Dstahn’s Study Guide

Thanks for the information!! I will definitely look into the book clubs once I start learning some words. :slight_smile:

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Wow, thanks for all the information. A friend of mine also recommended the Genki books so maybe I will look into those first. That is so cool that you are studying in France. I will always hijack any thread to talk science and engineering lol, so no worries.

So my Master’s thesis was in biomedical sciences with an emphasis in dental materials. I have worked primarily in ceramics and implant research. My PhD project is still being worked on and I have been delayed in the research side of things because of this Covid nonsense, but likely my research will continue in bone metabolism and implants.

The company that I really want to work for is called GC Corp. They have a large dental materials labs. I really like them because they also have offices and labs in America (where I am from). This is nice because even if I can’t get a position in Japan right away it would potentially give the chance to transfer if a position became available without starting all they way over in a new company. I have met them and other companies at the American Chemical Society, American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and the International Association of Dental Research conferences. They have been awesome resources for meeting companies and networking.

If you have any other questions or want me to go more in-depth let me know. :slight_smile:

Thanks for all the information!!

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Welcome to the WK community!
I wanted to link the WK guide made by a (famous) WK user:

I also wanted to give you three tips that I wished I had known when I started here:

  1. The time WK requires will increase more and more, now you should have little to do on WK. Use this time to get ahead on other areas.
  2. This website is Kanji-focused. Even the vocabulary is kanji focused and some time not the most useful (not useless, just not the best for a beginner). Study vocabulary somewhere else since the beginning. (As a side effect it’ll help you learn some WK words more easily)
    You have already used Anki, so maybe check this:
    https://community.wanikani.com/t/so-much-vocab/12050
  3. Grammar! Tofugu say wait till you are lv 10, some people will wait till they are lv 60. Well, don’t! The sooner the better. Use the surplus time of the first easy levels to bring yourself to a suitable level to join the reading clubs.

There’s also a (long) wiki with all resources on this community page.

Anyway welcome! I hope you’ll see improvements and fall in love with WK like we did.

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Also, Kitsun.io is a more user friendly Anki, if that appeals to you for vocabulary supplementation.

Thank you for the link. I am definitely going to read this tonight when I have some free time. Also thanks for the tips. It is always nice to have help so I am not wasting time.

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Ooo I have never heard of this one, I will have to look into it. I just used Anki because that is what all my classmates were using.

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Welcome to WK @Dstahn236! And what a great first post! It would be really nice too if you could add your study log to the Master List! Anyway, welcome to the WK forums, and all the best with your studies and your study log!

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Thanks for letting me know. I added mine to the list.

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Nice one! :+1: :smiley:

Oh wow. I’ve never looked into dental treatments before, but implants are something I’d like to learn about in the future: I think biomedical devices are really interesting, and some of them will have to be implantable or at least compatible with the body in order to be truly effective. (In secondary school, I did a literature review about microfluidic chips that aimed to filter metastatic cancer cells out of the blood. It was pretty boring as a project because my group was expecting to do some experiments, but the ideas in the papers were really interesting, and that’s how my curiosity was piqued.)

I took a look at GC Corp’s website, and it’s amazing how international they are. I really hope you get a job with them in the near future! Still, I’m curious what other companies you’ve heard about. Before you mentioned GC Corp, my knowledge of Japanese biomedical and pharmaceutical organisations was limited to Takeda and the RIKEN Institute. :sweat_smile: I know that interesting research is being carried out at various Japanese universities, but I haven’t heard much about Japanese companies in these sectors. (I mean, I’m sure that getting into a good engineering school in France will mean I’ll have the chance to attend various networking events and recruitment fairs, but I’m not sure how many Japanese companies there are here, even if I believe economic relations between Japan and France are good.)

Yeah I wasn’t really into materials research until my Master’s degree. Before that, I did a lot of drug design and high throughput testing. But materials just kind of pulled me in once I started and I haven’t really looked back.

It definitely hard to find some of this information without some help. I have gotten lucky in that I have been able to network at some of the larger research conferences. They are a gold mine for getting to know universities and companies looking for people. I would definitely look around while in your masters, there are a lot of conferences in Europe that might have some companies from Japan attending. I also have some mentors that work with Asian companies that have introduced me to people which has been nice.

The two other major companies that I have looked at are Tokuyama and 3M. Tokuyama do some pretty cool research, especially in the materials side of things. They do lots of cements, ceramics, and composites. 3M is just a monster company that has its hands in everything. They are another company that is also heavily based in the US which might help with transitions. They are also well connected with the universities there which might be fun as well.

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Thanks a lot for the advice. I guess I’ll go do more research and keep my eyes peeled once my master’s degree starts. I have to admit that I don’t know much about 3M beyond the fact that it makes household products and masks.

By they way, I just thought of another bunch of Japanese resources: NHK has some free Japanese lessons on their site. There are several series available with their target levels indicated on a chart on that page. The one I’ve seen on my Facebook feed is やさしい日本語 (‘Easy Japanese’), and I think the lessons are quite well done. You might want to consider them as a way to study on the go (or with multimedia), or just as another way to engage with Japanese.

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Dear Study Guide,

Today I finally unlocked the first set of vocab words. Trying to keep track of rules and exceptions has become a whole new thing for me. I thought that exceptions in English were rough but I am struggling hard with this.

