Man. I had gone through all 2042, but then I had to put it down to get my broker's license and start a new job. But now that things are more settled, I started from scratch with my kanji cards...

...and to my happy surprise, the stories are so engrained in my memory that all I have to do is glance at the card & word, and I'm all, "Oh, that's right!" It takes half a second to recall, and then it's lodged in my brain well enough for review!

I just passed 500, and am hoping to put all 2042 cards back into rotation in a couple weeks. Heisig was right about the stories. I'm just stoked I don't have to completely relearn them all after a year of neglect.

Phew! Back on my Japanese-learning train.

RROOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAARRR!!!

... So, I'm back. I took an extended break from Japanese to study German. But even before that I only ever made it up to the 1500's, despite studying other aspects of the language for years. Now I've started over and crossed the 25% line... can't wait to have this behind me!

Yea! I've completed Lession 19 / Frame 508 today, after starting in mid-June. My casual goal is to finish RTK1 by the end of the year.

I'd decided to learn Japanese, just for grins, at the end of last year, but had only learned the kana and begun gathering study material before I had to drop it along with some other projects -- such is life.

I discovered RTK (and then this site) during that hiatus, and I'm very glad for that. I was intimidated by the idea of learning a couple thousand squiggly symbols because I have a notoriously bad memory -- my catch-phrase at work is "if it was more than three days ago, I don't remember it" -- and because I'm in my 50s and concerned my mind was too stultified to learn anything new (bark, bark).

So, I'm inordinately pleased with myself that I've come this far; prior to this attempt I would have laughed out loud if someone had suggested I could do this.

Instead I've found SRS to be impressively easy. At first I was suspicious of its effectiveness, but the secret is to just trust the system (that is, Heisig's method + SRS). All along, as I added more cards, I'd think "ok, this will put me over some threshhold and this process will come to a disasterous end", but instead it has been a relatively even process, old cards flowing smoothly into the higher stacks as new ones arrive for review.

I've only noticed a couple minor irritants with RTK and/or my process. First, that a few of the keywords are initially ambiguous, either in referent (for example, audience: the meeting with a dignitary vs the people watching a play), or in part of speech (for example, lock: lock something up vs the lock on the door), and I would wonder if the story matched the "real" meaning of the kanji.

Second, I initially took the stories as-is, or made one up, regardless of the ordering of the keyword and primitive terms, but I later found it much more usable to always put the keyword first / early in the story, and to always arrange the primitives in the order they appeared in the kanji, even if I had to be somewhat convoluted or awkward in my phrasing. I wish that Heisig had given more thought to that.

That second item, however, may just be the result of my not creating vivid images of the stories with the components positioned correctly in the scene. In general, not just with RTK, I seem to be a very visual *thinker*, visualizing and making sketches and diagrams and such when I work; but my *recall* is mostly verbal, with hardly any imagery at all. That seems really odd to me, now that RTK/SRS has brought it to my attention.

Anyway, my thanks to this site and the entertaining and informative members. I look forward to moving on to the "half-way-there" crowd in a couple months

Done 514 of them. I'm starting to notice troubles with similar keywords, such as before/former, fishhook/needle, every/each... but I think I'm doing pretty well...

Funniest story so far: The "hot diggety dog" sort of thing caught on fire and exploded in the kitchen, causing me to sustain third-degree BURNS all over.

Hey guys!
Congrats to all, and to congrats to me, since I've just reached the poor overstretched guy in court.
I'm happy.
But it feels so slow: 508 took me a month (not everyday), but that's because I did look up the etymology at the same time -- which really helped by the way on some tough stories (like make a deal or transport) -- but I won't recommend doing it in general (Heisig was surprisingly accurate sometimes). I'm done doing it, so I expect to bag the 1500 left in an other month.
I wish you luck in your progress. I'll save my roar for the very end (of RTK1!).
Thanks to all the community without which I would still be stuck at "revelation".
See you on the other side...

EDIT: so I'm long finished, but I didn't feel like roaring then, but rereading this post, I do:
RRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!

i have just finished frame # 508 yesterday,and i think it took me a little bit less than 2 months(mainly because i was away and had no internet for 3 weeks)so stoping and restarting again was a bit hard.anyway,i didn't even notice hitting the 500 mark at first because the kanji closer to that point were very smooth and easy to come up with stories for.people who are going through this book and love the japanese language should never give up,i was very doubtful of this method at first,but right after i finished about 350 kanji,that i understood what heisig was all about,the true story that sticks in your brain isn't what most people think.most people just write sentences and memorize them in the stories section of the site,but thats not what heisig wants,only when using images for your stories like when u watch a youtube video in your brain,that you will find this method truely easy and effective.this method is really great!im planning on finishing this book in 2 more months.good luck to everyone

OK, first 508 are in my head. Some of them were a bit 頑, but eventually I got them 皆 in memory safe and 音, thanks to the 導 of this 本 and this site.

I can 安 for a while now before I continue on my 道 tomorrow.

Off to the next section! ROOOOARRRR!!!

@above

OMG I could read all those kanji (well, except 皆 but I've seen it before so I inferred the meaning)!

I feel so proud... and congratulations for you. I'm at frame 350 something.

:-)) good for you! you'll get to 508 soon, just keep going!

I hit 1000 today - I'm pretty pleased.

