Welcome to my study log! Where I try to organize my mess of a study schedule. I don’t know how to use any code in this website so you’ll have to endure this basic mess. Sorry!
I’ve been trying to learn japanese for a year, but it was only by finding wanikani that I’ve gained a real interess in the language. Having a fun way to learn kanji made me want to learn about the other parts.
For ease of adressing me, you can just call me lemmy, and use any pronouns.
This thread will be updated frequently (not daily, sorry I’m not that organized). I’ll do a weekly review of my progress and discuss what happened, what went right and what went wrong. Someone please teach me how to do that task thing on these forums.
Goals that I’m focusing on achieving this year. Should be doable enough.
Reach Wanikani lv 10
Finish half of Elementary Japanese
Read basic sentences (‘easy’ grammar)
Catch up on my caligraphy sheets (haven’t started lv 1 kanji)
Extra goals
Goals that will replace the above when completed/added as time goes on. May not be finished in a year, but will still give me a sense of what to aim for next, even if not doable.
Reach Wanikani lv 15
Finish 3/4ths of Elementary Japanese
Finish A Dictionary of Basic Grammar
Read a beginner book
Start to listen to Japanese audios
Side goals
Just side quests really. Small things that would be cool to do later on, but I’m not focused on yet.
Comfortably write hiragana and katakana, without needing to look at my caligraphy sheets.
The above, but for the kanji I learn
Play a game in japanese and understand some stuff going on.
Welcome to WK!! About JLPT, unfortunately it isn’t offered online. If you take 2 weeks per level (fastest is around 1 week / level) then you could get all the way up to level 20 by the end of the year! Don’t be afraid to push yourself!
the main issue is just time tbh. I often have entire weeks working non stop on stuff, and some where im literally not doing anything (such is the life of a freelancer), so I put my goal to something obtainable but that could still motivate me.
Wasn’t able to do much outside wanikani today, but I finished all the reviews and lessons I had for the first time in a long while (had 25 lessons left today). Had to do extra exercises to really get the new stuff inside my head.
Hoping to do at least two more caligraphy pages tomorrow. Unsure if I should start my elementary book after I learn all hiragana caligraphy or not.
Finished lesson 1, wrote down kanjis for words I already knew. Wrote down most of the lesson on a notebook
All exercises done
Caligraphy
Finished the Nx chart
My study log probably isn’t that interessing since I haven’t started on reading books or consuming media in japanese (other than pokémon but that was mostly for katakana), but hey, we gotta start somewhere.
Reached level 5! Too bad I also got 115 lessons to do, ending my 7 day 0/0 streak. Too good to last I guess
Currently 276 master, hoping to get an enlighted one soon.
All reviews are done for today, I’ll try to cram some lessons but there’s no way im finishing this lesson pile today haha
Elementary Japanese
Finished lesson 2. Was quite a chunky one with the grammar points. Will have to review it soon. I left the exercises for tomorrow to let my brain rest and also to review everything again.
I also started Minato. I’m unsure if I’ll track this here. It feels like it’ll serve more as a review for what I already know from elementary japanese. If it diverts, I’ll add it to my lesson piles.
First enlightened items! Just some of the lv 1 radicals (except the prison radical lol), so it’s not that impressive yet, hoping to get some kanji there soon.
Dropped my lesson pile to 24 lessons, will get back on a 0/0 by tomorrow
As always, all reviews are done, never skipped a day!
Caligraphy
Finished the R- and W- pages. Hoping to finish this soon, need to catch up so I can do the kanjis as soon as possible! It just takes a lot longer than expected for me haha
Elementary Japanese
Finished homework for lesson 2. Had to improvise with some of the pair exercises, but nothing too bad. Taking a small breather before going to lesson 3. I’m taking this like I was studying in a class, so these would be the days inbetween class lol. Might do a review of lesson 2 before though!
Caught up to my lesson pile day 23 and have been keeping it cleared ever since.
91 enlighetned items! Including 16 kanji and 21 vocab as of right now
All reviews done
Elementary Japanese
Decided to review lesson 2 instead of following along with lesson 3 for now. Wanted to tackle demonstratives and the ‘no’ particle while it was still fresh.
Started lesson 3, but stopped before grammar.
Plans for the next days
Finish the rest of my hiragana caligraphy. One page only has 3 items so I should be able to do it in a day;
Move on to lesson 3;
Try to finish the tofugu katakana guide.
I’ve been using wasabi’s grammar reference along with the dictionary for extra reviewings of grammar aspects. I also skimmed through lesson 3, and it felt really good to be able to recognize and write all kanji shown.
Speaking of that, I never told how I use wanikani, did I? For every item, I write down the kanji (looking up the stroke order on Search Kanji by Stroke Count), the meaning and the reading in hiragana (no romaji), then I write down any mnemonics on the side. Same with vocabulary, just no mnemonics for most of it, since I can infer the reading by memory.
This does mean it takes more to do lessons, and I need to cap it at 20 most of the time, but I find that writing things down helps me a lot, and also means I have a physical item with every single wk entry, which is very useful to look back when working on Elementary or anything else.
Reached level 6 yesterday (31 JAN). As always, this broke my clear lesson streak. Today I went from a 89 lesson pile, down to a 39 items one. This includes starting all new radicals and finishing all level 5 vocab.
Did a BIG review on lesson 2, adding quite a few more notes. Finished lesson 3 (both explanations and homework). Will do a quick review tomorrow. These lessons usually take me longer, since I complement with wasabi’s guide, which is very in depth. Plus I’m writing down everything haha.
Caligraphy
On the back burner while I adjust my schedule for my new job
I’ve only focused on WK and Elementary for now, since things are a bit hectic. Want to come back to the side goals (caligraphy, katakana) as soon as possible though.
So I took a small break. I felt like I was getting burned out too fast, and decided to take it slow. Not only that, I got very busy with life and jobs. I still kept doing my reviews and some lessons, but other than that, progress has been very slow.
I feel a bit better, and I’ve decided to come back to a “normal” schedule for Japanese. I actually leveled up to lv 8 while I wasn’t writing down things here, but haven’t started any of the items yet because of my lesson backlog. I finished half of lesson 4 too before stopping. I finished all the hiragana sheets, but I realized that calligraphy should probably be a side goal instead of the main one, considering I already write down all Kanji that I learn (and the vocab), plus I’m writing down stuff with the exercises of the textbook.
I’ll edit the main post a bit, but for now, I’m back in action! I don’t know if you guys prefer me to keep the same “recap of the last days” format I’ve been doing, or a daily study log. Let me know.
For today, I started back on my 20 lessons per day routine. I only had 2 apprentices left to guru, so my queue is pretty clean. Tomorrow I’ll pick back Elementary, and I’ll be adding Genki I too for the study group. Wish me luck
Don’t take it from me, but some time back I made a thread about stuff like that…
