YES YES YES, I FINISHED TODAY 16:00 TUESDAY THE 15TH OF DECEMBER

Thanks guys, it took me 2 attempts and a year off between those attempts to finish, I've loved the stories and hope you found some of mine useful, I LOVE YOU ALL.

I'm smiling so much my jaw hurts

Congratulations to all the above! Feels (damn) good, huh?
As for me…well, I finished RTK like, last month but couldn’t get round to writing this post, but…better late than never, eh?
Yiiiiiiiiiiiiiihaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, I’ve finished!!!! HOOOOAAAAAARRRRR!!! I'M PART OF THE CLUB!!!!
Okay, glad I could get that out. Don't wanna sound like a geek but honestly, the day I finished (November 22nd) it felt like Christmas had come early...
As for stats…it took my just over 4 months and an average of 20-something kanji a day to get done, and by the time I got to the 1900’s I could barely bring myself to look at Anki; I expected to get a huge adrenaline-charge-and-finish-the-last-100-rush and it just didn’t happen throughout the whole process I never managed to do more than 50 a day…don’t know how those 100 a day guys managed it!
Part of the problem I had was total lack of internet access. I have no imagination and so was using this site for most of my stories, then I went to Ghana and net access became almost non-existent and so had to make up my own stories for the last 500 (dun dun DUN, shock, horror). I was staying in some village and the electricity would go off something like every two days so I couldn’t review, grrrr. And with no dictionary I didn’t know some of the keywords and I had to make up definitions; turned hedgemony into the phrase hedge money featuring a story about a cowboy from the west loosing his money on a hedge when he took off his leather pants () condor I made some flying machine for the mountain king and cinnabar is just some weird funky thing I had to mem by rote.
But enough complaining! What matters is that I’m done, finally, though in some ways I don’t feel finished at all coz even though it’s been almost a month I’m still getting a mega chunk of reviews a day :S (okay, right now I have average of 85 reviews a day but I want something like 30 – asking too much?). It’s still better than having to learn new ones though (that was just exhausting) and I’ve noticed my retention stats are improving now I can just concentrate on reviews.
Right so what’s next? I’m doing the AJATT method so planning to mine sentences from a few manga I like, namely Kuroshitsuji and Naruto (skipping lines like “dattebayo!” and “kage bunshin no jutsu” of course ) also downloaded a subs2srs deck from a link on this site of the Bleach movies and Death Note which I may give a shot (though I keep hearing that Death Note is really difficult :S) I was leisurely going through Tae Kim’s guide as I waited for the Heisig reviews to become a little reasonable but doesn’t look like that will happen any time soon (though they have improved from the 200 a day ridiculousness they were last month :S) so will probably start proper sentence reviews in the next week or so.
So thanks so much everyone for all your stories (some were really clever, it’s amazing what people can come up with ) and a HUGE thanks to whoever runs this site (Fabrice? you are amazing too ) and anyone reading this who is at 312 or 1576 or something…I think the most important thing is to be consistent. At risk of stating the extreme obvious, if you keep doing even just 10 a day you’ll eventually finish whether you like it or not. And if a lazy sod like me can do it, so can you. All the best

Fuamnach Wrote:HOOOOAAAAAARRRRR!!! I'M PART OF THE CLUB!!!!

Thrilling, isn't it?

Quote:“dattebayo!”

Here's my little grammar lesson for today.

ってばよ This grammar indicates that you are Naruto. It's equivalent in form to combining the three particles って,ば, and よ. However it's meaning is not the combination of these particles, but simply that you are a ninja in a blaze orange jacket.

ってばよ can only be used at the end of a sentence. Even Naruto himself has no need to say he's Naruto multiple times per sentence.

Rule 1: after a noun or な-adjective. Add だ＋ってばよ

魚だってばよ！ Is fish, and I'm Naruto!
友達は親切だってばよ！ As for friend, is kind, and I'm Naruto!
ボブは魚が好きだってばよ！　As for Bob, likes fish, and I'm Naruto!

Rule 2: after a verb or い-adjective. Add ってばよ
面白いってばよ！Fascinating, and I'm Naruto!
猫がいるってばよ！There's a cat, and I'm Naruto!

Not feeling like Naruto today? Here's a secret: if you take off the ばよ part, the same two rules apply to the quote-topic particle 「って」.

Quote:“kage bunshin no jutsu”

In 漢字: 影分身の術. Now that you've finished RtK, you can see what that phrase means. Cool, hunh?

