I’m a 主婦 (しゅふ/housewife) with two little kids so the time I spend studying varies from day to day. I try to fit in Wanikani whenever I have a moment, like when I’m in line at the grocery store or something like that, in addition to getting up forty minutes before my family so I can do a big batch of reviews at once.
Then every night while I give my daughter a bath, I try to read at least one article on Nihongo Easy News.
A few times a week, like when my kids have classes or when I have some spare time for whatever reason, I study grammer.
It’s been working pretty well since I’ve been doing this sort of schedule for about 7 months now and can read some simple things. I’m not trying to focus on speaking right now though, just reading.
I’ve burnt myself out in the past but I think I’m doing better this time. I don’t really have a study schedule. I guess I’m still trying to figure out what works for me. My one constant right now is doing my WK reviews every day, regardless of how I feel about it. It’s been a great anchor, no regrets buying the lifetime subscription.
Aside from that, I just do what I feel like doing. I try to keep up with my flashcards on Kitsun but I might also read an article on SatoriReader or watch some grammar videos on youtube, try to read a manga around my level, watch an episode of anime (w/ English subs so can enjoy it, but making an effort to listen). I try to push myself a bit, but if I find myself getting burnt out, I’ll take it easy until I’m ready to do more. That doesn’t necessarily mean doing nothing, just doing enough to maintain the habit without exhausting myself.
Edit to add:
I think eventually, I’ll be able to find a good balance and won’t risk burning myself out as much. I think the others are right about discipline being more important than motivation. I think if you have a natural curiosity for Japanese, discipline will feed your motivation. It doesn’t have to be a slog, just find some small habit you can maintain and allow your curiosity to guide you from there.
I do WaniKani at least once every day, I just go until I have 0 reviews or can’t be bothered. But I’m a perfectionist so if I leave anything I will most likely go back to it later.
Recently I’ve also been studying 1 page in my grammar book I got like last week, called Shinkansen master.
I spend at least 20 minutes, but usually around an hour a day on listening. YouTube, anime or movies. Music too, but I don’t really count that because it’s extremely passive.
Then I also read at least a manga chapter and 2 pages in a light novel (that’s about as much as my brain can handle).
Sometimes I might skip listening if I’m short on time, but it’s very rarely. Before I used to burn out A LOT, but it was when I also used Anki. As soon as I stopped using that I went by just fine. The key I find is to do stuff that doesn’t feel like studying as part of your regimen, such as reading manga or watching videos or movies.
This article was kind of helpful, and because of it, I changed my study habits a bit, like 10 minutes of textbook a day, I may not finish the chapter, but then I want to tomorrow even more, practice even more, even though that would seem counterproductive. It’s kept me (when I have actually been free to do) it from burning out and continually enjoying the studying
Think you need to find what works for you. If you are aiming on doing the JPLT’s I would consider what what level you want to take and then work backwards that way. But like people have said on here, depends what else you have on in your life as well.
But I think the key is, is that it fits with you. Take it from somebody who has stopped and started Japanese over the last few years, you need to self modulate your time with your lifestyle. Attempt it for a few weeks and see if you can manage the workload. But very key, make sure you are getting enough relaxation/switch off time. I think sometimes what we take for granted is that the rest/downtime is also key in any journey (this is true of exercise and learning). So along as you are happy with your progress and feel you are getting sufficient downtime, that should be fine. In my study calendar I actually plan a weekend a month downtime, so I don’t feel to overwhelmed (or when I know I have a family do/friend coming/birthday to attend, I will take that weekend off).
But to answer you question. Last year I used to do just 20 minutes a day and then try to do a 6-8 hour study session at the weekends. Which didn’t work for me, at all. Over the last few months I have altered it (as it currently fits in with my work and also WK has really gotten me into reviewing things every day- which I LOVE it for), but conscious that if I get through busier periods or have bigger projects I might need to alter it again. But currently I do the following:
Reviews/ Lessons on WaniKani twice/three times a day (depending how busy work is): This takes on average about an hour a day
Reviews on KameSame once a day in the evening : This takes about 20-30 minutes currently.
