I got to the end. That makes 16 months. Somehow I'm not as happy as I expected. Oh well, time for reviews, and onto the next thing.

why are you not happy? It's a great achievement you should be very proud of yourself.

Finally! been a long 7 weeks! Especailly since I was only doing Heisg ^^. Feeling a little blearly eyed now after teh not so bright idea to spend a whole saturday to finish off the last 150, what a wonderfull review gift I will get around tuesday!

Hats off to those that managed to come up with a unique story for each and every Kanji.

11 months and i finished it.. youpi!
congatulation to all people before me and after.

Congrats! seems the tumble weed is blowing a bit in this thread compared to its early parts ^^.

Good luck with the sentances My luck being what it is my first example sentence had a non hesig rtk1 kanji (復讐する。)

teroer Wrote:11 months and i finished it.. youpi!
congatulation to all people before me and after.

Le pti youpi est trop kawai...
En tout cas félicitations!

Eggcluck, congrats to you too!
Sign of snake is already making me drooling.
Have one thinking of us poor mortals still struggling...
Hai, Hai, I'm going back...

And the clock stops one day short of a full year. Yes, I've finally completed the book. Took me longer than I expected but I'm still happy I didn't quit even during the hard times and pushed myself all the way up here.

At the peak of RTK1 I must say that although the scenery is nice, it is clear there is still a lot of climbing to do. It feels like arriving to a base camp on the way to the top. Now I'll take a moment getting used to this altitude and then move on with the vocabulary.

Anyway, tonight I'm going to pop open a bottle of sparkling wine.

Spiralwood Wrote:And the clock stops one day short of a full year. Yes, I've finally completed the book. Took me longer than I expected but I'm still happy I didn't quit even during the hard times and pushed myself all the way up here.

At the peak of RTK1 I must say that although the scenery is nice, it is clear there is still a lot of climbing to do. It feels like arriving to a base camp on the way to the top. Now I'll take a moment getting used to this altitude and then move on with the vocabulary.

Anyway, tonight I'm going to pop open a bottle of sparkling wine.

congratulations on completing RTK1! Just keep up with your reveiws, enjoy the view and enjoy the sparkling wine XD.

Hi there, everyone

I just finished! I still have to review the cards I studied today in Anki, but I'm feeling pretty fantastic about this. I'm looking forward to my victory rice (rice with salmon furikake on it--I promised myself I wouldn't have any until I finished RtK, so it's gonna be way more delicious than it usually is).

@Spiralwood: Congratulations!

Hey everyone, I just finished a couple weeks ago for the second time, but due to not enough time, I didn't have the luxury of posting my achievement as soon as it happened. I decided to go through RTK1 once more to remedy one big mistake I made when learning them the first time: not adding them to an SRS. It took me a while to get it done the second time around, but at least now I'm carrying all of those kanji on my back as I continue my hardcore sessions dealing with sentences. I feel a lot more comfortable writing because of the thousands of reviews I've had so far with the SRS. Overall, it just feels good to finish and have them all "SRS'ed".

Congratz for you both, Im still on the 200ish one and reviews are starting to appear only now, hope I can post someday in this thread and be congratulated as well

I know you will...

Took me 3 months, but finally I'm done with RTK1, plus some extras I've picked here and there from RTK3! Somehow I feel I took really long, sometimes going up to only 10 kanjis every 2 hours, but on the other hand I got retention rates of over 90% on most reviews, so I guess it was worth it. Now all that's left is complete the April supplement, and finally I'll feel it's over!

I've FINISHED!!!

It's only taken me six years.

Let me explain. I bought RTK1 six years ago, and managed to get to about number 400 before giving up. Then four years ago I moved to Japan and got to about number 1100 before giving up. Then back in May I found out about Anki and I have been doing 33 new kanji a day ever since - with only a few lapses. And now I've FINISHED! I am now a kanji master

Well, not quite, but I'm already fluent in Japanese and it is benefiting my writing *a lot*.

There have been lots of interesting characters over these 2000 glyphs.

From the Simpsons: Homer, Marge, Bart, Barney, Abe, Mr. Burns, Smithers, Groundskeeper Willie, Chief Wiggum...

From comics: Superman, Spiderman, Wolverine, the Silver Surfer...

From games: Earthworm Jim, the portals from Portal, Solid Snake...

From manga: Excel from Excel Saga, Vash the Stampede, Momiji from Fruits Basket...

Real people: Mr. T, Bruce Lee, Queen Victoria, Napoleon, Tony Blair...

And many more that I can't remember right now! It's been quite a journey, thank you for all the stories that you've contributed. Oh, and did I mention that I'VE FINISHED!!!

