Magnadoodle wrote:

He mentions that he learned the characters in one month, something which I doubt has been repeated by many people, if any. That leads the hopeful beginner to think that he might, not being as good, be able to do it in two months! Which we all know is not going to happen.

I invested a minimal amount of time and completed RTK1 in about three months. While I didn't log how much time I spent, this was during the end of the school year and most of my time was devoted to cramming, not esoteric ideographs. If you worked at it full-time as Heisig did, four weeks is most definitely possible.

Congratulations on your achievement, by the way.

Last edited by Megaqwerty (2007 October 25, 9:50 pm)

In regards to "Heisig shouldn't be recommended to casual learners", then casual learners might as well just give up on kanji. Learning kanji through traditional methods takes far more time and effort, and the retention rate much lower. Heisig might seem daunting since you have to learn all the jouyou kanji upfront, the end result is a lot less studying required. You don't have to tackle it in 2 months, 3 months, or even a year. Take it at a pace that you are comfortable with. Most people I know who use traditional methods don't know more than 300 kanji regardless of how long they've studied.

Take a look back at how people study with traditional methods. Reading the new article on Kanji Clinic I followed the link to the kanji wiki at Purdue University ( http://tell.fll.purdue.edu/KanjiWiki/ ). I was amazed at how awful (and at times flat out wrong) it was. Is this really what you'd recommend to casual learners?

I suspect there are quite a few people who finished RTK1 in 3 months or less. I did it in 2 and still had time to study Japanese on the side.

Last edited by sheetz (2007 October 25, 10:42 pm)

If you're not serious about learning Japanese, then why bother trying to learn the language at all?  It doesn't matter what methods you use, if you're not serious about learning the language, you're not going to learn the language.

To respond to McJon, I think you can learn japanese without giving a full-blown effort right away. Many people take classes only once or twice a week. In fact, I would bet that some people on this forum have started out at this pace. It's useful to know some basic stuff if you're going to travel there for example. Why would everyone be required to go all the way?

Magndoodle,

Yes, yes and yes to your post.  The speed at which one progressives through RTK is part bell curve and part time and effort.  The average time could range from say, two months to twelve months. I knew I would be as bad at the written part of the language as I am good at the spoken part, just the way my brain works.  And it has take me a fair amount of effort, at times, to keep going.  I suspect ,many if not most, of the people who keep at this have a deep passion for this language, for whatever reason.  We are not, for the most part I believe, your "phrase book" type of learners.  There do seem to be a large number of people, possibly the majority, who give up.

I agree that there are problems with the method for me at least, and I have had to modify it.  That said, the site has been very, very helpful.  I can learn a few kanji while I am basically working on something else, like my job.  Who knows, one day, I too may finish.

Congratulations on completing RTK1; I finished the book about twelve years ago and agree with many of the things you say. It is hard work, and not for everyone.

With regard to Heisig gravely understating the difficulty of the book in his introduction, though, here is a quote from the closing passage of the preface (3rd Ed.): 

". . . the task is still not an easy one. It requires as much stamina, concentration, and imagination as one can bring to it. Of that, too, I am convinced."

I went through RTK1 in three months at 3 hours per day (retention rate 90~95%), so for me his estimate (4-6 weeks if studied full time) was spot on.

My main advice to others would be to make sure to get the method right early on. Heisig gives plenty of good advice in the early chapters (especially chapter 11), and this needs to be carefully thought about and digested. It's too easy to skim through these passages due to a desire to progress quickly.

Also, I would advise anyone to study a book on memory techniques first. Doing so helped me greatly - I was better able to understand Heisig's methodology and to refine it to suit myself.

Last edited by Katsuo (2007 October 26, 12:44 am)

Jarvik7, mcjon01, billyclyde, etc said it well. If you can't be bothered to do Heisig, you probably won't have the determination to learn the language anyway.

It took me ELEVEN months. At first I didn't know this site, and I didn't know the basics (keep at it no matter what). As a matter of fact I stopped a couple of times (one time for more than 2 months).
But I didn't stop because I was discouraged, I just wanted to catch up with my reviews on this website (after I discovered it). I was able to finish RTK because, luckily, I had constant motivation. When I had more time, during the summer, I worked through the last 600+ characters in 10 days.

