into consideration personal experience with kanji and I’m just adding to that myself. I’ve personally never seen むしろ used in its kanji form of 寧ろ. I’ve only seen this kanji as 丁寧. I would consider 寧ろ with the kanji to be one of those words where you learn its kanji form as you go such as 頂戴, 沢山, 流石. With experience you end up learning those words anyway, but I don’t feel like you need to have them memorized from the get-go.
Hello, I just got the book not even a week ago and I looked on how to use it best together with Anki, so I found this very helpfull blog ^^ I’m also using your deck, just that I convert it to German (although I’m quiet good at english ist still is easier in mother tongue ^^) any way, can it be that you used an a bit older version? Because I find numbers being off, I’m at 60 kanji atthe moment and for now its off by 4 (so “see” which for you was 57 is in my book 61)
So now I don’t know which Kanji Heisig added after you went through the book, and might be Kanji that are actually good to know, and which you deleted and did not put on this list. Or is you count just off???
Should I just ignore Kanji that are not in your package???
This is based on the older version. The newer version is based on what the Japanese government considers to be the new “common use” kanji list.
I think the difference between the two isn’t that significant. If you are going to add everything in yourself, might as well start with the new book. But if you want to use the pre-made deck, I think that it is just as good as it ever was.
Ok, thank you ^^ your Blog is really helpfull for learning japanes,e wish I had known al that when I was 16 and tried to study on my own (and got so frustrated I kinda lost interest ^^***)
Hopefully your interest has fully returned! Don’t worry about what you were unable to do in the past. Focus on what you are going to do now.
I just stumbled upon this list while looking up other stuff, but I just had to stop to say that I can’t agree completely. While I can’t comment on most of the higher, more complex kanji on the list (I’ve never managed to get that far into the book), it’s obvious that many of the easier ones at least were included simply because they are found as primitives in other kanji. While #0060 (頁), for example, may not be very useful on its own, it is found as a primitive in many other much more common kanji, such as (願), and you can’t realistically study the latter unless you first learn the former. Similarly, #1070 (尺)is immediately followed in the book by five other common characters that incorporate it.
So you should look at many of them as primitive elements first, and the fact that you are also learning a stand-alone kanji is really just icing on the cake.
It’s also been pointed out before that many others are commonly used in proper names. I’ve been living in Japan for quite a while now, and I recognize quite a few of the ones on your list from the names around me. #1517 is one-half of Mitsubishi (三菱), for example.
Thank you for posting this list, I found it very useful! You forgot to post many other kanjis, so I’d like to post the complete list of filtered out kanjis:
0017 吾 I
0019 朋 Companion
0025 昌 prosperous
0027 旭 rising sun
0032 亘 span
0033 凹 Concave
0034 凸 convex
0042 升 Measuring Box
0060 頁 page
0071 乙 fish guts
0096 孔 cavity
0110 汐 eventide
0114 肖 resemblance
0115 硝 nitrate
0155 圭 squared jewel
0175 墨 black ink
0176 鯉 carp
0178 厘 rin
0182 胴 trunk
0189 宵 wee hours
0198 桂 Japanese Judas-tree
0199 柏 oak
0203 杏 apricot
0204 桐 paulownia
0213 暦 calendar
0218 沫 splash
0242 荻 reed
0270 銑 pig iron
0288 軌 rut
0304 冠 crown
0306 坑 pit
0308 享 receive
0311 亭 pavilion
0342 詔 imperial edict
0345 詠 recitation
0352 諭 rebuke
0355 弐 II
0367 桟 scaffold
0378 賦 levy
0406 帆 sail
0410 幌 canopy
0411 錦 brocade
0424 曇 cloudy weather
0426 霜 frost
0430 嬌 attractive
0440 嫡 legitimate wife
0451 渇 thirst
0452 謁 audience
0453 褐 brown
0454 喝 hoarse
457 壱 I (one)
475諮 Consult With
0478 剖 divide
0481 韻 rhyme
0501 曽 formerly
0511 賓 V.I.P.
