I do, but Hitler doesn't!

Plus there's already a few words like "bountiful" and "amass", and several keywords are incorrect anyway

Oh my gosh. I'm in a daze that I've finally finished it. I've been at this for almost a year (since January) and, due to procrastinating, I never thought I'd get it done! I'm soooo happy!!! =D Yay!!! On to sentences!!

Done, though I'll still be reviewing for the rest of my life.
僕の顔は

After 264 days, I have finally completed that beast of a book. Man, it really was a test of endurance and dedication. Even though I know it doesn't get any easier from here on, I really feel like I conquered the biggest hurdle of them all.
Thanks for the amazing site! And see all of you down the road sometime...

Jorre

Angeldust Wrote:Oh my gosh. I'm in a daze that I've finally finished it. I've been at this for almost a year (since January) and, due to procrastinating, I never thought I'd get it done! I'm soooo happy!!! =D Yay!!! On to sentences!!

Same here... I've just finished RTK1, and I still cannot believe it! I began in February, and took a ridiculously long time to finish the book, but god was it worth it. I cannot be thankful enough for the contribution of this community and its thousands of silly stories. Without them, who knows where I would be today!

Anyway, I still have a long journey ahead of me. But it's not so scary anymore!

See you on the forums.

Congratulations!

Ah ah. It's a shame that balloons didn't fall from the ceiling when I reached the sign of the snake, but I guess congratulations from nest0r are not bad either!

Thanks!

I thought I would be more excited but instead I just feel like I have a really long way to go.

The journey is still long, but we already took a first step. A very good first step.
Well, congratulations to all of you!

Oh my god, I just finished RTK1 yesterday evening after... hmm.. 2 years

Honestly, I started and gave up after 500+, restarted and gave up again after 1300+ in the first year. Then, finally this year, I completed my own RTKLite challenge. I immediately wanted to start doing some real Japanese studying, but I didn't like the fact that there were too many kanji here and there that I didn't know yet and had to study those along the way... For some people it might not be a problem, but for me it was annoying.

Now that this huge chunk is done, I can really progress doing my jpod101 podcast ( although the conversations are dull, I like the fact how they present it, with tips here and there...) and core2k etc, hoping to finish the latter one next year.

I might throw in some RTK3, but at a lower pace. However, I've already created stories for those extra +-190 jouyou kanji and will be doing them in parallel next year.

It's not that I didn't have any japanese immersion meanwhile. I watched some anime, listened a lot to jpop, did some kana/romaji learning...

Haa, feels good.

Quote:I thought I would be more excited but instead I just feel like I have a really long way to go.

I have a feeling the road will at least be a lot smoother, kanji wise. I look forward to it let our grey matter work!

Woohoo! Grats to Dakoina, jorrebenst, and my darling iMat! Awesome awesome awesome job, all of you!!

Phew! Finished at last...I know, I know, it hasn't even really begun yet : \ *gulp*. Thanks for the great stories everyone! It took me 128 days (or 4 months and 3 days, or 18 weeks rounded down; whichever one you think in). All the questions that occurred to me during this time were already answered somewhere in the forums, however, particularly when I was starting out, through those first 500 or so kanji I really wanted to have some idea how long it was going to take... I couldn't find a thread specifically for that, though this one had a lot of personal accounts which was handy for getting an idea. It would be interesting for those who are just beginning if somewhere on the site users who finished rtk1 (more or less) in one go, could put in the duration to form a simple graph.
Anyway, thanks again to everyone!

Well I just finished. It took ~4 months to get to frame 1966 and then I stopped RTK - for 2 years. I just couldn't contain my desire to start "real" learning, hahaha. But in the spirit of whoever that girl was with whom our forum member, buonaparte, posted about, "Books belong to people who haven't read them yet". So I decided to give my copy away to a fellow student but before I did I drilled through the last 76. All that studying paid off, I had learned most of them from seeing them "in the wild" anyway After so long having the thought of finishing and posting here in the back of my mind I finally did it. So refreshing!

So in short THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!! This form continues to inspire me everyday. Keep it up everyone!

Finished !!!
It took me a year and 2 months. I did reviews pretty regularly, it was easy to do it on my phone using anki online, but haven't added new kanji for a few months, because I simply didn't have time.

