I just finished the RTK 1! And the supplement!

Reviewed all the due cards everday, didn't skip a single day across the 5 months I used. Added new cards randomly though. My retention is at 80% I am proud of myself. You may call me lord of kanji presistance!!! LOL!

It's been a suprisingly fluctuating road, very annoying when I reach 1000 kanji and 1500 kanji. So close yet so faaar... Mostly just fun or okay.
Mostly I think it was a fun way to spend my evening, yay chilling with looking at anime while reviewing. Sometimes I did the kanji early that day I would be for not being able to do it at the evening, nothing to do lol.
Funny in the beginning I thought about completing RTK in 3 months, nope. I was like 90 days left, 63 days left. Well I did it in the end so I guess its fine

Thank you all for the great stories you have made, I couldn't possibly completed the RTK without it.
Wish me luck to my future japanese studies.

Congratulations! Nice job. I just finished today.

Well, I finally finished all 2,200 Kanji in RTK 1 6th Edition. It took a few months and my retention rate is now consistently around 80%. I think after a few more reviews they should solidify more in long term memory. Thanks to everyone for the great stories and support! Doug

やった！終わりだ！

Well, actually, I think of this as a beginning rather than an end. Now I can focus more on actual 日本語 without the constant burden of unknown 漢字. Though when I went reading today, I already encountered some kanji not covered by RTK1. Good reminder of the reality that there's always more to learn, and that I'm very far from "finished" with kanji. Cheers, and again, I thank all of the community story writers for their great contributions!

おめでとう！！　Although it's not the end, completing RTK is one good step toward Japanese proficiency, and a big motivation too.

Good luck!

Hello all,

I just finished the french version of RTK1 this morning. It took me about 3 months.
I used Ankidroid and my Samsung galaxy note 2 to do the reviews on the go.

I bought the book 2 years ago and started doing it, but i stopped after 500 kanji.
At that time i was taking Japanese lesson, and i thought that learning real Japanese was more important.

Last July i passed JLPT N3. To pass N2 and N1 kanji is very important because you must be able to read essays. Furthermore i wan't to start reading light novel and visual novel as soon as possible. That's why i gave a RTK1 a second chance.

After maybe 2 months doing RTK1, i opened the soumatome N2 kanji book and OMG it wasn't frightening at all!!! Kanji will be easy to learn from now.

This forum has been a great motivation for me because it showed me that finish this book within a few months was possible.

Thank you for this.

Hi, everyone. I finished Rtk 1, including the supplement and a few extra along the way, at 3.30 yesterday morning, 2215 kanji in total. A week ago I was literally jumping up and down with excitement at being so close to finishing - what my friend calls FIAB (a fart in a bottle). Now that I've actually done it, I think I'm just exhausted...

I started a few times before without the help of this website and never got much past Part One. Around March/April this year (a bit of a blur now) I made it an absolute priority in my life. So I feel great about having set myself a pretty major goal and finally achieving it. And the sense of progress, chapter by chapter, was fantastic.

I really enjoyed the process along the way... the stories - wow, thank you all so much! Lots of LOL moments. :lol:

Cheers. On to reading, yay!!

Congrats! But how does farting in a bottle have to do with jumping up and down in excitement?

I think it's trapped in the bottle and trying to escape, bouncing off the walls?

It's been one long journey (since January, haha), but I'm finally finished. Today, at last I learned "sign of the snake" kanji and I couldn't be more happy.

If there's one advice I'd give to the starters, it would be: "Don't even think about stopping! I'm serious. If you stop, I'll stab you in shower!" I'm saying this, because I stopped at 1500 and then it took me one month to relearn all the kanji again. Even if you're incredibly lazy, always do at least 5 kanji. Even 2 are enough. (but ít's becoming a bit ridiculous, haha) If you allows yourself to get away without learning anything, it'll become an incredible hinder on your learning journey. Remember, you want to do this as fast as possible, right? Then don't stop. I can't emphasize this enough.

