Yes!!
Just entered frame 508 into Anki! =)
1/4 of the book feels good! My plan is to be finished with the book by mid-August, and for now this plan looks more than do-able!
Keep going guys! See you in the half-way thread soon...! =)

Congrats to everyone on their progress!

For a while, I unfortunately didn't have time or energy to touch the kanji at all (though I still worked on my Japanese). School was getting too crazy -- we wrote more long reports in this semester than the others combined, I think, and sometimes I didn't feel well, either. =(

So, I felt bad until I reviewed just now. Getting 85% right after a long break =D (except a "test" last night and review of my notes), it makes me feel so motivated again. Heisig works, I just have to start working the Heisig (method), right?

I am not a morning person at all and rather envy those that dive into the kanji after they've had breakfast and a shower! Ha! Well, all my classes are online this semester, and I work mainly evenings, so I suppose kanji should be the first thing I do in the morning after breakfast and before some exercise!

The shared experiences of everyone here help me think of new ways to approach this. It will be nice now that my schedule is mostly under my own control.

がんばってください！

I started three weeks ago and just hit 508 kanji.

I'm surprised at how well this method is working for me. I've had a very high memory retention rate, even at times when I've studied 50+ kanji a day.

So... 508 down. Now to tackle the next 500.

Haha, it feels like only yesterday when I posted in this thread.. I was complaining over nothing!

Now I've added all 2042 kanji! Yatta!

To everyone still at this point, keep going. You will be successful!

Way to go Cerulean, run for glory.

Took me three months to get to 508, but now I am there... wooooo-hooooo! Well, at this rate, it will mean nine more months (already starting to feel pregnant...) but I feel euphoric, and I can already start to change some of my regular Japanese course vocabulary to kanji, feels great!

Some observations I made throughout the first 500:
- Starting about lesson 11, I realized that the stories that work for me and the one Heisig recommends more and more diverged. No real problem, since from 509 on, I will need to make my own stories anyway.
- I also killed some of my earlier stories because with the new keywords, some old stories do not work any more. I confused them with the newer primitives. Anyone else had this?
- Especially throughout lesson 18, I started confusing kanji with similiar meanings. Really frustrating. I can see no other possibility then review, review, review to get rid of them. Changing stories did not help
- "next" is a bitch. The parts it is made of make absolutely no sense to me (ice/lack of...? oh please...) No story could help me yet...

Apart from these minor setbacks, I am living proof that RTK1 works. On to the next 500...!!!

508 added. I've been really pushing through the book quite hard recently, adding 113 in the past three days. I'm hoping to have all 3007 completed by September 1st. It's going to mean around 28 new kanji per day, but I reckon it's feasible...

Feels good to be past the 500 mark though in RTK1 =)

Little slow on posting but im at 533! had a bit of a bad patch, still paying the price in my failed stack. But im back in control and ive picked up my pace to around 100 a day, i aim to be done (near enough) by the end of this month I have massive motivation now im this far, good luck to anyone in the same boat and congrats to anyone who has gone before me

I'm adding an average of 15 a day, and just hit 500 this morning! It's taken 3 months, with a period of around 2 weeks where I didn't add any new kanji (I got stuck on lesson 16, with the float/fiesta primitives).

The extra long Chapter 18 has been the only problem so far; there were so many new primitives that I've found remembering some of them tough. Garmets/scarfs has been the hardest, as there is so much variation. Once I reach 508 (end of chapter 19) I may stop adding for a week and just catch up on reviews.

aphasiac Wrote:I'm adding an average of 15 a day, and just hit 500 this morning! It's taken 3 months, with a period of around 2 weeks where I didn't add any new kanji (I got stuck on lesson 16, with the float/fiesta primitives).

The extra long Chapter 18 has been the only problem so far; there were so many new primitives that I've found remembering some of them tough. Garmets/scarfs has been the hardest, as there is so much variation. Once I reach 508 (end of chapter 19) I may stop adding for a week and just catch up on reviews.

Well done! Keep it up and you'll be posting in the half way, then 3/4 and then "finished!!" threads before you know it!

Also by the end of the book most of the primitives you find confusing now will be a piece of cake. I also struggled with garment/scarf but now they present no difficulty whatsoever. So take heart!

blackmacros Wrote:Well done! Keep it up and you'll be posting in the half way, then 3/4 and then "finished!!" threads before you know it!

Also by the end of the book most of the primitives you find confusing now will be a piece of cake. I also struggled with garment/scarf but now they present no difficulty whatsoever. So take heart!

Thanks so much for the encouragement!!

Also I should have mentioned, I'm only using stories from this site, as I find they're a lot more imaginative than any I can make up. I just browse through them, and usually one immidiately creates a visual image for me..

