First of all
THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH FOR THIS SITE!! and for everyone's support and willingness to post up their stories.

After almost exactly one year I put typed in my last kanji into my SRS.

As soon as I finished I played a short celebration playlist on Songbird (Last Dinosaur and Funny Bunny by the Pillows a J-rock group) and munched on a Twix I had bought specifically for this moment.

Victory has never tasted so sweet!

I'm guessing this is what if feels like to go super-saiyan, the first time at least.

Now onto book 3!!

I have finally reached the pinnacle of RTK1! Thank you every one for the amazing stories. I am truly speechless at this moment because it has been such an uphill battle since I started. It seemed that all I did was binge on kanji and the review them for ever then finally have enough time to do more...!

One of the things I am proud of is that in 1 year and 22 days, I have 1475 cards in my 4+ deck which means I almost have 75% ofn RTK in my long term memory and I have a nice 406 in my 7+ uber memory pile. Well I am off to celebrate this amazing victorie of defeating kanji... (ya right XD).

P.s... reviews are going to suck for the next couple of weeks XD.

Yay! I'll be reviewing for some time, but I finally added the last of RtK1 today. I don't think I ever would have done it without this site. So, a big thank you for everyone's stories that I used along the way.

Siiiiiiiiign of the snaaaaaaaaake yiiiiiihaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Daizumi Wrote:Siiiiiiiiign of the snaaaaaaaaake yiiiiiihaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

And first registered in 2007, nicely done!

lagwagon555 Wrote:

Daizumi Wrote:Siiiiiiiiign of the snaaaaaaaaake yiiiiiihaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

And first registered in 2007, nicely done!

Yes!!!!!!!!!!! Gotta love the sign of the snake!!! <3

I just wanted to set the records straight.

"Valeant benefici,
poenas dent malefici."

This is Latin of course, and thank you Mr. Heisig for
this little pearl of wisdom.

Since both sentences are in the subjunctive present,
the translation is quite simple, and the most direct
translation would be:

May the kind ones be valiant,
may those malicious pay the penalties.

I wish you all the luck with all your RTK efforts!

Cheers
-MrFour

Thanks :-)

First registered in 2007, put it away, started over again, put it away again etc etc you know how it is :-)

Haha the last 500 were crazy hard though. I think I am going to give my brain a rest before starting with RTK3.

I'm at 1200 now. Worry though as I think "what really am I learning". I feel like learn no Nihongo at moment , just kanji kanji no end not even real meanings. Will end soon I hope

vinniram Wrote:I'm at 1200 now. Worry though as I think "what really am I learning". I feel like learn no Nihongo at moment , just kanji kanji no end not even real meanings. Will end soon I hope

Don't worry you'll finsih, nothing lasts forever. Not even the universe itself

Okay, so. Er. I finished RTK1! I've been at it for... yeah, actually, I've been afraid to check, but... ah, I guess I registered here in January last year. So, so much has happened, and not all of it has been pleasant to say the least. But things are looking up. I think.

I've been building vocab on the side, which together with all-round practice I think clues me in pretty well as to the action on the channels I follow on IRC. Anki says just under 1800 individual words, reading and all. I've been considering sentence mining, but I dunno. Probably, yeah, but old habits die hard. And figuring out good study habits is hard as --what's policy on profanity in here? Yeah. That.

I'll probably be taking the JLPT this December for kicks. I'm thinking 3級, but I dunno. I really, really need practice, and I'm just a bit too talented as far as procrastination goes. Maybe, maybe.

I think this thread was about RTK1, come to think of it. Well, yeah, I'm done. Reviews are coming along nicely. 1700 cards in 4+. Congratulations to the rest of you - now I really know what it takes, what sort of effort people pour into completing this.

Now on to the next thing. KO2001, maybe? I have no idea. Oh well, maybe I'll think of something. Oh, also, I think this is my first post on this forum. Hello, everyone!

good work gnyffel from what people say on here, an optimal study approach is to do "Tae Kim Grammar Guide" followed by "2001: A Kanji Odyssey". But of course do what suits you best.

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After 1.5 years, and a huge break at frame 829 from which I had to recover, I've finally finished

I feel like finally I can start to learn this beautiful language!!!

Thank you all those who wrote great stories. I can't believe it. There isn't another page to turn. I can put the book away and just do reviews now !!!

Tae Kim here I come.

Way to go guys!