The thing is, for the almost whole year it took me to complete the book I never felt like I was going nowhere and I wanted give up. I was always enthusiast about the progress I made, even if, compared to some other people, I was incredibly slow.

So, I guess it's true that Heisig shouldn't say "it takes 3 months", because it varies so much from person to person, but it's also true that with the right method and approach it's not even demanding. I feel like I learned those 2042 kanji for free, like magic!

synewave wrote:

reading criticism from people who have actually "done" RTK1 is much more interesting than from the "Heisig is shit" camp.

Here, here!  I agree with synewave.  It is about time that someone who has finished the book has had the opportunity to objectively assess the system on a forum in such a complete and realistic way. 

It is a shame to see people poo poo on what they haven't taken the time to try fully.  I practice iaido, a traditional Japanese sword art.  I have been practicing it for about 3 years now and I have seen so many students come for a few weeks and give up.  They have later told me that they quit because "it was too difficult".  It is NOT possible to objectively assess the difficulty of a complex animal such as RTK, iaido, ikebana, etc. without having given it a real opportunity to show its true colors.

By the way Megaqwerty:  I concur with your assessment.  It took me 3 months to complete RTK1 with approximately 1-2 hours per day study.  I would guess that to be only a fraction of the time required to learn these kanji by repetitious writing and rote memorization.  I found it to be quite an effective method for a serious student who is intensively studying.

Sorry for my ramblings.

I agree that if you know how to go about it, one month is probably realistic.  That would mean about 31 days * 6 hours/day = 186 hours. That would also mean an average of 66 kanjis a day or 11 kanjis per hour. But you have to factor in that there would be peaks at maybe 100 kanjis per day to compensate for slower days. I don't see this as impossible for someone who has mastered the technique.

Another way of seeing it is that the half mark is at 1300, which means that you must learn 1300 kanjis in 15 days. So 87 kanjis on average for the first half with peaks at maybe 150 kanjis. Still not impossible. But not for everybody. I think that doubling that time would give you a realistic target for an average person. So perhaps 372 hours or 2 months full time. This is still a rate of 5.5 new kanjis per hour on average.

In answer to Bill Clyde, the first time I went about it, two years ago, I didn't realize the importance of flashcards, and so I didn't make any. Didn't Heisig say that repetition was a bad way of learning? I know that's not what he meant, but I didn't get from the explanations how vital flashcards were. I also didn't understand how to make stories properly. I was using verbal and not visual stories.

The second time, I made myself flashcards out of paper. That worked better, but they grew physically very large, and I wouldn't review them often enough. Without an SRS, I didn't realize at what frequency I should do reviews. In the end, I started using jMemorize, but I had to stop because of school exams.

This time, I picked my old jmemorize file and I started reviewing the old kanji, only to find out that I mostly remembered the stories after six months of inactivity. I was able to get comfortable enough with the first 1000 in about 4 days, after which I started going through the kanjis systematically, either making new stories or remembering old ones. That was also very fast. Then I hit the 1500-1600 mark where I had stopped last time and I decided to do an average of 50 kanjis per day, which kind of worked out until the end. And then I started reviewing to bring all the cards into the last stacks.

Magnadoodle, I did the same thing with my stories, making puns and long descriptions instead of images.  It took me a four years to see my mistake.  I went up to 800 or so back then, convincing myself I was actually learning, but I retained little and quit.  When I started again this year, I recalled a few stories from before with almost no review.  I'd made those with images, so this time I had some confidence of how to make stories well (though I have had to revise the ones that don't stick mid-stream).

(I also spent a lot of time making, stacking, and transporting my flashcards, made with just the right brush pen, but almost never used them before RevTK.)

Last edited by billyclyde (2007 October 26, 12:29 pm)

I understand you billclyde. It's hard to get the method at first because for the first 300 or 800 kanjis almost anything will work.

Yukamina, I made a two months estimate myself and it's not a bad estimate, but in the end I think that it will vary depending on the person.

ChamCham, I think Heisig isn't dishonest, but he sugarcoats stuff a bit. He only mentions the hardship of the method at the very end of the introduction in the phrase that Katsuo pointed out.