Mina-san, hello!

I just finished Part Two (508 Kanji) in exactly one month and I feel really happy I reached this milestone. However I will have to slow down my pace quite a lot now and I would like for those of you kind enough to read through all this text to give me your opinion on the conclusions I've made.

First, a bit of background of myself. I studied Japanese for 4 years back in the day (went to class and stuff). I learned over 500 Kanji with the traditional rote memorization method, although of course I forgot most of the older Kanji as we advanced on lessons throughout the years. After those 4 years I stopped studying Japanese, but now, 4 years after stopping, I'm in Japan and super motivated to learn this language well. I realized I only remembered about 100 Kanji, so upon coming to Japan I reviewed the 500 Kanji I had learned, and used Anki for that (I discovered Anki before coming to Japan, surfing the Internet on good ways to learn Japanese). I definitely reached the level I used to have back in the day by studying daily this way my first two months in Japan, but instead of going further with rote memorization, I really wanted to give the Heisig method a try. I had read the introduction in the book a few months ago and pretty much agreed with him in most of what he said, basing from my own experience. I also know the power of mnemotechniques, but how careful you have to be when using it.

So I found this site and read some posts on how fast some people had finished RtK1, and set myself the goal of finishing in about 1 month, because I would make time for it and the Christmas holiday season in Japan would be a perfect moment for this, seeing as I live in Japan far away from my family. So I began with the book at the beginning of December. I thought it would be a pain as learning Kanji had always been, but to my delight I enjoyed Heisig's method a lot (it's very logical), but especially the stories that are posted in this site. Honestly, some of them make me laugh out loud in front of the computer! XD I had never enjoyed learning Kanji so much, so I trusted I could achieve my goal in that month.

But... there were also some “negative” things to this. First, I realized I was going much slower than lots of you are/have gone. My record is 40 Kanji/day, but my average is 25 Kanji/day, and we're talking full-dedication. Unlike most people, I guess, I like reading through the first 20 stories listed in Kanji Koohii, as well as Heisig's stories. The reason is the top-rated stories are mostly old and that's why they have so many votes, but actually more recent stories are better. Also, reading a bunch of stories allows me to decide which ones are best, or give me more insights. More often than not, instead of copy-pasting one story I find myself typing them myself, a combination of some stories or simply a rewording of the story I like most. Half of the time I come up with a new story myself, sometimes inspired by other stories, sometimes not. Sometimes I change the keywords or primitive names, but I have to double check that they don't overlap with others. So, because of all of this, I guess, my rhythm is slow. On the other hand, because I have spent effort on each Kanji, my retention rate is very high on reviews, I only fail about 1 in 50 Kanji. Maybe that gets worse as I progress and add more Kanji, but I have come to realize this is the method I like and the one I will keep using. I figured I wouldn't finish RtK1 in a month, but I set my goal for ¼ of them, and I did achieve this.

Now I've decided to take it much slower. Part Three doesn't have much to read from Heisig, but the stories are much more difficult to grasp, according to what I've read over here. There are some nasty radicals ahead, and endless lessons. The reason is I only have 3 months left in Japan, I'm taking weekly classes, and I'm also working on my master thesis (so I can't work full-time with Kanji now). I'm still not as fluent in Japanese as I would like to, so I want to emphasize grammar and speaking more. I'm only going to spend an hour daily on Kanji, which would probably mean a maximum of 5 new Kanji/day, and most days it will be less (I need some time of that hour for reviews, because I do want to complete Anki reviews daily). I know that with my rhythm I would be able to complete RtK in 3 more months, which would be quite good (4 months total), but I don't see that much free-time any time soon. My new goal is completing RtK1 by the end of 2015, at my pace, which would mean 1 year total to complete RtK. I know it's not the best thing to slow down the pace, or to study other stuff apart from Kanji while doing RtK, but... I still it's still the best thing I can do in my case.

After two days of slowing down the pace, I realized I was actually obsessed with RtK. Kanji were the only thing I thought on, and breathed on. I'm happy I can begin to enjoy Japan again after this month, even though I'm still far away from the 2042 literacy Kanji.

If you have been kind enough to read through all of this and would like to share your opinion on one or several of the things I've said, I would appreciate it a lot. Suggestions and counsel is always very much appreciated. Anyway, thanks for reading my rambling and がんばって！　明けましておめでとう!

PS: Thank you sooo much for this site and for the stories that you all have made for the Kanjis! Some of them really make your day!

Just as a quick comment. What you experienced is natural. The first 500 characters are easier to grasp due to their nature (solid and easy to distinguish keywords and stories). As things progress from there they get a bit more difficult. Don't worry about it.

I agree, the earlier parts are easy and I also slowed down my pace a lot during the later parts. If I remember, my regular schedule was 20/day, but there were times that a lot of radicals are introduced or I can't make a story or pick a story easy enough to stick. It became difficult for me when things got busy at college combined with difficult kanjis popping up. Don't feel bad slowing down, or even skipping adding new cards for the day; less pressure the better

I finished RTK1 at a pace of 20 a day and even with several hours to do it, the new cards plus reviews sometimes did seem hopelessly too much. The main thing though is to keep moving, because that book really does end eventually.

My feeling is, while you are in japan, take the opportunity to listen to live spoken japanese, and interact as much as you can with people. You can do the boring heisig stuff when you are back :-)

I'm doing 15 a day, i m at 1700 and i find it horribly time consuming (more than an hour a day of review, i m not even talking about story making).

I think the trick is not to be in a hurry, better slow and steady than fast and burn out.

Thanks for your insights, guys.

nightbreak Wrote:My feeling is, while you are in japan, take the opportunity to listen to live spoken japanese, and interact as much as you can with people. You can do the boring heisig stuff when you are back :-)
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I think the trick is not to be in a hurry, better slow and steady than fast and burn out.

Yes, I definitely agree that I should do in Japan what I cannot do back home. I just feel sad that I didn't go through Heisig before coming to Japan, it would be awesome to guess and understand the vast majority of signs and messages on the street and Japanese would come so much quicker. Right now I can understand quite a lot, but still there's the unknown Kanjis and words that block the full understanding of a message. And I also feel sad that I have to slow down so much, because I don't think Heisig stuff is boring at all (boring was to drill the kanjis 100 times by rote memorization to "learn" them - and forget them some weeks later). But I have to be more happy than sad to be in Japan! =)

And yes, I will continue taking it slowly. It's the way I like and I feel comfortable with.

I'm doing 3-5 a day. I find that if I do more (10-20), a few negatives crop up.

1) I end up just studying Heisig, not studying conversational Japanese, which is the real goal after all. Not having studied for your next class is not going to go down well.
2) The reviews get too much, and my success rate drops below 80%
3) Miss a day or two for whatever reason, and you end up with so many reviews that you won't get them all done.

Remember, if you are going to complete this, it's a tool for life. It doesn't matter if it takes you 2 years to complete it, as long as you are studying real Japanese in the meantime.