I also had a 2 months break. Oh, how stupid I was. I didn't even have a reason to stop. I kept telling myself that I'd finish during summer break, but it was last week of summer break and that was when I started to relearn all forgotten kanji. I did last 500 or 600 kanji with my last breath. There'd be a week when I wouldn't learn at all, and there were weeks where I'd learn 100. I honestly can't believe it took me this long. I actually planned to finish in May, but I strayed away from my road. Conclusion: Don't stop. (I'm starting to be a bit annoying, eh?)

Oh, how glad I am that I'm finished already. How proud I am that I know 2200 kanji. (A bit ashamed it took me 11 months, but oh well...) I can't be grateful enough for all people who provided all crazy, interesting, lewd, inspiring and awesome stories. A BIG THANK YOU!! And a kiss on the cheek. This concludes my wall of text and a little message from me: DON'T FREAKING STOP!

P.S: This was the song I finished my last character with:

(not instrumental, but vocal version, but I couldn't find it on the youtube, oh well) Long live Senjougahara, haha.

amillerchip Wrote:2011 December 31, 5:12 pm

I also finished up today, after a ridiculously intense push for the past few days to beat the new year. :-)

Good work everyone, and good luck to people reading this thread that are still working on it, consistency is key. :-)

My victory blog post: http://fetchezlavache.millerchip.net/pos...kanji-done

I thought I'd repost, as I just added Sign of the Snake for a second time, two years after I started!

Last year, I was so desperate to hit my target I crammed in 70+ a day towards the end, then proceeded to forget them all in January/February. I decided to start again at a much more leisurely pace. I really don't know how people manage to do this in just a few weeks with high long term retention. But maybe my memory is just terrible. I found that with a full time job and a social life, with just an hour or two a day to spare on kanji, it really does take this long.

Anyway, I've got another 20 or so to add, since I decided to cover the supplement characters that are not in RTK3 too - but I'm going to leave RTK3 until next year as a side project to pick at when I feel like it.

I've booked a language course in Japan at the end of March, so that should be good motivation to finally branch out from Kanji!

amillerchip Wrote:

amillerchip Wrote:2011 December 31, 5:12 pm

I also finished up today, after a ridiculously intense push for the past few days to beat the new year. :-)

Good work everyone, and good luck to people reading this thread that are still working on it, consistency is key. :-)

My victory blog post: http://fetchezlavache.millerchip.net/pos...kanji-done

I thought I'd repost, as I just added Sign of the Snake for a second time, two years after I started!

Last year, I was so desperate to hit my target I crammed in 70+ a day towards the end, then proceeded to forget them all in January/February. I decided to start again at a much more leisurely pace. I really don't know how people manage to do this in just a few weeks with high long term retention. But maybe my memory is just terrible. I found that with a full time job and a social life, with just an hour or two a day to spare on kanji, it really does take this long.

Anyway, I've got another 20 or so to add, since I decided to cover the supplement characters that are not in RTK3 too - but I'm going to leave RTK3 until next year as a side project to pick at when I feel like it.

I've booked a language course in Japan at the end of March, so that should be good motivation to finally branch out from Kanji!

How can you forget them? Have you stopped doing your SRS reps? You need to keep reviewing once you finish, otherwise you're bound to forget it again. Don't do this to yourself!

First congrats to everyone who came before me.

I was going to wait until I knew all 2200 Kanji really well (the last 200 are still iffy) but since I have technically finished the RtK1 book might as well post. It's the 巳nd! Holy crap, it can't be... just how long have I been at this?

Well let me just say a few things, since maybe finishing has given me the right to ramble just this once. If you cut out the time I spent not doing RtK--I got to 1100 once and had to start from 1 again due to months of being bad--it can probably be said I finished in under a year. A little below average perhaps but considering I had no intention of doing RtK for the longest time it's better than nothing. I also would have finished a month earlier than this post except I got distracted doing a writing contest in November (NaNoWriMo), and then hurt my wrist and couldn't write anything for a while. Indeed, I always wrote the mnemonics from this site in the RtK book margins, and then write the kanji out on a sheet of paper when reviewing. There will be differing opinions on this, but I believe writing the kanji out over and over really is beneficial. No matter.

My RtK1 book looks like its been through a war or two. RtK3 looks shiny new and untouched. Maybe later. See you guys around.