Review on MemRise in the evening or lunch time: This takes about 15minutes
Learn 10 or 15 new words on Memrise (doing the JPLT LVL 5 Course on there and will then do the JPLT LV4) in the evening or lunch time: This takes about 20 minutes
On Sunday/Saturday morning I will do:
a. 1 Genki I Chapter (about 3 hours)
b. Busuu Lessons (30 minutes)
c. Jpod101 Videos (30 minutes).
d. TheJapanesepage.com- 5 grammar points (about 20-30 minutes).
At the moment that works for me, but its because I’m aiming to do JPLT L5 or 4 in December, so have made my schedule to aim for that.
I spend exactly 1 hour on WK a day, 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes when I get home from work. I use a timer. Used to try to crank through all my reviews when I got home and I would often be so tired from work it would take me hours and it was not an efficient use of my time. Switching to 30 minutes in two sets I am able to stay on top of reviews without it being a huge time sink, but I am content without leveling up at the fastest possible rate.
So yeah:
30 minutes in the morning and evening for WK every day
30-60 minutes consuming Japanese content every day (game, show, news, anything)
1-2 hours on grammar maybe once a week? Probably my weakest point right now
Don’t buy into study plans that push 4-8 hours a day. As with most things in life, perseverance is more powerful than motivation and bursts of effort. Good luck with your studies!
It truly depends on how I’m feeling. Today was a very chill day since it was my listening and practice day so I only spent an hour. There are days like Monday where I only spend 20-30 min or days like Tuesday where I spend 1h30.
I really think I could spend less than 1h30 but I get distracted easily. I really have a problem with concentration.
However I try to never to a 2hour study session. That wouldn’t be effective for me. I would probably feel tired and forget everything the day after.
** it doesn’t include wanikani (but I usually spend 15-20 min, depending on how many lessons and review I have)
I want to be able to read the manga and books I have in Japanese. This is not a lot (one light novel, the Sailor Moon manga) but the one book has never been officially translated into English so reading it is the biggest thing.
What’s hard is a lot of people suggested “make it fun”. I don’t know how to do that at the level I’m at. I can’t understand anything (and even less now after my 2 month break) so how am I supposed to find fun things?
I suck at maintaining habits in general (trying to get myself to use the treadmill regularly right now with similar results) but I get where you’re coming from. Thank you for your advice!
That article was genius. Thank you so much for sharing it! I will try that out for sure!
This is a great goal, and a great anchor point to measure progress. I’m in the Haikyuu book club, and having one character in one chapter a week to focus my efforts on reading and translating has been a helpful focus.
Maybe you can break down your work in a similar fashion? “For the next month, I will focus on learning to read only Usagi’s lines in only chapter 1.” Commit to doing less over a longer time period to avoid trying to do too much too fast.
I definitely feel this too. I catch myself thinking that learning a habit is an all-or-nothing affair. But I’ve been trying to be kinder to myself, and part of that is realizing that forming habits can be cyclical.
I’ll start to form a new habit, maintain it for a while, then fall off. What I’ve gotten better at is recognizing how I feel both when I do that habit and when I stop the habit. Then I can decide which works better for me. That reframing helps cut me some slack. I had to stop the habit so I could have a point of comparison.
I don’t know that I’m ready for the sailor moon manga yet but I see your point. I’m gonna try to do Genki over a two week period per chapter instead of one week. It’ll feel slow but that’s maybe a good thing.
I also did 50 of my piled up reviews. I have close to 600 to go but I started and that’s what matters. Gonna try and get my reviews semi on a schedule as I relearn them. Was debating resetting but itll come back to me I hope.
You don’t have to understand Japanese to be able to have fun while surrounded with it. Just do whatever you want, and then ask yourself “can I do this activity with just a little more japanese?”
It doesn’t have to be much. If you take a break from Japanese by playing games, take two minutes to change the interface to japanese. For those games you love, you probably know the interface inside and out so even if the characters are unintelligible right now, you can still navigate your way around without problem. And yet, it give you one more change to glance at japanese and recognise words you’ve just learned in WaniKani.
I’ve changed all of my browsers and youtube to Japanese. Most of the time, I don’t really notice the difference, but sometimes I need to navigate the options, and I’m forced to read a few kanas to find of the options I need. The first time I used a VPN, I got locked out of all my Google accounts due to security, and I had to recover my credentials while my interface was all in Japanese. I didn’t understand much, but one パスワード here, another メールアドレス there and a 番号コード at the end, and I recovered everything without any english. It was really satisfying, even though I wasn’t able to read any kanji at the time.
