2/3 through RTK

So I'm sitting here thinking to myself "Wow, I'm 2/3 through RTK. This is SOO much painless than the first time I ran through the book"

It turns out 2 years of non-use and I still need very little review to get me right back to where I was before. This simply shows how strong the method is. A good friend of mine is now starting RTK after seeing my success with it, but is likely doing the RTK lite option first. This simply goes through about the 1000 most useful kanji in the book first, and the primitive elements that make them up. This ensures the most gain in the shortest time. He will most likely finish the book at a later date after that.

I have entered 100 facts into Anki, for 200 cards, and am having fun memorizing the new words and compounds I am being exposed to. I have 300 more facts to go to be caught up with smart.fm. Once this occurs, and I am done RTK my decks will slow substantially and I can spend much more time on JFE :D ( which btw is now into lesson 9 )

Progress

Almost halfway through this run of RTK, but I'm not just doing that. This time I am getting extremely high retention rates, it simply shows how WELL the system works. Even after all this time I can easily fly through 100 new kanji in a day no problem. I am going to pick the pace up a bit ( I was doing the smaller lessons in a day, but recently had the 130 and 96 kanji monsters recently ) and decided I'd love to be done with the book by new years clearing myself up to just do reviews.

I have "Mastered" Japanese Core 2000 steps 1 and 2 on smart.fm. This apparently covers all of their beginner level material. I started step 3 and BOY is it a huge leap, no wonder they call it intermediate. I've seen comments that step 4 is easier, perhaps I will do that one alongside it. Now I can enter this all into anki and slowly work through the newer, harder stuff.

Anki, I've obtained the core2000 deck with audio and pictures. It tests both production and dictation. This is good because I get to try reading the sentences, if correct, pass. For dictation, I can visualize what the kanji should look like, and usually write them out unless it seems pretty easy. Of course I need to understand the sentence in both cases as well. On all the tougher cards and ALL fails, the full sentence gets written out.

It will take me a while to get all the core2000 sentences I've completed into anki, but I'm learning more as I go. Core2k concentrated on one word, where I test myself on the entire sentence.

I am already seeing improvements in my reading, and once I have completed RTK I can concentrate more on sentences and JFE. I am currently on lesson 8 in JFE, and have gotten back there quickly. I've slowed down now to clear out all this other material I am working through. When I run out, there's always KO2001 :D

Til next time......