I finished today and got the default response from my "friends", that of course being: "How many do you actually remember though? " said in a mocking and you're-never-going-to-learn-Japanese-because-it-is-impossible tone. So they *still* aren't convinced that I remember any of them, which can be very discouraging at times.

I've convinced two other people to learn Japanese however, and they in turn have convinced people themselves! And it does feel as if the most tedious part is over now. =]

woo!

atarakushi Wrote:I finished today and got the default response from my "friends", that of course being: "How many do you actually remember though? " said in a mocking and you're-never-going-to-learn-Japanese-because-it-is-impossible tone. So they *still* aren't convinced that I remember any of them, which can be very discouraging at times.

I've convinced two other people to learn Japanese however, and they in turn have convinced people themselves! And it does feel as if the most tedious part is over now. =]

You know this happen to me but what happened was.A few friends of mine were afraid I was becoming "japanese".They thought i was going to do everything in jp,dress,speak,write,etc. I said yea i want to! lol
But after a while they got used to it.So it's normal.
Initially they may think it's impossible but after a while they will get used to it.
I've had some friends who were like wow, while others where like your becoming japanese. While others just said good job, nothing else.It varies between people but just keep learning, it's hard to convince others.

I started a little over a year ago, took break of a little over four months where I had gotten frustrated and finally given up, but I picked it back up and today I finished (ok, it was RSH, but I didn't see a similar thread in the Chinese section)!

After getting the lukewarm "oh, nice job" from family and friends I had to post here. Anyway, now I'm more motivated than ever. You kanji learners are lucky to have more than one book, I wish RSH 2 was published... time for me to go find new characters to learn!

rcloud Wrote:I started a little over a year ago, took break of a little over four months where I had gotten frustrated and finally given up, but I picked it back up and today I finished (ok, it was RSH, but I didn't see a similar thread in the Chinese section)!

After getting the lukewarm "oh, nice job" from family and friends I had to post here. Anyway, now I'm more motivated than ever. You kanji learners are lucky to have more than one book, I wish RSH 2 was published... time for me to go find new characters to learn!

Be happy that you're done with the book and go learn the language instead.

rcloud Wrote:After getting the lukewarm "oh, nice job" from family and friends

Yeah, what is up with that? You show them alllll the work and time you've put in, and are they impressed? No. >< But we on here are. Congrats!

rcloud Wrote:You kanji learners are lucky to have more than one book, I wish RSH 2 was published

BTW RTK2 does not teach you any new characters (well, a handful), it teaches you the pronunciation. It's RTK3 that teaches the extra characters.

Hey everyone! I thought I'd actually go ahead and finally post some, lurker that I am...

I finished RTK1! It took me 2 months longer than I had planned, but after a grande total of 6 months of work I got it done. It was quite a ride, and I wanted to thank EVERYONE on this site for all the help. Some of the stories and ideas I'm never gonna forget, and I know this site is to thank for it - Mark of Zorro, Bruce Lee, The Pinnacle just to name a few of the more ingenious ones - and so many others I don't even recall right now. Thanks for everything, it was incredibly motivational to have a place to go where I knew others were going through the same ordeal, a place where I can get help should I require it. What a motivational boost this site is apart from everything else, and I really want to make my thanks clear.

I'm still doing my reviews, and I will move onto the RTK1 supplement and RTK3 later - I don't quite feel up to adding more Kanji at the moment! Having also learned the Hiragana (I did Kanji before that anything else, as a sort of "don't you dare give up now, look waht you did first!! thing") and following up soon with Katakana, I am well on my way to actually learning Japanese. It's gonna be a long road, but I'm glad you all were around for it!

I just finished! Woohoo! It took me a little more than a month longer than I though it would (for a total of about 10 weeks), but I managed to complete not just RTK1, but the supplement as well!

HUMONGOUS thanks to the stories people submitted, for giving me the tools I needed to progress, and to the forums, for giving me the will. Now to start on readings, and moving away from the keywords

Man, it's been a long eight months, but I am finally done. I think I feel more war-wearied than triumphant at the moment. I'd been experiencing some burnout, but I pushed through. I think I'm gonna give myself a break from all things Japanese (except for reviews, of course) until my classes start in three weeks - it'll be interesting to see how much RTK helps in a college classroom setting.

Anyways, I think I owe a very big THANK YOU to Fabrice and to everyone who posted stories. I truly couldn't have done it without you.

Congrats to all of you! 羨

Congrats from me as well - wish I was there!!!