Sounds like postpartum depression... your hormones out of whack? Could be dangerous when armed with a Machine Gun!

(I'm kidding, of course!)

Congratulations and hope a warm glow of satisfaction steals over you soon... before you get clobbered with huge reviews (my current situation after missing one measly day...)

thanks Harrow, and congrats to you too and Machine_Gun_Cat!

@ Machine_Gun_Cat: as Harrow mentioned, those reviews are sneaky, you might be better off postponing that euphoria and waiting until the reviews die down, lest you run off down the streets like a 狂人 and they amass while you're gone...

Well, I did it!!!!!

It took longer than I thought, about 9 months. But I just reviewed the last cards for the first time.

My method seemed to be to do in fits and starts. Like 100 cards at a time take a break, review, then study for several hours and get another 100 or so in.

I'm in Japan right now doing an exchange, so I am also learning Japanese through classes and just everyday. I would definitely say focus on RTK solely, if you can. I think one think that slowed me down was I was learning all these other Japanese assorted things like ON readings to kanji I had already learned through RTK or other ways and my memory was kind of taxed when it came to RTK.

Although I will say this, when I began my Kanji class here at my host university, I was placed in the highest level for exchange students and I already knew about 600 through RTK and the readings of maybe 200 or so. It was a struggle, because the class assumed you knew at least 500 really well. I only got in because of RTK I could BS my way through the placement questionnaire. But at the end of the first semester I went from getting 20% on quizzes to getting 80%. All the time through, studying RTK. Man studying was a lot easier when you didn't have to worry about how to the draw the character and could focus on readings and vocabulary associated with it.

From now on, I think I will try substitute Japanese keywords in my reviews to get some vocabulary out of it while keeping the kanji fresh, I also have about 300 failed that need my attention.

This got a little long winded, but most of all I'd like to say

THANKS to Fabrice for his hard work on this site, I don't think I would have completed Heisig without it, and although I don't post on the forum much, I do read it alot and appreciate everyone's very helpful advice and comments. I recently just recommended this forum to a friend who even though he won't do RTK I said it is still a great resource for learning Japanese and that is all thanks to you guys!

皆さんへ有難う御座います！

おめでとう theBryan-さん !!

[ファブリス]

Congrats theBryan! Thanks for sharing your experience and insights with RtK.

やった!!

Such a burden off my shoulders. Now to do some RTK2. Work my way through that Tae Kim site and my grammar book (Japanese Sentance Patterns for effective communication.)

and then when people ask me to speak Japanese i won't have to childishly insult there mothers and will be able to actually throw some impressive sounding sentances at them to shut em up. ( I hate being asked to, same as i hated when people always asked me to play songs on my guitar .. im not a seal)

Gratz to everyone else in here too. Its been emotional.. (ok it hasnt).. but the panic of not getting the reviews done for fear of tommorows mammoth pile kept the motivation high and we did it !

おめでとう Ginger 忍者さん !!

Well, my RTK1 stats now register over 1800 kanji in Box 4 or higher. I'm averaging about 4 or 5 failed kanji from RTK1 per review, so it all seems to be sticking pretty well...

Somehow, though, I don't feel finished. Hm. What's missing?

[ファブリス]

Once you have learned 2042 kanji in RtK1, you have finished the book.

Re-learning forgotten kanji is fairly easy, provided you spent quality time when first learning them.

Yay I'm done.

So, should I do RtK 2, or should I go straight on to 3?

おめでとう jonny_wonny さん!!!

Seems to vary a lot what people do next, many go on to Kanji Odyssey and other approaches to sentences instead of RTK2 or RTK3. I've gone back to working my way through a book of short stories that used to be excruciatingly difficult and now is just difficult post RTK1. But I do keep hitting kanji that are on-beyond the 2042, so I'll probably push on to RTK3 after my RTK1 review waves die down to a modest level....

Harrow Wrote:おめでとう jonny_wonny さん!!!

Seems to vary a lot what people do next, many go on to Kanji Odyssey and other approaches to sentences instead of RTK2 or RTK3. I've gone back to working my way through a book of short stories that used to be excruciatingly difficult and now is just difficult post RTK1. But I do keep hitting kanji that are on-beyond the 2042, so I'll probably push on to RTK3 after my RTK1 review waves die down to a modest level....

Depending on what you are reading, you might even encounter kanji that have changed forms or simply no longer exist...

In one short story I like 背 looks like 脊.

