Hah! Finished!!!!! It took me 2 months, everyday, nonstop but I finally did it!!!

Oh man what a feeling, it's like my body is all warm and fuzzy. What made it really great was the progress page that gives you a little congratulations message. My face lit up with a smile when I saw that.

I think I'll take a break from kanji for awhile. I mean I'll still review but I'm not going to jump into RTK3 just yet, maybe I'll add 5 a day or something but for right now I'm going to sentence mine, iKnow, and maybe check into KO2001.. I hear good things about it.

PS: Screw Kanji Lite, I did the whole thing! Haha!

Congrat FL1PPY! Really, I'm amazed: only 2 months. Are you a jobless person, a teen or retired person to have been able to do that?
How much time did it take you each day to make your review, and to enter new kanji?

YogaSpirit Wrote:Congrat FL1PPY! Really, I'm amazed: only 2 months. Are you a jobless person, a teen or retired person to have been able to do that?
How much time did it take you each day to make your review, and to enter new kanji?

I am an unemployed teen. D: But I sometimes help my dad out with his business. (I guess I'm not a total loser, right? Right??)

Anyway, this is how I review:

In the morning I'll do my reviews on Anki and that takes about 30-40 minutes.
Then I'll go over 25-35 new kanji in heisig to see what the new radicals are. (5-10 Minutes)
After heisig I'll check out the stories on this site and take 15 minutes to study the ones I like. (This is all in the morning)

After I get the stories, through out the day or at every hour I'll go over the kanji in heisig while reading the stories in my head, if I have trouble remembering the story I come back to this site and learn it again or find a new one (This takes about 5 minutes each time).

At the end of the day before I goto sleep, I write each kanji 4 times and then review the expired kanji from this sites SRS.(40 minutes- to an hour) (Although I heard it was bad to use Anki and this sites SRS at the same time).


So I guess overall about 2 hours. It didn't really take to much time out of my day as long as I didn't have a bad day and keep forgetting the stories and radicals.

Thanks for the feedback, dear unemployed teen. No shame on your status, we've all been there one day. But most of us were more occupied with chasing girls and playing video games than with learning Japanese

From I perceive, lightspeed progress often rely more on your capacity to focus on something than on the time you spend on it, and I guess that's where your current way of life comes in handy: allowing you to feel focused on ONE big thing at a time, enough to be able to think and come back to it all along the day. Nice but kind of unrealistic for most grown-ups with responsibilities. What I mean is that the type of process you describe should be reproductible by prisoners, jobless people or programmers having no tyrannic manager and sleeping all day long behind their computer screen in big companies (don't tell it does not exist), but rarely by people with regular jobs demanding a permanent attention.

Sulk by yourself. Bottom line traditional jobs suck ass. I'm glad I'm going down a path where I'll never have to do that "9 to 5" bullshit. The bottom line is that people aren't meant to be sitting at a desk for 8 hours + a day, there are smarter approaches to earning income, luckily not many people dare pursue them, making it an even more lucrative opportunity for those willing to take a bit of risk.

I'm done, I'm finally done. What a long, strange trip it's been. I've started the book 3-4 times, but alas the journey is complete. Rather, it is just beginning I feel. I am in Japan for a year on a study abroad program and I have learned a fair amount of Japanese up until this point, however I'm eager to truly be able to start the sentence method.

Good luck to everyone else who is working through the book.

At last I join the ranks. I was going at it pretty hard 100/day and at the 500 mark I was seriously worrying that my mind would not be able to cope with any more, that for every new kanji I learnt an old one would be pushed out . But I kept at it and after 21 days they were all done. The whole learning process was very interesting, and its led me to think a lot about how my mind works and how I remember stuff.

I have never studied Japanese and don't know a single thing about sentences and I'm pretty enthusiastic about starting on them. However I'm wondering if I should start RTK3 first and just get it over with while I'm still in kanji mode. Does anyone have any opinions about this?

Much thanks to Heisig and everyone for their stories.

Yesterbean Wrote:I have never studied Japanese and don't know a single thing about sentences and I'm pretty enthusiastic about starting on them. However I'm wondering if I should start RTK3 first and just get it over with while I'm still in kanji mode. Does anyone have any opinions about this?

If you've never studied Japanese before, and you're just going to start delving into beginner material, I would advise not to go too hardcore into it. Maybe a few a day. Because outside of the jouyou you won't cover too much non RTK1 kanji in your studies. Probably the biggest two you'll encounter are 誰 and 俺 which you could easily make stories for now. Later on when you get more in-depth, RTK3 will probably help you out. But for now I suggest a break.

WOOO! Just finished... It`s 06:16am on the 20/10/2009 a date i`ll never forget!!

WOOO!! SO HAPPY!

CerpinTaxt Wrote:If you've never studied Japanese before, and you're just going to start delving into beginner material, I would advise not to go too hardcore into it. Maybe a few a day. Because outside of the jouyou you won't cover too much non RTK1 kanji in your studies. Probably the biggest two you'll encounter are 誰 and 俺 which you could easily make stories for now. Later on when you get more in-depth, RTK3 will probably help you out. But for now I suggest a break.

Thanks Cerpin sounds like a good idea. No need to rush the learning of RTK3 if I'm not going to be using it for a while.

Well done LorenPaul! Feels good doesn't it.

