javiergakusei
Member
From: Bolivia
Registered: 2006-06-19
Posts: 10
Hi, everybody I?m from Bolivia (My native language is Spanish) and recently have finished RTK volume 1! To tell you the truth it was one of the most difficult challenges I ever had in my life. That?s why I am starting this post, I want to know how hard it was for the rest of people who finished it.
I have this curiosity because I have read many times in this forum how well everybody did. Of course most of them recognize that it was a difficult task, but I would like to know more about the problems and concerns they had during their learning. I also want to know more about how does it get after finishing RTK1, I mean, how good are you in your daily reviews.
I hope this information will help other people who are still struggling with the book, making them realize that they are not the only ones with difficulties and that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. After I said that, I would like to share my personal experience:
Almost two years ago I started to learn Japanese. At first, I had the naive idea that I wanted/could learn the language without knowing the writing system. A couple of classes later, I realized that I incurred in an error, but then I thought it was impossible for a foreigner to memorize the almost 2000 kanji. Then, I encountered the almighty Heisig?s RTK1 and Fuaburisu?s superb Reviewing the Kanji site.
In the beginning I did not understand the fundamentals of ?imaginative memory? and the ?spaced repetition? method (e.g. I clicked in the green stacks very often thinking this would improve my learning). Another mistake I made was to try to learn kanji the Heisig?s way in conjunction with the kanji I was being taught in classes. That meant I thought I could learn RTK 1 in a non sequential order. I know this was dumb, because the book precisely states you should not to this. Luckily, some months after wasting time with this ?original approach? I got serious about completing RTK 1.
It took me about 6 or maybe 7 months to finish it, studying for about 2 or 3 hours per day. For me this was exhausting! What is more, it is still exhausting, since my cards have not reached the last stacks yet. In many occasions I had to stay home, avoid long travels, and had to study at work (oops, sorry boss). I even lost a girlfriend, because after three weeks of going out with her, she said I prefer kanji over her!
My success rates are variable. Sometimes (learning about 15 kanji per day) I obtain 90%, some other times I get 70%. Most of the time it is around 80-85%, which worries me because the proponents of the spaced repetition method say that the rate should be around 90-95%. I would like to know how you people are doing.
My last concern is about the retention rates for those cards that are placed in the last stacks. Leitner theory predicts that since you have reviewed these cards many opportunities at the right time, you will remember them best. I agree with this ideal scenario, but does this apply in the real world? I would like to get some feedback about your personal experiences.
Thank you very much.
billyclyde
Member
Registered: 2007-05-21
Posts: 192
Congratulations, javiergakusei! I posted about my experiences in the Finished/congratulate thread, but I can say that I too had a success rate of about 80% throughout my reviews (still do, in fact, as I inch towards everything in the last stack). Some days it bugged me, but then I realized I could just let the SRS take care of it for me. I have noticed too that I tend to forget certain kanji I for the first time on the fifth review (second time in the last stack), but those are rare, and then I'll get them the second time around.
And since the ultimate real world scenario is replacing the keywords with Japanese words & compounds, all I can say is that yes, I think you'll be surprised at how the stories & keywords give you a hook to hang those new meanings on.
PParisi
Member
From: Columbus, GA
Registered: 2007-07-19
Posts: 57
javiergakusei wrote:
It took me about 6 or maybe 7 months to finish it, studying for about 2 or 3 hours per day. For me this was exhausting! What is more, it is still exhausting, since my cards have not reached the last stacks yet. In many occasions I had to stay home, avoid long travels, and had to study at work (oops, sorry boss). I even lost a girlfriend, because after three weeks of going out with her, she said I prefer kanji over her!
My success rates are variable. Sometimes (learning about 15 kanji per day) I obtain 90%, some other times I get 70%. Most of the time it is around 80-85%, which worries me because the proponents of the spaced repetition method say that the rate should be around 90-95%. I would like to know how you people are doing.
First, congratulations, javiergakusei! It felt difficult because it IS difficult. Mr. Heisig's method is simple but not easy. At least, I have not found it easy. At any rate, 6-7 months is pretty darn speedy, when you consider that the average Japanese citizen took 8+ years to get to the same point (sure, they have a big japanese vocabulary and all we have are the keywords but . . . hey . . . let's not quibble!). The more you review and work on the vividness (memorability) of your stories, the closer you will come to 100% recall.
If you read the entries on the "Congratulate me . . . " thread you will recognize your experience as common: unless I misunderstand their comments, it seems to me that many posters to that thread continue to miss kanji even after having reviewed them all at least once.
Finally, keep in mind as you read the success stories that no-one is posting to a corresponding "I tried, failed, and quit" thread, though many people do try and fail. This means two things: (1) none of us are quitters 
, and (2) you are one of a proud minority that continues to grow.
Last edited by PParisi (2007 November 10, 2:47 pm)
javiergakusei
Member
From: Bolivia
Registered: 2006-06-19
Posts: 10
Thanks a lot Pparisi, It?s nice to know we belong to this kanji community, where over 800 (maybe more) people are doing the same thing and trying to succeed with Heisig?s book. In my Japanese school there are probably 170 people studying, but none of them (as far as I know) has considered using the RTK method, although I tried to convince a few. I even got into a discussion with one of my mates who argued that RTK was not good at all. He considers that kanji learning must have an ?integral? approach. This was no surprise for me because we all know that Heisig?s method consists precisely in the ?divide and conquer? approach which is opposite to the traditional way of studying these characters.
