over 300 days but those numbers are wrong i guess
when i review and do lessons, i wander off between batches
i do 4 lessons, wander off to forget a bit, do the review for those 4 then 4 more…
i do 10 reviews, forum, then 10 reviews… then forum, then forum… then i have to refresh cause i spent too long on the forum… 
i don’t do much outside WK for now
Maybe an hour-ish. I do reviews 3 times a day and only do 2 lessons a day to keep it light. I started Mango last week to focus on speaking aloud and grammar and I only do a lesson a day and those are usually under 20 minutes.
Just asking, but are they online courses? I’ve been trying to find a program that I can join as there are none locally.
Oh my - it’s kind of embarrassing to answer this question, but I probably spend upwards of 5 hours a day on Japanese study (some days it’s MUCH higher).
I hit WK at least twice a day everyday (Mondays and Thursdays are my days to learn new kanji to keep my pace up) to keep my reviews manageable - somedays I might pop in for 3-4 shorter review sessions if I happen to have the time.
I drill on Anki for roughly 10-20 min. per day; it really depends on the day, how many reviews I have at a given time, and my mood/fatigue which dictates whether my brain is super sharp or not so much!
On weekdays, I also go on Bunpro at least once a day while at work (shh ;D), but when I have more time on weekends, I prefer to spend it engaging with native material rather than drilling tons of SRS.
Aside from that, I spend many hours a day working with native material in some fashion or another. I read manga, play a text-heavy Japanese video game, watch Japanese videos, or occasionally some anime (I’m not so into anime anymore, so I mostly watch stuff I loved as a younger kid). At a bare minimum, I would say I engage with such media for at least 3 hours a day, and on some days, it could be upwards of 8 hours.
I used to also do handwritten exercises out of textbooks (first Genki; then Tobira) on weekends as well, but I have stopped doing this as I honestly feel my time is better spent on native material. Since I have started reading a LOT everyday, my overall language ability has really taken off in a way that textbook grinding alone just can’t compete with. I still reference my textbooks or handy internet sources to check on things or read about new grammatical constructions I haven’t seen before.
But in general, my brain is pretty much in “Japanese mode” in some way all day everyday - whether it be through passive listening, drilling flashcards, or playing though a Japanese RPG. I’ve been intensely studying this way for about 8 months and I’ve been really happy with the results so far. I’m not sure for how much longer I’ll be able to keep up that kind of pace - but I haven’t burned out yet, so we’ll see!
When I first started WK, I was following Tofugu’s guide completely, and didn’t pick up my textbook at all until level 10. I was probably spending an hour or so on WK daily, doing 10-25 lessons (ten if it was kanji, 25 if it was vocab).
At level 10, I started picking up my textbook, but when I went back to work (I was put on furlough for a month and a half) I struggled to keep up with it. I found it easy to do 30 minutes of WK in the morning, then my reviews during the day, but I dreaded picking up my textbook. I think it was a combination of being tired after work, and also finding WK “easy”, and seeing the progress in a tangible way, whereas working through my textbook is so so so much harder, and progress is less obvious.
Since hitting level 20, I’ve reversed my studying - I do my textbook work in the morning, to make sure I’m always learning and practicing grammar, and then if I miss doing WK lessons in the evening. I probably do 20-30 minutes before work, then I will try to do 10 WK lessons in the evening, as well as my reviews. I find doing reviews at 5pm/6pm, then 9pm/10pm, then just after I’ve woken up at 7am, works well for me. At the weekends, I try to do an hour of textbook work daily, and keep WK work the same.
For 2021, I’ve banned myself from English-language Netflix. I found that I wasn’t really watching it anyway, I was just playing on my phone with something on in the background, but watching Japanese TV forces me to engage. It’s also a way to immerse myself and pick things up passively.
So, to actually answer the question:
20-30 minutes textbook work
~30 minutes WK lessons and reviews
I watch a 40 minute TV show episode maybe every other day
Now that I’ve written it down, that seems like a lot! I always try to do something, even if it’s reading my textbook for 15 minutes, or doing a few reviews (even when I’m hungover!). There’s only so much my brain can take on a daily basis, and I’d rather learn one thing a day and actually keep it, than spend 4 hours and lose half the lesson by the time I wake up the next day.
