CherryApple's Study Log

Japanese Language Study Logs (Public)
1

I just found out about these Study logs and want to try it myself.

How I started learning Japanese

I started Aug/Sep 2024 with Duolingo. It was a great help for learning Hiragana and Katakana but the other lessons feel like torture because they are so slow and you have to do the same thing so many times. I have a streak of 73 now (05.11.2024). I’m still learning Katakana because there are so many extremely similar Katakanas.

In Okt 2024 I started a Volkshochschulkurs with the book Japanisch im Sauseschritt. 1 hour per week.

At the end of Oktober I found out about WaniKani and started learning Kanji

I just finished Lesson 1.1 of JapanesePod101. The next Lesson I’m doing is Lesson 1.

Future Plans

Between the lessons of the Volkshochschulkurs I want to work with other books on my own. I already ordered Japanese from Zero 1. After I’ve finished Japanese from Zero 1 - 5 I want to continue with Quartet.

On YouTube I want to use the Videos of Japanese from Zero and the Genki-videos from ToKiniAndy.

I read about Bunpro but I haven’t tried it yet.

I bought Yotsubato and downloaded the vocabulary list of Volume 1. I tried to translate as much as possible from Japanese (Hiragana + Katakana) to my native language as possible. In 6 month I will do that again and compare it. April 2025.

JLPT

I bought some books with JLPT-tests. I will try to do N5 in 6 month. April 2025.
I’m not sure yet If I will ever do the real Tests.

24.06.2025
I haven’t tried N5 yet.

My Textbooks

JFZ 1
JFZ 2
JFZ 3
JFZ 4
JFZ 5
Genki 1 + Workbook
Genki 2 + Workbook
Quartet 1 + Workbook
Quartet 2 + Workbook
Japanisch Schritt für Schritt 1
Japanisch Schritt für Schritt 2
Japanisch Schritt für Schritt 3
Japanisch mit Manga
Fit in 30 Tagen - Japanisch
Japanisch im Sauseschritt 1 :-1:

Sou Matome N5
Sou Matome N4 Kanji + Vocabulary
Sou Matome N4 Grammar, Reading, Listening
Sou Matome N3 Kanji
Sou Matome N3 Vocabulary
Sou Matome N3 Grammar
Sou Matome N3 Reading
Sou Matome N3 Listening
Shin Nihongo 500 Mon N5+N4
Shin Nihongo 500 N3
Tango N5
Tango N4
Tango N3

Shinkanzen Master N4 Vocabulary
Shinkanzen Master N4 Kanji
Shinkanzen Master N4 Grammar
Shinkanzen Master N4 Reading
Shinkanzen Master N4 Listening
Shinkanzen Master N3 Vocabulary
Shinkanzen Master N3 Kanji
Shinkanzen Master N3 Grammar
Shinkanzen Master N3 Reading
Shinkanzen Master N3 Listening

Kanji From Zero 2
Kanji Look and learn
Kanji Look and learn Workbook
Practical Kanji Vol. 1
Practical Kanji Vol. 2
Practical Kanji Vol. 3
Practical Kanji Vol. 4
Kanji Dictionary for foreigners learning japanese 2500
Kanji exercises book 500
Understanding through Pictures 1000 Kanji

All about Particles
A dictionary of Japanese particles
Japanese Particle workbook

The Handbook of Japanese Verbs
The Handbook of Japanese Adjectives and Adverbs
Master Japanese Conjugation N5+N4

Basic Japanese
Complete Japanese Grammar
Tae Kim’s Grammar Guide
A dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar
A dictionary of intermediate Japanese Grammar
A dictionary of advanced Japanese Grammar

Learn Japanese with Manga Vol 1
Learn Japanese with Manga Vol 2
Japanese the Manga way

Online Learning Materials

Japanese games and learning activities

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RsrakMT1h2g&list=PLOcym2c7xnBwU12Flkm5RcLIEhvURQ8TB&index=1&pp=iAQB

Genki

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bDcteScYF5I&list=PLA_RcUI8km1PlEt-E_eBCgd12k17HEoxR&index=4

Genki Exercises | Genki Study Resources

Free Tadoku Books – にほんごたどく

Japanese ammo with Misa

Absolute Beginner
https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLd5-Wp_4tLqYZxS5j3g6kbeOfVXlTkr3N

https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLd5-Wp_4tLqZor0fbsXtP7t6npWeE-2IU

Upper Beginner
https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLd5-Wp_4tLqauXSm_MtZVyLGquLAJzUsL

