I'm at frame 1926 now.
Had to pause the last few days, was really busy and today and tomorrow I have to get the review pile down first. I hope to finish RTK1 by Sunday.

I had no internet for 2 weeks, so I had to work through the 2nd half of the book without this awesome site, but it worked out quite well.

I just got back from like a week long break. I decided to build my first car and there were so many problems that it took up my whole thought process. Doing that and school distracted me from RTK for like a week or 2. Good thing i'm only up to like 850, and i only have 500 left to review. I almost thought I was a goner. After I finish up clearing out most of my review pile hopefully I can push through to at least 1500 before something like this happens again. Keep on keepin on people, it'll be worth it in the end.

kazelee wrote:

Ji_suss wrote:

Closing in on 600...did a big review after 500 to make it all stick, then a three day break before resuming.

That's around the number I first discovered this site. Have you been using this site the whole time?

LOL i just got your name

I started RTK a year ago and lost steam quite early.  Was making my own cards.  When I found this site in August, I started over.  So i guess you can say I've been using it the whole time.

Re: my name:  Hey, I'm just trying to suss out the Ji's!  Any resemblance to deities real or imagined is entirely coincidental. ha ha

BTW My copies or RTK2 and 3 from Indigo Books were just delivered, so i guess I'm in it for the long haul!

Now at 617. It's taken about 5 weeks to get here from 350 or so... 300 to 400 was really hard, I think I found some of the primitives quite abstract and hard to work with. But busted through and it's been plain sailing since then! My aim is now to finish the book by the end of the year, so have to step up the pace a little bit...

theasianpleaser wrote:

After march, parade, Thanksgiving, quiver and other primitives...

Very happy to say I hit #400 today!

Good job, those primitives sure are a pain... sort of makes me wonder why Heisig put them all in a row... I mean they are all similar so one way of thinking would be to get them all out of the way, but it would probably have been easier to keep them distinct by having them spaced out over the book.

kazelee wrote:

400 is right around that mark that causes a lot of resistance.

It's like that spot in running where you get a second wind. The most painful moment is right before you break through... then you just coast to the end.

That's so true.  Around 400 I reviewed over and over again until I managed to finally get those characters in my head on a more permanent basis.  And I just hit #500 today!  After 400 I managed 100 kanji in a week since they are much easier to remember. 

My brain gets tired from constant immersion and studying but it's awesome being able to understand so many more signs, notifications, etc.

Go kanji!!!!

I'm only at 200. n_n;
I am trying a chapter a day though-I will eventually have to switch over to a smaller number.

I got past the halfway point about a month ago, but then I stopped, moved to Japan, had a million things to do, etc.  Now almost all of my cards are in the expired or failed stacks, and I lose the motivation to begin again when I see how big those orange review stacks are.  On the bright side, I've noticed a huge improvement in my reading/writing speed and accuracy, even after only doing half of the first volume.  Where do I begin?  How do you stay motivated to keep going?

Last edited by KristinHolly (2008 October 24, 2:54 am)

KristinHolly wrote:

I got past the halfway point about a month ago, but then I stopped, moved to Japan, had a million things to do, etc.  Now almost all of my cards are in the expired or failed stacks, and I lose the motivation to begin again when I see how big those orange review stacks are.  On the bright side, I've noticed a huge improvement in my reading/writing speed and accuracy, even after only doing half of the first volume.  Where do I begin?  How do you stay motivated to keep going?

Motivation and drive shouldn't be what sustains you through the process, rather, you should use your motivation and drive to set yourself up for success. This means you should put up a poster or victory board where you can mark your progress, then set a goal and maintain the habit.

My story was that the night before starting my method, I was totally fired up about learning the kanji. So I prepared all my materials, brought my whiteboard up from the garage, calculated how much I would do a day (fifty) and marked on the calender when I expected to finish.

Then I set a habit of getting up at the same time everyday and going swimming. I'd come in a review as much kanji as I could during breakfast. At 10:30 on the dot I would get started with kanji learning. I did this for forty of my fifty days. Not because I was totally fired up to do it, it was often incredibly hard for me to keep it up, but because I was in the habit. It was easier for me to continue because I was just so used to doing it.

915 today. Should hit the halfway mark by the end of the week.

Haven't seen too many status updates recently... hope people are too busy learning kanji!

I'll admit I thought that admonition was positive in meaning. In fact I have the total opposite in mind. So when it came up and I found the real meaning, the conflicts between the two meaning I'd learned helped me out, though, this is one of the few that still bother me.

As for chastise and rebuke.

I picture chastising as like between a mother and child. Something critical but not too overbearing. It's critical but still a bit of warmth. Like "I'm saying these words for your own good, so you'd better make them stick in your mind."

I picture rebuke as like when a fiery preacher curses whomever or whatever. It's serious. Like I'll kill you serious. It has a lot of weight to it. It almost brings up feelings fear. It's extremely tense and passionate. It's like "I'll ******* cut you ******* idoit! Godddammit! I... will... *******... cut youuuuu... !"

Forgive the verbage, but keeping these feelings in mind are what helped me sort out these meaning. Thinking about the feeling and the situation are also what helps me keep other similar word separate.

Hmm, but "rebuke" is not really that violent.

If you ever saw an insane evangelist you might think otherwise.

No matter. I was just illustrating a point.

Finally met a group of Japanese students at the local coffee shop, which is a rarity here in Alabama, and I think they've taken a liking to me lol.  They've asked me out to dinner and then to play pool last night.

Anyways, they gave me a huge confidence boost.  After hearing that I had learned over 1,200 Kanji in just 2 months they decided to sort of test my claim.  Needless to say they were quite amazed as was I.  In fact I was even writing Kanji that THEY couldn't identify lol.  It was so reassuring to know that most of Heisigs keywords are in fact a darn accurate representation of the general idea that a native Japanese thinks of when seeing an individual Kanji.  For almost every Kanji they wrote the keyword I stated was met with an almost immediate confirmation as being correct. 

In fact one of the girls even got me to write down the name of the book and this website because SHE wants to try it out.  If that doesn't say something I don't know what does.