0514 栃 horse chestnut
518 蛍 lightning-bug
0521 蝶 butterfly
523 蚕 silkworm
0527 妃 queen
0536 竜 dragon
0558 礁 reef
0560 准 quasi-
0563 雌 feminine
611 憩 recess
0617 寡 widow
0629 惰 lazy
0631 憾 remorse
0647 抄 extract
686 乃 from
693 吏 officer
698 桑 mulberry
0699 隻 vessels
0715 茎 stalk
718 叔 uncle
0721 淑 graceful
0741 鉱 mineral
0763 硫 sulfur
0765 允 license
0769 拙 bungling
773 峠 mountain peak/mountain pass
776 蜜 honey
0783 頒 partition
0786 翁 venerable old man
0800 裳 skirt
0809 殉 martyrdom
0834 寧 rather
0839 扶 aid
0881 征 subjugate
0917 穀 cereals
926 糧 provisions
927 菊 chrysanthemum
0930 楼 watchtower
0932 漆 lacquer
0939 笠 bamboo hat
0940 笹 bamboo grass
0967 伯 chief
0970 佳 excellent
0979 倣 emulate
0988 仁 humanity
1014 俊 sagacious
1017 畝 furrow
1020 丙 third class
1027 匁 monme
1041 弊 abuse
1042 喚 yell
1062 堀 ditch
1070 尺 shaku
1079 扇 fan
1085 啓 disclose
1097 款 goodwill
1101 崇 adore
1115 岬 headland
1125 斤 axe
1126 析 chop
1132 逝 departed
1135 漸 steadily
1138 斥 reject
1157 唐 T’ang
1166 儒 Confucian
1173 曹 cadet
1177 斗 Big Dipper
1182 庸 commonplace/ordinary
1196 奔 bustle
1198 墳 tomb
1201 暁 daybreak
1204 畔 paddy ridge
1211 謄 facsimilie
1221 矯 rectify
1225 矛 halberd
1234 弘 vast
1253 孝 filial piety
1262 猪 boar
1263 渚 strand
1265 峡 gorge
1270 帥 commander
1272 棺 coffin
1286 践 tread
1290 髄 marrow
1295 阿 Africa
1299 陪 auxiliary
1301 陳 exhibit/line up
1303 附 affixed
1310 陛 highness
1314 堕 degenerate
1324 搾 squeeze
1325 窯 kiln
1330 岳 Point
1342 羅 gauze
1357 紡 spinning
1368 絹 silk
1389 慈 mercy
1419 苑 garden
1427 酉 sign of the bird
1429 酌 bartending
1430 酵 fermentation
1433 酪 dairy products
1434 酢 vinegar
1454 濫 overflow
1455 鑑 specimen
1463 爵 baron
1469 朗 melodious
1476 餓 starve
1486 坪 two-mat area
1498 梓 catalpa
1499 宰 superintend
1514 睦 intimate
1517 菱 diamond
1518 陵 mausoleum
1519 亥 sign of the hog
1523 劾 censure
1529 壌 lot
1547 俵 bag
1562 峰 summit
1566 鋳 casting
1569 椿 camellia
1570 泰 peaceful
1573 奉 dedicate
1574 俸 stipend
1584 錘 spindle
1589 吟 versify
1591 琴 harp
1601 廉 bargain
1610 遷 transition
1614 楠 camphor tree
1639 侯 marquis
1647 韓 Korea
1655 芋 potato
1666 瀬 rapids
1667 勅 imperial order
1674 倹 frugal
1681 薫 fragrant
1684 痘 pox
1689 疫 epidemic
1716 彦 lad
1718 須 ought
1732 斎 purification
1747 蛮 barbarian
1755 艶 glossy
1759 某 so-and-so
1761 媒 mediator
1763 棋 chess piece
1766 碁 Go
1787 譜 musical score
1793 撲 slap
1798 翼 wing
1799 洪 deluge
1809 亜 Asia
1838 蒲 bullrush
1839 舗 shop
1842 郭 enclosure
1843 郡 county
1854 循 sequential
1858 逓 parcel post
1867 嗣 heir
1869 舶 liner
1875 艦 warship
1876 艇 rowboat
1877 瓜 melon
1878 弧 arc
1880 繭 cocoon
1891 衷 inmost
1897 呉 give
1902 函 bin
1912 藩 clan
1914 耗 decrease
1923 脹 dilate
1930 禅 Zen
1943 鶴 crane
1944 烏 crow
1945 蔦 vine
1950 媛 beautiful woman
1954 嘱 entrust
1960 塑 model
1961 岡 Mount
1964 剛 sturdy
1966 陶 pottery
1968 謡 Noh chanting
1971 墾 groundbreaking
1988 篤 fervent
1991 虜 captive
1995 虞 uneasiness
2001 慶 jubilation
2006 寅 sign of the tiger
2008 辰 sign of the dragon
2027 朕 majestic plural
2030 錬 tempering
2031 遵 abide by
2032 罷 quit
2033 屯 barracks
2034 且 moreover
2035 藻 seaweed
2038 丹 cinnabar
2040 丑 sign of the cow
2041 卯 sign of the hare
2042 巳 sign of the snake
thanks Saito !!! :D
and thanks Adams!
