Ok, it's an official notice to myself of when I began RTK3 (I use my RevTK join date of June 15 2007 for official start of RTK1). Technically I started two days ago, but I was using Anki and not RevTK in order to kanji to keyword reviews also. I'm assuming that either Fabrice will finally add a kanji to keyword review option (seperately tracked from keyword to kanji) or I'll be able to import my entire RevTK data into Anki (the current import plug-in is not working for me).

As I'm doing full on Sentence practice (aiming at 15 a day from KO 2001), I intend only to do 30 new kanji every week. Hopefully by the time I'm done with KO 2001, I'll be done with RTK3. Well, done as in adding new cards. I'm not "done" until 90% is in the 4th stack or higher.

Oh yeah, I will be adding stories when I can. Not sure if that's a good thing.

Progress:

2008 May 24 - 2100 Kanji in review cycle
2008 June 22 - 2207 Kanji in review cycle (1987 Kanji in last stacks).
--Began using Batman for Person radical
2009 Jan 21 - 2300 Kanji in review cycle (2122 Kanji in last stacks).
--Began using Tinman for State of Mind radical
2009 Jan 24 - 2400 Kanji in review cycle (2130 Kanji in last stacks).
2009 Feb 06 - 2500 Kanji in review cycle (2190 Kanji in last stacks).
--Whoever came up with Red Bull for Horned Whiskey was clever.
--Pausing adding new Kanji as I'm going to concentrate on finishing Tae Kim and iKnow Core 2000.

Good luck! I started 3 weeks ago and -although there are less stories than RTK1- I must say that there are already quite some memorable stories there, but more=better of course...

It's been a bit, but seeing that in the last week I added 200 kanji, I thought I'd bump this post.

Current set-up: Review due cards, Initial Review cards added day before, Study upto 15 failed cards, Study and add 25 new cards.

Not as time intensive as when I started RevTK 18 months ago. The stories are more sparse, but the imagery for the radicals are cemented in my head. Now just to keep up the pace so I can finish RTK3 before leaving Japan next month.

Is there any particular reason you choose to do kanji->keyword? Not that production isn't valuable in general, but Heisig's choice of keywords is exceptionally bad, and whoever put together RTK3's choice wasn't much better IIRC; I at least see no value (possibly negative value; I'm still unlearning "dispose") in it.

~J

It's not really kanji to keyword. It's kanji to concept. With RTK, as many kanji are compound kanji, you`re getting a lot of similar words that refer to the same thing in Japanese, since it is made from two kanji: 葡萄、麒麟、彷徨う, etc.

So if I see 私 or 僕 or 俺 or 自 as Me or I, then its good; 夕 or 晩 or 夜　can be passed with evening. I don't treat it as a thesaurus test.

Nukemarine Wrote:So if I see 私 or 僕 or 俺 or 自 as Me or I, then its good; 夕 or 晩 or 夜　can be passed with evening. I don't treat it as a thesaurus test.

Nuke makes a good point here. The differences in these kanji have nothing to do with the English keywords. Their different uses will become clear as you learn to use them in Japanese. I've been giving myself leeway in cases like this. It makes reviewing easier and in the end doesn't affect your Japanese.

This is why i don't care too much if i don't get the exact keyword when reading a kanji, rather the concept. Which shows that my stories are much more suited to the 'concept' of the kanji rather than the exact keyword itself.

Just finished adding Kanji 2500 to my cycle. I'm pleased with the way I've set-up reviewing and adding new cards now. I think it would have been useful when I started RTK way back when (hmm, 18 months ago).

My process is:

1. Review up to 60 due cards
2. Depending on how many cards under 25 that I missed, I'll study that many new ones. Ex: Missed 20 cards, study 5 new ones. Missed 10 cards, study 15 new ones. Miss 25 or more cards, then I don't study any new ones.
3. Study the missed cards up to 25 max though.
4. Add and review the cards I studied in step 2. I automatically pass them, but I do try to get them right.

Yeah, this is item boxing. The benefit I'm finding is I don't get overloaded with reviews. I don't feel forced or nervous that 200 reviews have built up as I'm still only doing 60 reviews. I don't add too much too fast. I don't add anything if I'm missing too much. It just, works.

The above seems to take about 50 minutes (20 minutes review, 30 minutes studying new and missed cards).

However, I am pausing adding anymore new cards for now. I'm going to concentrate finishing up Tae Kim and iKnow Core 2000. Depending on my internet access and workload when I move to Africa, I'll probably finish RTK3 this year.

Well i thought i would stop at 2042 - but i can't. I did stop adding cards for 2 weeks after i reached the 2042 ( ever wondered if that was a reference to hitch hiker guide?) - my retention rate is at a very satisfactory 95% now. My plan was to study readings first, and add kanji as i encounter them but it's not possible. I've been using "read the kanji" (http://readthekanji.com/quiz) to study readings - i think it's great so far but after just 2 hours of review I was already tested on 3 kanji that are not in rtk1 - and so i added 12 cards today and i feel great, i just love learning kanji!
I went through all the keywords once, and it seems that Heisig found some pretty incredible ones - "prevarication" "foxtail millet""plotosoid" "zelkova"
how can chinese kids remember the meaning and reading of over 3500 hanzi when they're under 10 or something is beyond me...
so anyway, I hope that with the extended version (with the extra joyo kanji for 2010- my list contains 3035 kanji (and i was tested on 茹でる which isn't even in rtk3! but apparently in jplt2 and now in what i call rtk3 extended version)
is there a way to add more kanji on the site? (ultimately i would like to add all of the new joyo in it +4 that i've encountered in various manga reading 3036(忝~indebted) 3037 (嚏~sneeze) 3038 (啜~sip) 3039 (謳~extol) ~ ))