Oh, and that's two words plus two more 音読み in one shot. Not bad.

Congratulations to all those finishing up during the closing of this year!

Congratulations. Your membership cards are in the mail. This card gives you access to the highest levels of the world's governments, backstages passes to everything, and has a credit limit of infinity.

Finished! Next step: RTK3...

woohoo!

finally made it!

around 3 months is a lot of time.

Well, about 10 months after I started this little kanji journey, the first part has come to a happy conclusion. I've always been hard on myself, and was always aggravated at my lack of progress with RtK. Yeah, 10 months is "slow" for many, and I wholeheartedly agree that RtK is a task that can be done easily in a 3-5 month period. I just lost the thrill of learning kanji after awhile.

I started out at a decent pace of 20 per day, and had made it to 600-ish kanji in probably 2 months. After that, I really started to burn out and almost never put in new kanji, although I did keep up with reviews everyday. Ultimately, it took me nearly 7 months to make it to about 900 kanji. After that, I realized I had to pick it up if I was ever going to finish. I began a new habit of trying to do 50 a day... which only semi-worked. I ended up doing 50 one day, and maybe 50 throughout the rest of the week, lol. Ultimately though, I went rather fast (for me) through the last part of the book. I finished kanji 900-2042 in just under 3 months, despite having many lazy setbacks.

My experiences with RtK:

1. For me, keeping up with daily reviews was never much of an issue, and I didn't hate it per se. But adding new kanji after doing 40-100 reviews was just painful alot of days. Seeing as I work fulltime and go to school fulltime, plus like to spend a bit of my spare time running and playing games. And many times, after exhausting myself with reviews, new kanji just didn't even enter the picture.

2. Although I began losing interest in learning new kanji at about kanji #600, without a doubt from #1500 on it was an absolute struggle to even look at this review page anymore. I became discouraged with falling retention rates, not really due to bad memory, but moreso due to the confusion with keywords and such. For the last 600 kanji, there are so many keywords meaning basically the same thing, but I would always remember the stories for all of them, and mix up the keywords. Another problem I had was Heisig really seemed to run out of ideas with primitives, and alot of them became more complex. This really hurt my studying because I would remember stories without a problem and usually one part of a kanji, but would keep forgetting the central primitive.

In conclusion:

Looking back, I've come a long way. From someone who had a shaky grasp of hiragana/katakana and didn't even know what kanji were, I think I made good progress RtK does work. It may not work for everyone, and (in some cases) it may lose its "fun" appeal, but if you stick with it, you will finish. I'd like to thank Fabrice, because I am almost certain had I not stumbled upon this site, I would have never finished this book. I also used MANY of your stories! A big thank you to all of the other very creative stories, especially dingomick. You really were my savior for the last 300-400 kanji, haha. I added some of my own stories here and there; hopefully some of you guys still studying will find some of them useful

A final note:

To anyone who is still on their RtK journey. keep at it! As many others have said, don't worry about speed and retention rates too much. Unless you are in a major rush to learn your Japanese, take it at a comfortable pace. I agree 100% that you should do your reviews everyday, but if you just don't feel like adding new kanji, then don't. I realized that if I tried to force-study when I had no intention of wanting to learn, I would fail miserably on my reviews the next day.

As for me, once my reviews lighten up a bit, it's off to Tae Kim and KO2001. I'm happy to be done, and proud. If I had told myself almost a year ago that I would voluntarily finish this book to the end, I would've laughed. I never thought I had it in me to finish. As a nice reward for finishing RtK, my copy of the JP version of FF13 should be in in a few days, so I can celebrate with that, and have no idea what is going on in the game! It will be a great learning tool (one day) and an excellent motivational tool, to keep me going when I lose sight of why I really want to keep studying Japanese.

Good luck to all the current RtK studiers, and see everyone in Japan! (one day)

*Cue Monday Night Football theme song

Done done done doooonnneeee
Done done done done dooonnneee
done done done done done dooonneee
Done done done done doooooonnnneeee
done done done done done

In other words.... I'm done!

Very similar story to Offshore... only it took me 9 months. Original goal was 4 months but life, school, and laziness got in the way and it more than doubled that time.

Oh well.... What's done is done and I'm done

Thank you everyone for your wonderful stories. I couldn't have finished this book without them. I hope mine help many others as well.

