Hello! I am trying to get through this book and have been trying for a very very long time. My cousin did it in a short time because at the time she was in Nigeria with 0 internet and nothing to do, so she said she remembered stories out of pure boredom. Currently she speaks Japanese so well she can fool natives on the internet.

Me, however, I live in the United States with 1,000,000 internet. I'm not saying the internet is why I don't do it. I could be sitting down in my room doing nothing and be thinking I need to Heisig, and then I don't. At one point last year I was seriously pushing myself to do it, but every single time I get around the 500 mark, I just stop. I got to about 525 and just stopped. This time I got to about 480 and just stopped. I keep telling myself I'm 1/4 done, but it doesn't help. I'm not going to blame it on college or work, because there's always time I could pick it up and do it. (In other news, trying to get back to that 500 mark, I only remembered up to about 300 and was wondering what this new kanji I was seeing was).

Most recently I got an all in one deck of it on my tablet (before I had just been carrying around the book) which gives you the story, readings, and not one but TWO Koohi stories if the Heisig one doesn't fly. I figured having it completely on my tablet would make me want to do it. It doesn't.

I'm feeling like part of it is because at about 400, that immediate recollection of this kanji isn't coming, and because it isn't easy I don't want to try. Right around now the stories are getting muddled in my head and stories that ought not get mixed up are becoming totally unrememberable.

Did anyone else have this issue, just losing motivation? How did you keep yourself going? I keep thinking that I'll be able to read ALL THIS MANGA I keep buying in Japanese but saving until I'm done with Heisig, but even that isn't helping.

Thanks for reading this long post, and thanks in advance for input!

[s0apgun]

Practice mindfulness and visualize your goal. The important thing as you stated is putting away of the glowing boxes.

Don't wait until tomorrow to start reading manga that you could begin today.

Well first of all, I am going to assume you are using this site to save your stories? If not, do that--they will be there for you when you are reviewing and forget a certain kanji. Also, don't feel obligated to use Heisig's stories, especially if they don't click for you. Make your own or borrow some of the brilliant stories uploaded to this site.

Now about story making. I'm naturally very creative so coming up with stories comes easy to me, but I will give you a tip. To avoid confusion between kanji characters, always try to make a character as vivid as possible--and try to make it different from other stories. This is sometimes difficult as some kanji are so similar to each other, but it can be done.

As for the actual review time, if you are not using Anki, get it--it's a better SRS in my opinion. And if you check it daily, and see that you have 15 new cards and 40 waiting to review, you will feel more obligated to clear those numbers. In times of low motivation, it's best to put the grunt work in and just do it. Because nothing is stopping you but yourself, right?

Also, if you haven't already looked at Nukemarine's guide, you should. It will put you on track to effectively learning kanji and the Japanese language.

I had the same issues you had until I accepted two simple tenets: 1. no internet until your reviews are done 2. accept the reviewing as a part of your DAILY routine.

The problems you're having are most likely because you are trying to blaze through it all in like a day. So on the odd day you'll probably be super motivated and go and take down a huge chunk. But the thing is, by doing that, you maybe make some good progress, but at the same time, you're just forming a connection in your mind between the task of learning kanji and long sessions of drudgery. That's not going to make you want to come back.

But if you make it part of your routine, you may have slow days and good days, but you'll stick with it over time. And chances are, in some weeks / months, once you see yourself making progress, you'll be motivated to do more, and you can just keep bumping up your rate.

I agree with everything Haych said. Just wanted to add that I find it easier, when learning new kanji, to not do all 20 in one stretch. It's painful and quickly drains your creativity.

Instead, give yourself more breaks in between. After doing 5 kanji, go exercise or something and come back and do another 5. You wouldn't know how well running 2 miles everyday does for me in terms of freeing my mind and making it refreshed. Sitting at the computer (or desk) too long without a break kills all of my mental energy.

I started Heisig the first time more than a decade ago, and made it to about 450 kanji. I started again twice more in the last few years with the help of this site, made as far as 700, then stopped again. I started up again a few months ago, am up to 1,400, and will finish the first volume by Christmastime. What is making this difference this time? It's that I have a need to learn the language.

I married into a Japanese family, but since my wife speaks pretty good English and her family is an ocean away, I had the inclination, but not the need to learn the language. Due to some recently family events, I might need to start interacting regularly with Japanese-speaking-only family members regularly in the next few years. I will need to speak the language.

Since learning of this, I've found both the time and the motivation to commit myself to two hours of study per day, despite having a job, a family, an internet connection, a list of books I want to read, and a well-maintained list of excuses I've been able to make good use of over the years.

I don't know your situation, but for me, wanting to read manga would not be a sufficient need to push me to learn the language. Perhaps if you examined your long-term language goals, and adjusted them so that you had a legitimate need to learn the language. I don't know if this is possible, but perhaps you can sign up for the JLPT N4 or N3 examine 12 months from now, and then arrange your study needs to meet the testing goal.

Thank you for the input! I am definitely going to start breaking my reviews into bite sized chunks. I'm also going to turn new kanji off for now and get through my reviews that just keep piling on first, before I keep reading through. I think the bite sized bits will help me in between studying for my orgo and genetics classes @_@

timaki Wrote:I don't know your situation, but for me, wanting to read manga would not be a sufficient need to push me to learn the language. Perhaps if you examined your long-term language goals, and adjusted them so that you had a legitimate need to learn the language. I don't know if this is possible, but perhaps you can sign up for the JLPT N4 or N3 examine 12 months from now, and then arrange your study needs to meet the testing goal.

