I'm at 1600 and have been adding 100 a day (with a few days break to lower reviews every now and then) for about a month now. I'll add another 100 today to bring it to 1700 and am really excited getting close to finishing. My goal is to be done and sitting on 0 reviews by the end of this Sunday.

I don't visit koohii often but threads like this are motivating, thanks.

Nice job bbvoncrumb I bet it feels like your so close you can taste it. But yeah just keep at a pace comfortable for you. At least with Anki I don't think Zero reviews ever happens but minimal reviews like 10-30 per day will be awesome some day. I currently Just edged over 1200 today (1208) but hoping to doing some more later today. Everyone that is ahead of me is my motivation to keep going. If somebody can do it then so can I.

NoSleepTilFluent Wrote:Nice job bbvoncrumb I bet it feels like your so close you can taste it. But yeah just keep at a pace comfortable for you. At least with Anki I don't think Zero reviews ever happens but minimal reviews like 10-30 per day will be awesome some day. I currently Just edged over 1200 today (1208) but hoping to doing some more later today. Everyone that is ahead of me is my motivation to keep going. If somebody can do it then so can I.

zero reviews is probably impossible I think...
But less than 20 is definitely possible in 1 year+. Once you get to that 2000 mark, you'll be very happy(huge benchmark for your learning)

Not quite RtK related, but my girlfriend has started learning Japanese. She's currently learning the kana and some vocab by playing Pokemon Diamond in Japanese and occasionally asking me a few questions. It's quite motivating to have someone else learning with you.

I'm leaving her to do things her way, because I know that different learning methods work for different people. Thought I do keep wanting to butt in with, "you could do this, this might help you, why don't you do this" haha. I'm trying to keep quiet until she asks me things herself.

She doesn't quite understand the benefits of RtK and I'm not very good at explaining things, so she's starting to think it's weird that I'm doing the kanji first.

Puuh. Nice Evening.

I'm quite new here, and found the site through "coincidence"...one might say.

Nevertheless I'm quite acquainted with the Book. I started 1 Year ago, and I learned very fanatic. The first 200 Kanjis I've got in 2 Days. I was very impressed by the progress. The Kanji's where for me, just as some Toys for a Boy. It was fascinating. In that time I worked in a quite known kitchen, who's doing the catering for the Grand Prix, and every time i got the opportunity, I've drawn some Kanjis(At the work). The first 500 Kanjis were quite "easy". I'm this kind of person, who like's to imagine things, that aren't possible in the real world.

After the 500 Kanjis, i was backstebbed from myself. Too much work/stress, and i let of the Kanjis go, and said to myself (You'll do it in the Summer Vacation...eventually).

And yes, i did it, but for what price? I learned 7-9 Hours a Day, so that i could master 100 Kanjis~ in that little time segment. I've learned littler under 1200 Kanjis.

Work came, and my motivation was gone.

I've always delayed it..."I'm doing it on the weekend"..."I'm doing it after work" etc, the usual suspects...and i didn't. until 6 days ago.

I have not! reviewed and repeated the Kanjis like half a year, and i've forgotten the most part. So what I am doing now is repeating and reviewing, and hell yes, its boring and awkward as hell.

But then i realized something terrific...I'm recognizing the Kanji's faster as usual. I was just seeing them out of my angle of view, and the meaning poped up. Not in means of words, but in means of Pictures and Meanings.(Big plus if you want to learn the readings/meaings in japanese, so you don't have to code it from english/french/german/etc, and decode it into japanese )
So now I'm stuck at 740~, and my Stories will last 'til 1200~.

Question is, will i have the motivation to keep moving, if so, should i use the "Study" section, because my native language is croatian/german, hence, i'm using the german version of the book.

