I don’t post often, but I hit lv60 a while ago and just been chugging along with reviews. My favourite add-on is the redo one, and no, I don’t abuse it. I love coming back and resurrecting a word/kanji I forgot the reading or meaning to when I come across it in the wild. I haven’t read a book in English since I began my WK journey back in 2019 and I absolutely love reading young adult supernatural murder mystery novels like 殺人犯 対 殺人鬼.
Here’s what my review map from day 1 looks like:
when you say that you hit lvl 60 a while back, do i see that correctly that that was september 2020?!
like, wow! that’s a lot of perseverance to still be doing your reviews!
also, yay for reading!
Yeah, Sep 2020. 
One thing I do is have every time I open browser, Tab 1 is WaniKani, Tab 2 is BunPro. However, retention only comes through use. All my electronics are in Japanese, all my websites where applicable, and all computer applications, etc. Passive reading is almost more important than reading books for retention, in my experience.
That’s true dedication. I dipped on Wanikani about 2 months after hitting 60.
I split between Japanese and English. But I think one of the best things is that I can pick up pretty much anything and read through a few pages to see if I like it or not.
One thing I’m still struggling with is probably a result of mixing languages in my reading, and it is that my eyes still tend to gloss over Japanese in mixed text. If I actually try I can read it, but yeah, the tendency is still there.
Niiiiice, that’s awesome. I hit 60 about 4 years ago, but only got about 6,000 burned before I decided to take a long break. Now I started it all over for practice (I probably should’ve just started at level 10 instead of 1, the early levels are truly BURNED into my memory 
). Anyway, that’s really cool to see how you have almost everything burned.
congratulations. your effort and perseverance are inspiring.
I would be interested on learning more about the supernatural murder mystery novels you’ve read. would you maybe share some of these novels and perhaps give a recommendation of one that someone at around N4-N3 level - grammar and vocab wise - would be able to read?
yeah, i read only for pleasure 
my kindle is set to japanese only, but i’m not quite at the point where i feel confident in switching my phone or laptop to japanese. working on it!
頑張って！自信をもって！
No books in English since beginning? That’s crazy impressive. I’m trying to read the absolute beginner’s book club book right now - ちいさな森のオオカミちゃん, and it’s kicking my butt. Any suggestions on other books I should consider as well?
Sure. Find a genre you like that suits your tastes. What kind of genres do you like? I suggest starting with manga instead of novels. The pictures help give context to words! Have a favourite manga/anime but never read the Japanese version? Try that. Being familiar with the source material will help you memorise things even better. I like Dragon Ball and high school stuff, so I just stick to that. I can’t do book club stuff and tend to blow through manga. The more you read, the better.
Eventually, I started adding novels (after level 60).
Also, consider games. It helps to play oldschool JRPGs. Zelda on Switch is a good one. It replaces many words that often appear in kanji in kana instead so younger players can understand it. It also uses furigana, iirc.
i second that: read something which you actually want to read.
for me it was やがて君になる, because i loved the anime, and then there was a bookclub here, so i decided to read that.
i’d also recommend learnnatively.com, they have a pretty good rating system for evaluating how difficult any given book might be. that can help choosing books or manga which aren’t completely out of your reach.
Greatly appreciated! I watched a ton of DBZ in highschool, might try that. Gundam is another that might be worth me trying. Thanks again.
Really appreciate the website recommendation! Already found a few super easy ones that are exactly what I need. Many thanks!
This topic was automatically closed 365 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.
