I just made little rules to follow:

no forums until I've added my kanji,
no other internet until I've reviewed my kanji,
etc.

Then just take the will power to implement them.

Convince yourself that the hot japanese chick you're lusting after
won't let you bang her until you've finished studying your RTK kanji.

I'm sure that'll make you study fast........LOL........ :-p

Awesome. Both of your profiles are on my bookmarks bar. I've got my eye on you guys!

Thanks again to all. I'm now enjoying going through the process instead of begrudging not being finished yet.

akrodha, i see we are both adding kanji at a steady pace. Awesome. Let's keep at it!

fiminor, how are your reviews going? Did you bite the bullet and get all of them done in two days? Are you ready to start learning 5 new kanji a day plus stay on top of reviews?

If you haven't been able to, I have a suggestion...

If I only had 65 kanji left and a ton of failed and expired kanji I would ignore review and just create stories and learn the remaining 65. Once I made it through to #2042, I would then review at a pace of say 50 per day which would eventually get my reviews through to 2042 as well.

After my three month lapse of doing nothing, I felt I should carefully review all 1400 kanji from the very beginning. After the first couple of hundred I even "cheated" and did my reviews in RTK order. I reviewed 50 kanji a day which has kept daily number of review to a manageable level. Reviewing at this rate got me back up to #1401 in one month and then I was able to start writing stories and learning kanji again. From #1401 on I've reviewed at 25 kanji per day. I've managed to keep a rather high accuracy rate, and feel comfortable with the whole process again!

Once you create stories and learn the remaining 65 kanji you could always use Fabrice's slick new "Remove all flashcards beyond (above) frame number..." function to delete cards back to where ever you feel most comfortable and then start over by reviewing the stories you already have in more manageable batches... At 50 kanji reviewed a day you'll be all the way through #2042 before you know it.

What do you say, the weekend is coming up... an ideal time to crank out stories for 65 kanji.

Chadokoro_K Wrote:fiminor, how are your reviews going? Did you bite the bullet and get all of them done in two days? Are you ready to start learning 5 new kanji a day plus stay on top of reviews?

Er, not quite! Totally forgot I was on a course all last night, but have managed to review all the newly added kanji (and fail most of them). It seems that the importance of doing the first couple of reviews in good time must not be underestimated! And I would stress that to anyone wanting advice of the "what I would like to have known before starting out" variety.

Chadokoro_K Wrote:If you haven't been able to, I have a suggestion...

If I only had 65 kanji left and a ton of failed and expired kanji I would ignore review and just create stories and learn the remaining 65. Once I made it through to #2042, I would then review at a pace of say 50 per day which would eventually get my reviews through to 2042 as well.

What do you say, the weekend is coming up... an ideal time to crank out stories for 65 kanji.

Not a bad suggestion! I'd certainly feel like I was getting somewhere if I'd all my stories mapped out. I actually have to go back over most of the stories since 1900 as they clearly haven't stuck, but I think doing that in one go, then figuring out the reviews after will be much clearer goal-wise.

I'm also checking both your profile & akrodha's regularly, so keep it at it! We've not that far to go now.

Hey you guys. I'm still checking up on your profiles. In fact, Chadokoro_K, you sure seemed to zip through those last two or three lessons in no time! And fiminor, you're really close. I'm cheering for you this weekend!

Just finished a lesson, even though I'm dead tired from working. But this weekend is going to be pretty busy for me. I hope I can still manage to get some more lessons done. Let's see. [kana]ganbarou[/kana]!

i finished but i definitely still need to review...i've been setting my timer to 10 or 20 minutes....every time i go off my study i stop the timer even if it's to study japanese....when i go back to the kanji study i start my timer again; therefore, i don't cheat myself......

Yeah, I've managed to learn a lot of new kanji the past few days because they were days off for me. Still, I didn't get much of anything else done besides learn new kanji and keep up with my reviews. I've got a busy work week starting tomorrow (Thursday) and I don't know how much I'll be able to do until next Monday or Tuesday, but I'll try to keep adding at least 10 more per day and stay on top of my reviews!

I only wish I had the rest of the week off, I feel like I've gotten a nice rhythm back and I just want to crank through while it feels good!