So congrats to me, you, those who finished before me, and all those who finish after me!

Keep it up guys! You can do it!!!

Hey! I did it too! I will master the rest!

Finished a few days ago, and it felt great! Thanks to everyone for your wonderful and inventive stories, as they helped me so much. This thread also gave me a lot of motivation to continue on when I felt like the end would never come.

Though probably nobody cares, I'd like to share some advice that I felt was useful...

1. Create some kind of avatar. Whenever I had to make a story out of pieces that didn't feature Mr. T, I had an avatar who could fill in. For me, that avatar was Goofy. I don't know why, but Goofy was easy for me to place into stories, because he could be funny, or serious, or anything else I wanted. Of course, when applicable, I chose a more appropriate avatar.

2. Take stories from here, but make them your own. I found that during reviews, I would want to change details (to incorporate somebody I know, or a movie character) that would make it more memorable for me. Sometimes I would rewrite the story in a way that my brain would easily process it.

3. Don't be afraid to make small tweaks in your stories over time. The first time you write a story, you don't actually know what is going to stick. That comes with time.

4. Use cartoon characters. This isn't based on anything but my personal experience, but I found that using cartoon characters in cartoon settings was easier for my brain to imagine. Using reality was tough! A snowy forest in a cartoon is far easier for my brain to imagine than a real snowy forest.

5. Learn a set amount per day, then SPAM them like crazy for 3 days. Of course, the number of days isn't a set thing, but if you continuously test yourself on just learned materials, it has a greater chance at setting into your long term memory, or so I've experienced. Afterward, such constant spamming is unnecessary, as it will have taken it's place in your brain.

It took me a while, but the time it took is irrelevant. I know them now. And with 2010, I begin book 3!

Congrats to everyone who recently finished. I still remember the day I finished RTK. It sure is a great feeling, isn't it?

To this day I'm still happy that I found out about RTK and this site because I had originally planned on taking a class. I'm sure kanji would still be a bunch of mysterious symbols to me if I had done that.

I'm happy, I finally made it. December 25th is when I saw all the kanji, all 2041 of them. Still carrying on with my reviews though, and moved on.

I started in August. My graph shows lots of up and down periods in my life.


Now it's time to build a vocabulary so I can actually read something interesting!

On December, 31st 2:08am GMT+1, I finished adding 巳 to Anki.

It took me about 11 months. I cannot tell exactly because I registered on this site some time after I started RTK1, but I think that 11 months is accurate.

Wait, this sounds a little bit too less emotional...

LISTEN UP FREE WORLD! DO NOT CARE IF YOU ARE OVER 30, HAVE A JOB THAT ROBS YOUR TIME AWAY, BE A NARCOLEPTIC, OR HAVE ENDLESS FRUSTRATIONS DURING RTK1... EVERYBODY CAN LEARN THE KANJI, AND I AM LIVING PROOF OF THAT!

Thank you for listening :-)

Now, I will go to bed and tomorrow, I will take my planned 210 card review that Anki has scheduled for me like a man, proud and without fear. Learning the Kanji has shown me that contrary of what I expected: My brain still works, and I can memorize and concentrate on everything I want. This experience is priceless.

Thanks to all of you, YOUR STORIES ARE FANTASTIC!

Done.

1 month behind schedule but I made it! Finally i can go back to actually studying Japanese.

Congrats to everyone whose made it! This is my first post, I finished today doing 130 per day for the last 5 odd days. I couldn't of done it without this amazing site and the great stories posted by members. Thanks!

Hopefully this marks the beginning of a long and fulfilling japanese journey, I think I'll be spending more time on the forums from now on.

Now to get some well earned sleep.

Well, I'm going to join the fray here too. I just finished with the first book after a week-long delay over the holidays. I'm only five days late of my deadline, though I did stories for like 300 kanji in the past 5 days and haven't reviewed any of the past 200 kanji I did yet. At least now I can focus on reviews again and maybe I'll have all 2050 learned in another 5-7 days of review. (I had to go up to 2050, I don't know why.)

Just added and finished the last card today. Of course, I have 200+ card reviews for the next few days, but no matter, from now on it's just review.

Just finished RTK1! WOOT! According to Anki it took me 1.7 months!!!