I have found that remembering the Kanji/Vocab meaning is relatively easy for me. Where I struggle is in remembering the readings associated with each one. I have thus begun making an Anki deck just to hammer out sounds in my free time. This has definitely helped me with getting those more consistently.

My friend stepped me through the first couple chapters of Genki I and I then I bought it on amazon yesterday. Should be here tomorrow. I hope that this will also help me progress a little bit. The other thing I will look at in a few weeks is Bunpro. I feel like I don’t know enough words right now to even attempt that yet so I will hold off for now.

I am feeling good so far. It is still fun to drill at 7am and 8pm each day, I hope that continues for a while. I have been drilling my hiragana and katakana each day and the hiragana I am solid on, while the katakana is a little more iffy. I know that I really need to get that down pat, as my goal in 6 months or so is to start trying to read scientific papers in Japanese. Even if it takes me a week to go through it, I want to start being able to really start getting biomedical science papers.

Thank you for your time. :slight_smile:

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(Edit: I misunderstood what you wrote a bit, so this response isn’t directly on knowing the readings, but rather on knowing which of multiple readings to use.)

For most kanji, this will become easier in time. You’ll intuitively know which pronunciation to use based on whether the word is all kanji or includes hiragana.

There will definitely be kanji that continue to be difficult, such as different readings for numbers used in different ways, but these will be the exceptions.

Good luck!

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Update
Soooo this just got much harder for me lol. Turns out I am pretty good at remembering radicals and kanji, and absolutely terrible at the vocab words that come after. So now I am in this terrible cycle of unlocking more words and having a bunch of reviews that I struggle with.

大, 人, and 下 words are the death of me right now, though I have been getting better at them slowly. I haven’t done much studying outside of the reviews which maybe slowing me down some. I have been breaking Genki I into chunks and studying the words and phrases I don’t know (using Anki). Once I have a good handle on how to say them, what they mean, and when to say them I move on. This has been good so far and has also helped me from getting to overwhelmed.

I have also found out that my conference next (supposed to be in China) was postponed a year because of the Covid garbage. Thus my trip to Japan has been delayed as well. While this is a total bummer now, this does give me two years to learn as much as I can. I hope that by that time I will be able to converse well there. I figure it is about time to set up a monthly goals list.

June Goals!
WK

  • Start an Anki deck for items that I am getting less than 60% recognition on
  • Slow way down when going through the lessons (part of the remembering problem)
  • Reach level 5

Bunpro

  • Start after reaching WK Level 5

KameSame

  • Start after reaching WK level 3

Genki

  • 1 lesson/ week
  • Lesson 1
  • Lesson 2
  • Lesson 3
  • Lesson 4

After writing all of this out, it seems a little ambitious given my time constraints. Thus, I will try give this a try this month and adjust next month as necessary. Likely near the end of this month I will be moving into the research lab and my time may decrease. But I’m determined to have these be slow downs and derailments :slight_smile:!! I also want to say thanks for everyone that has reached out with advice and everyone that is keeping their own study logs. They have been inspiring and make me want to keep fighting the good fight :muscle:!!!

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There is a [Userscript] Self-Study Quiz that you can set to do exactly this, I highly recommend it, it will save you lots of time.

Experimenting is the best way to learn! :muscle: If it doesn’t work out, just shout out to the forums and help will come :slight_smile:

My sincerest sympathies, I also hope to be more fluent for my delayed holiday.

EDIT: P.S. Hello! Nice to meet you :slight_smile:

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Hey thanks for the tip on the Self-Study quiz script. The problem that I have, is that I am usually doing this on my IPad. And I have not been able to figure out a way to get scripts to work on here. I might just start doing a nightly self-quiz on my laptop to solve this.

It is nice to meet you too!! I love reading your study guide. It has helped give me motivation. :slight_smile:

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**Update **
I’ve had family in town so I haven’t gotten the chance to do as much as I have wanted, though I have stayed up on the WK. I have found that I have gotten better at vocab and I think a lot of that comes down to understanding on’yomi and kun’yomi a little bit better. I am starting to pick up on when to use one versus the other, and starting to understand the patterns involved. Because of this I have seen my correct percentages rise from 60-70 to 80-90. There are still some that I struggle to remember, but I am getting better.

I am almost done getting through the level 2 Kanji. I only have a few left to get to the guru level. These and radicals still feel relatively easy to do (except 白 for some reason). This is making feel good about my ability to keep moving forward with this. My family leaves tomorrow, and thus I am excited to get back into Genki and start putting together a study schedule for WK and KameSame.

Till next time. :slight_smile:

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Update
With the guests finally gone I will hopefully be able to start pushing a little harder. I have been able to keep up on my WK but my other study tools have fallen to the wayside. And one thing things I have realized through all of my years of studying… its ok. I used to get really bent out of shape when I would miss a day and feel like I had to start over. I have worked hard and gotten to a point where I am better at adjusting and moving forward.

I have finally made it through to level 4 and should be close to getting to level five near the end of the month which is awesome. I have bought Kiki’s delivery service and hope that I can follow along a little as the community reads it together.

Hope all is well with everyone and you are all staying safe.

Till next time!!

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