I have been working on this method for the past 3 weeks and now i'm at 500 (400 I know and the other 100 I have to study more thoroughly).
And I wanted to know from people who have completed RTK1, at which frame they felt like "I'm going to see this through". Because that's how I feel right now and I wonder if I'm being too overconfident and the hard part will just be starting.
So when (if) did you feel anything similar?

For RtK1? Hmm, I had several such moments. When I completed 200 or so and noticed it was working, I was like "Yeah, I'm going to need to do this before I continue my Japanese studies". Then It got REALLY EXTREMELY boring. 500-1500 is just.. a pest. But when I hit 1000, I did feel "Great, 50% done. I should raise my tempo some and get this crap done".

When I got through the free pdf from the book I knew it. I had a pdf from a previous version of the full book to continue, but don't worry, the paper book should arrive tomorrow or so.

I admit I had much up and downs the first couple of weeks because I was doing too much textbook study at the same time. Focussing almost solely on rtk1 does wonders for me Now that I'm almost at 500, Everything goes even better thanks to a flow that fits me. And naturally the idea of 25% done.

At about 200.

When I hit 1600 or so, though, I decided that I wasn't going to see it through, and have started ripping out kanji and reordering the rest. Your mileage may vary.

~J

Started 8 months ago, got to about 200...stopped for some reason. Maybe some doubt as to whether it was for me, since I can already read quite a bit and have trouble with many English keywords. Been studying more consistently though slowly the last month, and I'm at 500 now. I feel pretty confident I will finish it.

Up to maybe 700 things went pretty quick, then after 1700 I felt a little burn-out. And finally at around 1950 I was sure I was gonna make it soon. Nonetheless I was sure to somehow get it done after 1000.

When I found this site. I'd tried Rtk twice over the prior 3 years and abandoned it (using flashcards, ugh). I just continued with some vocab and grammar. Then found this site and never looked back.

The first time I did it, I stalled out around 1000. Before I got to that point, I was ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN I would finish it. Turns out I lost momentum, went to Japan for 5 weeks, and stopped reviewing. When I lost momentum... poof. There went all my work.

When I got back, I started over and finished it in about 3 months, using this website. I was never entirely certain I would finish, because the second 1000 was more tedious than the first 1000. (I hate you, thread. Even after I personified you, you still irritated me.) I wasn't entirely certain I would finish until I did. The last batch was just as bad as any of them.

The only thing that got me to finish was never missing a day of review. I didn't always learn new keywords, but I never missed my reviews. That's the only thing that got it done for me. That was... 9 months ago? Now it's just a matter of keeping up with reviews while I learn readings. It's not really a big deal. There are still a handful of keywords -> kanji I routinely fail, simply because they keywords he picked are really freakin' vague. I don't lose sleep over it. I still "know" (in a Heisig sense, not a Japanese sense) those kanji when I see them.

I'd say find ways to make it entertaining, because as you go deeper into it, it gets to be more and more of a chore, and that can kill your momentum if you're not careful. Just don't stop. It would be a shame to make it all the way to 1000 or so and just quit because you can't see it through, or because you're easily distracted. Set up a routine if you have to.

I have found RTK1 to be tremendously useful in picking up readings as I've gone along, simply because it's easier to recognize kanji I've already "seen." It takes one giant chunk of the mental drudgery out of it. Now it's just a matter of picking up the readings.

At what frame...? Not sure, but I was pretty far into the book. Maybe around 1500.

After I finished the sample I made a conscious decision that I would finish it.

I'd already made a very conscious decision to take Japanese all the way through, so making a much shorter term commitment within the larger one wasn't that big of a thing.

As soon as I set a definite regimen of 35 per day, every day. Once I did that for a few days and it was no problem, I knew I would finish it.

Then around 1600, I was getting slammed by reviews. At that point, I thought about giving it up but the thought of losing all the work I'd already put into it sickened me. So instead I kicked up the pace to about 100 per day. This resulted in MASSIVE review sessions that I thought I wouldn't make it through, but my SRS basically saved me here. For a while there, I thought I'd screwed myself up and was going to have to start over or something. Then it all just sorta worked out - and it will, as long as you keep doing your reviews.

I think two things are key to finishing: never deviating from a steady schedule (do them every day, no matter what) and trusting in your SRS.

I quit after 400 my first go through. When I found this site, I decided to start from frame one and go through to the end. It wasn't until around from 600 something that I actually started using SRS.