Funny thing is, I am trying to get into a study abroad program when I'm done with schooling this year and transfer colleges, and as such I will need to test out of the placement exam. I think this is sufficient need, however, the placement exam for a total immersion Japanese only college school year is only being able to test out of 2 semesters of Japanese language classes. As such, I think if I DO manage to push myself through Heisig, after a couple months of novels, games, music, and shows, and manga, I should be able to test out. When I actually get to Japan I'll probably starve because people don't know I'll be asking for food and not being kicked in the face, but that's a different story.

s0apgun Wrote:Don't wait until tomorrow to start reading manga that you could begin today.

I've seen this over and over, too! I have tried reading manga, even if it's only to improve reading speed, but I find the furigana way too small for me to even read in some cases, and in other cases I get to a block of text and figure "meh, I can't even understand what's happening. I'll come back when some of these words make sense to me." It's really bad, I know. I also want more of a collection, as half of my collection currently has little to no furigana. My novel collection consists entirely of Full Metal Panic!, which does not help me at all. Searching this site, I've found a couple books recommended for beginners, and I'm looking into getting them. (I'd rather read novels and have them on my tablet where I can copy paste the kanji into a dictionary). Any suggestions on beginner novels? Manga, too, but I prefer completed manga, because I'll just get sucked in and curl up in a ball waiting for more releases.

KanjiCrosser Wrote:Well first of all, I am going to assume you are using this site to save your stories? If not, do that--they will be there for you when you are reviewing and forget a certain kanji. Also, don't feel obligated to use Heisig's stories, especially if they don't click for you. Make your own or borrow some of the brilliant stories uploaded to this site.

Now about story making. I'm naturally very creative so coming up with stories comes easy to me, but I will give you a tip. To avoid confusion between kanji characters, always try to make a character as vivid as possible--and try to make it different from other stories. This is sometimes difficult as some kanji are so similar to each other, but it can be done.

As for the actual review time, if you are not using Anki, get it--it's a better SRS in my opinion. And if you check it daily, and see that you have 15 new cards and 40 waiting to review, you will feel more obligated to clear those numbers. In times of low motivation, it's best to put the grunt work in and just do it. Because nothing is stopping you but yourself, right?

Also, if you haven't already looked at Nukemarine's guide, you should. It will put you on track to effectively learning kanji and the Japanese language.

I have anki on my phone, tablet, AND computer. We're good on that front. It's actually what I meant when I said I had downloaded an all in one deck. I am not saving my stories on the site in part because I don't want too many places to cross reference while I review, and in part because my stories aren't so much stories as collections of Heisig keywords that provide some sort of abstract connection to Heisig stories which help me relate to the kanji at hand. If I don't remember it the first time, I keep making new ones until I remember it.

On another note, I literally have no imaginative memory. I cannot create mental pictures. My thoughts in my head doesn't even have my voice playing back to me as you see in movies. It's sort of more like my brain is reading a written narrative back to me, and it's just words, not a voice. I dunno if that makes sense, but that's how it works for me. I go through Heisig by slightly rearranging his stories so that the keywords come in order of writing, and I make them really really short so they take about as long to say as it takes me to write them. That is to say, I'm writing them about as fast as a baby writes words with a pencil. Even then, it seems to work for me, so I'm not gonna slam it.

Also, I'll look up Nukemarine (Marine buddy!), though I have not read of it.

Haych Wrote:I had the same issues you had until I accepted two simple tenets: 1. no internet until your reviews are done 2. accept the reviewing as a part of your DAILY routine.

The problems you're having are most likely because you are trying to blaze through it all in like a day. So on the odd day you'll probably be super motivated and go and take down a huge chunk. But the thing is, by doing that, you maybe make some good progress, but at the same time, you're just forming a connection in your mind between the task of learning kanji and long sessions of drudgery. That's not going to make you want to come back.

But if you make it part of your routine, you may have slow days and good days, but you'll stick with it over time. And chances are, in some weeks / months, once you see yourself making progress, you'll be motivated to do more, and you can just keep bumping up your rate.

I actually recently made a couple of other big changes in my life, and though I never had a daily routine, I'm trying to start one. So I'm actively sitting around thinking about how I'm going to fit reviewing into it. However, I know that me "thinking it over" is just going to become another excuse to not actually sit down and review.

Thanks again for the input, I am definitely more motivated than I was when I wrote that first post. Now if you excuse me, before I make any OTHER excuses, I'm going to go do some reviews and make this day one of (real) daily reviews.

[s0apgun]

I suggest reading RAW Manga scans found on the internet with the assistance of KanjiTomo OCR.

My motivations were otaku hobbies, wanting to move to Japan and the fact that Japanese study presented an enjoyable opportunity for procrastination over my university studies.

If you don't enjoy it and have to force yourself I don't think it's worth it. It will take years to reach the level of being able to really enjoy manga like a native, not just finishing RTK. That said maybe RTK doesn't suit you. I just used the keywords and stroke diagrams, not the stories, myself.

dizmox Wrote:My motivations were otaku hobbies, wanting to move to Japan and the fact that Japanese study presented an enjoyable opportunity for procrastination over my university studies.

If you don't enjoy it and have to force yourself I don't think it's worth it. It will take years to reach the level of being able to really enjoy manga like a native

It's reasonable to be able to enjoy middle-school/high-school manga by 1 year. It just involves a steady consistent pace after finishing RTK (calculated at 1-3 months). Strictly like a native, as in 0-0.1 lookups, will take longer as you noted but I think it's dishonest to not let him know that he doesn't need 0 lookups to enjoy it. The breaking point to enjoyment (in my opinion) comes when your comprehension and sentence parsing skills advance to intermediate and at that point you can genuinely enjoy manga even if you have to mark down words to add to your SRS here and there. You'll understand a lot from context, and you won't have to look up every single word.