A quick question about Flash Cards...
 

I'm currently following James Heisig's method for learning the Kanji, and I just read a bit in his book that says, "REVIEW ONLY FROM THE KEY WORD TO THE KANJI, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND" [yes, it was in all caps].

My question is, "why"?

It says that he'll explain himself later on in the book, but I'm both far too impatient, and too worried to skip ahead. I really need to know, because if there is a good reason behind this, I need to change the data in my SRS program.

Also, just to clarify, when he says that, he means that when you're reviewing you look at the key word and then guess what the Kanji is supposed to be right?

because.. eugh. quick question long answer.

lets take this kanji 四, the kanji for the number 4.

The key sentence is : human legs stick out of a monsters mouth, four of them.

But you dont type 4 to get 四, you have to type よん　and since this "reading" for the kanji isnt in your book you cannot work kanji to key word.

Its 2.15am here in England so I hope that post just made sense.

Well, it didn't make perfect sense per se, but from reading that I think it helped me come to his reasoning.

Maybe he doesn't want the meanin of the kanji to be embedded in the brain as, say, "four" for 四. Naturally, I'll eventually need to learn to associate that kanji with よん [though I already knew that yon=four thanks to Rosetta Stone].

So, in a way, your answer was not what I was looking for, but served as an excellent gateway to the knowledge I required, and for that I thank you.

Now, it's time to change all the stinking 'flash cards' in Aniki [my SRS program].... Hopefully, there's a way to simply flip-flop 'em...

Although you already have your answer i'd like to post anyway

The point is to kill two birds with one stone.

When i did the first part of the book i ignored him and did it from Kanji to keyword... Big mistake.

I was able to produce a keyword from seeing the kanji but i wasn't forced at all to produce a kanji from seeing a keyword (if that makes sense)

Basicly if you see the keyword and you write out the kanji, you are both training your ability to both recognise and produce a kanji (From memory)

Whereas if you do it from kanji to keyword you only really train your ability to produce a near useless keyword from seeing a kanji already wirtten out for you (Thereby not making you remember a kanji from memory at all, since it's already sitting right in front of you)

Going from kanji to keyword is also useless because, why would you want to train yourself to produce keywords that you will just discard later on, they are after all only handles to remember kanji until you start memorizing readings etc.

And although a lot of keyword can give a loose idea of what a kanji could mean, not all of them are accurate or even close, there's no point in giving yourself such a handicap like being able to produce an English keyword designed to use in Mnemonics.

And yes, you are supposed to look at the keyword and write out the kanji from memory then see if you were correct. (Or a at least that's how i've always done it)

Hope this helped, and i hope it made sense, because i had a bit of a hard time trying to explain :p

*as above*

"Hey, can you tell me what air is?
"Yeah, of course. Air is oxygen, which is inhaled and then exhaled through the lungs."
"Hmm....I think that is incorrect; I'm pretty sure it's the stuff we breath."