Woooo! Just added the last lesson to my review stack. Thanks for the laugh, phauna

I couldn't have done it without this site, so thanks to faburisu, thanks to everyone who shared stories, and thanks to the great community here on the message boards.

Now onto the the part I've been waiting for: sentences, vocab, and reading!!! and of course rtk3 kanji

You rucky devils youz. 8)

Sfekas: Why only level 2. Why not go for level 1?

You can do it!!!

Last edited by kazelee (2008 August 08, 6:03 am)

Just finished rtk1.  I attempted Heisig's book around 3 years ago but quickly gave up at around 600 kanji in and left it on the shelf.  I didn't like how he left me to make the stories up myself, me not being the most creative type.  I didn't like how the book was full of mistakes and silly keywords.  A good idea, badly implemented.

So last month a friend pointed me to this site and I immediately knew it was for me.

I started the book (ok re-started) on July 19th '08 and just entered the last kanji tonight.  My recall is pretty solid except for the last 200 which I rushed a little.  I sometimes screw up the writing part a little, but it seems to work itself out as long as I remember the stories.  A word of advice for those who want to blitz through the book:  Read back through the characters you just did very quickly (maybe the last 50 or 100) and make sure you remember the story at a glance.  If not, look up again.  I sometimes would forget them even an hour after, but reading through seems to keep it fixed in my mind for longer, and avoids the discouragement of failing some kanji you just learned 10 minutes ago!

I do already speak Japanese but there were a hell of a lotof characters that have become clearer for me now.  This site was an absolute miracle for me.

Thanks for all the great stories guys.  I certainly couldn't have done it alone.

Right, now I'm off for a night of crack cocaine and hookers.  I FINISHED HEISIG AT LAST! What a great feeling.

Reached 2042 around 3 weeks ago and finally feel that I'm on top of my reviews enough to make the fabled post!

Its been a slow but reasonably steady burn for me to get this far with one restart around the 500 mark: away on holiday and then business with no internet access, massive pile and ended up procrastinating until I could 'make a concerted effort' . . . a common story for many of us I suspect.

For me switching to Anki for reviews and 'palm-writing' rather than pen and paper was the right thing: primarily due to working offline and then syncing across multiple machines but also because I found it a little snappier when having a good run in daily reviews.  I also prefer the multiple scoring options as I sometimes found myself agonising too much over trying to remember cards in later stacks so they didn't reset . . . and yes, this does probably say more about my study habits than this wonderful resource.

To echo what others have advised: consistency is key.  Whether or not you can go as impressively fast as some of the people have posted, and whether or not your retention rates are as good as others is less important than that you know, feel and believe that you are making steady progress.  You can and will make it if you want to.

I've probably missed a great deal due to my offline study habits as I've generally used my own stories but when I have needed inspiration this site has been fantastic.  In particular the ideas for personification have worked wonderfully well for me.  As is traditional a big thank-you to Fabrice for creating something special and for his continued efforts.

I've also found a rich resource in the forums, and I'd like to single out the the wonderful (and prolific) posts of some of the alumni here - phauna, rich_f and nukemarine to name but three.  In contrast my own post-count is woeful: partly because if I'm not careful I spend the time when I should be studying reading about what and how to study - meta-studying if you will!

Next steps for me?  Working through Pimsleur on my bike commute and in the gym (standard headphones with one earbud lopped of works is crude but works surprisingly well with spoken material and allows much better awareness on the bike).  Why I didn't use this otherwise dead-time earlier completely baffles me!

Also just received my Yotsubato and Hikari no Go manga -- my first proper Japanese media based on recommendations here  -- which I can't read yet but WILL be able to in time.  And my Understanding Basic Japanese Grammar is on order and I'm genuinely excited about it arriving and getting started with some sentence-based grammatical goodness.

Thanks for reading - a lurker salutes you all.

Hurrah, just finished!



Now the long tail of reviews...

Last edited by pazustep (2008 August 21, 10:58 am)

Yay!! I have finished RTK1!

It took me five months. I don't think I would be able to come this far without this community, so, thanks everybody, for your stories, tips, and motivational posts. And thanks to Fabrice, for building this site.

Anyway, I can barely believe it's over.
What will I do tomorrow morning?

(answer: a 300 cards review)

Last edited by iSoron (2008 August 23, 4:19 am)

I just finished after a month of INTENSE study!!

I have lots to review though - going through that fast didn't leave me much time to let everything sink in. However, I am quite glad I made it though the book!!

I just got done. I started on the 3rd of May and I just finished today. About 4 months, just as I planned. For a while I didn't think I would make it, but all the stories here and all the people talking about their success really helped me when my motivation was low. Thanks everyone. Unfortunately I still need a lot of review because I rushed to the finish the last few weeks, but that's ok. A little review never hurt anyone.

Congratulations to you both!  Believe me, doing the reviews is a lot better when you don't have to add new characters at the same time.

kazelee wrote:

Now what?

Handbook of Japanese Verbs - 550
Tae Kim - 815
Understanding Basic Japanese Grammar - 1314
Japanese for Everyone - 1441
Kanji Odyssey - 3030
Tanuki - 7128

No way man. Pick and choose what you want. But you'll definitely be using only one or two of those before you're past the beginner stage.

Oh yay. Finished RTK1 about two weeks ago. For the first few days after that I was making 70~80% on my reviews, about the same as when I was actively adding new kanji. Now my reviews are sitting in the 95~99% ballpark, yay. I'm yet to get 100% on a review, however

In other words: the best part of RTK1 is after you finish it! I'm enjoying my reviews much more than when I was adding new kanji. The feeling of achievement you get after reaching 95% on a review with 150 cards is priceless.

Also, reading is still slightly frustrating because I don't know how to read most kanji, but it used to be much more infuriating when I couldn't even recognize anything about the kanji. Now I see 判断 and think "hmm, judgement, severance" and crack a smile after looking up the actual meaning and realizing it's somewhat close to what I was thinking.

So... no, to me it's not like any other day. It's a brand new world.

Last edited by pazustep (2008 September 01, 9:12 am)