blackmacros Wrote:Ohh yes, I forgot to add my congratulations!

Congratulations plumage!

@Wally, yes you would finish inputting new kanji from RtK 1 much quicker. This means you can move on to other fun things like sentence mining. We're all going to be reviewing forever essentially (if you choose to keep reviewing that is) so its not really fair to point and say "adding the last kanji? pfft thats not finished".

For me, it's hardly finished. I wouldn't consider anyone "finished" until they had about 1800 cards in the last box. Until then, you don't have much of a grip on them. So it's not finished.

I mean ... I could run through the last 900 for me tonight. Then call it finished. What a sad joke that would be.

welldone101 Wrote:A good thing to keep in mind for everybody reading who is not doing 100 a day.

Wally Wrote:

blackmacros Wrote:would finish.

"Finish" what? Input? Sure. But that is hardly "finishing" RTK1.

There's also a good feeling to be had sitting pretty at 1,350ish with over 1,200 of those in box 4+. (as long as one eventually finishes...)

@blackmacros: True, but then again since I only have like 30-40 reviews a day I have lots more time to do my sentences and other fun stuff. (that is assuming you are continuing your reviews and not halting them). It's also fun to start substituting Japanese words for the keywords once they get up to half-a-year on the return date (and resetting their progress).

Thats true too. Obviously different methods exist, and you've chosen to add less kanji per day so you can do the fun stuff like sentence mining too.

But for someone who is concentrating on finishing just RtK and then moving on to sentences (I'm sure a lot of people fit in this category too, because AJATT recommends it) then I think they would get a lot of benefit from trying to do 100/day even just one day of the week.

Imagine you are going at the regular pace of 20/day (140/per week) but decide to dedicate your Sundays to adding 100. You almost double (220/week) how quickly you're going to get through RtK.

Different people have different schedules and goals, of course. But I'm sure a lot of people would be willing to give up 1 day per week to get through RtK a bit faster.

Wally Wrote:For me, it's hardly finished. I wouldn't consider anyone "finished" until they had about 1800 cards in the last box. Until then, you don't have much of a grip on them. So it's not finished.

I mean ... I could run through the last 900 for me tonight. Then call it finished. What a sad joke that would be.

Ok then, according to your definition someone who does 100/day all the way or 100/day on weekends or just Sundays is still going to be finished faster than someone who doesn't. They are adding more cards, reviewing more cards, and getting them all into that last box quicker. This means they will have more time to do the fun stuff like sentence mining.

blackmacros Wrote:(if you choose to keep reviewing that is)

I forgot to add ... what the heck does THAT mean? (if you choose to keep reviewing) If you don't, you just wasted a lot of time. Sure, eventually you can get them by reading. But only a sap would think the rate of forgetting would not exceed the rate of retention that way. MHO, of course.

blackmacros Wrote:But I'm sure a lot of people would be willing to give up 1 day per week to get through RtK a bit faster.

The point is ... you don't "get through" anything that way. You either review, intensively, or you wasted your time. Period.

Wally Wrote:

blackmacros Wrote:(if you choose to keep reviewing that is)

I forgot to add ... what the heck does THAT mean? (if you choose to keep reviewing) If you don't, you just wasted a lot of time. Sure, eventually you can get them by reading. But only a sap would think the rate of forgetting would not exceed the rate of retention that way. MHO, of course.

I said that because there was (is) a thread about whether to continue reviewing or not. Some people choose not to. That's not a decision I would make personally, but it *is* a decision that people have made.

I also pointed it out because, since we review forever, you will never "finish" RtK. But holding that sort of opinion too tightly can lead you to ignore the fact that there is a big difference between adding all the kanji in (for example) 8 weeks versus 16 weeks. It means you get to do the fun stuff sooner.

blackmacros Wrote:[This means they will have more time to do the fun stuff like sentence mining.

Hardly. It means they are going to be looking at extensive reviews that will take time away from sentence mining or anything else.

