I don't want to be a nay-sayer, and it's definitely possible to do the jouyou kanji in 4 weeks, for 10 hours a day (280 hours: sounds reasonable).

however, with remembering the kanji the goal is to remember them for a long, long time, which is hard without any context.

I encourage you to check out all japanese all the time, which is a great method by the guy they call katsumoto. As it happens, this method suggests learning all the kanji first, and may give you some important insight into your long term goals.

Thanks, I'll check it out.

It's been over a week since you started. How are you getting on with the task of learning ~70 kanji a day? Are you optimistic about the next three weeks? I think what you're doing is super ambitious (I got maybe 10 or 20% of the way through the book before putting it down for something else) but it would be super cool if you could pull it off.

I've been doing well. I have changed my pace to 100/day. (So I'm exactly at 800 now.) And have been forgetting less than 5% of the things I learn, so I'm satisfied.

But I'm going to my grandparents on the 19th. And It would be nice if I don't have to learn kanji there, and be able to do some thing with my grandparents. So after I finished school officialy and that I don't have to come to school for random things at random times, I will change the pace to 150 a day, if I can hold it. If I can't, I will decide if I want to work at my grandparents, or if I will take a break there.

Thanks for asking,
-Kruzer132

Awesome progress, Kruzer132! People like you always make me realize how lazy I am and then I end up studying harder, so thanks

I just want to announce that I've reached the 1000th Kanji!

Congratulations man! Keep up the great work!

Trespassed the 1500.

Kruzer132 Wrote:Trespassed the 1500.

Outstanding! That's 500 in 4 days!! I wish I had enough time and motivation to go even half as fast.

I just have to state the obvious though - adding cards is only half the battle. Hopefully you'll be reviewing these cards for months and years after you've added your last card. Your workload will be about the same for a while, but taper off nicely to a few minutes a day after 6 months or so.

Going a little bit slower now that I'm in France. I just passed the 2000! Too bad that I just found the right technique.

Kruzer132 Wrote:But I'm going to my grandparents on the 19th.

You still have living grandparents...you're below a "certain age". LOL..

Kruzer132 Wrote:Going a little bit slower now that I'm in France. I just passed the 2000! Too bad that I just found the right technique.

Kruzer132, how much time do you find adequate for one kanji to learn - visualize its story with pinpointing its elements. All before writing the kanji on the paper.
How much time spent on one do you find is sufficent that you shouldn't have any problems with recalling it later on next review?

john555 Wrote:

Kruzer132 Wrote:But I'm going to my grandparents on the 19th.

You still have living grandparents...you're below a "certain age". LOL..

Do you always have to go out of your way to be unpleasant?

I've worked very hard today and learned the 200 last kanji! And have finished in 24 days!

I first search for a story that I like and google translate a meaning if I don't understand one. Then I visualize. Then I go eight kanji back and write that one down. Then I am challenging the rule that a person can only remember 7 things at a time. And that proves that the story is good. I think one minute is enough. If you keep reviewing it you will remember them automatically.

Since John already pointed it out... I think I can crown myself as one of the younger ones to master kanji. If you want to know it: I am 13 years old.

Excellent work Kruzer132!! Congratulations man.

And don't let John get you down, 'cause he's only 12

Kruzer132 Wrote:Since John already pointed it out... I think I can crown myself as one of the younger ones to master kanji. If you want to know it: I am 13 years old.

Which means you can now write more kanji than native speakers your age. Congratulations!

Yeah, I've thought of that thing too, Vempele, and found it pretty interesting to think about.

Great job, Kruzer! I only wish I had done something so impressive at thirteen. Keep studying, and by the time you're old like the rest of us, you'll be reading and speaking like a native.

Thank you TurtleBear!

I've started my first Genki lesson, and I have to switch back from kanji-learning to language-learning, and it's harder than I thought. But I've been getting along well.

Thank you all for your support and stories.

Congratulations Kruzer!

Great job memorizing a massive number of characters at a rapid pace. I think you will enjoy learning new Japanese vocabulary as it will open the language and culture to you.

For me the most interesting part is that you used the Hesig system at 13. I have read in many places that young people don't have the ability to use abstract stories. Perhaps that is why Asians learn the hanzi-kanji via rote memorization techniques (including writing each character many times), even far into their schooling. I wonder at what age people typically could move to abstract stories?

Anyways, good luck!

scooter1 Wrote:For me the most interesting part is that you used the Hesig system at 13. I have read in many places that young people don't have the ability to use abstract stories. Perhaps that is why Asians learn the hanzi-kanji via rote memorization techniques (including writing each character many times), even far into their schooling. I wonder at what age people typically could move to abstract stories?

Anyways, good luck!

Hmm, my impression of this is that elementary-aged students are bad at learning highly abstract concepts. So, you really couldn't explain how to speak a language to a ten year old using grammar--the student wouldn't understand concepts like 'noun' 'subject' 'predicate,' etc. But Heisig-style stories aren't supposed to be abstract--they're supposed to be imaginative, which young people are good at, no?

By, anyway, 13 is old enough to understand abstract concepts. Starting at 12ish students start to be able to handle that sort of thing.

[Zgarbas]

^ That's interesting. The Romanian schooling system introduces noun/subject/predicates fairly early. Romanian classes definitely use them by the time we're 10, and we definitely use subject&predicate when teaching foreign languages, at 7 years of age. (there's no standard curriculum for foreign-language kindergardens, and I don't remember it very well).

I never thought of them as abstract concepts that were difficult to understand, but then again we're taught a lot of things we don't really understand at that age. The formal operational stage should be reached at 11, so 13 wouldn't have any problems with abstract concepts anyway.

Hmm, dunno. Keep in mind that I haven't studied this at all; my post was based on hearsay from magazine articles/blogs and the like, and even professional media is notoriously bad at getting science right. Not to mention, I don't really think of developmental psychology, or psychology in general, as a science that one should really take seriously.

Obviously, kids learn abstract concepts like numbers pretty easily. But in my own teaching I do feel that it's hard to directly explain a concept to a young child, so I can see where the idea of children being bad at abstraction comes from.

Incredible job! I am only on number 801 after a very long time.

I hope to join you at the end ASAP. Bravo!!

Tzadeck Wrote:Obviously, kids learn abstract concepts like numbers pretty easily.

This is purely anecdotal, but as a kid, I remember most of my fellow students having quite a bit of trouble once the math topics moved away from natural numbers and addition/subtraction (which are natural operations). Fractions were evil, everyone hated them, and pi was 3.14 (the idea of irrational numbers was not understood).

@Kruzer132
Congratulations on getting through RTK so quickly! I wish I had the motivation to study the things I wanted to learn when I was your age.