Since August 4, I’ve been studying Japanese consistently for the first time in (very sadly) over 20 years of attempting to learn the language. For the last month or so I’ve been very busy with work and person stuff (vacation, buying a house, etc). I’m actually really happy that I haven’t been sidetracked yet.
Almost all of my studying right now is done on my iPhone. I use the excellent Tsurukame app on my phone to do WaniKani, and I’m using the Jalup app to help with learning grammar. I’m only using the Jalup Beginner course right now. I also try to get through at least one lesson a day via JapanesePod101.
I think the main “secret” to how I’m doing this while also being super busy is that I’m doing a huge chunk of my daily study on the bus during my commute. I ride into Seattle from Issaquah every day with about a 45 minute to hour each way commute. I find this is almost always plenty of time for morning and evening reviews, and I’m usually able to squeeze in my JapanesePod101 lesson on my afternoon ride home.
So far, I’ve been able to keep my WaniKani lesson and review counts to 0 every single day by the time I go to sleep.
I had been driving every day, and taking the bus has eliminated an ENORMOUS amount of stress from my day and has given me the gift of consistent study. I love it.
As I’m able to, I am also going through Genki I, but since the last month has been so crazy, I haven’t really had a chance to sit down and go through it in the evenings. I still think it’s a superb resource, and hope to get back to it after we’re moved into the new house.
I used to commute 1.5 hours to work and 1.5 hours back home. This was before smartphones and before WK so I couldn’t do reviews. I wish everybody was using their commute time as productively as you
I wish. I go from Tacoma to Bremerton and back every day, similar length. There IS a vanpool, unfortunately the nature of my job means I have to be prepared to stay as late as it takes on any given day, even though it rarely actually happens. The “catch the bus” pressure was causing me to make some selfish decisions, so I started driving again.
I do spend quite a bit of time in the evenings surfing the internet, which replaced TV for me. Now, WK has replaced idle internet surfing, which replaced TV. And my job is pretty much “you’re all adults, just get your work done” so I can steal a few minutes a day on WK “to keep my mind fresh” if no disaster is happening without anyone worried about it.
It’s funny you mention Seattle and Issaquah, because I just moved into this area about 2 months ago from Florida. I’m in Redmond.
Learning on the bus is an absolutely fantastic idea. In fact, my friend whose also trying to learn Japanese uses the bus as a Japanese learning time as well. I think he uses Memrise as his main way of studying. The only thing that stinks is, if you plan on speaking at some point, speaking practice might get a little awkward on a bus.
For me, I enjoy driving and personally don’t enjoy using public transportation, so I made sure to live close to work. Besides WaniKani, I started working in Glossika to see if that will help with listening and speaking practice. I’ve only used it in the car once or twice so far, but I would like to start using it regularly on my drive home from work. This way, I can knock out a good 60 of 150 reps on the drive home. I’m currently still struggling to motivate myself to work on grammar as well, since WaniKani and Glossika together are already pretty time consuming.
I lost foot at level 25 , when all the enlighted words , turned back into lessons to be burned
many words … many many …
It’s a death level not because it is difficult but because the reviews are bigger
