lesson 41, frame 1730. 470 to go.
I want to finish it this month!

Just saw this thread, I'm on 1530 today... wow, that's motivational knowing it's 3/4 through. still 1,000 more to go after RTK1 though.

Congrats all, and ganbare! I hit 1572 today, been going at it for 64 days or so.

My daily # of reviews is getting a bit outrageous, with 250-300 reps/day, taking 60-90 minutes/day. I have about an 80% correct answer rate across first-seen/young/mature cards. I can now see why many people hit the wall at this point, but I'm determined to keep going!

To serve as inspiration to others: I’m travelling now in Japan, and now that I know over 1500 kanji, I feel like I’ve “taken my first step into a larger world”. Suddenly everything makes sense. Toilet bidet controls - no problem. Air conditioner remote with no English - no problem. Store signs and street signs all make much more sense, and I'm also able to understand the meanings of place names and such. It is inspiring me to continue my kanji education with renewed vigor.

EDIT: word order.

gluaygluay, I'm off to Japan in late December, and this is EXACTLY the kind of encouragement that hits the spot at this point (am only on frame 1325 in the 6th edition at this stage, so am in here rather prematurely ...)

warrigal, you will have an awesome time in Japan with your substantial kanji knowledge!

The last time I went to Japan, I had only made it to kanji #300 or so in RtK. Even with only 300 kanji under my belt, I recognized kanji everywhere I went and had many small victories such as recognizing the 小 and 大 on the toilet flush handle or seeing 消火器 (extinguish fire utensil) above the fire extinguisher.

This time around felt very different - I felt like I could recognize the majority of the Kanji around me, albeit slowly. It also felt like I was SRSing non-stop just by seeing all the kanji surrounding me - and I did notice that my Anki reviews went more smoothly after spending a few days in Japan.

Sometimes Heisig doesn't work well for meaning, for example, 注意 (pour idea) = caution, and 探偵 (grope spy) = detective. However, more often than not, the kanji makes sense, for example, I was trying to find the mute button on the remote and I saw 消音 (extinguish sound) - I pressed it and it worked.

Conclusion: Heisig rules.

EDIT: fixed incomplete sentence and added some info

I am finally 3/4 done. It has taken me just over 4 months. I am aiming to finish in 6 months.

Just finished 1560. Tis has been a good week for me adding around 500 because my reviews lulled and I had some more free time than normal. Keeping my reviews at less than 200 cards per day. My reviews should spike Saturday at around 225 and then lull again so I'll take advantage of that. Midterms coming up (mid oct to beginning nov) will delay my finish but this is my second time through so not too concerned as long as I keep up with reviews no matter what. 1660 is my real 3/4 mark because of supplement and random other kanji but I wanted to post anyways.


NSTF

Finally made my way to 40th lesson. God I hated that thread (spiderman or whatever you call that) primitive!! Working with those stories was quite easy, but having to review them is plain torture!
Doing 20-25 kanji a day, more on weekends or if I have more free time, have my timer set to finish it in 22 days, but expecting to do it few days earlier, not rushing too much though. My avarage of anki is ~165 reviews/day. Not amazing, but not could be worse.
Atm I'm starting to have some problem with older kanji which seemed very easy before, but it's ok, not going too bad.
At about 1400 kanji I started doing core2k, it's a little bit harder than I thought, but... yeh, moving forward.

Good luck everyone on the last part of the first book.

Technically cheating a little bit (I'm only at frame 1560), but I need some encouragement! The thread primitive wasn't bad (changed to Spiderman), but primitives like sieve and staples are really difficult for me to remember. I love adding new cards, but have to force myself to pace the new ones out. My reviews have crept up to around 150 per day, and sometimes I feel like they distract me from the very difficult curriculum I'm enrolled in. I'm often going with little sleep anyway, and on those days reviews are pure torture. I don't want them to go any higher! Honestly anything over 100 a day is tedious. Still, I never let them pile up. Even if I slack off a little I should be done before Thanksgiving!

If RTK hasn't been your only exposure to Japanese thus far, I highly recommend reading some Japanese language materials when your RTK motivation is lacking. It's really encouraging to see how much more you can understand/recognize kanji than before you started.

I've hit the pause button again at around the 1500 mark, haplochant (this happened at around the 800th kanji, as well). That is, I'm having trouble making recently-added cards "stick", the reviews are piling up, and and thus I haven't got much appetite for adding new kanji to the piles. As previously, I'm just going to accept this for what it is, a hint that I need to slow down, and will keep up with reviews and let a chunk of cards mature somewhat while either easing off on adding new cards or indeed taking a break altogether for a few days or weeks. I stopped adding cards for about two months at the 800 mark, but coming back was easy because by that stage I'd pretty much mastered the material to that point, and was adding the new stuff onto a base that was starting to "set".

I'm a working parent and there seems to be a limit to how much new material I can cope with, and because of the way SRS intervals work, this isn't so much about what I can take in on a given day so much as about how much time I can give to the review process on a sustained/cumulative basis - so if you need to build in some digestion time, do it. Accept that your finishing date might push back as a result, keep up with the reviews (which keep us engaged and thus help us falling off task completely), and pick up the pace again when you're ready. I originally thought I'd be finished in 2 months, but life issues have pushed it out to 5 so far and still counting. And as you say, the pay off is already huge when we can pick up other material and recognise so much.