One thing really that slowed me down was that only after 1200 kanji I realized that it is ok to add the stories to the front of the cards. I felt so bad when I realized it. It is MUCH easier this way.

Now I'm going to start hiragana and katakana, and then sentences. Can't wait to finally learn some real japanese.

Thanks for all the stories, this page was huuuuuge help !!!

5 years after buying this book, I finally have completed it! While I still have to do much more reviews in the future, The ball is finally rolling. The one massive barrier is removed..finally. Time to start learning grammar and vocab!

sage47 Wrote:5 years after buying this book, I finally have completed it! While I still have to do much more reviews in the future, The ball is finally rolling. The one massive barrier is removed..finally. Time to start learning grammar and vocab!

Did you postpone learning grammar or vocab five whole years?? Such discipline!

Congrats everyone that made it. And good luck for the rest of your studies!

KanjiDevourer Wrote:

sage47 Wrote:5 years after buying this book, I finally have completed it! While I still have to do much more reviews in the future, The ball is finally rolling. The one massive barrier is removed..finally. Time to start learning grammar and vocab!

Did you postpone learning grammar or vocab five whole years?? Such discipline!

Congrats everyone that made it. And good luck for the rest of your studies!

No, I should've said restart. After Is started pursuing RTK again I took a break from other things such as vocab lists and grammar.

Very encouraging to hear all your stories of completion.
This makes me feel much better as I've just reaching the 400 mark and feeling the wall!
Planning to make it 1000 before classes begin next year (Studying Japanese in Nagoya with loads of Chinese folk... they are miles ahead!)

I'm DONE! Man, this feel great! The Heisig method really is effective! 2 months ago, I could not have dreamed that I would be able to to recognize 2042 Kanji, but now, 55 days later, I've already finished Heisig's first book!

I would like to thank this community for all the help its pages have provided. The "One Kanji, One Picture" thread was especially useful. Without it, I wouldn't have been able to finish so quickly!

And now, its time for Vocabulary. After all, this is only the beginning of my Japanese journey!

Just finished RTK1. I started 5 months ago so I went fairly fast. Tried to add atleast 10-20 new kanji every day. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Spent maybe 3-5 hours/day studying. 1-2 hours to review due cards and then 2-3 hours writing new flashcards and thinking about stories. Now the fun part starts, learning to read them all.

I´ve been studying japanese before but had trouble with the kanji. Then I saw some guy on youtube recommending Heisig Remember the Kanji books so I got the book, tried it out and it felt good. It was working alot better than just writing the kanjis over and over and try to memorize the strokes with brute force like I did before.

YES! After a little less than half a year, I finished RTK1 by New Year's Eve - 計画通り！

I would like to thank all the story contributors for helping me overcome my occasional lack of imagination, and a special thanks to Fabrice for bringing this community together and making this possible. I wish I could have participated in the Christmas donation drive, but I will definitely donate as soon as I become a little more financially independent.

And now, moving on to study real language! 頑張れ、俺！

Congratulations to everyone that completed. Also, thanks to those who contributed stories, as I used everyone's stories from about 500 to the finish. It feels good to have finished, but after starting to do sentences and having '誰’ and '膝'　pop up among others, I think I'm going for the third book pretty soon. Thanks again everyone; the only reason I made it through was everyone's stories and positive attitude.

[Katsuo]

Sileh Wrote:It feels good to have finished, but after starting to do sentences and having '誰’ and '膝'　pop up among others, I think I'm going for the third book pretty soon.

Many of the more common kanji not in RTK1 will be included in the next edition. For the time being the author has provided a supplement which is available for download from this page.

Katsuo Wrote:

Sileh Wrote:It feels good to have finished, but after starting to do sentences and having '誰’ and '膝'　pop up among others, I think I'm going for the third book pretty soon.

Many of the more common kanji not in RTK1 will be included in the next edition. For the time being the author has provided a supplement which is available for download from this page.

Thank you Katsuo!

I've finally finished!! A great way to start 2011 =]

Like others have said, thanks to everyone for the stories. I didn't even realise the stories were there until the 1500s, when I found them by accidently clicking on the keyword in my Anki flashcards -_- With that discovery, I zoomed through the last 500 or so in 3 weeks =] Thanks guys!!