I finished it! Yay! Now for the readings...

Wow, I finished. Pretty much exactly on schedule, doing 40/50 a day this Summer, and now a week or so before I go back to university for my second year of Japanese.

It is a great feeling to have accomplished a long-term target like this and to have stuck to a study routine. The hardest part though was definitely the last 200 or so as I just wanted to be done already.

RTK is really really amazing. I heard about it here and there during my first year at university but always dismissed in my mind as a gimmick for people who want to avoid (what I thought was) the unavoidable hours you have to commit to learn the kanji by writing them over and over and over, as I did many a night. Moreover, there are lots of places out there damming RTK as a waste of time, and it scared me that if I was going to invest the time to do this, then I don't want it in the long run to be a waste.

However, after seeing successful graduates of my course endorse the method I gave it a try and was blown away by how utterly amazingly it works. Honestly, in the first week or so I really felt like I could feel another part of my brain utilised, which of course it was, but I mean it felt like my brain had been given a new burst of life.

I must also mention this website which is almost unbelievable in how good a learning resource it is. Without doubt I would've taken more double the time if I was having to compose my own stories all the time. Indeed it is such a valuable resource my mind often worried at the prospect of this website for whatever suddenly disappearing. I am truly thankful to live in the age of the internet.

Moreover, this forum itself, from the moderate amount of browsing around I have done, seems like a really really great community. For whatever reason, I often have found Japanese learning communities to be a bit... off-putting for whatever reason, but the folks here seem really nice and are mature about studying the language and their dedication to it. I have learnt of numerous ways to enhance my studying thanks to the posts here.

I'll stick around here some more I think, though maybe just as a lurker, as it is also a far motivational forum to browse than the others I sometimes frequent.

Thanks very much, everybody

shoop da woop. Finally finished it with a steady 20 a day(only slacked that 2 times!). The last ones kind of gotten a drag.

I am a bit confused were to continue now though.. Still looking around.hehe
looking at core/kore and tae kim

I finished on Sunday. Started it around April of last year, got halfway through, put it on hold (kept up with reviews) and did Remembering the Simplified Hanzi, did another 25% of RtK1, put it on hold again, realized RtSH2 is probably never going to come out, plowed through the final quarter of RtK1 in 3 weeks or so. Feels nice to be done, although it'll be even nicer when those reviews are back down to 5-7 minutes.

Also, this was mentioned in the RtK2/3 forum, but I definitely noted the shoddy quality of the binding of my copy of RtK1. There's a chunk of about 50 pages that's come unbound.

Way to go, boys and girls. Keep 'em coming!

I am done! At last! It was a grand adventure.

I had a few long gaps in my studies, where I wasn't adding nor reviewing for months at a time, and then the dread of facing all those reviews, knowing that i forgot a large number of them made me delay my comeback even more.

Going back and facing all those reviews was the toughest part, and I imagined the day I would enter this topic and leave a post. Oh I remember the days when it was so far away in the distant future.

Thanks for all the great stories, there are a few real gems out there And I hope those few stories that i wrote will help someone else!

Congratulations to all of you, you diserved it.

(AAARRGGGHHH!!! only 100 left!!!)

Congratulations!!! Excellent job! Enjoy your time after...

EratiK Wrote:Congratulations to all of you, you diserved it.

(AAARRGGGHHH!!! only 100 left!!!)

Hang on in there!

Hah, I imagine this topic as a large bustling port one enters after he navigated his ship over the troubling waters of the vast kanji ocean. Everybody travels by his own different route to get here, but ships are arriving constantly. As you anchor your vessel you feel greatly relieved for a moment, again in company of fellow travelers after being alone at sea for so long.

You stop for a drink or something, spend a few days in the comforts of the port town, but it's only a brief respite, soon you must venture inland, alone again, to explore the unknown depths of the jungles of japanese language, hoping to find the fountain of fluency many speak of, but few discover.

LMAO

I'm finished, but I don't feel like i'm finished. I learned 50 or 100 words a day for the last 1000 words. So now i'm stuck with 220 reviews per day plus 60 or so restudy cards from whatever I forgot for the day >.<.

It still feels good though! I recognize almost every kanji I come across, they are no longer random scary squiggly lines. And since I have recognizing and writing them out of the way I learn new words way way faster than before.

Now finally back to my real japanese studies ^^

I know what you mean with those 220 reviews per day thing. Stick with it as long as you can, until you push them up a bit. After that, it doesn't matter if you slack off too much, as long as you just do a bit at a time. Your "real" Japanese studies should now take priority.