I'd hoped to hit 1651 (my 3/4 mark, using the 6th edition) late last week but looks like I'll get there in the next few days instead. No worries! To have come this far in has been a major boost. There really is no right way to do this, and rates of progress will vary even within one person's experience.

Thanks for the advice, warrigal! It's good to know not everyone has hours to spend on kanji every day and has 90% retention! Maybe I'll slow down until daily reviews drop a bit.

On the plus side, SRS reviews have become a good way to gauge how my habits and lifestyle effect my cognition. The daily percent failed and time spent per card is a pretty tangible metric.

Good luck to everyone, I'll see you in the completes thread in a month (or two...)

This isn’t my idea but some time ago someone posted a suggestion that in order to keep your reviews under control it is good to observe a “Cumulative Due” graph. For example, I use 5(6?) day period and stop adding new cards when the cumulative number of reviews for that time reaches around 350-400.

You can also put a daily review cap on your deck with Anki 2. I've done that at times to slow down reviews during the week, and then catch up with reviews on the weekend. You can either remove the cap at a later date, or use the "もっと学習する" button to review cued due cards whenever you have spare time.

@warrigal - Working parent here as well. I know where you're coming from. Good for you for having the wisdom to adjust!

Made it to #1895...after 335 reps and 90 minutes. I'm in the middle of the dreaded chapter 51, it's not too bad so far. Really pushing myself to finish!

I've now landed on the 3/4th mark. In 6th edition terms this is panel 1650 of 2200. After coming this far I have a full appreciation of everyone who has completed RtK. This road is definitely not easy, but the satisfaction is great.

Best wishes to everyone going forward!

Made it to #2005 - two chapters to go! My retention for mature cards has dropped to 73% or so, the newer cards and first-seen are hovering around 80%. Today I did over 360 reviews in 1.6 hours and I didn't even get through them all.

High-fives to all the new qualifiers!

Oh, I like it here at the 3/4 mark. I like it so much, in fact, I've been here for a month, lolling about in the Spiderman and booze kanji and cackling at everyone's awesome stories, but the reviews continue, and Warrigal SHALL finish by Christmas.

Yule 2012, that is, not 2013 (etc). No, really ...

Keep fighting everyone, and to provide encouragement (esp. for Warrigal) - near the end there's a primitive "Bruce Lee". If you thought the Mr. T and Spiderman stories were funny, you'll love the Bruce Lee stories.

Just got to 1543! Still on track for my goal of December 1st (excluding supplement; I'll just do those when I actually need them for my vocab). Review pressure increased to ~100/day. I think that's about the maximum I can handle right now, so I hope it stabilizes at this level. I'd wished my mature retention rate of ~85% would be a bit higher, but it's not all that bad I suppose.

I don't think I could've made it this far without the help of the community stories. I don't always use them (my story collection is a nice blend of Heisig, RevTK and self-made), but when I do need them they're invaluable. I'd like to thank all of the contributors for the great help they're providing!

Doing the 2136 kanji (i.e. including supplement), I'm now officially 3/4 of the way through at 1602.

I recently had a month off from learning kanji in order to take up a sudden opportunity to travel to Cambodia to do some volunteer work. Even though wi-fi was available in some areas, I was not in a mindset to be trying to learn new kanji while I was in such a culture-shock kind of environment. So (very reluctantly, at first!) I accepted the break - and just did some reviewing while I was there so as not to be overwhelmed by the Expired pile on my return. I actually felt much more relaxed when I got back into kanji study again. The holiday had broken that manic "I've got to get this done!!!!" mantra that just adds unnecessary stress to my life and learning.

I really enjoy learning how to write these kanji, so even though I'm dying to get into reading, I'm okay with taking an extra month to get this far. My schedule was to finish by early November, which is now not going to happen. So I've re-set my goal to still finish before Xmas. I look forward to receiving some graded readers for Xmas!

Keep going, everyone - it's not far now!

I had an insane 240 kanji day today and shot way past, am now at 1647.

Reviews

Pity me

Update: On #2000 of 2200, retention rate > 90%. I'm really on the final stretch now! It's exciting.

I began learning kani on 28 Oct 2012, and now I'm at 1615. Though I can't say that I know all these kanji perfectly of course
The main problem that I sometimes don't know the meaning of the keyword, as English isn't my native.
I hope to finish 3030 kanji by the middle of December so that I can began something more interesting this year.

Finally I got to 3/4 of the book (without supplement though). I'm now on 1550. My retention rate for both mature and new cards is ≃80%, lower that some of you, but I'm happy. My goal is to finish before New Year, but I'm going at my own pace

Good luck, and I must say, without this community I wouldn't be here!
ありがとう！

On frame 1650! 3/4 of 6th edition done.
I hope I can finish it this year But somehow very limited time -.-
My retention rate? Where can I look that one up? (using Anki 2)