Another person with good taste I see 
if I’m being honest I’d say it’s my favourite anime. It’s so funny but when they do serious arcs they’re so well done. I’ve never watched anything quite like it.
Thanks again, I love a good gif especially if it’s Gintama and got so many of my favourite characters in it
I am a Kintama fan too!
Congratulations! よかったじゃね。
I feel you on the not using any other SRS thing, I’m Level 14 (I think, I don’t check levels these days, I just do and do!) And I find even doing Tae Kim grammar study to be almost too much on top, since I’m a music student trying to learn several different instruments at once, I simply don’t have the time and energy for things like the Core 10K and the Mass Immersion Approach - My intuition says that could be the next step for you but I’m no authority.
Again congratulations!
…Only shooting stars twinkle more. And you are the shooting star, shooting for that level 60 cake! Well done!
The forum says you’re 15 already!
A controversial choice, clearly Mantama is better 
Congrats! 
If the level 60 cake is true, does that mean there’ll be cake after burning everything too?! 
ありがとう 
It’s hard to get a balance of everything and even then I was more focused on reading and balancing that with WK.
You just have to do what works for you and will allow you to have the motivation to stick with it. I used to play a bit of piano but had to drop it once I started uni since I just didn’t have the time so I find it impressive you’re learning multiple instruments and still managing WK and grammar
I always intended to start piano again once I graduated but I never did 
I definitely plan to spend more of my time trying to do immersion, I can only stick so much ‘studying’ before I start to get demotivated and bored. Even though it’s harder I’d rather try to read a manga or book and look up what I don’t know as I go.
Yo, congratulations!
Looks like you found your groove and stuck to it, which is the most important thing. I’m also planning on hopping on Bunpro after I hit lvl 60. I’ve been prioritizing WK above all else and college hasn’t made things much easier haha. But that said, make sure you update us again after you’ve had some time with BP, I’d love to hear how that’s helping you progress!
And as someone who struggled with listening, my biggest advice to you is pretty obvious and I’m sure you’re already aware, but just listen more! I have a bunch of Japanese podcasts that I listen to while I’m doing dishes, cleaning, commuting to school, etc, and at the start I didn’t understand much, but it really helped train my ear over time. After doing a lot of listening for the past few months, I’m able to understand a whole heck tonne more now. I highly recommend it, and also, enjoy your cake!
Congratulations! That’s an amazing accomplishment!
It’s also nice to see that many people are just focusing on one item at a time. I was worried I should be doing WaniKani, another SRS and grammar. What a relief to see all the success with only sticking to one thing at a time.
Thank you
Thank you
I hope so, you can never have too much cake 
Thank you
Sure, I can do that. I’m interested to see how it goes as well, even with reading I do find myself still looking the same grammar up time and again and then realising that I’ve already ‘learnt it’. I think I would need to read a lot more in a day to fix that but I just don’t always have the time or energy after a days work. Hopefully Bunpro will help keep the grammar in my head a bit better at the early stages until reading has cemented it in place.
I think I need to be a bit more strict with myself on this. I tried listening to podcasts for a bit and often found myself thinking ‘this is too hard to understand’ and changing to my music playlist and singing along badly to the few songs I know in Japanese
I shall
Thank you
Yeah I just didn’t have the brainpower to manage more than one SRS system along with the bit of grammar studying I was doing so I could read with the bookclubs.
You just have to decide what it is you want to do, in my case mostly read books, and then get yourself a plan that won’t overwhelm you. I remember trying to do too much when I was around WK level 20 and it nearly burnt me out.
Also…welcome to the forums! They’re a fun place to be
I’m honoured this is your first post.
Congratulations mate, well done!
Very inspiring post to read, it really is impressive to see people like you follow through on a multi year long project like this.
Yeah, I ran into that a lot while listening a lot. I would sometimes watch a show without JP or EN subtitles and then watch it again to understand it. But I think the biggest thing that worked for me was embracing the ambiguity. Yes, I want to understand what I’m watching/listening to, but my main goal is to get better at the language faster, so I just had to learn to be okay with not understanding. Easier said than done, for sure, but it definitely worked. Nowadays, when I’m watching a drama on say Netflix, I usually switch between watching with JP subs or raw, and if I didn’t understand it well enough, I just pull up the wiki description of the episode.
It sucks at the get go, but it’s worth it in the long run.
Yep, I feel that big time too, haha. I started reading one of the Intermediate Book club books around level 40 and it’s hard to dedicate the time, especially since I’ve been cruising through the levels. However, I noticed that it was soooo much easier to read having been that level in WK and also it did a lot to cement what I had learned here. Once I’m done with WK, I’m gonna put all that extra free time towards reading so I don’t waste all the time I spent on WK.
Well done! I still always enjoy reading these threads!
This was the case for me as well! Just the fact that “easy Japanese” wasn’t an oxymoron but something that actually existed was a huge kick for me! The readers served as a great stop-gap until I was ready for real native materials.
Also, one resource I’d like to recommend, in case you don’t know of it, is the 日本語の森 channel.
They’ve got material aimed at the various JLPT levels. The higher level material is in Japanese only but they speak pretty clearly and sometimes also have subtitles.
Learning Japanese grammar in Japanese also feels like you’re getting a twofer. Since it’ll give you listening practice it’s perhaps even a threefer! 
Congratulations! 
I guess there’s not much for me to add to what has already been told, but I also want to thank you for representing the method of one item at a time.
Congratulations!! 
Thank you I’m glad my long (and somewhat rambling) post was useful. For me it was getting into the habit of always doing my reviews, even if I didn’t always feel like it. It helps stop the reviews from piling up.
Best of luck with your studies
Thank you
I still feel like I’ve logged into the wrong account or something every time I see the gold badge
Thanks for the good advice, it’s interesting to read how you improved your listening skills. I think the biggest thing for me is the ambiguity, I’ve just about become accustomed to it in books and manga, at least because I can see exactly how many words or sentences on the page I don’t understand. Whereas, with listening it can be hard to know if you’ve missed one sentence or an entire story depending on how fast they’re talking
I will definitely give some of the methods you’ve used a go so thanks for sharing them
Reading definitely helps me with so much, I’d imagine since I can process everything at my own pace. It’s good for helping you to learn nuance without overwhelming yourself by only looking up the bits you need to understand. I’ve had so many ‘ahh so that’s how it works’ moments while reading, things just start to click into place.
You haven’t much left of WK left to go, 頑張って!
Thank you I always enjoy reading other peoples posts as well, although I was a bit nervous writing my own
Graded Readers are such a great invention, I love them so much. Like you say they’re such a great stop gap, and I think they stop you from feeling demotivated when you feel that you can’t read any ‘real’ Japanese when you’re just starting out with your grammar and don’t know as much.
This looks like exactly the sort of resource I need, thank you
I like that they only speak Japanese in the higher levels, I want to slowly start trying to understanding grammar explanations and dictionary entries etc in Japanese. Being able to read a native thesaurus might help with some of my many vocab leeches
Definitely what I need then, my lazy brain will think it’s only doing one thing when in fact it’s doing several 
Thank you, I appreciate it BSD is definitely helping with the kanji side of things as well, especially the more unusual usages so I should thank you also for starting the book club
And thanks you for the lovely pic of Ranpo, that expression pretty much sums up how I feel about all my cake