Probably only an hour or two “studying”, but I confess I’ve been playing Stardew Valley in Japanese pretty much all weekend lately, what with quarantine and bad weather. In my opinion it’s better to find something fun that you actually want to pour a million hours into.
So far about 30 minutes a day. Its frustrating because I can speak well but never learned may kanji growing up. I did Heisig for a couple of years then learned a lot being back in Japan on business, but it only took a few years to forget a lot of kanji, so I am starting over with level one. Some of the yomi I know aren’t what WaniKani wants. But I am “gaman” and doing it their way. I rotate between Japanese, Russian (review), Spanish, Italian, and Norwegian, with plans to add Croatian and Polish.
There are some, I highly recommend “Japanese from zero” online free courses and “Japanese with Misa”.
You can find them in YouTube and start from zero.
But the best one I’ve find so far is “Kira Sensei’s online course” who is a teacher living in Japan and he reviews the fist 2 Minanonihongo books.
He’s from Spain and, unfortunately, the content is in Spanish.
Hope this helps and I wish you success!
Awesome. I can practice my Spanish at the same time. Especially since the Spanish dialect is harder for me.
Edit: The subtitles on this one are hilarious: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTGkvBEtlNP0pn1bEtOre7R5IoofRzPTI 
About 1/3rd of my productive hours this week, or ~50 minutes a day according to Toggl.
I’ll be getting more writing practice on KanjiStudy using the WaniKani sets posted here and maybe start working on Genki soon too. Fitting all of that in will probably need closer to two hours per day. Like others here I’m also suffering from some drawing ambitions that I can’t seem to follow through on.
Checking my recorded hours each week has been a good reality check and motivator.
The time I feel like, I need to keep this casual otherwise I’ll burn out. For stuff that requires lots of study I have university already xD
Come on over!!
This will probably change soon, but normally I do:
WaniKani — 30mins in the morning, 45min in the evening (w/ lessons), 10-15 mins at night
Kamesame —50 reviews including handwriting, takes around 15 mins
Genki — One section a day, normally 30~ mins
Read NHK Easy News — Around 10 mins to read multiple times, understand (enough) and check on DeepL
Book Club — 5 mins
Online Genki exercises — Recent addition, doing one (previous) chapter takes 30-45 mins
Immersion — 30-45mins podcast or YouTube
Memrise if time but now I usually end up not doing any
Vocab Lists — 30~ mins Revise two or three handwritten flash card decks I made a while back.
So altogether, at least…
I’m scared to calculate this. I can’t be spending this much time doing Japanese can I? Anyway, I’ll have a few hours less to spare in around two weeks 
Wow, I thought I spent a lot of time on Japanese until I read some of the more extreme replies. 
I spend the majority of my time on Wanikani (about 1 hour a day), with maybe another hour spent on other resources (Kamesame, Torii, Anki, etc.).
I’ve fallen out of my usual habit of reading through one lesson of Genki I a day, so I’m going to attempt to fit that back into my routine. It’s frustrating to know so little grammar at this stage, so I’ll definitely try to cultivate some motivation for it!
Hopefully soon. 
Really wish to visit my family and relatives.
Me too!!! Opposite way but I want to see my family.
That heat map script is pretty neat. Especially when I look at how long I’ve spent in reviews (499hr 15 min!). I spend an average of 3-4 hours a day “dedicated” to Japanese.
30 min morning doing WK reviews & lessons
~15 min doing WK lunch/afternoon reviews
~15 min reading/listening to NHK newseasy
~15 min doing Bunpro reviews & lessons
30 min doing WK evening reviews
~60 min watching anime
~30 min reading manga before bed
I’ve found a good rhythm sticking to 10 lessons a day. Also the Jakeipuu app has been very helpful since it can play audio for the example sentences for vocab.
i’ve been doing about 2-3 hours of active study a day, spread over various ressources, as long as my health allows. currently more like 2 hours than 3, because it is winter and ski-season, and i spend all my available daylight hours on the slopes ^^
add to that whatever japanese media i consume, which can vary wildly, between weeks without any at all and binging a whole catalog of anime at once. recently i also switched stardew valley to japanese ^^
This topic was automatically closed 365 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.
