10 levels down 50 to go
I think I want to keep a journal of sorts in the forum. One without a ton of posts but maybe every 5 or 10 levels. So I can better track my progress.
Since I know Im making prgress, and I think it would be nice to share and mostly for myself.
I started WaniKani back in mid May after deciding I wanted to learn Kanji since my japanese studies were slowing. Well theyd always been slow since I have a tutor once a week and have difficulty motivating myself to ‘study’ outside of that. I’d made alot of progress over the years but I wasn’t getting any closer to my dream of reading a visual novel or watching an anime.
For context I took night school classes in high school then tried self study every once in a while for the next couple years. After visiting Japan I arranged for a tutor online and continued studying for 1.5 years. I learned a fair bit of grammar but I was always putting off the kanji.
It was when I decided to google learning kanji that I started coming accross new ways to study. Anki, Cure Dolly, Tae Kim all seemed superior to what I was doing.
I had a solid grasp of the basics but these resources help make things easier. Then came wanikani which I decided to try.
These past 3.5 months have seen me make more progress than all of last year. I still like having a tutor once a week but the amount of time Im spending outside it has significantly increased because its fun.
The advice to consume native content and find things you enjoy was great advice. Why try learning to read news articles when I can watch subtitled anime with a kanji look up feature and anki export.
Learning Kanji has actually made so many things easier since the language is setup for kanji. I really only relized this when I saw 月光 and could instantly read it and know what it meant.
I now watch anime with subtitles, try reading web novels with yomichan. And while it was painful in the beginning Im making progress and I can feel it. Well its still painful… Reading a chapter of reincarnated as a sword takes time, but Im doing it faster with less looking up words and phrases.
My goal is to reach level 17 by the year’s end. 20 might be hard but 17 should be doable…
Also I was on level ten so i posted the above then saw the 9 and realized I was on the tenth not having completed 10. Now that Im properly on 10 i wanted to post here. I’ll likely come back everyonce and a while to track my thoughts and progress.