... any words of advice/encouragement from those who've survived the passage?

Finding this bunch particularly hard to get into for some reason and progress has stalled, but am keeping up to date with reviews.

1) Absolutely keep up to date with your reviews
2) Study at least a few kanji per day so you don't lose the habit of studying new kanji (around that time I think I was averaging 10-15 new kanji per day)

Even if you go through this lesson really slowly, the important thing is not to stop moving, because that is when you may find yourself sort of dropping the whole thing. To succeed you must keep your habit.

Cheers and good luck

I strongly second the pointers that Seren wrote.

Back when I was running through RtK1 I was thoroughly intimidated by lesson 16 because I first started doing RtK1 with the aim to get perfect handwriting (and those curvy strokes would always seem to end up just a few degrees off). This led to me "taking just a few days off" after lesson 15 before moving on to lesson 16, which ultimately became a three months break (I did keep up with the reviews though). So I would say you should absolutely keep your momentum going by doing at least a few each day even if the lesson you are approaching seems particularly daunting.

Good luck with your journey through RtK1!

Thanks so much for the encouragement and validation, I really appreciate the feedback and it's made me pick up the pace again today (like Seren, shooting for about 10-15 a day; started out trying for 25-30 but quickly realised that I couldn't keep that up). I've tried to at least dribble in a couple of kanji every few days over this soggy patch so as not to lose the habit altoghter, and it's really helpful to hear from those who've got past the boggy bits on the road (am sure this won't be the last).

Isbilenper, I hear you on the frustration of trying to get kanji looking right - the "road" radical is my bete noir, and any kanji that stacks primitives three-high ends up looking weirdly leggy and wan, like a sprout grown under the stairs. (I rationalise this with the thought that my near-indeciperable Romanji handwriting is never going to win any calligraphy awards, and that my primary school teacher probably wouldn't recognise any of the letter forms once so carefully taught. My kanji (a grandiose phrase, that), by contrast, still have the infantile clarity of the complete novice and, since they're being learnt in middle age and with the same respect afforded to numerals and music notation, they may never lose it ...)

One pleasant side effect of slowing down and consolidating reviews is that my recall rate has gone up, assisted by the necessity of generating my own stories and also, I suspect, by a growing understanding of how this aspect of memory works.

This lesson did me in a few months ago and I ended up taking a break for awhile and ultimately starting over. This time when I got to the lesson I was nervous it would beat me again, so I sat down for most of a Saturday and went through the whole thing once as quickly as I could making a decent story for each but not worrying too much about getting them all perfect. I found the next few lessons much easier and then I've just been going back and reviewing the ones in lesson twenty three more often. I'm at 1200 now and I'm pretty good with all those kanjis now as Ive spent the most time on them. I really agree with what was said above, momentum is crucial.

I'm going to start lesson 21 tomorrow, seeing 23 in the distance makes me almost reluctant, but 20-50 new kanji a day and the lesson won't be too bad. I did have a little trouble with lesson 18 at times though, so I won't underestimate it.

I recently finished RTK 1 and have moved on to RTK3 with the same principles that got through through to the end of RTK1. Even when i was really sick, i still sat at my computer coughing my lungs out with drowsy medicine and what not and followed the principles below. That's just me. Hope you guys can take away something from this.

1) There's a tip that says to do the thing you hate the most first thing in the day (if possible) or at least the first thing when you have time everyday.

2) figure out a DEFINITE daily quota and meet it no matter what. Mark on your calender expected date of RTK finish and do what it takes to finish that day. Wishy washy ranges don't help cuz then it's too lenient and a non-specific daily goal. Doing a definite quota a day means you can calculate the day you will finish the book. It tells you that there's light at the end of the tunnel!. Which is really important otherwise you feel like you're in an ocean of pages and pages of kanji and you have absolutely no idea when you will finish. (where's the light, man?). Figure out a number that you can reasonably do everyday, in the time that you have (I personally picked a quota that I can handle in 2 hours, that's where my creativity starts running dry) and in the capacity that you can handle so that you won't burn out. Pick a specific number to be your quota. Mine was 40 - exactly, not 35-40, 30-40. It's 40, and it will take me 25 days to finish 1000 kanji. If you can only do 20 a day that's fine. And I make sure I meet my quota even when I REALLY feel like quitting at 20 or 30 or 35. I just keep going. That's my limit, even on days when I feel like I can do more, I don't I just cut it off because I know doing more will come back at me in reviews and burn me out.

3) - This sort of goes with #2,I've noticed what derails me and maybe other people in that... the more I focus on how much more kanji i have to do, or how many more kanji til I reach my quota for the day,the more distracted and the more i feel like quitting. It's very important to not look forward, not look backwards and to just stay in the present, stay focused, keep your head down in the books and focus on your current frame. do it then move to the next and so forth. It's a grind, but you don't focus on that fact. Just concentrate on your present frame. If you don't it's just like looking at the clock every five minutes wondering when the work day will end but this is like looking forward and wondering how many more kanji you have to go to your quota or to the end of the book. In the end your time is less productive because you're not focusing on the current frame that you have to get done--NOW. It's better to just focus, do the work and the quota will be done before you know it.