The key point being made here, and the point that is bogus, I want to stress very strongly:

SRS suggests that it takes X amount of time to assimilate Y amount of knowledge (it's bogus to say you can circumvent this). Period. End of discussion, really. You can cram the input, but you are going to fail on the other end unless you spend just as much time as people who take a more relaxed approach to input but don't end up with all the back end.

Unless you have a supreme mind (or more time than most), it just doesn't work any other way. Until SRS certifies that you know it, you don't. Get it? So nothing is finished. Period.

Really, you are not "finished" until you've got something like 1800 kanji in the last box. Anything else, and you are just fooling yourself -- not me.

I'm not really sure what you meant when you talkd about "you are going to fail on the other end" but I assume it was about retention rates?

I have an 87.2% retention rate according to Anki. I believe that is a fairly typical retention rate, regardless of how many you added per day. The only difference is I recall 87.2% of 2042 whereas someone going at 20/day recalls ~90-95% of only 800.

I'm not suggesting that you can circumvent the learning process. You are going to keep reviewing whether you do 100/day or 20/day, so both methods are going to learn the kanji in the end. But someone who does 100/day (or 100/day on weekends or whatever) is going to learn them all faster. I thought that was kind of obvious.

Its about 2 weeks since I finished RtK1 and my reviews have died down to about 100-150 a day. That takes me around an hour to get through. Not exactly taking away all that much time from the fun stuff.

If someone were to do 100/day only on weekends/Sundays they would get the benefit of being able to "finish" RtK faster (under both of our definitions of finishing) and thus move on to the fun stuff quicker. Further, since they're only adding 100/day one day a week they are not going to have *anywhere* near the review burden that I did. Sure review time will go up a bit, but again I think that many people would be happy to deal with that if it meant getting them through RtK a bit faster.

blackmacros Wrote:I'm not really sure what you meant when you talkd about "you are going to fail on the other end" but I assume it was about retention rates?

I have an 87.2% retention rate according to Anki. I believe that is a fairly typical retention rate, regardless of how many you added per day. The only difference is I recall 87.2% of 2042 whereas someone going at 20/day recalls ~90-95% of only 800.

Yes, I'm talking about retention rates of course. And to be frank, I don't think that you *know* what your retention rates are, because by jamming all 2042 kanji in during a single month, you haven't reviewed enough, I suspect, to have very many really mature cards. (I know Anki specifies a month as mature, but I have failed, and seen enough other people fail, enough one-month cards to know that a one-month card is not cemented into memory by any means.)

So, if I suggested that adding, say, 7,000 cards a day was the way to go, it would not have any bearing on your retention rate? Sure.

Wally Wrote:

blackmacros Wrote:I'm not really sure what you meant when you talkd about "you are going to fail on the other end" but I assume it was about retention rates?

I have an 87.2% retention rate according to Anki. I believe that is a fairly typical retention rate, regardless of how many you added per day. The only difference is I recall 87.2% of 2042 whereas someone going at 20/day recalls ~90-95% of only 800.

Yes, I'm talking about retention rates of course. And to be frank, I don't think that you *know* what your retention rates are, because by jamming all 2042 kanji in during a single month, you haven't reviewed enough, I suspect, to have very many really mature cards. (I know Anki specifies a month as mature, but I have failed, and seen enough other people fail, enough one-month cards to know that a one-month card is not cemented into memory by any means.)

So, if I suggested that adding, say, 7,000 cards a day was the way to go, it would not have any bearing on your retention rate? Sure.

Huh? You don't think that I know my retention rates? Uhh? Well, Anki pops up a number that tells me exactly what it is Total Correct: 87.2% 7806/8952. I also posted a picture of my stats a few pages back if you want to check. The retention rate back then was quite similar.

If you meant that I couldn't really know my actual retention because I don't have "enough" mature cards (and what exactly is your definition of a mature card anyway, since you have rejected Anki's) well: thats completely ridiculous. I know my current total retention rates (as well as a number of other measures, thanks to Anki). I also know that this % is *not going to go down*. The whole point of reviewing is that you remember more. Therefore I feel perfectly capable of commenting on my own current and future retention, regardless of whether I meet same arcane criteria of "mature cards reviewed".