Six months, and it's finally over! I rushed the final ~500 kanji in about a week, which I don't recommend. Throughout my study of RTK1, I had two or three days in which I did around 150 kanji (about 7-8hrs of study, including breaks, etc.) and I had days in which I did no kanji and only reviewed, or didn't even review at all. Most people will be confronted with some timeframe in which studying kanji is not a real option: vacations, finals week, etc. Don't feel bad about these times, one of my breaks was visiting my girlfriend's hometown in Japan (which I certainly don't feel bad about), but return to studying as soon as possible before your habit of studying/motivation decrease. For example, I was burnt out after finals week last quarter and just generally wasted my time. Not only did it hurt my study, but it amplified my burnt out state of mind as well. Don't fall into the same trap.

Further suggestions to those still completing RTK1:

- Don't set lessons or a certain number of kanji as goals, but set time goals. For example, 1hr a day.

- Small gaps of time add up, even if you can only review one kanji.

- Don't end on some random kanji, but once a new primitive is introduced. I found that my memory worked the best when I focused my study sessions on primitive groups.

- 4-6 new primitives a day worked well for me. Anything more began affect my % remembered, and anything less seemed to be underachieving.

- Do not be discouraged by how much further you must go, but be encouraged by how far you have gone instead. I was able to learn more kanji in a smaller timeframe and retain them better when I went in with a positive, energized attitude.

- Avoid burnout. It's better to consistently study kanji every day rather than study in short-lived bursts

Ok, that's all folks. Thanks to everyone who has contributed stories and to this forum! This website has been my #1 resource for Japanese learning, and it's because of contributors like you. Thank you.

done. finally. 5 and a bit months of it and it's done. I have heaps of reps to do on the last 400 or so, but i have about 10,000 (slightly sporadic) reps on the first 1500-1600 so they're stuck in there pretty well.

vileru, you make some very good points. If i had a do-over i'd get rid of all the days where i didn't do any new reps and instead just do a couple of minutes every day. i finished by timeboxing 10mins of "storytelling" time every day without fail for 2 weeks and i flew through it. you'd be surprised how many stories you can write in 10 minutes...

I have katz's my first sentence pack parsed in excel and ready to be added to my SRS along with a whole bunch of other sentences that i've collected over the past few months to go on to. can't wait

I've just finished RtK1! Yippie-ki-yay! As John McLane would say ;) (with a little addition). I've been a user to the website since the June of 2008--though I started Heisig's course a couple of month earlier--so it took me quite a long time to finish. The first 800 kanji was pretty easy to learn, I've got through those in 3 months, but after that I got lazy and it took me almost a year to learn another 800, but managed I to finish! \^_^/

So, I felt invicible there for some minutes... until I've dug up RtK2 :) But I can't stop now, so my urge to learn will overpower my lazyness--eventually :)

As I took a glimpse in RtK2 my eyes were caught up on the handwritten form of some of the kanji's. 'You', the 'people of the forums' who already finished RtK1 and learning japanese actually can read text written like this? :D Oh, what about writing like this? :) One of my teachers at the university where I study at told me that it's becomes "natural" to read text like this after a while--unless someone doesn't know the proper stroke orders, because it can get very confusing without knowing them.

Anyway, I'm gonna celebrate now! ... Or probably not, because I have an exam tomorrow :( *bummer*

First, congratulations Mr. Psycho. I'm honestly just as impressed with the people who take an unusually long time as those who take an unusually short. It takes real persistence (obstinacy?) to keep going for so long.

I'm actually at a point where I'm having trouble with handwriting myself. Not that I can't read it (it's harder than typed, but not terrible) but that I can't produce it.

I think I'll go through the Yamasa dictionary and copy the handwritten examples into Anki and see where that gets me.

[Katsuo]

Psycho_Dad Wrote:As I took a glimpse in RtK2 my eyes were caught up on the handwritten form of some of the kanji's. 'You', the 'people of the forums' who already finished RtK1 and learning japanese actually can read text written like this?

Congratulations on finishing.

Many of the calligraphic forms given in chapter 1 are not easy to read, even for native Japanese. In a few cases they may help to show you the link between a particular kanji and kana (and therefore to learn one of that kanji's readings), but mostly are not useful. Note Heisig states that the characters inserted "will require some experience in Chinese calligraphy".

Yamasa, linked to above, gives three versions of each character:
Left: A style often used in newspapers, books, etc.
Middle: Textbook style (often used in school textbooks)
Right: handwritten style

The handwritten style is relatively neat, but does illustrate some ways in which handwriting often differs from printed characters.