There are a lot of people on this thread who have zoomed through the kanji at superhuman speed, so for anyone who's toddling along slowly, I'd like to provide this graph of my (slow) progress so far to show that you can still get there!

https://doc-0k-6o-docs.googleusercontent...adnorflajc

Hopefully that link continues to work.

Here's what I've learnt along the way which may help:

* If reviews take too long, they will pile up too fast and become a massive burden.
- For me, the Reviewing the Kanji format (keyword -> kanji) was a bit like this, and the bar charts were intimidating, showing me how much I was behind.

* I switched to Anki and Lazy Kanji style cards (http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blo...ard-format), that is kani on front, keyword on back. This helped me get back on track.

* Regularity is more important than sprints, so make your daily number of kanji something you can commit to doing every day.
- For me, the magic number was 7 new kanji per day. Sometimes I would do more, but just keeping that commitment is enough. If I had done this from the start instead of trying heroics, then stopping completely, I'd be finished by now!

I wish everyone on this thread the best of luck. This project is fun.

Oh, I forgot! I hit my 500 Kanji mark on the exact day that marked 2 weeks of getting RtK which was two days ago.

zachandhobbes Wrote:Oh, I forgot! I hit my 500 Kanji mark on the exact day that marked 2 weeks of getting RtK which was two days ago.

Congrats! Great stuff!

Yay!! Finally made it to this point!! Just finished lesson 19
And I started this about 20 days ago (around 08/20, as I started before knowing this site), that would be about 25 kanjis/day, even thou I was more like studying 2 days and slacking the 3rd (cept reviews) Not talking that lesson 16 and 17 were pretty bad for me and have the worst to remember kanjis so far IMO (maybe because Im studying in english and am not english native ).

Anyway, its really good to be here ROOOOARRRR!!!

See yas on the 1000 thread in 20 days (doubt it will be this soon, but doesnt cost anything to dream hehe)

jonuhey Wrote:See yas on the 1000 thread in 20 days (doubt it will be this soon, but doesnt cost anything to dream hehe)

Good job! Take it easy, though, no reason to burn yourself out. Beware of lesson 23.

It's indeed incredible and the only feeling i get is, hey, the book gets thinner and THINNER, hell yeah!

Reached 1220 by now and will prolly finish around christmas.. The big question is what to do afterwards as i have hellish problems remembering the homophone readings orz
I hope http://kanjidamage.com will do a good job combined with a few starter decks in anki.

"Ganbatte" to all Heisigianers outta there! \o

I hit 514 Kanji about a month ago and took a short hiatus due life getting too busy. I continued to review the ones I had already learned, but didn't add to them. I just started adding new ones yesterday.

I'd been interested in learning Japanese for years, but never had the time, energy, and resources to do so. I started a couple months when I had a lot of free time and nothing to spend it on. I was thrilled when I found RTK, because it seemed impossible to learn without a logical method.

When I started to hit 300+ Kanji, I realized a lot of the stories in the book really weren't sticking or didn't made sense to me. (The biggest one being the "lidded pot"). Frustrated, I happened to come upon this site and was so relieved to see other stories being shared by others. I don't think I would have made it to 500 without this site!

Yay, 500 down.

Im my opinion the best part of RTK so far is accidentally learning kanji for words I already know how to say in Japanese.

For example I knew what diasuki means from song lyrics and such. I became very familiar with 大 and 好 thanks to RTK. Then one day I see 大好き somewhere and realize I know both those kanji; I look it up, and realize hey, I already know the reading and meaning too! Then the three bits of information kind of mush into a ball in my mind and I couldn't forget it now if I tried. I never put effort into learning that 大好き = daisuki = "like a lot", but now I discover that this knowledge has sneaked into my brain when I wasn't looking.

Then I saw 止まれ written on a street the other day on TV and realized it must be a word I already know how to say, tomare, because I had just learned 止=stop from Heisig and the context fit. So now I know how to write 止まる, 止める (tomeru), 止める (yameru) with almost no effort other than what I've already put into RTK.

It'll obviously be harder for words I don't already know how to say, but it feels like I'm getting a foundation via RTK that I can use to help learn these things, rather than being thrown head-first into the deep end of a kanji/kana soup.

500! Roooooaaarrr!

I believe that's the proper formatting? ;D

I've decided my reward shall be... a full day of video games. Hooray. Too bad I won't get another until I conquer the halfway mark.

For the Horde!

500 Today!

Congratz, you two!

Keep going, aim for the halfway mark, and try not to lose the momentum! Ganbatte ne!!

Awesome! Now let he momentum carry you to 1026, umbrella.

truando Wrote:Awesome! Now let he momentum carry you to 1026, umbrella.

Now I haven't looked at 1026 yet, but I remember the other 'umbrella' I learned. Undertake. When you finish your 'undertaking', stop and rest under the beach umbrella.

But only a little while, right? （笑）

508 done. Rawr.

At first I tried to do x kanji per day but found it awfully stressing. After that I thought "do your best, every single day, and it will be done in no time" and it's been smooth sailing after that.

Way to go oktane! You'll be at half-way in no time!

I didn't believe them when they told me, but just a few weeks later, I've achieved spitting distance.

Looking forward to seeing you in the half-way thread!

Brilliant! You're on your way, both of you, just keep going!