Tobberoth wrote:

So while it's a great accomplishment to finish RtK1, many people might have been hyped up to think that once they are done, they can read Japanese, which is extremely far from the truth.

Contrary to what most people seem to advocate (at least, to what Khatz says), I think RTK is extremely effective when you're also studying other aspects of the Japanese language.

I've been studying Japanese on and off for many years, but decided to really dedicate myself to the task about 18 months ago. Today I have a reasonable grasp of grammar and not too shabby a vocabulary, but reading anything other than textbooks has been extremely frustrating. I couldn't remember how to read most words, even if my life depended on it.

I've heard of RTK before, but was skeptical and didn't think it was a good method. "Kanji should not be learned on it's own, but in context only", I thought. While I still have some reservations about RTK2, completing RTK1 really, really helped me to advance my Japanese studies. It's much easier to remember readings (and words, and sentences) when you have something other than a very abstract sequence of strokes to associate them to.

Ah, I'm ranting too much today. What I really want to say is: while too many people seem to think of RTK as the holy grail of Japanese -- and are dead wrong about that -- RTK does have it's usefulness.

pazustep wrote:

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.

Adding new kanji suck, lol. Reviewing them for the first time suck as well. After that I love it.

About a brand new world, when I woke up yesterday, I had a similar feeling. Maybe it just needed to sink in a little bit.

(first post here...been lurking on and off)

Finished up today at 1:30 a.m.  Now it's just review, review, review.  I feel kind of like I'm juggling 2000 balls and keeping them all in the air at the same time.

Strange: the last 400 kanji went very quickly.  Almost unnervingly so.

Kyorei

Today its 1 year ago since I finished RTK1. And on that day I searched Google for that latin sentence in the end of the book.
Thanks to that, and thanks to someone who had mentioned that sentence in this forum (sorry that I cant remember who), I found this site. In other words, up until then I had been writing my stories on sheets of paper and trying to work with the flashcards I had.
So today its also 1 year ago since I registered here, adding all those 2042 cards at the same time.
For various reasons it had taken me a long time to finish the book, and I had prioritized just getting one story for each kanji down rather than keep reviewing them.
I doubt that any of you here now remember me posting back them, but I posted in this thread just as if I was finished with it all... oh well.
After going through those 2042 cards one time I had 900 in the first green pile and 1100 red cards....
I had to re-learn the red ones, and when that was done I had forgotten some of those 900's instead and so on..
One year later Im working my way through RTK3 (now without any stories on sheets of paper), all of my 2346 so far leared kanji are green, 2195 of them are in pile 5 or higher, and most importantly 1978 of the RTK1 kanji are there too (the majority of them in pile 7).

What I want to say is that THIS is a better time than one year ago to say: "please congratulate me"

And If any of you, contrary to expectation, remember me from back them, say hi

PS. I rarely make my stories public since I almost never write them in english, but isnt my story for "hawk" worth a better fate? I'll certainly never forget that one.

Finally done, finally free! So free that I can now rush towards even worse challanges and enslave myself again! Thank you all for your stories, for the comments, for helping me in those dark times in which I regularly succumbed to depressions, never went out during daylight, lost a lot of friends and even made the other people whisper that I was a vampire. I owe you all a big dept for showing me that I wasn't the only one.

For those who are peeking in the thread, shivering with envy, don't give up, unless a brick  falls on you, or unless you die of dehydratation from the long RTK learning seasons, you'll eventually make it too.

By the way, for those who are finished, is it just me, or did you too, rather than joy, feel relief after finishing RTK ?

Last edited by Garland (2008 September 14, 2:15 pm)

Well, freedom is lightness and lightness makes us futile, so I never mind I guess

About the reviews, how long does it take for them to drop to some, say, 10 a day? (A question to those using Anki with retention rate over 90 %, who use the easy button only seldom. They should also have black, short hair and be male)

Please?

Last edited by Garland (2008 September 14, 4:39 pm)

That sure must be hard. While I was adding new cards, I only had about 50 kanji per day (I worked in a slow pace, it took me 7 months to finish) and even that seemed terribly time-killing to me.

Thanks for your answer than, and I wish you good luck.

You are hooked. Ehehehe. Way to go!

I'd leave RTK3 for later, and work my way trough the actual language ^_^

wow that's so awesome to hear!  it's quite inspirational as my goal is to finish RTK by November 4...although i'm only on 569.  anyways, congratulations!

This must be a new record! Congratulations!
Could you speak more of it?

mentat_kgs wrote:

This must be a new record! Congratulations!
Could you speak more of it?

Sure. I am currently not working or at college, so Japanese is pretty much all I do. When I first started I did maybe only 50-60 a day and just reviewed them more than once in 1 day. Then I pushed it up to over 100 a day and noticed I didn't lose any retention in the reviews, maybe forgetting 1 or 2. I would usually finish a chapter, go get a drink then look at my Kanji poster and go over the Kanji I just done and refresh them in my head. Wait another 20 mins and do the review of them. Some days when I woke up I would just do about 400 reviews of the older cards. Write them out or if I know them well I just hit "Easy". Towards the end I was doing less reviews and getting more and more chapters done. I don't wait till a review is scheduled, I just do it.

I think I have never forgotten the story for a single Kanji, the only ones I fail are the ones that the English word is obscure to me or if it is similar to others. Also the trees with the weird names, they suck :p

Currently my boxes are : 0 cards :: 252 cards :: 180 cards :: 126 cards :: 1484 cards.

So really, all I did was spend about 5-6 hours every day for 21 days, doing heisig. Yes I have no life! and I love Japanese

QuackingShoe wrote:

Not... waiting for the scheduled review period may come back to bite you in the ass. But eh, don't take my word for it. Too late now anyway.

It would if I don't keep up with my reviews, I plan to review a few hours each day so I don't think it will be a problem.