What is RTK-search on HocHanh?

RTK-search is a kanji story search engine hosted on HocHanh (hochanh.github.io), a personal collection of experimental web tools. It is built for people studying Japanese kanji with the Remembering the Kanji (RTK) method, where each character is learned through a mnemonic story rather than rote repetition. If you already have your own stories and want to find which kanji a particular image, phrase, or keyword belongs to, RTK-search is the tool for that job.

What problem it solves

RTK learners typically end up with a large personal set of stories. The hard part is not writing them but retrieving them: you remember a fragment ("the one about a flag on a roof") but not the character. RTK-search lets you search by story content or keyword and get the matching kanji back, instead of scrolling through notes or an Anki deck.

How it fits into HocHanh

HocHanh describes itself as "Experiments that don't always work!" — a set of small, independent tools rather than a polished product suite. The listed tools are:

RTK-search is the only language-learning tool in the set, so it is aimed at a narrow audience: Japanese learners using the RTK story approach.

When it is useful — and when it is not

Use RTK-search if:

• You study kanji with the Remembering the Kanji method and write your own mnemonic stories.
• You want to look up a kanji from a remembered story fragment or keyword.
• You keep stories in text form that can be searched.

It is probably not the right tool if:

• You are looking for a general Japanese dictionary, stroke-order guide, or vocabulary trainer — RTK-search is specifically about stories.
• You have not written any stories yet; there is nothing to search.
• You need guaranteed uptime or support. The site labels its tools as experiments, so treat availability and stability as best-effort.

Practical notes

• The site is a GitHub Pages project (hochanh.github.io), so it is a static, browser-based tool — no account or installation is implied by the source material.
• Because the tools are described as experiments, expect a minimal interface and occasional breakage; keep your own copy of your stories so a search tool is never your only record.
• If you want to try it, open the HocHanh homepage and select RTK-search from the tool list, then search using words you actually used in your stories — that is the input the engine is designed around.