When I found this website on June 2007. Before then it was flashcards and not getting much farther past 500.

I did RTK in 20 days, 90+% of the cards are mature now. 93% pass-rate for mature cards.
I knew I would finish when I picked up the book, since I had decided I would finish it. Decide... Don't desire.

I'm at around 4200 Kanji+ Hanzi now, around 3000 Japanese Sentences, and around 1500 Chinese ones. I have decided I will be a fluent speaker of Chinese and Japanese, and unless physically stopped in some way I intend to see it through.

This is my first try, I started in August 09 and I'm at frame 642: the burn-out is gaining me. It's getting boresome.

I keep seeing people posting pass rates. Does this really matter? For me its just a keep doing till I die thing. Anyways a few years from now the reviews on RTK will be spread soo far and thin I will probably be doing like a few minutes a week if that.

The key is consistency. Like Yonosa said you are meant to finish it, there are no what ifs ands or buts. You are a machine.

And anyways its really not that hard if you do a reasonable amount per day. 30 a day isnt too bad and gets you done in a little more than a month. Think about that, learning the writings and the basic meanings of 2,042 kanji in 1/3 of a school semester by just investing like an hour or so a day. Quite amazing when you think of it.

And if you can't keep up with this part of the Japanese learning process, then you might as well stop, because if you think this is hard wait till you are doing sentence reviews in addition to learning new kanji on top of the 2,042 and inputting in new sentences every day. You need to be dedicated to do this.

I remember getting the pdf and taking a glance over it and coming across a certain frame and reading heisigs mnemonic for it and going... ah I see how that could work. Then I put it away and about a day or two later I was watching some Japanese TV and up came that kanji I had seen previously and I was like "I know what that means!" and then a few seconds later my knowledge was confirmed as its physical object came onto the screen into plain view.

That was definitely I was convinced that the method worked and that I could do it. It had proven itself to me and now I needed to prove myself to it!

I had alot of ups and downs along the way though so it took me roughly 10 months.

Yea your hard work comes to fruition, it's always nice to see your work paid off and the self-satisfaction that comes with it, it's like a mini victory: I KNOW WHAT THAT WORD MEANS, I JUST LEARNED IT!!! Yahoo~!♪

after years of crappy classes and struggling with kanji, from the first day I was introduced to this book and website, I knew I had found the right system for me. logical progress to master all the kanji + a great review system that never lets you forget, well I was so fired up about discovering it I knew I wanted to do it. 2 years later i'm still hooked on reviews ever morning!

I have't finished the book yet, but I'm around 1180. I knew I was going to finish the book when I bought it. I'm strange like that though. If I'm going to invest money into something then I try to complete it. So, I'm half way done and its taken me about 4 months to get here, but I'll finish in 4 more months or less. I probably would have been done by now if I hadn't actually moved to Japan, gotten the wife pregnant, started a new job, but those things take time and are of more importance I would say.

jacf29 Wrote:I keep seeing people posting pass rates. Does this really matter? For me its just a keep doing till I die thing. Anyways a few years from now the reviews on RTK will be spread soo far and thin I will probably be doing like a few minutes a week if that.
The key is consistency.

Rates don't matter for me either. Like you said, consistency is key. As I am getting along with reviews and they get lighter I am grading myself a little more strictly as well. Stroke order or overall look are now another reason to fail the card.

brianobush Wrote:

jacf29 Wrote:I keep seeing people posting pass rates. Does this really matter? For me its just a keep doing till I die thing. Anyways a few years from now the reviews on RTK will be spread soo far and thin I will probably be doing like a few minutes a week if that.
The key is consistency.

Rates don't matter for me either. Like you said, consistency is key. As I am getting along with reviews and they get lighter I am grading myself a little more strictly as well. Stroke order or overall look are now another reason to fail the card.

Wow man we think in the same way. I was just thinking of doing that down the line once my RTK deck gets lighter on reviews.

Pass rates are what make your deck get lighter on reviews.

~J

At around 500 I always told myself "I've come too far to give up now". It may be boresome, but if you finish faster at a rate giving you a reasonable retention percentage, then you can start getting into the fun parts. As for myself, I'm flicking through a copy of Weekly Jump that I got this morning.

Robatsu Wrote:At around 500 I always told myself "I've come too far to give up now"

I tell myself that every time I think about Japanese in general.