Chigun Wrote:First congrats to everyone who came before me.

I was going to wait until I knew all 2200 Kanji really well (the last 200 are still iffy) but since I have technically finished the RtK1 book might as well post. It's the 巳nd! Holy crap, it can't be... just how long have I been at this?

Well let me just say a few things, since maybe finishing has given me the right to ramble just this once. If you cut out the time I spent not doing RtK--I got to 1100 once and had to start from 1 again due to months of being bad--it can probably be said I finished in under a year. A little below average perhaps but considering I had no intention of doing RtK for the longest time it's better than nothing. I also would have finished a month earlier than this post except I got distracted doing a writing contest in November (NaNoWriMo), and then hurt my wrist and couldn't write anything for a while. Indeed, I always wrote the mnemonics from this site in the RtK book margins, and then write the kanji out on a sheet of paper when reviewing. There will be differing opinions on this, but I believe writing the kanji out over and over really is beneficial. No matter.

My RtK1 book looks like its been through a war or two. RtK3 looks shiny new and untouched. Maybe later. See you guys around.

Congrats! Especially happy to see another NaNoer finish! Take care of your wrist and have fun with all the Japanese now at your fingertips!

And people have never been disputing that writing the kanji over and over is beneficial, it just doesn't help memory all that much. That doesn't mean it's suddenly unimportant to have legible handwriting and the muscle memory to write quicker

Zlarp Wrote:

amillerchip Wrote:Last year, I was so desperate to hit my target I crammed in 70+ a day towards the end, then proceeded to forget them all in January/February.

How can you forget them? Have you stopped doing your SRS reps? You need to keep reviewing once you finish, otherwise you're bound to forget it again. Don't do this to yourself!

I think it's more that I never really learned them in the first place, I crammed them in so quickly towards the end. I was facing reps of 200+ a day where the majority would fail repeatedly, with little time to restudy them all. So I started from scratch in March. No matter - done now. :-)

P.S. Chigun and heretic. To the future! :-)

Yeeeeeeeeaaaaaahhhh!!! Wow, it feels so good to close that blue book one last time.

I started in April. At the time, I thought I could finish the book off by the end of August! I took almost a month of pointless, lazy break at the beginning of summer and two planned (but still painful) 2-3 week breaks during insane final projects and while trying to get accepted into a fashion show.

Since I have a few years of formal classes and a year's experience living in Japan, I've been reading native material throughout the last nine months to remind myself why I had to keep drudging through RTK. It's really incredible how much greater the rewards for doing RTK are than the (not inconsiderable) effort. Now I need to decide how to proceed with my studies.

Thanks so much to all of you who contribute stories to RevTK or to the forums. Without your help and inspiration (and a push towards using Anki), I'm not sure I would have made it!

51 minutes behind schedule, I finally did it. Now to start 2013 with a bit of grammar.

Had a lazy period in October - never again.

Just finished RTK1 today. I still remember quitting RTK1 and jumping around from method to method (Kanjidamage, brute force memorizing the 部首, etc) before I finally decided to bite the bullet and finish RTK1 no matter what. It definitely helps to study a little vocab/grammar and read native material while doing RTK, if for nothing else than motivation.

I'm grateful to the RevTK community for all the stories that I've used while doing RTK. Thanks to you guys, I've learned more about Mr. T and Spider-Man than I've ever wanted to know

Wow. It's been 8 years since I picked up Heisig's book. It's amazing how much the language learning community has changed in that time! I'd have never gotten through this without this community and Anki, and I profoundly thank all of you with tears of gratitude in my eyes. Now I can move on and start learning the interesting things.

1/1/13 makes a pretty memorable date to finish book one, I think.

やった！やっとRTKが終わった！！

Finally finished the 4th edition of RTK1!! I originally started RTK a day or so before I signed up to this site so it has been a long road for me. I originally got to ~1650 after the first 2 months. However the combination of going back to uni and having no free time plus discovering Anki and preferring it to the SRS on this site; my reviews slowly went from the low hundreds to over a thousand and I couldn't face doing them any more.