I didn't say it had no effect on retention rates. What I did was provide evidence as to my *own* retention, and state that it appears to be similiar (perhaps a little lower) than the retention rates reported by most other people. I didn't add 7000 cards per day so I can't really comment on what the impact of that would be, can I?

blackmacros Wrote:Huh? You don't think that I know my retention rates? Uhh? Well, Anki pops up a number that tells me exactly what it is Total Correct: 87.2% 7806/8952. I also posted a picture of my stats a few pages back if you want to check. The retention rate back then was quite similar.

Well, first of all, good luck. I really hope it works out for you. Sincerely. I mean it.

But you registered on April 14. That means you could only have about maybe 500 mature cards -- it's an estimate, an Aniki estimate (enough successful reviews to have an interval of a month or more), too -- by my calculations. Probably less. You would have to be passing all the first 500 cards every time to be in that position, I think. Maybe I'm calculating incorrectly, but I don't think I'm off by so much.

So you are hardly finished, and your stats apply to the first 1/4 of the body of work (adding 100 per day from April 14 means you cannot possibly have mature cards by an Anki definition that are before about April 18), which may or may not remain consistent. Really, I wish you the best. But if you think you are "finished", think again. You've only just begun, as the song goes.

I mean look at your stats. You've reviewed some 2,042 cards only 8,952 times, for an average of 4.38 times per card. If you have a significant number of mature cards today, that means you've probably reviewed the first cards much more often, which would only come about from either failing them or reviewing them too early or too often, or both, I reckon. I admit I'm not a statistician, however. And I don't know if Aniki can be forced to review early, like this site can.

But hey, it's your long-term memory, not mine. And I mean it from the bottom of my heart when I say good luck.

I think this requires a certain amount of time, and while I do think it can be front-loaded to some extent, I think that extreme front-loading comes with a back-end penalty. I'd dearly love to know Mr. Heisig's opinion about this. I know he did it in a rush, but I don't know how intensive his reviews were, or for how long they remained intensive. That said, he's probably quite an exception. Maybe you are, too. Go for it.

I only registered on this forum when I was about halfway through the process.

Again, I don't know what you mean when you say "mature card" because you rejected Anki's definition. But by Anki's definition I have 948 mature cards, so almost 50% of my cards are mature. (And no, you can't force early reviews in Anki. Well, you might be able to but I haven't and don't know how).

What you are predicting (that somehow I've damaged my long-term recall of the kanji?) just doesn't seem to mesh with reality. I get cards right 87.2% of the time. That is my total recall rate according to Anki. That includes cards that have been added 1.8 months ago (thats how old my deck is according to Anki. Also I finished in 38 days, averaging 50/day added. I did the last 1600 cards at the pace of 100/day however). It is profoundly unlikely that I'm going to suddenly start recalling less, given that I will continue to review. I've been finished for around 3 weeks now, so I've reviewed most of the kanji I added a number of times. Even the latter few. I have not experienced any significant difference between my ability to recall these compared to my ability to recall the kanji I learned at the pace of 20-30/day.

And yes, I do consider myself done with RtK1. RtK1 was, for me, about learning new kanji. I make a distinction between the initial learning process and the review process. There is a huge difference between having to learn new kanji as opposed to just reviewing them. The latter is far easier and far less time consuming. I completed the initial learning process the day I added Kanji 2042 and have moved on to the larger task of learning Japanese. My relationship with kanji is ongoing, however, and that is why I'm still reviewing.

blackmacros Wrote:I only registered on this forum when I was about halfway through the process.

Again, I don't know what you mean when you say "mature card" because you rejected Anki's definition. But by Anki's definition I have 948 mature cards, so almost 50% of my cards are mature. (And no, you can't force early reviews in Anki. Well, you might be able to but I haven't and don't know how).