This is my first post here. I started RTK last summer, and for a while I did 25-30 kanji a day- enough to move quickly but without straining myself too much- but I kept getting burnt out and missing a week here or there. Finally around last December I stopped altogether. I wasn't studying Japanese at all, I just couldn't find the energy for it.
I have gotten my motivation and energy back and have just started RTK again. After taking two weeks to work through 380 overdue cards and 90 failed cards, I finally started adding new cards again. Today is my third day of new kanji and I have now gotten my due/failed cards down to 0 for the first time since even before I stopped studying! I'm only adding at a pace of 5-10 kanji a day, because I don't want to risk burning out again, but it feels so good to see those numbers going up again.
Thanks everyone for this thread, it's actually very motivating, and I don't feel quite so bad about letting my studies slip now, after seeing how many people here have also had similar experiences and managed to come back to their studies successfully.

Luai_lashire Wrote:This is my first post here. I started RTK last summer, and for a while I did 25-30 kanji a day- enough to move quickly but without straining myself too much- but I kept getting burnt out and missing a week here or there. Finally around last December I stopped altogether. I wasn't studying Japanese at all, I just couldn't find the energy for it.
I have gotten my motivation and energy back and have just started RTK again. After taking two weeks to work through 380 overdue cards and 90 failed cards, I finally started adding new cards again. Today is my third day of new kanji and I have now gotten my due/failed cards down to 0 for the first time since even before I stopped studying! I'm only adding at a pace of 5-10 kanji a day, because I don't want to risk burning out again, but it feels so good to see those numbers going up again.
Thanks everyone for this thread, it's actually very motivating, and I don't feel quite so bad about letting my studies slip now, after seeing how many people here have also had similar experiences and managed to come back to their studies successfully.

That's the way to go, 5-10. I only add 10 sentence per day in my sentence deck because I don't want my reps to go anything over 200 reviews per day(been using the deck for almost 1 year and half now). Slow and steady is key for this.Eventually with good stories and all, you'll get to the end and remember most of the keyword/stories well.

Tykkylumi Wrote:Not quite RtK related, but my girlfriend has started learning Japanese. She's currently learning the kana and some vocab by playing Pokemon Diamond in Japanese and occasionally asking me a few questions. It's quite motivating to have someone else learning with you.

I'm leaving her to do things her way, because I know that different learning methods work for different people. Thought I do keep wanting to butt in with, "you could do this, this might help you, why don't you do this" haha. I'm trying to keep quiet until she asks me things herself.

She doesn't quite understand the benefits of RtK and I'm not very good at explaining things, so she's starting to think it's weird that I'm doing the kanji first.

Yea don't butt in, people learn at different paces/different ways. We all eventually will end up in the same place but maybe at different times though...

Just hit 1956... closing down on the end! Doing the Supplement aswell, lessonwise now, not framewise, so I think that makes ca. 2200 overall? I'll try to finish that on Sunday, if not then on monday. Last push until the top! phew..

Hit the 1600 Kanji wall last week. My head was really going crazy. Now Im getting ready for my trip so I just have been doing reviews for 4 days. Wow... If you "hit the wall" do your self a favor and take a few days just to review in Anki (or your SRS) I'm easily hitting 95% a day now. Cant wait to get back and tear through the last 400 or so.

yep, so I've decided to skip RTK1. I'm over halfway, but it's not for me. And I'm moving to a new computer and I'm finding it impossible to sync my anki deck, so I would have to start over anyway. I don't want to know how to write the kanji, and the keywords are not sticking as far as going kanji>keyword (which is much more important, so I don't know why I wasted my time going the other way), and when they do, it still does me no good. I'm going straight to kanji compounds now, which I already know a lot of, and I feel stupid for trying force the square peg through the circle for so long. Thanks to the people on this board, I will still stick around, because I've learned a lot here.

First post.

Been studying kanji in my own time. Was going very slowly. Typical straight up "memorize how it looks" with meaning attached kinda thing. Got up to 90 or so after close to a month, was terrible. Was the exact wrong method for me. So I went online looking for better ways to do things.

Saw this forum while investigating RTK, and was surprised by all the good responses to it. I was also intrigued by the unique "make a story for each kanji" thing. I'd classify myself as creative, and I've been writing short stories to entertain myself and my friends/family forever. Sounded promising, so I looked at a sample.