I finally got back into doing them over the course of the last 5-6 months including a trip to Japan in September when I was back at around the 600-700 level, where I got to apply my relearned knowledge and re-ignited my passion for Kanji. I found up until around the 1400-1500 level quite easy and was doing 30-40 a day along with finishing Tae Kim and doing the first 6-700 of Core6k. However once I got close to where I was before I had to stop all other learning as it was causing burn out and just focused on Kanji. I did short bursts of 3-4 days of 70 a day with a few days of 0 to steady 20-30 a day runs and both seemed to work equally well for me.

I've already un-suspended the extra Kanji added to Joyo in RTK3 as well as the ones that aren't found in either and plan to do those leisurely while I'm on holiday over the next week. I'm probably going to give it a week or two for the reviews to calm down to under the 50-60 level before I start on Core6k again, but I can't wait to start doing real Japanese again!

Good luck anyone that hasn't finished RTK yet.

It took me a week and a half longer than my goal, but I got it done in seven and a half weeks. It really was very difficult and strenuous to get it done in that amount of time. I really wouldn't suggest it in that short amount of time, unless you really are willing to dedicate some SERIOUS time to it. I think about 3 months would be perfect for future RTKers.

I had the advantage of having a previous failure at getting RTK done. I choked out at around 500 a few months ago, and that obviously sped along my process in this run.

I really can't emphasize enough that you CANNOT try to sprint this thing when you start or when you end. If you feel you aren't getting enough reps when you are starting, trust me, you will not have that problem once you get to ~1200-1600. Do not try to sprint at the end, either. I think I would have finished on time if I didn't get tempted to try to sprint to the finish line.

Don't skip any day. If you are stacked with too many reviews one day, don't learn any new ones, and just review the old ones. I had to do this on a few days, and it really helped.

Other than that, just follow the other reviews on the site and you will get this thing done! It's a race, but one that will be well worth it in the end.

Nice job everyone, your stories are inspiring!
I must admit, I finished the book about a year ago but i didn't really finish proper until just recently.
I'll explain: I finished the book in Feb 2012, and a couple days after that I did my first phone-->computer sync of anki, or so i intended. i accidentally synced the wrong way and lost all my review progress. i was disheartened and confused about what to do. i really needed to review those last 100 kanji to make them stick.
i started a new RTK deck from scratch, and eventually got pretty casual with it and carried on with my studies because I knew most of the kanji in the book quite well. But when I started to get to the last couple hundred kanji I knew I had to reprioritize RTK and use the stories again. Even simple kanji you see all the time can be lost without a mnemonic for me. last week I finished reviewing the last of RTK1 with a feeling of confidence in my memory of all the kanji and in my understanding of Anki syncing and backups. I won't make the same mistake twice.
Of course I wish I hadn't lost my progress in anki at that critical time, but getting to revisit the mnemonic approach when i reached the last kanji in anki again helped me appreciate what i had done for the first 1900 kanji a year ago. i'm going to get my reviews down to <ten a day and then i might start a leisurely approach to RTK 3 because i'm starting to see those kanji pop up now and then and i just want to know them all!
Keep up the good work everyone. I can't wait till this thread is 100 pages long.

FINALLY! Thanks to everyone and all the stories you provided, time to actually learn the language!

Finally finished the supplement as well! Bloody gloom is so difficult! Was on holiday last week so didn't add any new ones since finishing RTK. Pushed through 90 new kanji today to finish early, will probably regret it with the reviews tomorrow but feels great to be done after 3.5 years!

Thanks to everyone that has written a story here, without them there is no way I would have been able to finish!

My goal was to finish (RTK1 + supplement) sometime before today (as early as possible), and I just finished, which means I barely made the target lol. Now I just have a couple of awful 250+ review days ahead of me, then it's time to start to actually learn the language, wohoo. Going to be extremely careful with my reviews after reading some of the posts here about people being lazy with them and having to redo a lot of RTK. I absolutely do not want to redo any of this whole process ever again.

The stories on this site is great btw, would probably not have made my target without them (though I started off without knowing this site existed, luckily I found it when I was at 600 something).