I believe that one of the biggest difficulties for the students in my school to start using RTK is that it is almost impossible to get copies in Spanish of the book. Even If they could get them, they wouldn?t be able to use the Reviewing the Kanji site (for it is only in English), which I consider indispensable for completing the book. So the only strategy to get new adepts that is left is to convince other students who know English.
I hope that in the future, I will be able to share my RTK experiences with people from my city. By the time being, I would like to know more about the efforts you guys had to do make to finish the book.
Push. Push hard.
Make ridiculous stories. Utterly ridiculous stories. I'm using Anki and whenever I 0 a kanji, I open up the story page and review all my stories when I'm done.
The problem is that I'm getting hit with anywhere from 50~100 reviews a day and trying to add more kanji to that. So it makes it intense, but knowing that as soon as I finish it will begin to stabilize and then daily amounts will shrink is refreshing.
Plus, I've been purposely withholding myself from doing some things until I finish the book as sort of a reward. Your mileage will vary on that one.
Little note. It seems almost as if at this point Heisig is giving you element keywords that you won't want to use. Er, that is perhaps there were two or three keywords for an element and he'll choose the on you'd be better off not using. Really forces me to think about my stories, but that's probably a good thing as it makes it more personal and likely to stick.
Last edited by revenantkioku (2007 December 10, 7:46 am)
sheetz
Member
Registered: 2007-05-29
Posts: 213
It's not just psychological--the last kanji really are harder because they tend to be an assorted hodgepodge that don't easily fit into clear groupings like those kanji in the earlier chapters. The only thing I can say is suck it up and just do it. Set a reasonable number of kanji to complete each day and stick to it no matter what. Even if you have to stay up late while half asleep. Just keep going. You won't regret it.
Last edited by sheetz (2007 December 10, 9:38 am)
vosmiura
Member
From: SF Bay Area
Registered: 2006-08-24
Posts: 1085
skinnyneo wrote:
I gotta say that I am starting to find it very very difficult to finish the book. I'm at around 1750 right now meaning I have less then 300 kanji to go. I don't know why but these last 300 just seem impossible. Which is weird because I remember being AT kanji 300 and thinking what a breeze it is. I've been stuck around here for a while now (a week or so). I'm only pounding out like 20 or 15 a day which isn't much, and feels like pulling teeth. Compare that to two months ago where I was packing in 45 or so a day and remembering them!
My reviews range as well. Probably from 75-100% depending on where the stack is coming from.
Any tips on getting over that last kanji hump?
Looks like I just caught up to you at 1756 . I feel quite the opposite; since about 1500 I fealt like the end is in sight and now I feel like I can taste it. Its encouraged me to study more per day.
However I only had a goal of about ~20 per day which I stuck to for 2 months, so if I keep doing that I know I'll be done in about two weeks and cellebrate. Since I progressed slower than you, I probably have less outstanding reviews each day.
Lets finish this! If it helps, race me to the end 
Last edited by vosmiura (2007 December 11, 1:36 am)
stehr
Member
From: california
Registered: 2007-09-25
Posts: 281
I personally found that from around 1700-1880 was really tough and had some of the most boring primitives of the book (funnel, tremedously, scrapbook, drag*).
From 1880 up the kanji get more colorful and have interesting primitives like tiger, ghost, bear, elephant. And although Heisig says that Lesson 51 is the hardest in the book, I actually thought it was pretty fun to work through.
It took me a month from 1600-1880 then I finished 1880-2042 in about 3-4 days. So just try to keep struggling through because the end should be a bit more refreshing.
Last edited by stehr (2007 December 10, 6:44 pm)
Raichu
Member
From: Australia
Registered: 2005-10-27
Posts: 249
Website
I haven't been on this forum for ages but at least I've been working away slowly at RTK1. After about three years, I've now finished. I learnt about 1000 new kanji as a result. I already knew around 400, and there are 600 that refuse to be learned.
With regard to people who argue against Heisig's method, you have to explain that it's not meant to be a complete kanji course. All you learn is familiarization with the most common kanji and a rough idea of their meaning. That's it. No readings, not always an accurate meaning, and no multiple meanings.
The real benefit is that you obtain a good feel for the subject. You get to recognize the kanji themselves, which I suspect is the most significant problem in learning them. It's then a matter of associating more and more with each kanji as you go deeper into the language: once you know one meaning, it's often not too hard to associate more meanings and readings to match. And of course it makes it easier to learn new kanji as you encounter them.
The biggest problem I have found with the method is that it doesn't always work. You need to come up with a mnemonic to help you relate the keyword to the character based on its components. Sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's hard, but often I find nothing comes up, at least nothing that sticks. My red pile is 600 high and refuses to go down.
Anyway, congratulations for finishing RTK1.
vosmiura
Member
From: SF Bay Area
Registered: 2006-08-24
Posts: 1085
Hi Raichu.
Congratulations for finishing. Can you name some that are refusing to be learned? Maybe we can offer some advice on how to make better stories or something.
I am using Anki, and well... there is no red pile in Anki. Rather, Anki will keep bugging you every 10 minutes when you get something wrong. It encourages you not to give up on any kanji.
I found that there have been really no kanji that I didn't eventually learn using this "bug me later" method. I studied nearly 1800 frames, and have nothing like a huge red stack. At any one time I have only a handful of failed kanji bugging me. Maybe you could try it too by adding your failed cards to Anki?
I owe everything to the great people like Fabrice and Resolve and those who shared so many great stories. Since Fabrice added the vote system the golden stories have gotten a lot easier to find.
Last edited by vosmiura (2007 December 11, 3:06 am)
