I’d love to hear what works for different people so I can try out different methods and see what works for me. Here’s the situation: I’m currently on level 22. The first seven/ eight levels, I knew a lot of the kanji and meaning, so I didn’t really have to focus that hard when doing new lessons, so I could progress quickly and easily. Then after that, many of the kanji were new, but I knew words that contained that kanji so remembering the kunyomi and/or onyomi was not too difficult- I still didn’t have to try too hard. But now approximately 95% of the kanji and 90% of the vocab is new, and since level 20, I’ve slowed down so much, and my accuracy has gone down to about 80%. I was in the practice of speeding through new lessons, but I need to slow down so I actually learn them. So my question is: how do you learn the new lessons so they actually stick?
What worked/works best for me was naming the radicals (preferably out loud) when reviewing things that are still in Apprentice.
“fingers + doubt = imitate = ぎ”
And same with vocab kanji combos. “big + guts = bold”
Saying it out loud somehow makes a stronger memory for me. I didn’t just read it, I said, and I heard myself say it. Then, if I later encounter it and I don’t remember, I’ll try naming it. “Fingers + Doubt =” and if I learned it well, my mind will finish that combination of words.
The first time around I certainly read the mnemonics very well, and memory of the story being triggered by naming the radicals helped. Now, redoing parts of WK the second time around, I’m not reading the mnemonics as much, but they certainly helped the first time.
And not solely relying in WK is of course a helpful step. Read and listen as much as you can, because thousands of kanji only encountered at WK intervals is probably not going to be enough to learn them super solidly. WK is the first step, and a nice aid to facilitate the real learning that comes from using.
Best of luck!
When I read through the lessons, I kind of just try to mentally call out the radicals ( I don’t use the mnemonics when I read a lesson, I don’t even read them, because I want to train myself not to use mnemonics). If it’s a kanji lesson, I will go through the list of vocab it shows, to see if maybe I recognize one from other content and help tie the kanji to that. If it’s a vocab and it’s not extremely obvious, I’ll read the sample sentences. If I don’t like the sample sentences, I’ll open up a dictionary app and read some there.
When the cards come up for review, if I forget, I’ll re-read the kanji/sentences again. If I fail multiple times (like 5+ times), then I’ll read the mnemonic if I’m struggling with the reading. I generally just read more sentences if I struggle with the reading.
I also find it helpful to do additional study. I’m on a WK break right now, but what I did when I was doing new lessons was take the current level’s vocab and stick it into a second SRS, and just start it a few days later on the second one so they’re not exactly on the same schedule. Something about having more upfront review helps, and I don’t trust myself to use the existing manual study tools - I need SRS to tell me to do more study. I have not found it detrimental at all to have dual SRS.
But the biggest path to memorization? Regular reading. I know people complain about some of the vocab on WK but I want to say like 99% of them so far (at my level of 36) have been useful to me. Maybe it’s a manga vs novels thing because I’ve always read novels/short stories, even as a beginner, and novels do use a greater array of vocabulary. There’s just something magical in the brain when I learn a kanji or vocab (especially vocab), and then a few days later I see it. Even if I forget it in the moment, the act of looking it up and going “oh wow I should have remembered that, I learned it a few days ago!!!” just creates a spark in the brain. And by reading regularly, it increases the chances that I’ll encounter those words. Sometimes it’s literally the same day, sometimes it’s 3 weeks later, but it happens!
To be clear though, words that I learn directly from reading (so words where I don’t have any flashcards for), I can’t memorize no matter how many times I see them in books. It’s very much the combination of flashcard + reading content that becomes super glue.
Generally I just go relatively fast through the lesson, not paying attention to the mnemonics but just looking at the kanji/word, trying to make sense of it and remember its reading and meaning, paying attention to the phonosemantic components when applicable.
Then I use the apprentice reviews to see if I’m struggling or not. If I manage to remember the item well enough just through sheer repetition, then great. If not, I have to revisit them and maybe find some kind of trick to remember. It could be looking at more examples of uses in context, looking up the etymology or just using the provided mnemonics as last resort.
80% accuracy shouldn’t worry you, it’s perfectly fine.
I use the mnemonics if they’re any good. Unfortunately on the later levels I end up making my own more and more often. E.g. 懲 has an insane meaning mneumonic with a million components when it’s really just heart + 徴, and 徴 is even a phonetic component which makes the reading mneumonic a waste of time too.