頑張ろうね！

Yeah, this working lark really gets in the way of studying kanji!

Don't you know it! I've been doing kanji every spare minute and have managed to catch up with fiminor at 1977.

C'mon, fiminor, we can both do it. That bear of a chapter 53 is behind us. It is all down-hill from here. You can still get over the 2042 finish line ahead of me -- not that we are racing, I'm only racing against myself, wanting this done, done, done -- if you just give it a big ol' push!

Actually I'm enjoying story writing again, but nevertheless half the battle is just sitting down and getting started and the other half is to just "push" until a chapter is finished. There is something about having that magic number 2042 looming ahead that inspires me to hold to my goal of not stopping until a chapter is done. That is how I pushed my way through all 51 kanji in chapter 53 and I look forward to finishing the three (relatively) short chapters remaining this week.

Akrodha, I see you are making good progress. Didn't mean to scare you with Chapter 53, it is mainly its length that made it difficult to do. (Taking two days is probably a better way to go for that chapter.)

C'mon, lets get RTK I "finished" so we can go on with our next step or project... which of course will include getting all of the kanji successfully into box 4 at least.

Chadokoro_K Wrote:C'mon, lets get RTK I "finished" so we can go on with our next step or project... which of course will include getting all of the kanji successfully into box 4 at least.

Aye. I added the last card yesterday but here's what my boxes look like:



So, yeah, it's going to be awhile...

That "next project"? RtK III, of course!

Congratulations on finishing RTK I, Megaqwerty!

Hopefully I'll be there by the weekend.

I use different review software but these are the current results for the 1977 kanji I've learned so far:
Box 1: 8 failed (today), 52 not yet tested (just learned today)
Box 2: 67 correct
Box 3: 170 correct
Box 4: 228 correct
Box 5: 1452 correct
Box 6: 0 (haven't made it this far yet)

I'm using a straight Leitner system. And I'm testing in blocks of 50 taken from various places in the RTK I order. Any failed kanji go back to "Box 1" to be reviewed that day and then tested the next. I'm also re-testing at shorter time intervals.
Box 2 kanji are tested again in 3 days.
Box 3 kanji are tested again in 6 days.
Box 4 kanji are tested again in 9 days.
Box 5 kanji are tested again in 15 days.
Box 6 kanji are tested again in 30 days.

I am very happy with my recall rate. But it remains to be seen how well I'll do once I spread my retest intervals out further to 1 month, 2 months, 3 months, etc. But someone mentioned that drilling the kanji for three days solid before even testing them out of Box 1 helped to get them down solid, so I thought I could do a similar thing with closer testing intervals until I get them all down into Box 6. (Which if I stay on track will be on Aug 18, 2007.)

I'm also thinking about going on to RTK III immediately. I already know a lot of readings and/or can guess at the ON-yomi thanks to my background in Japanese.

I read this quote in "After I: 2 or 3 first, yesterday:

mantixen Wrote:I would just go on to RTK3 while the method and stories are still fresh in your mind.

I think it makes sense to go for RTK III while everything about story-creating and the elements are still fresh in mind. I'll probably take other people's advice to learn the readings and/or use Japanese keywords for these kanji. I will also not sweat so much how perfectly I get them down.

Yeah Chadokoro_K, I noticed you just zipped through those kanji! I wish I had more free time between working on my master's experiment and hanging out with my good buddy before he leaves Europe forever.

I think I'll aim to devour the entire 50-kanji lesson tomorrow... Thursdays are a very good day for me to learn new kanji, and big numbers like that don't scare me. Of course I'll have to squeeze in lesson 52 in today.

I can't believe I'm almost there! I'm really looking forward to finishing. Coming up with stories is fun but time-consuming, and I really need to focus my energy on my upcoming end-of-studies exams. (2 oral exams, alone with the prof, each 1 hour long, covering everything I learned in the past three years. Worth 33% of the final grade that represents my entire studies!)

Anyway ganbarou!

and fiminor, are you moving forward? Your profile has been at 1977 kanji for quite a while.

Akrodha, you've been making fast progress as well... Especially considering all the other studies and exam prep you've got going.

