Asher, I just want to say thanks for posting about this. I’ve been doing this for about 2 weeks now—writing out the kanji and speaking the readings for each card I study in Anki—and according to my stats, I miss MUCH fewer cards than I used to when I wasn’t writing the kanji.
I’ve noticed that the act of writing makes me much more aware of the different radicals in each kanji. It has helped me with kanji that were similar, which I kept making mistakes on. I’m still using mnemonics to help me remember the kanji, but writing the radicals seems to help solidify the mnemonics better in my head so I don’t forget them as easily.
Because writing takes more time, I’m reviewing fewer cards per day than I used to—I’m doing only 50 cards per day—but since I miss fewer cards, I’m able to add about 5-10 new kanji per day and still keep it under 50 reviews a day.
I think the method has been working for me because I spend more time on each kanji, since I’m writing it out. I’m only taking about a minute per card, so 50 cards is about an hour, which is a little more doable for me.
I also like the fact that, like you said, there’s an ending. I likely won’t bother to learn any kanji past junior high level unless I come across it in a light novel, which means that if I can remain consistent, I’ll be able to finish all the kanji I want to learn in about a year. Knowing this is only for a certain amount of time makes it easier to remain consistent because I know I won’t always need to spend so much time on this.
Anyway, thanks again. This has been a really good learning method that’s worked better than my old method of just brute force memorization.