Books

20250215_132050
20250215_1320501920×1636 545 KB

Charming Junkie
W Juliet
W Juliet II
Lieb mich noch bevor du stirbst
Flesh and Blood vol 1
Unintentional Love Story

Goals until 31.12.2026
  • Being able to read the furigana-books without issues (Grammar)
  • Understanding Particles
  • Understanding verbendings
  • Move from the absolute Beginner Book club to the beginner book club
Study Plans after Reading 10ぷんでよめるこわいはなし１
  • Grammar Points N5-N3: Bunpro
  • Vocabulary of the book
  • Kanji: ~ 1 lvl/month
  • Restart lvl 2 of JapanesePod 101
  • Japanese from Zero 4&5
  • Writing: start with writing easy Sentences and adding different Grammar points every day

Goals

  • Listening: being able to distinguish between words
  • Kanji: continuing after the Long Time on lvl 9
  • Reading: understanding Sentence structure (N5-N3)
  • Grammar: recognizing Grammar Points (N5-N3)
  • Writing: understanding Grammar Points and Sentence structure better by creating own sentences
Books I've read
Nr Year Title Time Method Thoughts
1 2025 十分で読めるこわい話 14 weeks (March, April, May) Translating every sentence exhausting; a lot of dictionary Look ups and unknown grammar
2 2025 ふしぎアイテム博物館 12.07.2025 - vorerst abgebrochen Reading extensively and learning a few words per Page/week actively How much will I understand/recognize?
3 2025 Kitty Detectives vol. 1 24.10.2025 - 25.10.2025 Trying to translate every sentence of Chapter 1 (50 Pages). Not successfully because of Grammar. I finished Genki 1 and JFZ 1-3, but there is still a lot of Grammar that I don’t understand. I have to do all four books of Genki and Quartet If I want to understand more.
18 Likes
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Welcome! You have a solid plan already :slight_smile: looking forward to seeing your progression! enjoy the journey :grin:

3 Likes
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ToDo’s (04.11.2024-10.11.2024)

Learning vocabularies for the Volkshochschulkurs
WaniKani
JapanesePod101 (at least 1 Lesson)
Japanese from Zero (at least 1 Video)
Tadoku (Level S Stories)

10.11.2024

  • WaniKani Level 1/60
  • JapanesePod101 Level 1 Lesson 17/92
  • Japanese from Zero Vol. 1 Chapter 10/18
  • Japanese from Zero Anki (vocabulary)
  • Bunpro free grammar 25/126 (5 lessons daily)
  • Tadoku all Level s Stories

To Do’s

  • Continue: WaniKani, JapanesePod101, Bunpro, JFZ

To Do’s for later

  • Another Trial of reading よつばと！
  • 1 week only for learning vocabulary (maybe during the next Holidays)

Edit: from chapter 11 of JFZ it’s getting more difficult to answer the questions because I don’t know every vocabulary. So I will continue when I’m more comfortable with the vocabularies.

9 Likes
4

17.11.2024

  • WaniKani Level 1/60
  • JapanesePod101 Level 1 Lesson 31/92
  • Japanese from Zero Vol. 1 Chapter 18/18
  • Bunpro free grammar 35/126
  • I translated a JLPT N5 vocabulary list as much as possible. In a few month I will do it again and have Something to compare it.

Realizations about my learning behaviour

  • I have Problems remembering the Japanese words (that I haven’t learned outside of WaniKani yet) for the Kanji. To remember the english meaning is a lot easier. Maybe it’s better to learn them first before I try to learn the Kanji. I have to make a vocabulary list of the problematic words. But without Kanji.
  • I nearly finished Japanese from Zero. I went through it very fast. Creating my own sentences is very exhausting and I stopped doing it. After Chapter 18 I will Go Back to Page 1 and create easier sentences with the words I haven’t learned yet. Because I prefer learning words while I use them instead of flashcards. That way I can also repeat the grammar to not forget it.
  • I don’t Like learning with Bunpro. Maybe in the Future as a tool to repeat what I have already learned out of textbooks.

Tips from other recources

  • On YouTube someone suggested Not to learn vocabularies from your native language to the target language. Only from the target language to the native language. Because it costs too much time and one native-language-Word can have several target-language-words (and the other way).
  • Mindmaps for learning vocabularies. I will try this and add Pictures where it is possible.

Edit: I Just finished the first round of Japanese from Zero Vol. 1.

