It looks like I'm going to finish before the end of the year.  There were some nasty ones in the last few hundred, like people mentioned, but I just stuck at it.  It took a little longer than I expected.

I've only got about 20 frames to go and the last chapter looks like cake, so maybe tomorrow I'll be done.

I didn't have much trouble up to frame 1500 or so. Then review started becoming a chore.


At one point I missed several days in a row. That's when things really went wrong. My recall rate plummeted and I lost a lot of confidence, which, in turn, caused my recall rate to fall into a demoralizing tailspin. I went from over 90% recall to 60~70%. I even got as bad as 50% once. It made me sick.

This was, in fact, the second time I had missed several days in a row. The first time was no big deal. I don't know why the second time was.


I broke the pattern by doing two things:

1) I went through my entire expired pile all at once in speed-mode. If I couldn't get some mental hook on a kanji in moments, I failed it on the spot. Otherwise, if I got even just the elements in a character right, I'd pass it. I ended up with a 70% recall rate, which surprised me.

I don't know if that was a good strategy, since I traded big expired stacks for a big failed stack, which I only touched on good days. But I figured it would work itself out, and the failed stack didn't bother me as much as the expired stacks. I felt more in-control, and I didn't have to worry about catching up, which was tiring and caused me to put less effort into my studies.

2) I also realized I was doing the wrong thing each time I failed -- I was getting upset and frustrated with myself. And when you're feeling like that, who has time to reinforce or make better stories?

The turning point was when I decided to give failed kanji the extra, extra attention they deserved. That way I could feel good each time I failed, too. I went back to failing kanji for any slightest excuse.


Since then my recall rate has gone up to just over 80%, which I am OK with.


Compared to that little experience, the rest of the book was easy.

In other words, the biggest difficulty I had was reviewing every single day (I missed over 30 days total in the six months it took me to finish RTK I), and it caused me nothing but trouble.

-- Daniel

I hit 1150 today, and it's DEFINITELY getting much harder to sit down and memorize a new set of characters.  I really think the single greatest element that's different about sitting down for a kanji session NOW, as opposed to when I first started, is that the novelty of learning them with this method has worn off.

At first, the sheer excitement of being able to write and recognize them so quickly was enough to keep me glued to my seat, and concentrating.  I couldn't satisfy my lust for more ... there were days I'd double my goal, just because I was so excited about it.

Now, it's starting to feel more like a chore ... actual work.  It's not any more difficult, exactly; it's just not as glamorous.  I'm still pushing through, but I've got to admit that I've missed some days here and there.  If I had studied every day in the way I originally intended, I may be closer to 1400 or 1500 at the moment.

It's lead me to realize that motivation is the key to everything.  I've taken to reading through the Japanese-language forums every day to "pump me up" to do the heavy lifting of studying the kanji, because ... I still very much want to finish.  It's just that the work, after I became experienced with it, stopped being like a drug.

I can definitely see how so many people start off, make it to 300-500, and then quit.  You've got to enter into it with a committment to yourself to finish, and understand that you've got to have a true passion and zeal for really learning this language.  If it's a casual undertaking, even the simplicity of Heisig is going to be too painful to continue after very long.

Let's play through the pain, everyone!

Some of the things I experimented with were to browse Japanese brochures, look at photos of Japan, even dream of stuff I'd probably never do (like being a translator) so long as it rekindles that motivation in you. One thing I learned with RtK1 is that motivation doesnt fall out of trees, before RtK I 'd never work at it, and so if it dropped I abandoned whatever I worked on. That doesn't mean you have to keep on doing something like a stubborn person, if you know very well that it is useful. For example I reflected on the fact that learning a language is always a good asset, opens up more oportunities in life, etc.

A good exercise is making a list of reasons of why you're doing this, and what you could do after you can read and write 2000 kanji.

It's good to push through but don't bring yourself to hating it. It 's so much easier if you enjoy it, so its best to invest extra time working on the motivation, rather than trying harder with no motivation.

My view is pretty much the same as mspertus.  It wasn't really hard, but it just took time.  Getting yourself with the book open spending a few minutes on each new frame every day plus doing reviews will get you through.