Done!

Proof that you can crash out numerous times and still limp over the finish line.

Took me about two years, equating almost exactly to four two-month bursts with intervening four-month pauses.

However ... I found that the way the stories all chain up and inter-relate, you can quickly get back on your feet after a long break.

The stories on here were invaluable, especially as the kanji got more and more bizarre towards the final page!

Scanning the first ten user stories I found that one almost always jumped out and pretty well stuck.

So, I'm off to enjoy a celebratory tipple. Probably a Hitachino Nest XH ale (常陸野ネストビール) - if I can find one!

finally! after almost 2 years struggling hard with japanese, finally i can see kanji in a different way..

big thanks to Heisig, fuaburisu, Khatzumoto and also to many people who made many unforgettable stories for RevtK. thanks all!!

YEAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!I DID IT!!!it took me a bit less than 4 months but i got it done!the last 500 kanji were fun.anyway,congrats to everyone else who gets here and good luck with japanese................now i need to sleep:/

AWESOME!!!

I finally did it. In almost 3 months (not bad), 20 pages of stories, 2 bic medium bullet point pens (black), and 80 pages of scratch paper for about 10 000 reps.
I didn't count the tomato juice.

Now to mine 10 000 sentences (He Hooooo), do Mangaland, Assimil, then Minna no Nihongo. But first, to download Anki...

Thank you very much Fabrice (I bet there are little altars dedicated to you scattered all around the world), and thanks to all the story sharers (some stories I picked where @ the bottom of the pile), and to all the forum users (esp. the prominent members for their invaluable insights in both language and methods (Nk, 愛, Z., 0r, pm, ta, dragon(s), seal, etc, etc, etc, etc.)) that made this even possible. You're all great.

Congratulations everyone, and good luck for what's next!!!
頑張って !!!

Well, twothousandandfortytwo! BÄÄÄÄÄM!

Although "finished" is a relative term when it comes to learning kanji, I have just added the 2042th card to my RevTK deck! やった! And I feel like I have accomplished something important on my way, nonetheless.

Congratulations EratiK, phantombk201, lazzaknight, jimbojones99 and all you other guys that finished before me!

My story: I started RTK at some time back last year, using old-school hand-made paper flash cards. But when I came to ~1200 kanji, I completely lost overview and gave up, frustrated. Beginning of this year, I started a second attempt, reviving my old flashcards, but only made it to ~500 this time! Oh no!
But then, a friend told me about koohii.com (now, everytime I google something related to Japanese, a thread in this forum is among the first hits - I have no idea how I could have missed this site for so long!), and with the help of stories and ideas posted in the study section and a lot of motivation from this forum, I made it all the way to the sign of the snake! Took me a little less than four months and got me so far to ~10000 reviews and ~1400 cards in the 4+ deck.

A BIG THANKS to Mr. T, Spiderman, Bruce Lee and all the others that made RTK so much fun, BIG THANKS to all you guys who shared your stories and/or provided otherwise motivation, and the BIGGEST THANKS OF ALL to Fabrice for giving life to this awesome community! ありがとう！！！

I'm not yet sure where I'm gonna go next on my DIY Japanese learning journey, but I'll certainly stick around this forum. It's a gold mine!

Big congrats to EratiK and Gyouza, must feel so great to have passed the finish line!

Great job!

Thanks!
Hope to see you there soon.

1262 - getting there...

Reached the 2042 mark today, feels great to get it finished after ~7months of stopping and starting. Thanks to everyone that shared their stories. Time to start studying real Japanese now.

Rory

On hols again, so increased the daily quota up to 66 Kanjis per day, which will lead me relatively fast towards 2042, nee

At 1636 at the moment.. there are just some keywords i plainly do not know (i mean even in my mother tongue -.-) Anyway, glad that my handwriting looks so "japanese" now ^^

Congratz to the guys above!~

Yeeey!

So rewarding to be here at last! I made it! I had my bad days and tough schedules but I managed to made it!

Thank you everyone! Your stories were life-saving!

great job, arrogantape! I'm nowhere near the end - 1454 and having a bit of a crisis right now...

anyway, enjoy the view from the top!

Congrarulations on finishing your RTK1.

Done with RTK1! (well, at least the french version, "Les Kanjis dans la Tête").

Took me 7 months (little bit longer than expected, but with probably 2 months total of not adding new cards there and there).
Now, got to improve RTK deck stats and move back to grammar/vocab, finally!
Really glad I went that way, vocab seems much easier to learn now!