Yea, if you are going to do RTK2, just do the Pure and Semi-pure groups. I think the rest of the book is just filler so every kanji from RTK1 is covered. Definitely do iknow/smart.fm! The vocab building is great but improved listening comprehension is what makes that site the best.

Wow, the march class is great! Congratulations everyone!

Still quite some way to go for me...but we will all get there in the end, eh?

bodhisamaya Wrote:Yea, if you are going to do RTK2, just do the Pure and Semi-pure groups. I think the rest of the book is just filler so every kanji from RTK1 is covered. Definitely do iknow/smart.fm! The vocab building is great but improved listening comprehension is what makes that site the best.

lol, you're like a solicitor for that site. Did they pay you to advertise it everywhere? lol... seriously, you're gonna end up convincing me to do it one of these days...

Welcome Newkie, to the class of March 09! Amazing speed to do it in 2 months -- I took just under 7. Are you on twitter btw? It's a good way for people to give daily updates and encourage one another to stay with the Japanese daily. See http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=2342

wow, that is awesome.

igordesu Wrote:lol, you're like a solicitor for that site. Did they pay you to advertise it everywhere? lol... seriously, you're gonna end up convincing me to do it one of these days...

Igor, go spend one week over there and then come back and tell me I am overzealous. When it was down for updates, all of us that use it were going crazy from study withdrawals.

bodhisamaya Wrote:

igordesu Wrote:lol, you're like a solicitor for that site. Did they pay you to advertise it everywhere? lol... seriously, you're gonna end up convincing me to do it one of these days...

Igor, go spend one week over there and then come back and tell me I am overzealous. When it was down for updates, all of us that use it were going crazy from study withdrawals.

I don't know about that, I used iKnow for 3 weeks and I think it's very overrated. Their SRS algoritm is not only off, it's too simplistic. The various trainings they supply are often quite useless in the long run. The good thing about iKnow is the repository of native sentences with audio... but if you export those sentences and use in Anki instead, that's much better.

I'm going to do my best to finish tomorrow. See you soon!

Go Fanki!! Will be looking for your victory dance here soon

March 09 class is 11 and counting... Fanki, you will make us an even dozen

(joxn_costello, transvestor, Mesqueeb, sansibar, tristanthorn, Konfu, igordesu, fluxcapacitor, decals, Harrow, Newkie... they just keep piling into the I FINISHED thread)

There are 13,470 registered users now. I wonder how many are finishing each month :o

bodhisamaya Wrote:There are 13,470 registered users now. I wonder how many are finishing each month :o

Well, if this thread is any indication, it looks like about 0.1%

What can I say, it is lonely at the top

bodhisamaya Wrote:There are 13,470 registered users now. I wonder how many are finishing each month :o

I think a more realistic pool to look at is Active Member: ACTIVE MEMBERS
1549 members have been reviewing in the past 30 days. 11 have finished this month so far, with two more on the verge of joining the March 09 class.

Let's say 10/month on average = 120 people finishing a year, which would be around 8%.

Of course, most users don't post: The modal number of posts is 0.
So there may be some people using the site and finishing who don't read the Forum and/or aren't interested in sharing their progress.

Yes, this is true. I was looking at that the other day. 13,470 includes everyone who signed up since day one including those who never got beyond the tenth frame before losing interest. Though the number of registered users has been climbing fast lately.

13,471 now. Someone registered as I was posting

Statistics are definetly skewed. I moved to Anki about 5 months ago, but get back to these fourms as a reward for a completed review run.

So "active" is not really "active".

Posting is also not something all users do often - this is my first post in months.

Eitherway - this community helps daily.

[ファブリス]

Yeah look at the active members page (the one that takes forever to load and which is going to feel much better after refactoring ;-)). There are even ~500 users out of those 13000 who never logged in after registering

Okay! I finally finished! It took me one day longer than expected because I had other stuff to do, but who cares. I did it

Well done, Fanki!

Omedetou, Fanki!!! Welcome to the class of March 09, we are 12 now (well, probably more, just counting those who have posted on this thread!).

Enjoy your accomplishment. One giant step among many in the quest to learn this language.... How long did it take you, BTW?

Harrow Wrote:Omedetou, Fanki!!! Welcome to the class of March 09, we are 12 now (well, probably more, just counting those who have posted on this thread!).

Enjoy your accomplishment. One giant step among many in the quest to learn this language.... How long did it take you, BTW?

Almost 2 months, I started on february 4

Fanki Wrote:

Harrow Wrote:How long did it take you, BTW?

Almost 2 months, I started on february 4

Fast! Same as Newkie, I think. The speed demon from our March 09 class is Konfu, who did it in a month, yikes! 7 months was about right for my not-so-young brain, I slowed down whenever my fail rate on reviews skyrocketed and then picked up the pace again as fail rate recovered.

1-2 months!? Craziness! You guys are beasts. I'm going as fast as I can to be able to make my own post that matters in this thread. Only 1100 more to go But the more I know... and the better I get at crafting the best stories for my mind... the faster they're sticking. Seeing you guys finish is inspiring. Keep the victories rollin'!

FINALLY! I've just conquered RTK1 after starting in October 2008 and having a very patchy on-and-off study schedule...

I got my kaboose over to Osaka on Feb 12 and it has been without a doubt THE BEST motivation to keep up the Heisiging. For anyone who hasn't finished RTK1 yet, let me tell you now, it is nothing short of blissful to be doing RTK while in Japan... you walk down the street and every single day you spot a new kanji you understand, or you can suddenly make out the meaning of a shop's name, or understand a new item on a menu, or write another one of your Japanese friends' names, etc. I really really recommend it. I managed to get from #600 to #2042 in under 2 months because I was so driven — very unusual for me!

I want to thank everyone for your brilliant and creative stories, as they have been my main reason for using the site (I use Anki for the flashcards because I like certain features it has). Some of those stories made me laugh out loud, and some of them amazed me with their ingenuity. Mr T and Spiderman were my favourites :-) A Japanese friend of mine asked the other day how on earth I could remember how to write her name, and without thinking I said, "oh it's easy, it's got Spiderman in it" xD

Most of all though, a huge thank you to Fuaburisu. You ROCK. This has to be one of the most useful sites ever created, and it's so well maintained and presented. I'm a bit 乏 right now, having just come to Japan and still getting work sorted out, but as soon as I have a bit of cash a donation to RevTK will certainly be in order.

And now, onto bigger and better things... RTK3 and real Japanese, here I come!

Omedetou, jackswitch, and welcome to the Class of March 09 from a fellow classmate! You are the 13th person to reach the RTK1 mountaintop and plant your flag in this topic this month

Your comment about your good experience doing RTK while in Japan reminds me of my experience when I was in China last October, visiting an aunt who is doing intensive study of Mandarin. I was so pleased to be able to recognize characters on building, signs, etc., and between the two of us we were able to sort-of read plaques at the Great Wall.

She has since acquired the newly published Hanzi volume and is having the same gratifying experience of making much more rapid progress on Hanzi than she was ever able to before, despite high commitment and many hours a day.

I finished three days ago, I haven't felt that greater rush of euphoria yet, I'm actually quite concerned.