Frame 500!

I've been looking forward to making my own post in this thread, and now I can. I hit 508 today and it feels as good as I thought it would. I'm really excited by how well this method is working for me. I did a lot of research before buying the book and beginning the process, and the opinions were so polarized. So many people had so many negative things to say about Heisig, and I understand where many of them are coming from. But I think if you go into it knowing what to expect and knowing what you will and won't get out of it, it's nothing short of amazing, revoultionary, etc.
I wanted to post my support for this method for the next person like me, reading forum post after forum post trying to decide if this is the right way to go. Hopefully they find this, and to them I say, DO IT!
Some stats: 508 frames 23 days approx. 22/day projected 2042 day: Jan 12,2010
Thanks for reading.

がんばります！

exitmusic3 Wrote:I wanted to post my support for this method for the next person like me, reading forum post after forum post trying to decide if this is the right way to go. Hopefully they find this, and to them I say, DO IT!

Haha, that sounds exactly like me. I spent like ages reading through this forum and deciding if taking 3 months of learning grammar would be worth the gain from RTK. I would have to say RTK was the best choice so far since with my schedule I wouldn't have had time to fit in my normal studies anyway. Good Luck on the days to come!

Gz bud, people will always have negative things to say about everthing... "people voted for the nazis , people listen to cold play, people can't be trusted" A comic quote but I think theres a lot of wisdom in it

Keep at it, if in doubt just do it.

500. Yeah me.

700. YES! I hope to migrate soon, as I'm sure everyone here does, to the "Half way" thread.

Just wanted to pop in here and give a huge thanks to everyone who has posted stories on the website. When I first got to section three of the book I thought I was ready to start making my own stories but it didn't take me long to realize I'd never finish at the pace I was going. Then I found this site and started flying.

I actually reached the 500 mark a week ago but for some reason had trouble with my forum login until today. Started on the person lesson today and I should actually hit the half way point by Sunday. No way I would have done that without all of the excellent stories out there. Thanks again!

500 kanji hit yesterday! Ok it's just 1/4 of the whole book but I feel good. I'm moving, and on the right direction!
On the other and I'm a bit worried for the next chapter on. I'm not sure I'm so good in concocting useful plots so easily. Luckily there is koohii.com...

I am a little embarrassed to be posting here. I started in July and have been studying on and off since then. I finally hit 600 yesterday, but at least I am back on track. Now that I have some time to study I plan on doing 50-75 kanji a day in order to finish within a month.

Hit 500. Back on the wagon. Will finish by the New year. See you at the half.

Congratulations.

YESS!!!! Finally my first big milestone. I can't wait to get to the halfway thread I'm going to go as quickly as I humanly can, because I am so bored with this book and I want to dive straight into Tae Kim after finishing this.

vinniram Wrote:YESS!!!! Finally my first big milestone. I can't wait to get to the halfway thread I'm going to go as quickly as I humanly can, because I am so bored with this book and I want to dive straight into Tae Kim after finishing this.

You think you're bored now, wait til you hit 1300, the biggest hurdle in my opinion.

Just keep slogging through reviews and take advantage of any extra time to fit in a few more kanji.

KEEP THOSE PILES DOWN

I've been stuck at 600 for the last month. Keeping up with reviews but haven't added a single new kanji. Bahh.

I'm doing the Chinese "Remember the Hanzi", so forgive me for posting in RTK, but I guess ultimately we're all on the same road.

I've completed book 1 (1500 characters), but I remember wondering at 500 what that meant in terms of what I would be able to recognise in Real World ™ text.

I actually wrote a post about it, where I scanned a page of fiction (The Little Prince) and non-fiction (BBC news in Chinese), and highlighted all the characters I had learned in the first 500. I was surprised at how much of the page had been highlighted!

http://mandarinsegments.blogspot.com/200...-leap.html

If anyone has done something similar for RTK, I would be interested to see your scans.
Greg

hey greg that's pretty fascinating. I'm finding that, after having learnt 500, when I view Japanese texts the majority is still unknown to me, which I think is what's to be expected I mean I have done only 1/4 of the book. but it's pretty cool that it seems the majority of that tintin comic was highlighted. coincidence? or maybe chinese is different.

In Chinese, there is just the hanzi character set, and 500 characters make up a large proportion by common usage frequency.

In Japanese of course you have two other alphabets besides kanji - and these are phonetic so likely to require more characters than the whole word represented by a single kanji.

So I guess you'll have a lot less highlighting on a Japanese page. But still, 500 is a huge dent. Also, Heisig in Chinese isn't designed specifically to give the highest frequency characters first - because some really common ones came up in the 1000-1500 section. So just keep going!

Good luck
Greg

will do 712 and counting now!!

after falling behind in summer-season, I finally hit the 500-mark in the "4 and more reviews"-pile.

someone wrote before that getting from 500 to 700 is a struggle.
yes it is!
btw: I can't stand the heart-chapter. (ca. 600 +++)

These days I feel like caring way too much about nailing down single kanjis I have difficulties with.
Since there are many to do's after RTK1 and the easy way - learning in a context - I should not focus so much on nailing them down in RTK1.
Many kanjis are so much easier to read and memorize when studied in a context.
Feels like a waste of time to get certain kanjis up to pile 4 and higher since they always fall back to pile 1. (f.e. the difference between wash and laundry - it will be clear once seen in context)

imho.

If all your kanji fall back to pile 1, you need to reconsider your stories...

I have had that many times as well, where a kanji up to box 5 or 6 ended up in pile 1 again, especially lately since I'm having a hard time focusing.

However, I am confident that eventually they will all end up in box 8. Even those hard to distinguish between; I can distinguish perfectly well between sea and ocean for example. And wash and laundry as well. It's not just good stories but also cramming.

I don't like the heart chapter (22) either. Characters seemed pretty easy, but now I'm finding that my stories weren't that good, and I had to fail a lot of cards from that chapter.

Keep going! I'm starting chapter 23 right now going slowly but steady (I started October 1 so more slowly than anything else)

Keep going guys, it only gets easier, promise

Reached 508 today. 3/4 to go, but still feels really nice!

Lyulf Wrote:I am a little embarrassed to be posting here. I started in July and have been studying on and off since then. I finally hit 600 yesterday, but at least I am back on track. Now that I have some time to study I plan on doing 50-75 kanji a day in order to finish within a month.

Congradulations on reaching 600! Your not alone on the slow and steady way, I started on June 15th and I just reached 650 today! I tried the 100,75,50,25 kanji/day day way and I just couldn't do it. So I do 10 kanji/day and more If I want. Keep it up .

Keep pushing forward guys. ^^ Things do get easier as primitives and kanji become so common that you don't even have to think about them anymore Congratulations and good luck!

Just passed 500, and damn it feels good!