I just finished the 2nd book 3 days ago and I have to say that it was one of the best things I've ever done. My vocabulary has increased 10x. 2001 and RTK took me a year to complete however it was worth ever min. It really made my life easier. Anyway, I only did recognition, so I didn't have to spend as much time reviewing. I'm sure if I did the cards both ways I would have a greater command of the words, but I'm happy with my results and I never wanted to kill someone while I was doing my reviews. I think some people wanted to know the kanji stats for JLPT levels. I only added a few kanji that weren't in the book.



               Kanji          Percent
Level 1
             210 / 922     22.78%
Level 2
             635 / 739     85.93%
Level 3
             180 / 181     99.45%
Level 4
             102 / 103     99.03%
Total
          1127 / 1945     57.94%


So kanji wise it's enough to pass level 2 although you wouldn't know all the kanji. If you really like native sources then you don't need this book(just mine things yourself), but for me reading something and having to use the dictionary on every word isn't fun. For someone like that this book works wonders. You don't have to type anything yourself or find anything, just put it in Anki and be done with it. Quick easy and effective. I heard they are coming out with a 3rd volume and I want to buy it, however if it takes too long, I might not need it. Come on Coscom, hurry up.

Just a reminder to all that you should also write CosCom directly and tell them of your success with their books.

I just finished book 2 as well and also finished all my reviews.
I started end of May / beginning of June with book 1, so it took me about a month to finish both books.
Well, I have a full-time job that's why I couldn't finish it earlier.
I agree with the previous posters! Although I only did recognition so far my vocab and reading speed both increased like WOAH! Also, my output ability increased as well!
Once I managed to decrease the amount of reviews, I'll unsuspend the production cards.



Over 5 hours of studying ONLY KO2001 in Anki. That's a new record and I'm tired now *g*
As I have to work tomorrow again and the whole week, I figured it's better to try and finish it today

Also:



According to this site.

Last edited by chochajin (2009 July 05, 5:03 am)

I just finished KO2001 book 1! I feel AWESOME!

I got the books in May, but exams got in the way and I didn't really start on it (I got up to around 150 kanji) until halfway through June. Starting from the 17th of June, I completed the rest of the book in 2 and a half weeks

I'm just getting warmed up though. I'm moving onto the 2nd book tomorrow, and I plan to finish it within 12 days- at a pace of 50 kanji per day. These past few days I've hit a new stride and have been able to cope with adding - and reviewing - way more stuff due to a change in my work habits.

So if all goes well I'll be making another post here in 2 weeks time :-)

How in the world are you guys doing so many kanji per day? I can barely manage any =/

Just realised I forgot to post here. I finished KO about a week ago now and it feels *damn* good. Took me 11 days to finish the 555 kanji in the 2nd book.

I went straight from RtK-->Tae Kim-->KO2001 and completing that has been enough to let me start playing, and understanding, chrono trigger. Plus I barely have to look anything up when I'm reading the Haruhi lightnovel (though I'm only 4 pages in so far).

Please add my congrats to the pile too. I wish I could be there too one day.

Thank you guys!
I don´t know if it´s the same for everyone, but I sent some e-mails back and forth with blackmacros, and he told me his experience with KO2001´s pretty steep learning curve, and it was exactly what I experienced - between fram 130-160 KO2001 starts to repeat a lot of vocab, and at that point you have probably streamlined your learning and you can therefore up your pace... I spent a LONG time in the beginning, making several cards for each sentence, highlighting the new compound. I stopped doing that at frame 130-ish.
In addition, I use mnemonics 90% of the time on new vocabulary. This is what I´ve been doing (copied from the "recent milestone achievement" thread):

what I do now, after trial and error, is:

- Review 40 cards, then add 15 - repeat. This is the basis of my add/review pattern. Works pretty well, I did 30/15 in the beginning, but now when I have 400+ reviews, 40/15 is better for me. I´m just following Black Macros´ idea here, and it´s working well.

- I use mnemonics 90% of time. I don´t write down stories or anything, here´s an example of what I usually do with a sentence:

あの運送会社はピアノの運送が専門だ。

When I studied this sentence, the new part for me was "運送" (うんそう)
I did a quick act for myself in my head, acting a Japanese dude getting his piano delivered, saying: "un!! sooo!! un!!! So so so!!!" (As in YES, there, put it there, UN! SO!)
It might be stupid, it might be weird, but for me it works like a charm. And it takes me 10 seconds to make a small thing like that. A tip is to make a mini-story/act based on the sentence, in this case a Japanese dude getting a piano delivered by the company that this sentence is all about.
These stories fade away after a couple of correct reviews, and sometimes I forget them and make them up as I go, it´s all good, and it will all stick if you keep up your reviews.
The good thing about KO2001 is that you get the vocab in many different sentences, so you review newly learned vocab in many sentences, not just one.

- Another thing I do, that people might not like in here, is to review my cards right away after adding 15 cards. I mark the cards as "hard". That way I review them again in the evening (I study first thing in the morning). I don´t know, this was just a little thing I did, because I REALLY struggled remembering cards after 2-3 hours, unlike RTK where the stories kept things in place. Now I get a quick review, then review the card later in the evening. It might cause more reviews and whatnot, but you know what? I don´t care, it works well for me at the moment, so I´m happy.
I guess you can achieve the same results with a thorough manual review after you have studied the cards, but I just find this method easier.

So there you have it. Add a whole lot of spare-time, a good chair and some milk every now and then, and KO2001 is more than do-able.

Last edited by Zorlee (2009 October 09, 1:29 pm)

おめでとう

何の時がかかるんでしたか？ (lol I have no idea how to ask this really)

cool cool. I planned on finishing both books much faster than i've managed so far due to lifes little disruptions. But out of the 6000 card deck i've got 1500 left and im doing 100 a day. Basically scheduled to finish in a total of 3 months.

I can't wait to finish!

Nii87 wrote:

zazen666 wrote:

i did book 2 in just over three months, when we finally got the great audio/picture deck, doing about 30 new cards a day....

Picture deck? Wha!?

I think thats in reference to the full audio deck using Gifs to display all the Japanese sentences.

I just finished KO2001 today! Glad that's out of the way... what a journey it has been.

Took me 2.5 months with 2 one week long disruptions (i.e moving house TWICE)! Boosted my reading ability 10x over.

Man I've been at it for months and have barely passed book 1...