RTK Progress - Nearing two months after completion

Here is a brief update with respect to review counts. I started this process six months ago, and finished two months back (not quite, but off only a week or so). Thus far my reviews are less than 100 per day. I spend more time that I should on reviews, since I interleave them throughout the day. I am planning on doing a huge review in the morning and be done with them. Currently, this is my only impediment to other Japanese studies - not that this is bad, but it still takes time. Looking forward to when I have less than 50 reviews per day, but occasionally I fail a load of old cards that end up coming into roost for a few days.

Tokyo train stations

Here are the top tourist train stations in Tokyo. Need to incorporate these into my sentence studies somehow.

東京駅　Tokyo Stn
上野駅　Ueno Stn
新宿駅 Shinjuku Stn
渋谷駅 Shibuya Stn
銀座駅　Ginza Stn
表参道駅　Omotesando Stn
原宿駅 Harajuku Stn
浅草駅 Asakusa Stn
六本木駅　Roppongi Stn
品川駅 Shinagawa Stn (easy shinkansen access if you stay in Shibuya area)
両国駅　Ryogoku Stn (sumo stables)

LeitnerDS and tinyxml

I have been working on my SRS implementation for the Nintendo DS (named LeitnerDS) and thus far, I have the deck management code working fine reading my deck, schedule, etc. I decided to rip out the tiny xml parser that I wrote and release it separately, since it is useful and my older library (picoxml) had some issues that have since been solved in tinyxml. In any case, you might find my tinyxml code useful for embedded systems.

Hacking Anki to Add RTK Keywords

Initial work is complete and it works well. Current implementation adds a title over the Kanji in the Question component only. To see the keyword you have to hover over the specific Kanji you are interested in. More later.

EDIT: This is now available in downloadable plugins as rtkize.

New Heisig Tool

I have authored a simple python-based tool that allows one to query with Japanese text and map the text to Heisig (author of Remembering the Kanji, or just RTK) keywords. Some might wonder what value it would be to someone to know the RTK keywords? Anyone who has studied RTK has created a map of the keyword to a story that contains elements that should bring forth the actual Kanji character. Going the other way from the Kanji to keyword is harder and really isn't that important. However, when studying Kanji compounds it is helpful to think of the RTK keyword components. For example: 家族 (かぞく) maps to the RTK keywords [house] and [tribe]. You can see the value in utilizing the keywords to recall the compound - some of course are downright obvious, some funny and others vague. The script is available here and basically runs as a server in the background.

And a bookmarklet for those who want to be able to select random text while reading and have the text mapped to keywords:

javascript:(function(){q=document.getSelection();location.href='http://localhost:8080/?decode='+encodeURI(q)})()

One month following the finishing of RTK

It has been one month since finishing RTK (Remembering the Kanji by Heisig). I still do reviews daily and test some 120 characters everyday. The reviews have been decreasing noticeably weekly, from 180/day when I completed to the current rate.

Was it worth it? Am I fluent yet? Can I read a Japanese newspaper yet?

Yes, it was worth it. No I am not fluent, nor can I read a newspaper. However, the path is clear and my Kanji fears have subsided since there are little characters that I see that I don't have some level of familiarization with and understand the basic meaning.

I have started on みんなの日本語 1 (minna no nihongo 1), which I started last year and made through half way, before stopping. The first half is pretty basic and most of which I am familiar with already, however, there is a drastic difference: the Kanji. As I progress through the text, some of the questions have been already answered - in hiragana only though. Now that I know Kanji, the vocabulary presented with Kanji in the text is easily recalled (e.g., かぞく - family, which is 家族, or in RTK keywords: house, tribe) and more importantly produced when I am answering workbook questions. This text should be finished in early September at my current molasses-like rate.

As far as studying Japanese, my time is still divided up studying RTK and みんなの日本語, however, I see and understand the importance and those can easily justify the required devotion. My sentences that I have been studying in Anki numbers only 130 or so, but should increase steadily as I have more time available and my study patterns normalize.

Finished with 2042+ Kanji

I have officially entered and tested the last of the 2042 (actually 2044 characters are in my Anki deck). Thus I am finished lugging Heisig's book around with me, however, I am not finished studying Kanji so to speak. I still am devoting several hours per day on reviews and don't see that changing anytime in the next month or so.

Since I am finished with adding new Kanji, I can begin my next phase of studies. Already I have changed my plan to match reality. The next three months will be composed of two items: (1) Minna no Nihongo I, and (2) Continue daily reviews of Kanji. I have chosen to focus primarily on Minna no Nihongo (みなあの日本語）as opposed to water down my time with other supplementary materials. More later.