It might be worth including advice somewhere on how to re-add kanji as you go, if there are some removed that you do not want skip for any reason (ex: in the game I’m playing, 「歌魔法を紡ぐ」 is a very common phrase). The process of adding a card is simple enough, but changing the order is crazy difficult.
Personally, any time I’ve wanted to do this, I had to resort to suspending my entire collection except for the desired card, studying it individually to get it in the review cycle, and then unsuspending everything again. It’s a really messy, time-consuming process. Maybe it’d be helpful if the RTK mod “removals” were Suspended instead of Deleted, so people could easily re-add them as needed for their purposes?
Don’t know if you’ve tried or done this but when I add a card that I want to review next before any others, you can select the card in the browse window, then go to “edit” and then “reposition”. This allows you to change the order of the cards. So if you want to move the new card to the top of the list, just set the “start position” to 1, keep checked “shift position of existing cards”, and it will move it right to the front of the line. You can do that with multiple cards as well, or reposition cards in the middle also.
I’ve found it useful when adding cards from different sources, like when I import subs2srs cards and add those to my main deck while branching off the unknown words to keep them in order so they build off one another.
Hope that helps.
Oh wow, that would’ve definitely been a lot cleaner. Great info to know. Thanks! :)
Or you can just click ‘learn now’ on a group of cards. Highlighht them with a shift+left click in the browse menu. Then go into into the drop down menu in browse and go down to ‘learn now’ and you can learn certain cards whenever you want.
That sounds awesome! Unfortunately I can’t seem to find the option you’re talking about. I can go into Browse and then shift-click to select multiple cards, but I don’t see a “learn now” option in any of the available menus. I must be missing a step.
Any clue what I may be overlooking?
go to edit and then the bottom option is learn now. I have the latest anki if that helps.
As a shortcut, you should also be able to simply press Ctrl+shift+N while the card(s) that you want to learn now are highlighted.
Weird. I’m also using the latest (2.0.31) and it’s not there.
SS: http://tinypic.com/r/nlzs0k/8
Perhaps you have some kind of add-on that grants that functionality?
I did a little bit of digging and you are right about the plug-in. I found the feature under the Morph-man plug-in (https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1248316808). If you don’t already know, it’s main use is to try to put a deck into an order that is in an order that is better for learning (less new words at once). I was planning to use it on the One Deck, but the add-on is certainly useful for some of its smaller features as well.
Ah, mystery solved then. Thanks everyone for the helpful tips!
my bad, didn’t realise it was the part of the morphman add on because i downloaded it and never figured it out how to use its main feature.
Adam do you think you’ve ever release an annexed version of RTK Jalup mod with all the superfluous kanji included with a Japanese keyword? I know I’d be interested in something (purchasing?) like that if it was available. I know there are a quite a few kanji enthusiasts, and I’d rather just binge on learning my Kanji than adding them slowly by myself over the years (I like powering through as opposing to a brisk walk).
Even just the removed kanji from rtk 1 + the entirety of rtk 3 with japanese keywords would be really cool. If something like this already exists, feel free to let me know. I’m not motivated enough to create this myself, but I’d definitely be interested if this were to be, or was already made.
What, you don’t want the fun of adding in Japanese keywords yourself?
It’s probably not something I’m interested in doing myself, as I originally released this deck because it was simply what I did.
I’m not sure if someone else has added Japanese keywords to the RTK1 + 3 full set, but I would assume if it was done, it would be on the shared Anki server.
Sorry for the lack of help here!
errr fun eh? Haha, different strokes for different folks. Matt seems to enjoy it ? Guess I’ll just manually do it after reaching 9-1000 words *sigh*. Doing things for yourself is so unaustralian.
Maybe I’ll get lucky and I’ll find one already up for grabs. Gotta love language learning communities.
I guess for me, the thinking is that Japanese keywords aren’t very useful if you don’t already know them. That’s how I decide both which “deleted” Kanji to add, and what keyword to use when doing so – by encountering a word I want to learn during the course of the day whose Kanji I don’t yet have in my deck.
If you’ve got your heart set on “catching them all”, though, I imagine somebody around here must have already done it. I remember Christine saying something recently about clearing the entirety of RTK3, for example, so maybe she or someone else has created those additional cards?
So, I remembered seeing this comment awhile back and I have an answer for it now.
I was thinking about getting some RTK3 kanji into my deck so I could add them quickly as I want and I came across this deck: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/554088453
(Just in case the link dies)
—> Title: Remembering the Kanji 1, 3, ∞ (+ Vocab/Better Keywords)
It has a Japanese keyword field what looks like to be for every card. If you’re a bit careful you can import every kanji that you don’t have in one fell swoop.
