Current Routine (What's yours?)

I’ve been learning Japanese for about 5 years now and one of my favorite parts is finding that new routine that puts you in a flow state that makes studying effortless. These magical times come in waves but it’s important to me to get beginners to understand that no method is perfect and no method is eternal (some last a long time but nobody does the same thing forever). Feel free to post your current routine, level, and maybe some reasons you picked your resources (or they picked you).

My Current Routine:

Learning Resources:

  • Grammar: Quartet 1 + Workbook
  • Kanji: Wanikani
  • Words: Renshuu
  • Speaking: Weekly classes at local college
  • Listening: Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure
  • Reading: Pokemon: Omega Ruby

Status:
Right now I am basically revisiting intermediate materials after spending 2021 studying for the N2 and failing twice. I had a lot of gaps that I think are at that intermediate level things I didn’t get internalized enough and boy was I right.

Luckily with my new job I have a lot of opportune time for studying, so I watch anime (no subs) going to and from work, play games at home, and study at work in the downtime. I do WaniKani and Renshuu in the morning and read/write through Quartet in the after noon.

It’s not a routine I feel would work for others as I just happen to have a lot of time I need to fill and it’s kind of a lot for me. I’m not worried about burn out since my work encourages me to study (I’m super lucky compared to my last gig where I had maybe 2 hours outside of work if I was diligent). So it’s also kind of just part of my work schedule too at this point. It seems to be working but I wouldn’t say I’m necessarily progressing a crazy bunch or anything. It’s a lot now but I’m sure it’ll become more streamlined in the coming weeks.

Ultimately I am just trying to take my time with the grammar at this level and try to hammer it into my head and not guess so much when I’m reading/listening to native content. A big lesson learned last year was just because I finished a book, doesn’t mean I learned anything from it.

Feel free to post your routine and share what’s been working/not working for you and maybe people can give advice or ideas for how to make these methods work for us more.

10 Likes

Looks solid. keep it up!

Mine is just -

  1. wanikani - 1 hour a day
  2. torii.srs with wanikani mode ( kanji sorted by wanikani lvls)- extra common vocabulary ( 5700 words) not covered by wanikani - 1/2 hours a day.

Plans

  1. until 2023 reach wk lvl 40 and learn extra 3-4k words in torii srs.
  2. read - tae kims guide twice/watch cury dolly. I feel like even without dedicated grammar knowledge just by using yomichan on context sentences iv learned naturally lots of grammar patterns. Just need to solidify conjugations rules.
  3. finally get rid of wanikani and torii and just start watching japanese media with japanese subtitles-slowly make a transition from dedicated boring learning to learning from immersion by watching content that i actually enjoy. Finally reach a stage where japanese becomes a part of my daily life.
2 Likes

11 am: get up
12 pm: drag my ass to the office
1 pm: half-asleep lunch
2 pm: back to the office
3 pm: nap
4 pm: wake up
5 pm: siesta
6 pm: wake up
7 pm: answer emails
8 pm: go home
9 pm: party
10 pm: pass out drunk
11 pm: wake up
12 am: late supper
1 am: play wordle
2 am: wk reviews
3 am: go to bed
4 am: wake up in terror
5 am: watch simpsons reruns
6 am: fall asleep again
7 am: drool
8 am: get up to pee
9 am: back to bed
10 am: press snooze

13 Likes
3 Likes

just put "drink* between each step and you might have a hit song on your hands! xD

3 Likes

I try to do Drops once in the morning and then once in the evening and it’s where I practice a lot of words. I also try to get in a bit of Lingodeer for grammar practice (sometimes it’s forms I’ve already learned, sometimes it’s review). I try to clear my wk reviews but that just hasn’t gone well this year :sweat_smile:

I also typically have some speaking practice with my coworkers on the weekdays or when I meet up with my Japanese friends outside of work. Sometimes I also hang out on Japanese JoJo twitter for short comics and text posts. I’m also trying to read a volume of manga (mostly JoJo) each week.

What Part are you watching of JoJo? :smiley: How do you like it?

2 Likes

I’m about 3 years in. After finishing WK I kinda goofed off for a bit and just did some light reading and watching.

Since November, I’ve been doing the JALUP J-J sentence decks. I finished the Intermediate Deck and I’m about 300 items into the Advanced deck. So I spend about an hour a day on those doing reviews and then doing 10 new lessons.

So far I’ve found that it’s really helped with pitch accent and internalizing sentences. I think my vocab is still lacking, but it’s the intermediate problem of now tackling the large number of words that aren’t considered common but that crop up enough while reading that I should probably know them. For that I’ve just been reading LN and occassionally playing some game in Japanese. The last one’s were Sekiro and Elden Ring, although I didn’t switch the later over until I’d already beaten it.

3 Likes

Nice how is Quartet 1 going for Grammer?

I’m 4 years in. Current routine:

  1. keep up with anki reviews, close to 10k cards, adding 3 Max a day
  2. 2 hrs week on italki speaking
  3. 20 minutes a day reading Japanese novels
  4. hello talk daily post and chats
  5. 1 hour a day of Japanese podcasts

My weakness is still Grammer I think. I get the jist usually during reading. But the sentence is so long I understand the words and jist but lose track of exactly what is being said due to Grammer being complicated.

1 Like

I finished Part 4 and am currently going through Part 1. I am one of those “Out of order people.”

1 Like

I really like the format. I feel like by the end of each chapter I get a fair amount of time to internalize the grammar taught. I’m on chapter 2 now, but it seems to be just what I need.

1 Like

Out of order’s fairly fine with JoJo I think so long as you don’t read/watch 4 before 3 or 6 before 3 lol.

What parts have you finished? Do you like 1 so far? Were you confused about the different power system?

No, I actually started with Part 5, and understood he changed the power system in the earlier parts. So it wasn’t jarring or anything. I’ve watched Part 1 before but this time I’m trying to finish Part 1 and 2 with no subs. I haven’t even touched part 3, but I already knew some of the lore through YouTube.

1 Like

Ah, ok. That must’ve been an interesting way to watch. Best of luck to you getting through without subs! I hope the rewatch is enjoyable.

My routine for Japanese is very simple. It used to involve Anki, textbooks, apps, sometimes lessons over Skype/Zoom, etc.

  • Read at least 10 pages a day.
  • Listen for at least 20 minutes a day.

Those really are minimums to maintain over the course of a month. I usually end up around 400-500 pages and 15-20 hours of listening (30-40 minutes) per month.

I’d like take a lessons every week again, just need to find the time.

2 Likes

how long does it usually take you to read 10 pages?

1 Like

That really depends on what I am reading. I started using TTU reader (previously I used Apple Books) with 10Ten and now track by characters instead. Various sites like using 350 characters as a page, which is about right from my experience (children’s stuff has less, etc)

Yesterday, during my commute I read ~4200 characters / 12 pages of ようこそ実力至上主義の教室へ in ~40 minutes. That would equate to 18 pages in an hour.

Rather happy with that though, as at the start of Golden Week I thought I measured 3500 characters / 10 pages in ~1 hour. I ended up reading for ~3 hours a day to reach 30-35 per day during Golden Week.

Yeah, I have only been able to finish Your Name, every book I start I give up on quickly just because I lose interest easily. I was just curious. I still read Manga, but books is a skillset I haven’t gotten the focus for yet. Soon enough I will though. It’s like any other skill, you just got to do it more.

2 Likes

This topic was automatically closed 365 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.