4) Dont spend so much time on the forum reading When it is time to do your kanji, FOCUS. Reading the forum and relaxing comes AFTER you finish your quota. The forum is forbidden til then! it's just another form of distraction. distraction distraction distraction.. the point is to get the hated grind over with as fast as possible so you can move on to doing more interesting things in your day such as reading the forum and whatnot. Don't delay finishing your quota.

P.S. as you get more familiar with the method, in that you become more efficient in making good stories that stick, you find your quota can be increased. I started with 15 kanji a day and that was tough already, but i'm at the point where I"m so used to the method I can do 40 kanji a day in the time I used to do 15 a day. do just do a quota that you can handle.

I do not agree completely with your second point, Miyumera. What I find to be better is just looking over each lesson and figuring out where different primitives are introduced and so forth. For instance, say that a lesson is like this:

primitive 1 - 9 kanji
prmiitive 2 - 7 kanji
primitive 3 - 14 kanji

Every day, I have two sessions with 10-15 (sometimes as much as 18) kanji each. The way I would do the aforementioned hypothetical lesson would be taking the 16 (9+7) first kanji in the first session and 14 in the next because I find it easier to learn kanji that have something in common together (exceptions might be the finger-radical, of which quite a few characters are based.) I do agree with the main theme of your second point though, which is the regularity of kanji learning, but I don't feel like there have to be a definite number. (I have calculated that my method will make me finish the 1st of September though, so I know which day the light in the end of the tunnel comes.)

Your first point is spot on though! I always do the reviews first (the most boring part), then I treat myself with my sentence deck (which is quite fun, actually) and after that I do my first kanji learning session of the day. (The second session is more flexible, and I do it when I'm bored or just before going to bed.)

/my 2 yen

EDIT: I'm at lesson 23 as well, and even though it is frustrating, I just keep going, and relearn the ones I forget. (It has helped me with frustrating kanji before, like 消, 宵, 量, 然, and so on; I think the "wee hours" one didn't stick until the fourth time I relearned it or so.)

Stian Wrote:Every day, I have two sessions with 10-15 (sometimes as much as 18) kanji each. The way I would do the aforementioned hypothetical lesson would be taking the 16 (9+7) first kanji in the first session and 14 in the next because I find it easier to learn kanji that have something in common together (exceptions might be the finger-radical, of which quite a few characters are based.) I do agree with the main theme of your second point though, which is the regularity of kanji learning, but I don't feel like there have to be a definite number. (I have calculated that my method will make me finish the 1st of September though, so I know which day the light in the end of the tunnel comes.)

Granted, the bottom line of the 2nd point was to make the finish date for the book concrete in your mind because that's going to motivate you EACH DAY to stay on schedule to reach it. I'm not sure how you are able to calculate your end date unless you looked through the whole book, but that's besides the point. The fact that you did is all that matters. I didn't when I started out and it was an on and off daunting business. Good for you!

Some primitives have 64 characters (when you get to RTK3 -flower primitive :p) what do you do then? (thought rtk3 is not the point here) . What's to say you'll feel motivated 3 days from now if the quota was to finish 3 primitives that adds up to 45 when today you're cool with a sum of 27? I only say a definite number because for me personally i have a limit to my imagination/creativity runs dry and/or I know I risk burn out several days later when the cards come back to me in the reviews, so if i pick a number that i know keeps the balance in both these factors, then I can keep the momentum til I'm done. End date and momentum--ok 2 main points to having a definite number.

oh.. i guess 3rd point, when I have a definite number I know I'm doing the max number of Kanji that i can per day (thought this might not be important to others)

I understand your point though. Perhaps some people can be more disciplined than others with an indefinite quota each day, however some people who need more motivation/discipline might need something more concrete and structured.

I just looked at the number of kanji per lesson on this site. I tend to check there how many kanji there are, and then divide them into mostly equal parts. If a lesson have 42 kanji, I would aim to do 14 per session and it would take me 1.5 days. If I've done 14 in session one, and I see that after two more kanjis, a new primitive would be introduced, I would do the additional kanji.

In short, I plan before I start each lesson how much time I would use on it, and then divide it along the way. If that makes any sense...

EDIT: In other words, I would stretch the segments to fit around the introduction of new primitives, if possible.

Why do you all find this lesson so daunting? I'm halfway through it already and am enjoying myself immensely. Is it because it's so long? I noticed it stops far into the 700's alright, but just think of it as two lessons merged into one

Study only as many kanji per day you can manage.

I notice that I fail more kanji than usually now that I've been through that one -- the second review is always tough, but now it is even worse. I just hate the finger-kanji so much...

I just finished this lesson today and I agree with most of what's been said here. Not worrying about how many kanji we need to study until the end of the lesson (or of the book), studying only what you can manage in one day (like Errol246 already said), and keep reviewing them until you know. I had two days I barely added new kanji, and just kept reviewing these new. I guess planing is also good (I didn't plan anything, and now reading this I think it should have been done).

This isn't really about the lesson itself, but one of my problems at this point is the number of keywords that have similar meanings or even the same meaning in my language (it's easier for me to remember since I'm not a native english speaker), and often I get them wrong because of it.

Good luck