But I think that 俺様 is important enough to warrant it.

Time point 1: I randomly picked up RTK1 at my local Border's sometime in late 2005. Made some paper flashcards that I did with my wife. I tried to do a manual SRS-type filing system, but it didn't work well. Got up to about 400字 that way. Eventually burned out.

Time point 2: In early 2007, while sitting in a short-term rented apartment in england, discovered this site. Over the next two years or so made on and off progress up to about 1700字. Every three months or so I would take a one month "break" and forget the last two months of progress. I often let cards pile up in the "failed" pile. Ended up making my own kanji poster and assigning myself awards every 200字, which sort of worked.

Time point 3: Moved to Japan in early 2009. Had no Internet for 2 months other than an iPhone (thanks NTT, really) and stopped reviewing altogether for... 3 months? 4 months? Awhile.

Time point 4: Finally said "***** it, I'm finishing this". I had been using Anki for sentences and vocab, so I downloaded the RTK deck and started pounding them through. I *really* like the Anki model of reviewing failed cards in line with the other reviews, without a separate "study" step. It works very well for me.

Why did I finish this time? Because I changed from trying to add cards in chunks of 20 to simply adding 1 every day. If I was getting bogged down in reviews, I'd sometimes switch it to 0, until they let up. Instead of driving towards the end, I made it more of a lifestyle kind of thing. I ended up being able to add 5字/day pretty consistently, while working and doing other studying as well. About two months of that, on top of what I already knew pretty well, and *bam*! I'm done! Now that I've figured out how to make it easy, I'm probably going to just leave it on 5字/day until the end of RTK3. What's that, about 8 months?

Fabrice: thank you for this site! Everybody: thank you for your stories! People who haven't finished: DON'T GIVE UP! If I can do it, you can too.

Congratulations! Truly! Way to take it slow and easy. No need to rush past your means. All that matters is that you add SOMETHING every day and keep up with your reviews. That's the only pressure. There's no pressure to pass reviews. There's no pressure to add 20+ cards. I think if people started with this in mind, they'd eventually find themselves WANTING to add more than 1 per day, not feeling pressured by having to.

Good job!

Congrats on finally finishing though it's a little strange to refer to yourself as 様。

mezbup Wrote:Congrats on finally finishing though it's a little strange to refer to yourself as 様。

But 「俺様」 sounds hilarious if used in the right context! I personally try to abuse it as much as possible.

I echo sethg's sentiments, slow and steady can absolutely win the race. I still think that one of my biggest mistakes early on was my overzealous pace of 50~ kanji a day, which eventually led to mild burnout, and my stopping kanji reviews entirely for a long period of time. This whole thing is a marathon, proper pacing is essential if you want to make it to the end.

おめでとう！