@KREVA, perrin4869, and jacktaylor: Congratulations!!
@jonuhey: Keep going; I'm sure you'll be able to post here

やった！

After two years and multiple restarts I've finally completed RTK1. This current try would have probably ended up turning into a restart had I not continued to review my deck even though it was a few months before I had time to start adding new items. Now I can move along smoother in my studies. I have no plans to do RTK2 but in the future I may pick up RTK3.

I just finished RTK1, a few days shy of 3 months after starting. I had a somewhat easier time because I've picked up a few hundred kanji rather haphazardly over the years, and many times learning new kanji in RTK meant I could immediately associate them with Japanese words I already knew for which I previously didn't know the kanji. I don't know that I would have had the persistence to complete it if I understood no Japanese, since you're doing something that has no immediate return on the time invested (even if it's very helpful in the long term), so hats off to those beginners that manage to do so, because you're better than me.

Of course now I continue daily reviews; my recall rate averages around 85%, though it's more like 95% on mature kanji. After a few days break I'll be going on to RTK3. I've done a couple of dozen kanji from RTK3 already, either kanji I already knew or were useful to learn for use as primitives in RTK1. Overall I have to say the Heisig method was extremely useful to me for learning kanji. I tried rote memorization early on in my Japanese studies, and while I did learn quite a few simple kanji that way, it failed for me with more complex kanji. Finding this website was extremely useful as well, many stories here were very useful when I would otherwise be stumped.

Congrats everyone!
I finished RTK1 today after starting at the beginning of July, so it took me about 2 months.
I know that there is still a way to go, what with reviews and such, but it was such a relief to finally finish, and reach that 'sign of the snake'.
The Heisig method has helped immeasurably compared to my previous method of rote-learning, and I couldn't have done it without all the great stories on this site.

It really is amazing looking at a piece of Japanese text and rather than thinking "Oh no, what's that? What's that? And I've never seen that!" thinking "Oh yes, that means this, and that means that, and hmmm... I can't remember what that means but I've definitely seen it before."

Tefhel Wrote:Congrats everyone!
I finished RTK1 today after starting at the beginning of July, so it took me about 2 months.
I know that there is still a way to go, what with reviews and such, but it was such a relief to finally finish, and reach that 'sign of the snake'.
The Heisig method has helped immeasurably compared to my previous method of rote-learning, and I couldn't have done it without all the great stories on this site.

It really is amazing looking at a piece of Japanese text and rather than thinking "Oh no, what's that? What's that? And I've never seen that!" thinking "Oh yes, that means this, and that means that, and hmmm... I can't remember what that means but I've definitely seen it before."

Congrats on finishing so fast XD. Good luck on your next study challenge, what ever it might be.

wulfgar Wrote:Congrats on finishing so fast XD. Good luck on your next study challenge, what ever it might be.

Thanks! My next study challenge certainly will *not* be RTK3! Not for a long while yet.

やった！

Just finished RTK1 in a couple days over 6 months. Feels like a slow pace compared to some others here. I'm excited to start learning sentences!

So finally here I am.

Starting 2 years ago, finishing the book and then stopping my reviews at all after some 20.000, having my computer stolen (with all my custom keywords), starting again from 0 and doing other 12.301 reviews, I'm finally here, and all the 2.042 kanji are mine again, but this time forever.

This 2nd time I used Rikaichan and Wakan to check readings and words containing each kanji as I studied them, so I can see a kanji and tell at least the meaning and/or a word having it with at least 90% of accuracy.

For all those people who think doing RTK + SRS is beyond their capabilities, or who are in doubt whether they can do it or if it's worth it:

You can do it!

It is totally worth it!

You don't have to be a genius or kill yourself, just enjoy the ride, never give up and someday you'll be posting here enjoying your victory.

It feels a little weird ending the day without having any kanji to review in the system.

And for all the people who think kanji are boring or for superhumans, kanji aren't hard, they just take time, and with RTK + RevTK, they're anything but boring. Actually, I wish I met someone who enjoyed kanji like people over here.

Now, time to rest, and...

巳 SIGN OF THE SNAKE, YOU'RE MINE! =D

YES! Finally finished today after starting in April. What do I read on the subway now?

Kanzen Master?

Finally, after 2 months I have finally finished RtK. I actually finished yesterday but was a little caught up with other things (sentence reviews, grammar reviews, amongst other things). It does feel really good finishing though, first long term goal I've ever completed.

Thanks to everyone making the stories and for the support from this website. Definitely could not have done it without you guys