Done! And my first post too, though I have gotten lots of great information from reading the forums since I started. I stopped using the site's flashcards after #300 or so and switched to anki, but I still went through every character here for the stories.

Took me two months and a week, so obviously I will be doing around a 100+ reviews a day for awhile, but those never bothered me. Now I need to master hiragana and katakana so I don't read like a distracted, mentally handicapped sloth.

おめでとう Gendal さん!!!

My reading is more frog like than sloth like, I hop back and forth from text to dictionary to web... then distracted for a while, then back to the text...Of course, my word to word progress on the page is more like an inchworm.

o...me...de...to...u... hey, that only took 15 seconds. I might evolve into a box turtle here soon.

Kanjidict says that means Congratulations, so thanks!

sa...n... wtf does that mean, I know it from somewhere... oh. duh. =)

Ahh what a nice feeling to put number 2042 in. Taken just under 3 months and after being quite down about my japanese studies beforehand i can honestly say doing Heisig has totally reinvigorated me.

Big thanks to ファブリス for this site and for all those who shared their stories.

For those that haven't finished here's some tips on what worked for me and what didn't:

- it's not a race!! Putting in a 100 a day is easy at the start but it's too easy to become lazy with your stories. Work at a pace that ensures you get good clearance rate in your reviews. If your failing too many kanji you're not properly visualising the stories. Slow down and spend more time on them.

- being very strict in my reviews has helped me. One little stroke out of place and i would fail it. It's tempting to pass a card if you get 90% of the character right but this won't help you in the long run (imo). For this reason i made sure to write every kanji down when doing reviews.

- let the SRS do its magic. At the start i would race to enter 100 new stories in the morning. Review them again in the afternoon and then once again in the evening. Was totally unproductive. After realising the error of my ways i found most productive way for me was to enter the stories in the morning then review the new stack a few hours later in the day. From then on I let the SRS tell me what and when I needed to review.

- I didn't get too wound up with primitive placement in my stories. 95% of the time the placement of the primitives just feels right (esp. if you write them down on paper). If the order did become an issue i would simply go back and tweak the story a little.

- make sure to really differentiate between the "wheat" and "rice" primitives. I can't remember who suggested it but having all your wheat stories based in a wheat growing nation such as US or Australia and the rice stories in Japan/Asia was a great tip.

- i used two people for the 人 primitive which worked really well. My favourite sporting hero for all "neutral" and positive words and a famous underworld gangster for any with a negative/darker connotation. Having two people just gave me access to a greater number of scenarios as there are only so many stories I could make for one person.

- i would suggest giving the horizontal version of 目 a primitive name of it's own such as "eye mask" for example.

- share your stories. One big regret is I didn't share my stories enough as I didn't think they would be worthy or they would just totally mystify people. Share share away as someone on the other side of the planet may think in the same warped way you do.

- star stories you think are worthy. If someone has helped you then give them credit where it is due.

- if this site has helped you then think about a donation - it's only fair

Sorry for the long post and please remember the above are only my personal tips. There is no absolute right or wrong way - just find what is right for you and がんばって。

I've just put in the last kanji... I can't believe it!!
Well anyway, I'm off to iKnow and I'm gonna learn a heck of a lot of vocab

おめでとう to hotkiller123 & Rooboy!!!

RTK 1 in part of my past since 30 min! I just can't believe that I made it!
I started the book at the end of July 2008 after my best friend "Natadiem" introduced me to this unbelievable method! Without him I would still be thinking that I could have never learned more than the 200 poor Kanjis I knew before starting RTK! Thanks again!

I would lie if I say that I studied hard every day since last July. I eliminate all the days I didn't feel like studying; I would say that it took me approximatively 6.5 months of effective hard work to finish the book by studying around 2-3 hours after work. It is really a huge step forward to have 2042 kanjis in your head in such a short length of time. Now, thanks to this, learning new vocabulary just seems like an easy game of putting kanjis together and it is lots of fun!!! I know that I am still half way but really motivated to finally master Japanese language.

I am going to start RTK 2 right away with some grammar, vocabulary and reading!!! I just can't wait (I can believe I can say that now)!!! I am just 77 days away from the JLPT 2 and 231 days away from the JLPT 1 that hope to get both this year! It might sounds crazy but I would say "Nothing is impossible". It is good to leave dangerously!!! :lol:

gwadonna Wrote:I am going to start RTK 2 right away with some grammar, vocabulary and reading!!! I just can't wait (I can believe I can say that now)!!! I am just 77 days away from the JLPT 2 and 231 days away from the JLPT 1 that hope to get both this year! It might sounds crazy but I would say "Nothing is impossible". It is good to leave dangerously!!! :lol:

I would probably not get my hopes up too much unless you're already extremely proficient in Japanese (which I doubt because of the "200 kanji" statement).

