Congratulations!!
Great work, Nagareboshi! Keep it up!

Thank you for the encouragment Zorlee! Thank you Tori!

I will really take a break of at least three or four days to regain energy and to reduce the number of reviews to a normal level. (Which is 150 to 180 cards). The long work yesterday left its traces. Right now I feel like KO has beaten me and not the other way around. Today I had 386 reviews but got it done in less than 1h 20mins. I really need some rest, and just enjoy some Anime or something similar, maybe エコエコアザラク or Ran ... I don't know.

I can't believe it, but it is true! I finished KO.2001 Level 2 today! It took 3.2 months to finish both levels, and it was not always easy, but it was so worth doing it! I can now read so many things that I would never have dreamed of, without using Rikaisama, from newspaper articles, to personal blogs. Of course I can't understand everything, but now I also know, what I need to improve to make progress. And all of this thanks to CosCom fantastic product. Thanks guys and gals! It was a fantastic and rewarding journey.

Here are some statuses I ended up with:







In the next couple of days, I will look to it that my reviews are dying down a little, and then start working on a new deck structure for production. I am not sure in which way, but I thought dictation, Kana -> Kanji writing, or the clozed-deletion method. I am also open for other suggestions to work on output. I have to begin producing, I am ready for it, and its time to make some real friends.

I will also start to work with Living Japanese 生きたい日本語. So far, I have only been watching and listening to the DVD. Mining some of my textbooks for sentences and additional vocabulary is also on my priority list. And as if that is not enough, I will begin my intensive 1 year preparation for 2級. And if I can live up to my own expectations, I think I can challenge it next summer. But there is still soooo much work, grammar, more vocabulary, and ... I am all alone here! I am learning Japanese, get me out of here! I need sleep. Anyway, I will do what I have to do, no matter what. *(#^.^#)*

Last edited by Nagareboshi (2011 November 05, 7:24 pm)

Gz!

I started KO by the time you finished the first book I think. I still cant see much improvement even though Im on the 370 atm, maybe its because I already knew lots of them.

Thou I got interested at the way you create your cards, I see you have more than 7k, do you create hiragana->kanji kards? im just using the basic aproach here, sentence->reading (very easy if I can read all kanjis in it, easy if I can read the word the target kanji is on, and hard if I can only remember the reading... not really this way all the time, but usually works like this for me).

jonuhey wrote:

Gz!

I started KO by the time you finished the first book I think. I still cant see much improvement even though Im on the 370 atm, maybe its because I already knew lots of them.

Thou I got interested at the way you create your cards, I see you have more than 7k, do you create hiragana->kanji kards? im just using the basic aproach here, sentence->reading (very easy if I can read all kanjis in it, easy if I can read the word the target kanji is on, and hard if I can only remember the reading... not really this way all the time, but usually works like this for me).

Thank you! I knew many words already as well, and it was a small advantage, but some sentences and all the new vocab, made it difficult in the beginning. But since there was not a whole lot going on in terms of Grammar it became easier and easier as time went by. Nothing I haven't seen or didn't know before.

My cards:





My reviews were always Kanji [word - sentence] -> [kanji + furigana + translation], recognition only. I am planning to change that now that I am done with both levels. I just don't know exactly what else I will go with, besides Dictation.

I was rating hard more often than not, when I couldn't read a sentence as a whole, when I was reading the marked word wrong I failed it, and only when I go everything correct I would rate a card easy, or when I knew a word very easy. My approach for vocab cards is a little different. There are some words that I always got wrong in isolation, but had not much problem in context, so I just passed them for a time. And if after 7 days I still haven't gotten them right, I was failing them. But in general I wasn't rating my vocab cards so very strict as I did and do with the sentence ones.

In general I have 3103 sentece cards and 3974 vocab cards. I don't know if Anki adds some fields containing facts into the equation when it comes to counting the number of overall facts. As you can see, there are some definitions on many of my sentence cards. Maybe this is why there are more than there should be. There are some doubles for vocab cards, maybe 60 in all, though. I added them for words I just couldn't seem to remeber, that came up at frame 256 for instance, and again around 956.

Nagareboshi wrote:

I have just put some thought into the basic setup of my deck before I started with KO once I got it. In my deck are both Vocabulary and Sentence cards, because I wanted to have some change during reviews without the need to switch. This is why I created 3 Basic models, 1 for the example sentence, 1 for the vocabulary, and a third for future production. Each with its own model properties. And while typing in cards, first vocabulary, then sentences, I simply had to switch from sentence to vocab input.

For vocabulary I was typing in both kanji and kana words, and in my sentence model I had auto creation for readings. I had to be careful because the readings Anki created were not always correct, but it is an easy fix, and sharpened my eye for mistakes. The rest was more fun than work, just a whole lot to type in, including the number references for the kanji.

I also had some days in between where I did nothing but reviews. The longest break was 3 or 4 days, and in total maybe 12 days, due to various reasons. But it was never planned to finish it in x days, or as fast as possible, a steady pace was key. I never did more than maybe 20 to 25 kanji per day including sentences and vocabulary. Sometimes more, sometimes a little less than that, just as I did with RTK. But when I did RTK I decided to do 35 kanji a day and stuck with it to the end. And it took about the same time finishing it. Its not a race, after all, isn't it?

Phew, you have certainly put a lot of working into organizing your cards!  I've changed how I write them out so many times - starting with sentences, starting over with single vocab cards, going back to sentences, with the new word highlighted in red.  The last method is the method I've been sticking with, and has been the most helpful.  Lately I've decided to start writing my new words down on a piece of paper, with the readings for the kanji I'm learning highlighted.  During school, when extreme boredom hits, I take out my piece of paper with my new words, and practice writing them out.
You're definitely right that a steady pace is the way to go.  If I had figured out a good system for this book from the very first day, I would have been finished long ago.  As it is now, I write up cards for 5-10 kanji a day.  There's a rare day where I don't add anything, but that doesn't happen often. 
While you're right about learning not being a race (something I have to remind myself of often.  The posters on this site, you included, make such amazing progress so quickly, that I feel left behind in the dust.) I'm still in awe, and a little (read: A LOT) envious of your ability to add 20-25 cards daily.  Maybe it's time to try adding 10-15 a day.

Betelgeuzah wrote:

What does the book offer that the deck does not?

Legality.

I just finished the first 555 kanjis ^^

Soo happy, it has been a long time on this KO thing and still have a lot to do, especially because Im studying for JLPT as well, so cant afford to use all my time only to KO even thou it wouldnt be a bad idea But it would get boring fast.

Congratulations on completing it.  I have the books but haven't started studying them yet since I'm tied down with going through the Genki series of textooks.  After I complete those textbooks,  I'll probably start KO2001.  I'm still debating between doing core and KO2001.  Now that I have the books, I'll skim through them and make a decision.  I may try out the iKnow website for comparison as well.  BTW, I sent you a personal message with a question about the vocabulary deck.

As for "what's next", another product from the same folks is Essential Japanese Verbs.  you get multiple sentences covering each of 201 verbs.  Each verb gets something like 15-20? maybe? sentences, with audio.

The audio ranges from the "slow-side of natural speed" to "slightly uncomfortably slow" and the sentences themselves are a little more simple than KO2001.

Still, it's a good set of content/sentences/audio that repeats on themes (certain verbs rather than certain kanji).

After almost 2.5 years, I finally finished.  Now I'm just going to focus and reading and enjoying Japanese for a while.  Keep at it everyone, and don't be discouraged by people who say they did it in two weeks.  If I can do it with 2 kids and a full-time job, so can you.