What you are predicting (that somehow I've damaged my long-term recall of the kanji?) just doesn't seem to mesh with reality. I get cards right 87.2% of the time. That is my total recall rate according to Anki. That includes cards that have been added 1.8 months ago (thats how old my deck is according to Anki. Also I finished in 38 days, averaging 50/day added. I did the last 1600 cards at the pace of 100/day however). It is profoundly unlikely that I'm going to suddenly start recalling less, given that I will continue to review. I've been finished for around 3 weeks now, so I've reviewed most of the kanji I added a number of times. Even the latter few. I have not experienced any significant difference between my ability to recall these compared to my ability to recall the kanji I learned at the pace of 20-30/day.

And yes, I do consider myself done with RtK1. RtK1 was, for me, about learning new kanji. I make a distinction between the initial learning process and the review process. There is a huge difference between having to learn new kanji as opposed to just reviewing them. The latter is far easier and far less time consuming. I completed the initial learning process the day I added Kanji 2042 and have moved on to the larger task of learning Japanese. My relationship with kanji is ongoing, however, and that is why I'm still reviewing.

As long as you don't give up the review process, you're golden. Good luck.

I don't think I could cope with 100 kanji a day, at least not for many consecutive days. It's just too much to try and cram in. I think I'll try the occasional day of adding 100~ characters, just to act as a little speed boost every now and then.

I tried doing a large number of cards today, and I don't know how well I'm going to do on the reviews tomorrow. I did the entire of lesson 21 (63 kanji). I'm going to give my stories a good look over, and make sure that they're all of a good standard. I think they might be sticking better than earlier chapters though, since Heisig isn't providing the stories for me. They're sticking better because they're using my own imagination.

If you want to go at a faster pace then Anki is ideal, since it forces you to get the correct answer at least once and makes you do another rep in eight hours if you get it wrong.

Today, I added exactly 100 kanji to the "RTK1: One kanji, one picture" thread. In like 22 hours. My retention rate is mediocre though: 71,8%. Still, that was a big step forward!

Study log:

10.37 pm start
01.17 am added 範犯厄危宛腕苑怨柳卵留貿印興 - 87 kanji left
02.47 am added 酉酒酌酵酷酬酪酢酔配酸猶尊豆頭短豊鼓喜樹 - 66 kanji left
04.10 am added 皿血盆盟盗温監濫鑑猛盛塩銀恨根即爵節退限 - 47 kanji left
11.50 am added 眼良朗浪娘食飯飲飢餓飾館養飽既概慨 - 30 kanji left
04.59 pm added 平呼坪評刈希凶胸離殺純鈍辛辞梓宰壁避新薪 - 10 kanji left
08.32 pm added 親幸執報叫糾収卑碑陸 - 100 done!

Congratulations everyone giving 100/day a shot!

71% is still a pretty good retention rate, stoked. As long as you keep reviewing you will cement the ones you didn't quite get the first time.

I'm curious to know how many extra reviews you guys are having to deal with, after having done 100 for a day.

nicksan Wrote:I tried doing a large number of cards today, and I don't know how well I'm going to do on the reviews tomorrow. I did the entire of lesson 21 (63 kanji). I'm going to give my stories a good look over, and make sure that they're all of a good standard. I think they might be sticking better than earlier chapters though, since Heisig isn't providing the stories for me. They're sticking better because they're using my own imagination.

I just reviewed the cards I added yesterday. Of the 63, I remembered 88% of them, which I'm very proud of. I think it's because I concentrated and assigned a good story to each (which I was less prone to doing in previous chapters because I used Heisig's stories).

I think I'm going to do all of lesson 22 today 59 kanji might take a while, but it'll be worth it

nicksan Wrote:

nicksan Wrote:I tried doing a large number of cards today, and I don't know how well I'm going to do on the reviews tomorrow. I did the entire of lesson 21 (63 kanji). I'm going to give my stories a good look over, and make sure that they're all of a good standard. I think they might be sticking better than earlier chapters though, since Heisig isn't providing the stories for me. They're sticking better because they're using my own imagination.