While you might recognize enough kanji for JLPT1, remember that JLPT1 features about 10 000 words. That means you have to learn 432 words each day if you start from zero. Not that one needs to know all 10 000 words and not that you start from scratch but safe to say, the jump from JLPT2 and JLPT1 is quite big, not something one should expect to complete in half a year.

Tobberoth Wrote:I would probably not get my hopes up too much unless you're already extremely proficient in Japanese (which I doubt because of the "200 kanji" statement)..

Until now my big problem in learning Japanese was the Kanjis that I could not remember at all that's why I stopped my effort at 200 kanjis but kept on studying some grammar points and vocabulary "without the Kanjis". I am not starting from zero because I was just 23 points away from getting the JLPT 2 last december. That's why I want to be optimistic about the test of July and once my preparation for this level is over I will switch to the JLPT1. It will be hard, I know but I want to think that it is not impossible. In the worst case it will be for July 2010 now that this level is held twice a year.

After beginning the RTK1 from the beginning of March all the way into near the end of April, I have finally conquered and devoured the book whole from bottom to top end.

When I'm done celebrating with helium balloons with Mr.T branded on them and a couple of hemp plants, I'm going to take a look at all those weekly back pains I've been facing on x-rays and move onto the Japanese itself.

So far my schedule has been laid out this way.

First things first,
Go and study load of vocabs from IKnow
Read on Tae Kim's Grammar
Definitely review RTK1 on my Anki deck. There's still apparently about 550 new cards that I haven't done on Anki yet. Do I regret not doing the review with RTK1? No. Will I regret it later? Only time will tell.

After finishing Tae Kim's Grammar, I'll be moving onto the joy of sentences. I've been so holed up for just finishing RTK1 as fast as possible (part of it due to me being in a Chinese class at high school so that all those characters I see will make much more sense in my head) that I haven't really bothered on reading the sentence method, tools, and any of those good stuff.

To all those that didn't finish RTK1. Do it! All the cool kids are doing it

Jen_Ai_Chan Wrote:Congrats! And good luck on the next phase of studying.

My congrats as well. Finishing, no matter the method, is an accomplishment.

I'm curious, however. How many mature cards do you have? (Four consecutive correct reviews or more?) I ask because, for me, I won't be 'finished' until about 95 percent of my cards are so classified. (Even then I'll review of course, but I will feel that I 'finished' the course.)

I don't know as I still haven't gotten around to knowing Anki's full potential yet. However, there it says on the bottom bar (Correct over a month reviews) with the statistics at 176 of 183 or 96.3% of 183 correct in a month.

Oh and if any of you is using Smart.fm, it'd be great to keep a track on each others progress and be able to discuss about anything Japanese, whether it be learning, culture, or just some of those crazy games they have. Nick is Pseudoflare. Cheers.

Doorknob Wrote:After beginning the RTK1 from the beginning of March all the way into near the end of April, I have finally conquered and devoured the book whole from bottom to top end.

When I'm done celebrating with helium balloons with Mr.T branded on them and a couple of hemp plants, I'm going to take a look at all those weekly back pains I've been facing on x-rays and move onto the Japanese itself.

So far my schedule has been laid out this way.

First things first,
Go and study load of vocabs from IKnow
Read on Tae Kim's Grammar
Definitely review RTK1 on my Anki deck. There's still apparently about 550 new cards that I haven't done on Anki yet. Do I regret not doing the review with RTK1? No. Will I regret it later? Only time will tell.

After finishing Tae Kim's Grammar, I'll be moving onto the joy of sentences. I've been so holed up for just finishing RTK1 as fast as possible (part of it due to me being in a Chinese class at high school so that all those characters I see will make much more sense in my head) that I haven't really bothered on reading the sentence method, tools, and any of those good stuff.

To all those that didn't finish RTK1. Do it! All the cool kids are doing it

Congratulations!
You have been given the badge of "I hold the key to awesomeness in Japanese in my brains"

Wow, Chinese classes?! Lucky!!! I would love to have those at my high school.
My high school has Japanese though, which I did enroll in.

What are Chinese classes like? Another idea is... RTH. ^^ Remembering the Hanzi!