To Do

  • Watching the YouTube Videos of Japanese from Zero
  • Reading the JLPT N5 vocabulary list
  • Buying Sou Matome N5 + N4, Genki 1+2, “A dictionary of Japanese Grammar”
  • Waiting for the new edition of JFZ Vol.2 and the translation to german
6 Likes
5

24.11.2024

  • WaniKani Level 2/60
  • JapanesePod101 Level 1 Lesson 49/92
  • Yesterday I started the second round of Japanese from Zero Vol. 1. I’m at chapter 2 repeating the numbers 1 - 9999.
  • I ordered the Sou Matome Set for N5 and N4 and Genki 1+2 (+workbooks)
4 Likes
6

01.12.2024

  • WaniKani Level 2/60
  • JapanesePod101 Level 1 Lesson 59/92
  • second round of Japanese from Zero Vol. 1. 14/18 (taking Notes about the important things) + I watched one Video
  • Genki 1+2 arrived
  • Sou Matome got damaged on the way. I have to Order it again.
  • Ordered: A dictionary of Japanese Grammar; Shinkanzen Master N4
  • I am using notion for studyplanning

I am taking the notes for JFZ 1 in Procreate. Without Romaji. Writing and Reading of Hiragana ist getting easier every day. While I Take notes I already Sort them by topic (e.g. particles, numbers, …).

Learning vocabularies deliberately is still Not a priority.

1 Like
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Today I realised that my Motivation ist getting Less. I am also more tired (probably because of the Winter) and am Not able to listen to Japanesepod 101 anymore. I Always fall asleep.

1 Like
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08.12.2024

  • WaniKani Level 2/60
  • JapanesePod101 Level 1 Lesson 63/92
  • second round of Japanese from Zero Vol. 1. 18/18 :partying_face:
  • Japanese from Zero Vol. 2 Grammar summary + Katakana Ch.9/12. After that I will do the Grammar exercises.
  • “1000 Essential vocabulary for the JLPT N5” I already know 317 of 1047 words. I think I will continue with JFZ until Vol.5 and Proof how many vocabularies I know every time I Finished a book.
3 Likes
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Sounds like you have a pretty thorough studying plan (nice to see someone else using JP101!)

You can do it. It’s hard to start but it gets easier once you’re in a groove :slight_smile:

1 Like
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At the Moment I Just do the listening with the Main Goal to get used to Hearing Japanese. I haven’t used the Worksheets and the shadowing-option yet or learned vocabularies with JapanesePod101. Are the worksheets good?

I’m also thinking about pimsleur. But Not right now. That would be too much at the Same time.

1 Like
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The worksheets are ok. Personally I don’t use them, but I do read the lesson notes pretty extensively. I mostly use it for listening practice and as a second grammar course (I have another site that I use, I like having things explained from two sources because sometimes it doesn’t click right away)

1 Like
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15.12.2024

  • WaniKani Level 2/60
  • JapanesePod101 Level 1 Lesson 77/92
  • JFZ Vol. 2 18/18 Grammar summary :partying_face:
  • JFZ Vol. 2 1/18 Exercises
2 Likes
13

22.12.2024

  • WaniKani Level 3/60 :partying_face:
  • JapanesePod101 Level 1 Lesson 92/92 (listening) :partying_face:

Goals

  • Finishing WaniKani Level 16 until End of June 2025
5 Likes
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Congratulations on finishing Level 1!!! (Level 2 has some pretty fun dialogues)

15

I ordered some books on verasia.de because I want to try intensive Reading. Hopefully the Series of “a dictionary of … Japanese grammar” will be of a Lot of Help for that.

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I already heard a few episodes of Level 2 of JapanesePod101 and realized that understanding the Dialogs is now more difficult because of the Lack of vocabularies. Maybe I should wait a bit before continuing and finally do Something to learn more words.

I don’t have any Problems with the srs of WaniKani, but I really hate Anki, because Anki doesn’t Show you both languages before Testing you.

17

I would recommend looking at the words in the lesson notes and then listening to the dialogue multiple days in a row (like 3x), then move on. It’s ok to not understand everything, as long as you’re able to understand it with the notes. There’s also the line-by-line dialogue.

Then once you’re done with level 2, you can re-listen to all of the dialogues to see what stuck! That’s what I did.

18

I found the Slideshow in the Overview (?) of the Levels. I will try to learn Level 1.1 and Level 1 first by playing it at least once per day for a week. After that I will continue with Level 2 (by Episode). First Slideshow then listening to the episode.

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29.12.2024

  • I have to Accept, that learning vocabularies takes time
  • I will concentrate on grammar and WaniKani (Goal: lvl 16 till end of June)
  • At the Moment I struggle with the Casual Form of Verbs
  • But! I’m getting used to the sentences structure :partying_face:
  • I Hope that the books will arrive next week
4 Likes
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Mood :slightly_frowning_face