I just reviewed the cards I added yesterday. Of the 63, I remembered 88% of them, which I'm very proud of. I think it's because I concentrated and assigned a good story to each (which I was less prone to doing in previous chapters because I used Heisig's stories).

I think I'm going to do all of lesson 22 today 59 kanji might take a while, but it'll be worth it

Well done :-) The more you push yourself, the better you'll get at adding kanji and the more you'll be able to add while keeping a good retention rate.

I'm surprised at the negativity in this thread. RTK only provides one thing at the back end: it allows you to formulate each kanji into an easily-digestible bit of information you will then review until the meaning/writing/recognition sticks. That's all. No one ever claimed that the moment you formulate that last bit of information on the last page, that you'd be done.

This from someone who did just finish, the slow way. All I have now is the same that 100/day'ers have: 2043 kanji (I added "grateful" which was used as part of another kanji but not included in RtK1), formulated/pre-chewed for easier swallowing.

NOW begins the digestion, in terms of SRSing and other studies. That I was doing reviews all this time as I was working through the book isn't very significant--had I crammed all my formulations into one month, I'd still have done reviews all that time.

After all, Heisig himself did the original RtK in about a month, which isn't much less than 100/day, especially given he was working out his ordering of the kanji from scratch.

So, from a slow-poke to the roadrunners in this thread: good on you, since I'm assuming you're all going to continue reviewing and learning one way or another.

blackmacros Wrote:

nicksan Wrote:I just reviewed the cards I added yesterday. Of the 63, I remembered 88% of them, which I'm very proud of. I think it's because I concentrated and assigned a good story to each (which I was less prone to doing in previous chapters because I used Heisig's stories).

I think I'm going to do all of lesson 22 today 59 kanji might take a while, but it'll be worth it

Well done :-) The more you push yourself, the better you'll get at adding kanji and the more you'll be able to add while keeping a good retention rate.

Well I just finished lesson 22, after about 4 hours study today. Quite a tough lesson. I'll look over my stories later on, to cement them into my memory. The heart and state of mind primitives were quite tricky, so I hope they don't trip me up too much when I do review them.

働きマンだぞ！

http://f.imagehost.org/0767/RTK1_2.png

The journey of mastering the kanji begins here.

If you work at it and don't get distracted there's no reason why you can't do 100 per day. It takes less than a minute to think about the primitives, come up with a basic story and draw the kanji once, so you could get through 100 in two hours. Each review takes 10-15 seconds at most (for me, anyway, since I auto-fail if I can't think of it right away) so 100 reviews in half an hour is not unreasonable. It all comes down to having a reasonable amount of free time and working efficiently.

Now I started in early April and I'm coming up to 1400 now, so I haven't even added 50 per day, let alone 100. But I blame that on my own inefficiency and laziness more than anything: some days I've added more than 100 and other times I've gone over a week without adding any. To anyone who's had the dedication and concentration to go through 100 every single day, I say congratulations and good luck. I only wish I could've done the same and saved myself weeks of wasted time.

(n.b. this assumes reviews are done properly and the kanji are actually learned - like others have said, simply adding 100 per day doesn't count. But I don't think anyone does that anyway. Even if you completely rush them you'll retain ~50% provided you review on time.)

@jorgebucaran
Way to go man.
The winners are those that stick to the very end. Be it 5/day or 100/day.
100/day is not easy, but not impossible.
Doing RTK is far more straining than the rest of the work, but if you don't continue working hard, you won't reach your goal. What it is really important is to know that finishing Heisig is only the beginning.
Never let your pace down. Keep working hard and you'll do really great.

Thanks mentat, I actually thought finishing RevTK was gonna be an special event of some kind or something like someone said, flying balloons and so on, but really nothing happened. I couldn't even celebrate as I wanted to. As you said, the journey has just begun and it can't be more exciting.

harhol Wrote:Now I started in early April and I'm coming up to 1400 now

Keep it up and try to do as many new Kanji as you can everyday, do whatever it takes you there. I wish I knew I could do more than 25 a day before I spent a month like that.