In my own opinion you should also try not to leave anything in the failed stack while progressing through the book.  Learn the failed kanji ahead of learning new frames.  That kind of strategy worked well for me anyway, but I know that some prefer to leave kanji they find difficult behind and push on through the book.

Floatingweed5 wrote:

Excellent. That's great news. I'm pushing for the same goal. I'm in the high 1900s now, just a few days away. I was where you are only a week ago, so you can easily meet your target. You have all of January to let the reviews settle down after the big push.

How long has it taken to get to this stage?

I started the book around the start of July, and have had big and small runs throughout.  It's only been recently that I have started to slow down.  I was around 1700 in the beginning of the December and am now just hitting 1880.  Slowly but surly right?

mspertus wrote:

vosmiura wrote:

My view is pretty much the same as mspertus.  It wasn't really hard, but it just took time.  Getting yourself with the book open spending a few minutes on each new frame every day plus doing reviews will get you through.

In my own opinion you should also try not to leave anything in the failed stack while progressing through the book.  Learn the failed kanji ahead of learning new frames.  That kind of strategy worked well for me anyway, but I know that some prefer to leave kanji they find difficult behind and push on through the book.

I also recommend clearing the failed stack first. There's nothing so discouraging as a large failed stack.

When I was starting out that was how I studied.  Leave no kanji behind.  But after a while some of them I just wasn't getting and that led me to become very frustrated.  Around 800 or 900 I decided to just press on.  If I missed one I'd have to come back later.  I figured even if only ended up learning 500 or 600 kanji that I would never fail i figured that was better then giving up.  Plus when i come back to those failed kanji I'm going to be better at making stories plus I know everything that has come down the pipe so to say.  Meaning that I can probably make stories without worry of another kanji later interfering with it (that is until RTK3 I guess).

Whatever works for you I say go with it.  Just my 2 cents.

I have to say I haven't found it easy.
I'm only at 873 after 9 months, and this is my second time

The first time was a few years ago and I wasn't using any form of SRS, so I hit a wall at about 380 kanji. I just spent so much time reviewing that I couldn't add any new kanji.
I ended up giving up.

Then last year I found this site, and it was exactly what I wanted.
I started up again in May. The first 300 were easy and only took a few weeks, but after that I just couldn't seem to make much progress.
I was reviewing regularly, but I wouldn't add any new kanji till I got 100% correct on the old ones. I found it hard to make the stories, especially for abstract kanji.
I don't have a lot of spare time, and had some things going on last year, but I guess I also doubted the technique a bit. So I often got "stuck" for weeks at a time, and I only got to 600 by January. That's less than 35 a month (not counting the first 300)!

I was seriously doubting whether I would ever be able to finish.

Recently I've made some changes:
- make time every day for review and learning new kanji
- use the stories on this site first, usually there will be something good!
- make sure I really visualize the image, rather than relying on word association
- don't stop adding new kanji because you failed some of the previous ones
- clear my failed list every day, re-learning them by looking at the stories again,
   even if I'm not that confident of the story, just keep failing and relearning

The good news is that it's working!
I've been adding 10+ kanji every day, and now add more in a week than I did in 3 months last year! I was a bit worried that adding kanji too fast would lead to a big drop-off in my recall, but so far I'm still at 85-100% each day.

Even though I'm less than half way through, I'm finally confident that I can finish RTK. I'm aiming to finish by May - I have to make it in less than 1 year!

So for those of you having trouble, my advice is look at ways to improve your techniques, and most importantly stick with it!
がんばって ね!

For that matter, 80% of 1600 is loads more than 1000 (28% more, in fact).  You sound like you have figured out what you need to do to succeed-- which means you will!

And 873 kanji in 9 months is fantastic, compared to how many you would have learned if you'd been doing this the old-fashioned way.  (200?  300, but half you forget?)

がんばれ!

Interesting article, Codexus. It seems to back up the AJATT method of total immersion and figuring out the language as you go along. There's another story on the site about internationally adopted children, and how they use the immersion method to learn a language from scratch, even though they are older. One could easily see the AJATT system doing the same for adults.