This is the first time I’m writing something in the community, so I hope I’m not doing anything wrong.
I looked up for a similar conversation, but I didn’t find anything that answered my question.
I was wondering if and how do you keep track of your progess studying japanese in general? Including every aspect of language learning, not just wanikani (grammar, vocabulary, reading, listening, etc.).
I can look up my progress on wanikani and anki, but I’d like to have a place where a I keep track of everything.
What do you use to have a general overview of you progess? Are there any apps that help? Good old pen and paper might be the best option?
Thank you to everyone who will help
Context: I just recently started (seriously) learning japanese, but I felt like I wasn’t making much progress. Then realised that I haven’t been able to learn much grammar because I’m currently sitting exams in university (definitely the best time to start learning something new). So I thought that keeping track of everything I do might help me not to feel unmotivated. Hope this makes sense.
Personally I don’t keep track of my studies (just going with the flow), but it sounds like a great thing to do! A lot of people in this forum keep a study log, maybe that’s something to look into?
I track my progress using wanikani with wkstats and bunpro (for grammar). I also did JLPT N5 and N4 mock exams on the internet when I felt ready. They become milestones in my learning progress.
I’m sure that tracking e.g. time spent reading, listening and writing is helpful. I’ve however resigned myself to the expectation that those parts of studying happen naturally due to my interest in Japanese media and from having Japanese friends I enjoy talking to
I track my progress by keeping a study log here! Some people like to track their progress by keeping daily/weekly checklists, or counting how many flash cards they’ve added, or aiming to read a certain number of pages or listen for a certain number of hours, but personally I don’t really get much out of tracking numbers, so my study log mostly records qualitative observations instead, haha! There’s a lot of “I could understand this thing!” or “I was able to read these kanji!”
My study log has different sections for different aspects of my study. I update it whenever I level up (so, about every other week). Each update has a section at the beginning where I generally talk a little bit about my WK progress, then a section for fun encounters with Japanese outside of studying, a section for my progress in Minna no Nihongo, a section for reading/active immersion, a section for talking about new resources I found, and finally a section where I talk about my plans for the next level/immediate future.
I like having the different sections because it keeps me accountable. If I didn’t get much reading done, for example, I feel guilty when I have nothing to report in that section in the next entry. It’s also fun having it be public because other people will talk to me about the things I mentioned, or will lend support and encouragement when it gets hard.
I spend a lot of my log talking about the things that were especially exciting or interesting or delightful to me during my studies. When I started out, I talked about things as small as recognizing a single kanji, or really liking a new word I learned, or being excited to make out a single word in a sentence. Now I can read entire tweets, and sometimes articles and manga! Sharing all of my victories makes it really clear to me how much I’ve learned, because the things that were once so new and thrilling to me feel easy now.
I think finding a space to talk about the things that you love about the language, and the moments where you really feel like you’ve made some sort of breakthrough, is a really good way to keep yourself motivated, and remind yourself that you’re making progress. So that would be my suggestion!
I like to track my progress with native content.
I purposefully watch whatever youtube video/read any manga/listen to any Japanese song I want, even if I know its beyond my level. But I save it in some way, then later on, when I remember, I rewatch, reread, etc, and see if my amount of understanding has gone up.
Especially with manga, because if you buy a physical copy, at some point you’d like to be able to read it, so, I’m less likely to forget to go back to it. Sometimes I realise I had completely misinterpreted a plotline lmao
Honestly I don’t even run on motivation. I do my WK at full speed and 10 new lessons on kitsun 10k vocab deck daily and immerse 12h a day. If there are common occuring words in immersion or grammar points I’m confused about I’ll look it up and continue. Motivation is only used in order to get into a habit, the rest is autopilot. As long as you got a good plan and routine it’ll work out in the end.
I confuse a lot during reviews, specially these hell levels.
but as soon as I listen a podcast (teppei or noriko) and I read something (twitter or news articles) and I realize I can understand something, this is when I call progress .
I keep a spreadsheet that I update about every 6 months.
I wrote a list of activities I want to be able to do related to my learning goals (it’s inspired by the JLPT Can Do charts, edit: link https://jlpt.jp/e/about/pdf/cdslist_e_all.pdf).
At the start I had very easy ones: learn numbers, learn colors, be able to understand simple directions, etc. As I get better they are more specific: read a short story, speak about hobbies, read simple news, etc.
Then by column I have dates and every 6 months I update the color for each item:
grey = unattempted, then various shades of green for: attempted (largely unsuccessful), can do with difficulty, can do with assistance, can do with ease.
I add comments to the side, and it’s fun to see over time how each line gets more green over time.
