Requesting advice: How long should I give myself to recall Meanings/Readings?

[langties]

Hello fellow WKers, I’m looking for a bit of advice. To keep it short, I’m wondering about how long I should give myself to recall meanings and/or readings during my reviews.

In the beginning, I would usually mark an answer incorrect (type something random into the input) during my reviews if I couldn’t recall the answer within about 10 seconds, but more recently I have been giving myself a bit of extra time if I think I know the answer. In doing this however, I’ve noticed that my time to finish reviews has gotten significantly longer. Sometimes I will walk away from a question to get coffee/water, and come back and remember the answer to the question I was stuck on, and then sometimes not.

So my question for anyone willing to answer: Is it worth it to sit there and try to remember an answer for 1 + minutes? Do you have a hard rule for this in your personal routine? I would love to hear from you

Cheers
-Tyler

[Vanilla]

Is it worth it to wait? Realistically probably not in terms of efficiency.

Is it ok to want to wait anyways? Yeah.

I personally would give myself maybe 10 seconds or so until i just answered “a”.

[Gacee]

In my opinion it depends on the review! For newer things (in apprentice) I give myself enough time to think about the mnemonic and if it doesn’t come to me, I just try whatever immediately comes to mind. For intermediate stuff, I allow longer periods of thought to avoid making simple mistakes and confusing similar kanjis. Enlightened stuff I do quickly, because I don’t necessarily want to burn something w/o being able to quickly know the meaning or reading.

Obviously, I’m not going through this logic when I do my reviews but I’d say this way has felt best for me.

[evandcs]

even in my own native language I am a slow reader, let alone in japanese

but if you want there is a script that gives you some seconds to answer, otherwise it marks as incorrect.

But honestly focus is not speed but increasing my vocab for the foreseeable future.

[Kazzeon]

For me, if I basically didn’t get it immediately, I didn’t know it well enough.

[OneUp]

Cognitive research strongly suggests that the more you think about something, the better it is for retention. So it’s probably fine.

[mgrice]

I have read some research that has shown that the process of focused thinking/trying to recall (sorting through all the neural connections related to that thing you are trying to recall) strengthens those connections. Of course, the question remains, how much time is ideal. I usually give it about 10 seconds. More if it is a case that I know I almost know it vs. drawing a complete blank.