After 2 days I'm up to 200, and I can write every one of them (ofc, that's the point of RTK) where I'd have been hard pressed to right 15 out of those 90 I "knew" before. Totally picking up the book tomorrow.

I'm so pumped. I got 200 down with so little effort, and though I won't have as much time to dedicate to it as I did these last couple days, I'm confident I should be able to rack up 50 per day. This is exactly the right method for me.

I'm hoping to have the first 2k kanji down before my summer job starts in May. Good luck to everyone else using this method of learning! I realize it might not click as well with everyone, but do your best!

Before 2k kanji seemed a dream, but I see now it's totally possible. ^^

Indeed! I'm spending my time learning vocab these days, and I'm just so amazed at how I can write every single kanji I encounter with such ease. RTK is surely the way to go, no doubt about that.

paasan Wrote:Indeed! I'm spending my time learning vocab these days, and I'm just so amazed at how I can write every single kanji I encounter with such ease. RTK is surely the way to go, no doubt about that.

it's that good, I guess not everyone agrees though. But it helps once you get into real jp

900 reviews to go... 400 cards failed... I need some encouragement.

All the cool people do their reps!

Just take it at whatever pace you want to do them at say just 1 more after reading this post. and if that was easy enough try 1 more but when you want to quit STOP do something else for a couple minutes then reward yourself with another rep for the hell of it.

affonry Wrote:He spoke with dignity and pride, but simply as a matter of course that is required to participate in my crazy weight loss because of the stress adventure and, perhaps, to lay down his head.

Well, I agree with you. But, I'm not really sure how this is going to help me study Japanese. Could you enlighten me, friend?

Personal problems are making me very stressed and making it harder to study. Ughhh...

cntrational Wrote:Personal problems are making me very stressed and making it harder to study. Ughhh...

stop/slowdown with 日本語　and deal with your problems. when your ready, start up again stronger than ever.

-good luck

wulfgar Wrote:

cntrational Wrote:Personal problems are making me very stressed and making it harder to study. Ughhh...

stop/slowdown with 日本語　and deal with your problems. when your ready, start up again stronger than ever.

-good luck

Ditto. Stress causes you to forget what you learned, so by learning Japanese while being stressed is like spinning your wheels in the mud. You're trying really hard, but you're getting no where. Personal problems come first.

cntrational Wrote:Personal problems are making me very stressed and making it harder to study. Ughhh...

I'm having the same problem at the moment, I haven't added any new kanji for over a week now, even though I said I'd do a lot in my week off. There's just too much pressure atm.

Like everyone said, slow down until you can pick it back up again. There's no need to make yourself more stressed.

Hm...yeah, I should probably take it slow for a few days. Thanks for the advice.

So I've got an A Level retake in June. Well, two important exams. I originally got a D in both of them last year, so now I'm really stressing because I want to get into the uni I like, not the one I don't! I'm trying to revise as much as possible and it's taking up a lot of time. I have two weeks off work and I was going to do a lot of new kanji now too but I'm not sure whether to just change my plan, leave learning a lot of new kanji until after my exams (even though I want RTK over with) and just... wait... or what. I feel like I'm going to fail my exams anyway, which isn't a good mindset ,-, /stress

I think we all agree that exams are much more important than RTK (especially if you're aiming for a uni you like). If you work right, you're probably not going to fail. You probably know why you failed last time, so try to avoid kanji productive procrastination when your future is at stake. But there is nothing wrong with doing a few kanji to clear your head if your revisions are on schedule.
Good luck!

That's true. And getting into a routine with RTK has helped me learn a bit easier when it comes to revision anyway. Just feel a bit annoyed that I'm going to have to put kanji on hold (still going to review, obviously.)

I just need to stop panicking and get on with it
Thanks!

Edit: doesn't help that I've made an anki deck for my revision and my retention rate is <50% D: