Any advice from people studying japanese extracurricularly?

Halp. I just can’t seem to find the time with school to progress in WK (or grammar for that matter) and i feel the only way i can progress is by blasting during my short summer break.

How much sleep can you go without and still be alive?

That’s what I do :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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well

time to give up my nightly anime viewing

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on a more serious note, i can go till about 12:30 before wanting the sweet release of death

Weak af… It’s 1:30AM here and I’m studying grammar.

But seriously, it’s all down to micromanaging your time. As far as you can, pretty much.

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I cannot claim to know your situation. What I can say though, is this:
You won’t get more time after school.

I left school a while ago. Now, I do WK before bed, in the morning when I wake, in the car on the way to work, in the car on the way back (no, I’m not the one driving), at my desk during lunch, when I’m looking after my niece, when I’m out with friends and step out for five minutes because I know the Brown storm that’ll hit me if I don’t handle stuff on WK.
My point is this: I love WK.
Is it perfect? Nope.
Is it the best way I have come across to learn Kanji? Yep.
It slowly gnaws at you and you need to make sure you’re in it. I barely have time, but there are pockets of time, as described above, that we waste every day. Make use of those and you won’t feel the time as much. You don’t have to take it to the extreme, but as a school student, there is time somewhere.

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I stopped using FB for leisure. Now I use WK.

This is a cult. Accept it and the Holy Cabrigator shall reward you.

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If scientology can be classed as a religion, this can too, thank you.

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In Soviet Russia, you don’t make time for WK. WK makes time for you :crabigator:

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Thats so nice of it… as opposed to most things that happen in Soviet Russia.

In truth though, you only get less and less time for yourself the older you get. Once you get a job, wife, kids, etc… you learn to use the time you have. I do most of the things that @VegasVed mentioned. Even if its 5 minutes between classes, if you do that 5x a day, you will have knocked out a fair chunk of the reviews making your evening seem more manageable.

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On a serious tone, most of these questions come out of fear. You might think that you don’t/won’t have time. You feel like you’ll lose control. You’re afraid of stopping. You don’t want to though.

You need to take control.

Make WK a healthy habit. Forget about all the stuff that brings you uncomfort on WK. This is not about going faster, this is not about being 100% correct all the time.

This is about you washing your hands each time you go to the bathroom. Yep, WK is just like that. You know you have to do it and you do it for your own good. You don’t worry about going faster, you just do it. Because in 10 years, it will not matter who did WK faster. We’ll all know Japanese by then. We’ll all be the same. Brothers and sisters.

Fear not the one that runs faster, but the one who doesn’t give up.
(I just made this up)

(Sorry, I watched too much GOT today).
(Still meant what I said though :smiley:)

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I think this is a good point.

Im a medical student and have to balance WK with medical studies, and thought it is hard, it really comes down to making it a habit. My thoughts are always “I should be studying medicine more” because there is so much to know. But WK has become such a habit for me now that I cant concentrate on my medical studies without first having at least done some WK reviews. So the solution is clear, study WK first :stuck_out_tongue:

If you have a lot of commitments, or a huge study load my recommendation is to specifically designate time for WK and nothing else. Also, use all the spare time you have! There are surely times during your day where you can whip out your phone and smash a few cheeky Kanji out.

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I have found the key is to do all the reviews first before clicking on any new lessons, and I break the lessons into doing no more than 2 sets of 5 at a time. If you do it this way, WK goes slower and doesn’t load you up with new kanji to learn as quickly.

My only other advice, which I got from a friend who made this mistake, is to never go more than a day without clearing out all your reviews! They keep stacking up, so you can get thousands of reviews behind at the higher levels if you skip several days in a row. Also, I tried vacation mode for 2 weeks once, and I lost so much ground, it wasn’t worth it. The better option is to simply make time to do the reviews each day and don’t click on any new lessons when you’re busy. That way, you’ll at least stay at your current level without retracing your steps all the time.

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If your afternoons are so busy then maybe try waking up 15 minutes earlier and do it in the morning while drinking your morning coffee or eating breakfast? :wink:

Also, doing a few reviews (like 10 at a time using the “Wrap up” button) whenever you have 3 minutes off (waiting for the bus, cooking pasta, on the toilet) is easier than doing 200 in the middle of the night.

Oh boy middle of the night when you’re sleepy is indeed a bad idea.

Also, for some reason, I find reviews easier when I’m slightly drunk.

http://www.idmu.co.uk/canmem.htm

I’m a college student. I wake up daily at 5 am to get an hour or two of Japanese study in. Afterwards, I try to study whenever I have free time. Make sure you clear your reviews before going to sleep! As long as you’re good at time management, you can do it :slight_smile:

My sleep schedule: wake up a 5am and go to bed at 8:30pm

School? That’s cute. Try working full-time and having a family.

Do it in the morning before you go, during the longer break between and classes and have an hour every second day or so in the evening for extra grammar.

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