I hope this helps someone :)
you’re the best jacob, thanks for sharing this! That’s two game changing things you’ve shown me now this (this and the morphman help XD). Any help with the importing of the missing cards without losing my stats?
Thanks again!
Ha, I’m glad to help! I only know of one way to do this, but if there’s any better way that anyone reading this knows, please comment! :)
Sorry that this is going to become a little bit “guide-y” again, haha.
1. You’ll definitely want to make an extra backup (through exporting your deck) because step 8 here is a bit error-prone.
2. Under Tools -> Manage Note Types -> (RTK Deck name) -> fields
You’ll want to add a field for the Japanese keyword and maybe an on-yomi field to add from the new deck.
3. You’ll also want to make sure that your top field on this list is your Kanji field. If it’s not you can reposition it here. Also, your kanji field in your current deck should only have the kanji in them. Like: 頑 or 多. This is so that anki correctly ignores adding to the cards we want it to ignore later.
4. After downloading the new deck, you’ll need to import the deck into anki.
5. You’ll then turn right back and export that deck, after which you can delete the new deck from the anki window.
Make sure that the export format in “Notes in Plain Text” option. This method looks to only work when in text format like this.
6. Import the deck that you just exported into text format.
7. Under the window that pops up, change the deck option to your RTK deck. Also change the dropdown bar to “Ignore lines where first field matches existing note.” This is to ensure we are only adding cards we don’t currently have.
Also check “Allow HTML in fields.”
8. The tricky part in this process is the field mapping. You can match up with the order of the fields presented on the anki deck’s site.
Alternatively, you could open up the deck that is in text format via a text editor to inspect the order of it’s fields. Each field is separated by a tab if you go the text editor route. Note that the 4th field under the text document is blank here.
examples of mapping options:
field 1 -> mapped to kanji
field 2 -> mapped to keyword_english
field 3 -> mapped to J-Keyword
Also keep in mind to simply change the mapping to “Ignore field” on any field you don’t care to add to.
9. Once you are sure you have your fields matched up, hit import and you should be good to go.
If you want, you can also follow the same import steps (steps 6 to 9) to add fields from this new deck to your existing cards. The only change you would make in this case is to set the drop down to “Update existing notes when first field matches.” Then you can map the fields as before (setting ignore to any you do not want to change), hit import and you’re done.
I think this will get you through, but if you experience any hiccups then please comment and I’ll do what I can. :)
Also another thing to keep in mind with this deck, is that they changed some of the english keywords to “better” ones. Whether they’re actually better or not I don’t really know, but it seems plausible.
haha this is scary! thankyou for taking the time to write this up! I’ll probably give it a shot in the next week or so. Alternatively, if anyone wants to extract the extra cards from their JALUP RTK and upload it, that would be awesome too haha.
I realized that I could do this without too much extra effort, so I did so (with what should be the original RTK english keywords) and added the Japanese keywords to another field. The card type is slightly different compared to the original rtk mod deck, but there shouldn’t be any problems. I emailed it to Adam. =)
XD thank you ! That’s saved me a lot of trouble (at your expense :P) you’re a legend thank you again ! Second time you’ve helped me out big time :P
Thanks Jacob! I’d be happy to add it here. Send it on over.
Ahh yes. I forgot to include the attachment. I’ll send it once I get back to my computer.
Added!
With respect, a “fatal flaw” kills the system. That is what “fatal” means. If you have a fatal injury, you don’t dust yourself off and keep walking. Let’s stipulate for the sake of discussion that RTK includes 200 utterly useless kanji–not just rare, but of no utility whatsoever. Is this a “fatal flaw?” It is nothing of the kind. You’ve spent 2200 hours on RTK when 2000 would have sufficed (or whatever; I’m picking round numbers here).
One thing I’ve gotten really tired of–I’m just speaking honestly with you; I hope you won’t think I’m being aggressive or insulting–is the sheer number of people who want to tell their stories of how Heisig had some good insights but was WRONG WRONG WRONG about so many things, and only they can rescue the system and make it workable.
Relax , its just his opinion. And he backs it up with reason too. While I don’t advocate deleting Kanji (maybe suspending them), I can see where he comes from.
Your first point is semantics and as for your second I don’t really understand why your reading about about the flaws of Heisig’s method if you’re tired of hearing peoples opinion’s of the the flaws and improvements needed to RTK.
Are there any common Kanji that are NOT in RTK?
If you are talking about the 6th edition, then no. Almost every common Kanji is present in RTK 6th edition.
Thanks