Finally finished =)!!
It took so long after 1500 because school really took up all time that could be used for the kanji. I took 2 more weeks than expected but once I made it, I was so happy =DDD
Thanks everyone for the awesome stories! Even the more...shall we say 露骨文 *゜゜*

Once again, thanks for helping me increase my japanese proficiency. Now to work on those readings...

there u go
btw almost didnt write stories, just used the ones on the site, i just hope i hold something of this.

Deck criado: 9 dias atrás

Average New Seen
In last week
1622 (231,7/day)
In last month
2042 (68,1/day)

ty all for all the help and ty webmaster for making this website

Valeant benefici,
Poenas dent malefici!

=)

Me too! All done RTK1. Congratulations please!

I'm a bit ashamed to say that it took me 9 months though ... let's just say motivation started to wane at about frame 1,000.

Now I'm on to KM2 and more importantly wrightak's wonderful 'after RtK' deck for learning the readings of all those nasty little kanji Though I plan to wait a week just so my RtK Anki reviews drop from the current 70/day to about 20/day ... don't want to have *too* many new things ot reviews at once

http://wrightak.googlepages.com/afterrtk1

Just finished about 5 minutes ago. I studied a lesson a day for 56 days, and today was the last lesson. I fell behind on reviews (500 are piled up) but I hope to plow through that, now that I don't have to waste time adding new cards every day. I also forgot a lot of the stories and kanji that I haven't reviewed, so I should be able to rejuvenate my memory and gain a greater grasp on the kanji.

I can't say it was fun, but I think it was for the best. Before I had started RtK1 I honestly thought the kanji were just a bunch of lines that some idiot threw together. Now I have a greater understanding and respect for such, dare I say it, beautiful characters.

I think my greatest achievement is sticking to it. Over the past 56 days I didn't skip a day of adding new kanji and (at least some) reviews. It just shows me that I am capable of learning this new language, but I have to work to enjoy the rewards. I hope my application to SNG is accepted so that I can study abroad and learn the language at SNG's language institute. Until then, RtK1 is a fantastic start.

I finished the book today !!
It took me 2.5 months to finally get to frame 2042.
Man, I feel so ecstatic, I can finally post in this thread !!

Thanks to everyone for your great stories and to Fabrice for your awesome website !!

I just finished RTK1 (yesterday, as a matter of fact)... please congratulate me!

CONGRATS TO EVERYONE HERE! I just finished RTK, yesssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss. When i first came across the idea of memorising 2000+ kanji i thought it would be really hard, but i wasn´t, it was just a matter of time, and i could have done it much faster in the beggining. Did 1100 in the last 2 months, i got used to it. Sometimes i came across kanji that made me think, this one is a tough and complex one, but looking back at those kanji now, they seem so easy=D. It was really a fun journey, thanks to all of you. I recall some fun stories, like the quest of the rice seedlings to reach the promised land, and many others. A Thousand times THANK YOU, to the community of this site and to Fabrice for all the hard work, ALL of you people rock!!!

Well, I just finished RTK1. Of course there are many reviews to be done. In a few days, my pile 7 will begin to expire and move into pile 8... which is the real test, whether I can remember stuff after not seeing it for 3 months! Anyway... it took me 7 months to finish, but I didn't give up or start over. I took a lot of days off from adding anything, obviously, and occasionally had to catch up on a few days of missed reviews. Thanks to everyone for creating such GREAT STORIES.

Congrats all! Now the real study begins!

After waaaay too long I have finally stuck with it and finished. This past week has been rough knowing I was so close. Gonna take a few months break before starting 3. I don't know what I'll do with all the time I will now have. :-)

Congratulations everyone!

Well, old R86 has finally dragged himself over the finish line too. It took about 9 months to the day, and there was at least an entire month this spring during which I hardly added any cards, but it worked out OK as this allowed me to shrink those earlier piles through reviews.

Like so many others have said, I could never have done this without knowing there were so many others on the same path with the same goal, and without everyone's ingenious stories. I would be surprised if I made up as many as 50 of the 2042 stories on my own. My favorite borrowed story still is: "Yo momma so OBESE, she make the MOON change DIRECTION."

Congratulations, everyone, and thanks again!

(EDIT and disclaimer: I realize that of course this wasn't exactly "the finish line." Call it the first in a series of goals.)

Well, I finished RTK1. On to RTK2 tomorrow. It's been a long road. I just thought of that Japanese saying, 千里の道も一歩よりから, The journey of a thousand ri starts with a single step. (And since everyone here knows what a ri is.) I never would've come so far without everyone's stories and the fact that I knew there where others doing the same thing I was.
Thank you everyone!
And congratulations to everyone else who made it!

Bokusenou Wrote:Well, I finished RTK1. On to RTK2 tomorrow. It's been a long road. I just thought of that Japanese saying, 千里の道も一歩よりから, The journey of a thousand ri starts with a single step. (And since everyone here knows what a ri is.) I never would've come so far without everyone's stories and the fact that I knew there where others doing the same thing I was.
Thank you everyone!
And congratulations to everyone else who made it!

Bokusenou,

congratulations!
I am still on my journey but I can imagine how proud you must feel right now, having managed the RTK1.
Looking at your registration-date I feel confident I will get there, too, one day.

I have completed RTK1!! Hurrah. And now for the true giant leap in knowledge, sentences...

Thanks to everyone, especially those who provided good stories for the generic and difficult keywords.