I also had a little trouble with lesson 16, i really focus on nailing the primitives andthe rest falls into place. I totally agree that old primitives get so much easier with time.

Well, that is frame 508 for me today, 6 days in, second time around, i think the retention I have kept is quite amazing, shows that the system really works!

Watch out halfway thread!!

Just reached 508 this morning! Woohoo!! Now on to Part 3 of RtK and the remaining 75%.

Can't wait to post on the halfway thread later on!!

皆さんがんばれ！You can do it, just keep plugging away. 5, 10, 20 a day - whatever, just keep adding and you'll be halfway in no time.

500 for me too!

Next stop: 1000 after the weekend

I've finally reached 500 yesterday as well
My only problem now is that I've got 10 days of holidays coming up next week with no chance to do any repetitions whatsoever :/

kaze89 Wrote:I've finally reached 500 yesterday as well
My only problem now is that I've got 10 days of holidays coming up next week with no chance to do any repetitions whatsoever :/

Make some flashcards for the most recent 100 or so, and any you keep failing. At that stage, the chances of forgetting a lot of them are pretty big. Of course, if you don't have the time, then you don't have the time. But be prepared to have to relearn alot of them when you get back!

Yeah, I just hit 500! Managed that in 2 weeks exactly, after really randomly starting RtK with no planning or intention at ALL. Its been a good method so far and I can certainly "read" a lot more around me (I live in Japan) and my handwriting has certainly improved too. Its a nice break from my intermediate-level textbook, which doesn't always stick.

I too have 10 vacation days planned (yaaaay JET programme) but Im not too worried, Ill just drill again when I get home.

Some primitives are tricky to recall but the stories are fine so far. See you all at 1000!

Finally!

stupiddog Wrote:- "next" is a bitch. The parts it is made of make absolutely no sense to me (ice/lack of...? oh please...) No story could help me yet...

nice one so far. Good luck with the rest!!

As for 'Next' I use: This bar lacks ice!!? No way! Let's go to the next one!

It's too hot in the summer for drinks with no ice!!

I feel really motivated now! I really want to get to part 3 ASAP.

I just started RTK on July 4th and so far I'm at 395. The goal is to get to 1000 by the end of the month.

Finally, 500. Didn't think it would take me 2 months though =[
Oh well, at least I'm still going strong.

Keep going people! Seems like yesterday I posted in this thread, and now I'm at almost 1000.

Looking back, it seems ridiculous that I was confused by garmet/clock/fiesta primitives, as they're so obvious to me now. SRS really works people..

Anyway keep at it peeps!!

I was quite pumped when I hit 2042.
However, I think I could take the prize for the most inefficient method ever for completing RTK1.
Overall, it took me 12 weeks to be able to say that I knew every Kanji in RTK1:
I went through the entire book making a story for each kanji, then reviewed them only once afterwards using flashcards. I had used Anki before, but it didn't occur to me that it would be smart to use it with RTK as I went along.
Therefore, when I finished the book, I couldn't remember 80% of my stories very well. So then I spent a month reviewing every single kanji using the flashcards. I would do 500 a week, then review the group of 500 in Anki. At the end of this, I realised that the Anki decks I was using were crap and deleted them in favour of the main RTK deck available.
So, I split it up into four decks, the four weeks in which I broke up my flashcard review. I had two 500 card decks, and one 300 and one 742 card deck. So, I had to review these decks completely in one hit to get the deck moving. So, that took 4 days, the 742 was particularly painful, and took me around 18 hours straight to get through the first review. When the Anki developer added hyperlinks to the RTK1 Anki deck, that is when I found this site, and added countless stories from here as I was doing those reviews.

After that, despite having 500 reviews per day to begin with, I toughed it out until I got to having no reviews per day, and was able to focus on learning Japanese again, I am now doing AJATT and it has been the best thing I have ever done. Now, I have 50 or so reviews a day again for RTK1, but every card is to be seen again in 2 months or so; it's extremely easy. Even though I'm doing K02001 and AJATT right now, which is really busy, I plan to start RTK3 soon, which I actually think is a necessity. Once you start doing AJATT, you see 5 or so non-RTK1 kanji every day; that, and I love kanji.
If you've get a less efficient method than that, I'd love to hear it. Of course, I use Anki for absolutely everything now and never flashcards.

Looking back on it, I can't believe how devoted I was, I was a monster for RTK1. I lived and breathed RTK1. I spent hours every day on it, and it was the most important thing to me; I had to finish, I had to crack those damn Kanji; I felt I was doing important work. I think that devotion to RTK1 was what allowed me to push on into AJATT full force, and I am now doing Japanese 24-7.

Keep going, RTK1 is the best thing you can ever do to learn Japanese. I can read a newspaper article now and grab the overall meaning, despite only having done 500 sentences for AJATT and being at frame 150 for for KO. Such is the power of RTK.