Good luck on finishing lesson 52 today and then the last big one on Thursday. I'm sure you can do it. Especially if long lessons/sessions don't scare you. It feels really great to know that after lesson 53 there are only three lessons of 28, 20 and 17 kanji remaining!

What do you say, fiminor? Can you join us in this?

We really are almost there!

akrodha Wrote:and fiminor, are you moving forward? Your profile has been at 1977 kanji for quite a while.

Chadokoro_K Wrote:What do you say, fiminor? Can you join us in this?

Hey guys! Wasn't meaning to ignore you, but have been studying with just the book for a few days, concentrating on writing stories and learning the new kanji. Am pretty confident I know up to the last two chapters and will add them to review on this site shortly. Efforts at reviewing online, however, have been somewhat hampered by the individual(s) who kicked my partner's door in (actually leaving the door intact but the frame in splinters) and stole my laptop. :/

Yikes! I'm sorry to hear that, fiminor. I'd be very disgruntled if that happened to me. So what now? Is the police going to do anything?

fiminor, that's terrible! I hope the police can do something about it.

Disgruntled is a good word for this kind of situation! Was borderline annoyed yesterday (on the angry side of borderline, rather than the mild irritation side), but have moved on to disgruntled today. Hey-ho, these things happen. Police have obviously been involved, but I think I'll be extremely lucky if I get it back. Anyway, what is insurance for, after all?

On with the reviewing anyhow! I WILL catch you up Chadokoro_K, and don't think you're getting ahead of me akrodha! Not that there's a competetive streak emerging... Please, go ahead, no really, after you, I mean it!

Definitely not a race, but good to know you are both pushing yourselves and after a difficult few days, I'm back there with you!

Hey fiminor and akrodha, I just posted to the "I just finished RTK I, please congratulate me" thread. Yippeee!

I want to thank both of you for your support and encouragement. Keeping track and in touch with others who were at the same place as I was just let me take off!

I look forward to reading both of your posts to the above thread -- which I know will be soon.

fiminor, good luck with your situation and getting that insurance to pay off. (You'll forever be tied to ATTITUDE in my mind as that was the kanji I was on when I read of your ordeal and your ABILITY to keep a good ATTITUDE in your HEART.)

akrodha, good luck with all of your exams (and in perfecting all the lines, squiggles, and what-not in your writing -- wink!)

Fiminor: Ah, wonderful, wonderful insurance! I hope they don't come up with some weak excuse to pay you less. It sucks to lose all your data but then again this probably means you'll get to go laptop shopping with an insurance check!

Chadokoro_K: WHEEEEEEEE! Congratulations! Man, you really zipped through those last 300 kanji. Good job!

I'm done! Wheeee! Fiminor, join me up here... the weather is great!

I've been looking for this post everyday...

Congratulations, akrodha! I agree with the WEEEEEEE! ... The weather is definitely great up here.

Good luck with your exams!

OK fiminor, one more post to go!

Im having the opposite problem-Im going to fast. I just went from 1262 to 1364 today in about 2 hours. Thats bad. Thats like a minute a kanji.

Im really impatient if I dont see progress. I took the 2 hours to study the kanji, so I at least have the motivation and power to spend long periods of time studying, but thinking of an image in my head for 5-10 minutes straight and learning a measly 10 kanji a day is just something I have a hard time doing. Despite my rush I dont think Im doing much worse than the average guy. I forget more at a faster rate, which slows me down since I have to go back, but Im also burning through them, which speeds me up.

Also, I have 900 expired kanji in box 3. I just dont feel like going through them again..I hate redundancy. But I think Im gonna have to start all over and readd the flash cards and slow down my review a bit.

Quote:Also, I have 900 expired kanji in box 3. I just dont feel like going through them again..I hate redundancy. But I think Im gonna have to start all over and readd the flash cards and slow down my review a bi

I say just stick it out. Rather than starting from the beginning, just chip away at that pile. If 900 looks daunting, just shoot for 20-30 a day. Maybe half of them will go back to the red pile, but some will advance and if you keep a steady pace, you'll get through them soon enough. I'm right with you. I took a 2-week break and I now have 830 expired cards, but I'm pushing myself to get through 20 "passed" cards every day, and every morning I have fewer expired cards than I did the previous morning. You can do it too!