Personally, I’m not much of a gamer; I prefer to read fanfics. So I grab the fanfics I like, put them in deepL, and then try to read 2-3 paragraphs in Japanese before rewarding myself with the full chapter in english. I don’t look up every word, just those patterns I notice through repetition.
What I’m trying to say is that most people have an instinctive grasp of what is fun or not. It’s just a matter of being aware of your own likes and to keep finding ways to do those things with a little more japanese.
What exactly are you spending several hours doing? It shouldn’t take you several hours a day to do reviews, a video and one genki chapter a week…
From your other comments it seems like you’re trying to speedrun wanikani, SLOW DOWN! You don’t need to do every single lesson as soon as its available. Keep your reviews manageable so you don’t burn out! Try to keep under 100 apprentice items or it spirals out of control really fast.
I’ve been studying Japanese daily since early 2015. Honestly, don’t overthink it or over plan it. Just work on whatever aspect of the language you feel like doing in a given moment and only work on it as long as you’re enjoying it. Am I as fluent as I wish I was? No, but learning a language isn’t a race, and I’ve never burned out once in six years of daily language learning. As long as you keep making progress you keep improving.
I’m actually not trying to speed run. I think I was doing to much with a Genki chapter a week, wk twice a day, bunpro, kitsun and handwriting practice. I’m gonna keep the srs I think but have it on more of a schedule, and slow the Genki down to a chapter every two weeks.
Thanks for the feedback! I always thought I’d have to stick to Japanese at the level I’m at or I’d somehow harm my learning. Maybe I’ll give my books a look after all!
I can’t say I have a set amount of time that I set aside per day. I have a routine that involves doing half of my WK queue at lunch, then I practice writing a few of the 100 or so kanji I’d actually trained myself to write in my pre-WK days (my brain is weird–I can read well more than 100 kanji at this point, but I couldn’t write the vast majority of them. For example, if I see the character for “collect/gather” I can tell you right away what it means. If you asked me to write the character for “collect/gather” I’d have nothing). Then I try to look over my current vocab/grammer from the Attain Corp N5 course I’m currently crawling through. I’ll usually try to do another WK session at some point in the day.
That said, I’ve been studying Japanese for nearly 3 years and don’t even have an N5 level of proficiency, so my methods probably aren’t the best. At this rate, I might achieve fluency in 30 years if I’m lucky.
For what it’s worth, I am too. I don’t think I’ve ever maintained a habit for this long without external pressure. I think the fact that I’ve been able to maintain this habit is due to the fact that the srs creates structure and the app notifications put my reviews right in front of me so I can’t forget about them. So that solves two of the major problems I have with maintaining habits. If you can figure out what makes forming habits difficult for you, you might be able to work out a system that helps you too?
How to ADHD has some helpful videos on building habits and routines. Her videos are, obviously, intended for people with ADHD but the advice she gives is helpful for pretty much anyone.
Wow! How did you find such a great tutor? I’ve been on the look out for one that has structured learning and not just “free conversation” where I don’t get corrected.
Koichi wrote an article a while back about seeking the “+1 level of difficulty”; I think you’d find that a useful read!
As a college professor, the real nucleus of my job is helping students learn. The biggest piece of advice I have is to be patient with yourself. Neurologically, learning does require you to frustrate or annoy yourself a little, but if you feel anxiety about even the act of studying, then you’re overdoing it. This is probably my catchphrase at this point: give yourself permission to suck.
I have ADHD, so I suck at maintaining habits too. It can help to structure them and find set times to practice, but I know how difficult even that act can be. For a long time, I kept WaniKani as a pinned tab. I think that helped me.
One thing that’s helped me is manually typing my physical books so I could translate them and use Google Translate and DeepL as “spotters.” That might be a good thing to do with that light novel! Try to translate in your head as you type, then copy-paste everything you typed into one of those translators. I won’t lie: the typing process is agonizingly slow at first (especially with the added challenge of holding the damn book open!). But you’ll get so much faster. I’m barely halfway through WaniKani and I can already read long stretches faster than my fingers can move to type them! I like to save them as Google Docs so I can keep going on multiple devices. Here are the first few pages of The Essence of SaGa Frontier.
Believe it or not, this is common even among Japanese people! Check this video out!
I’m glad you mentioned this; my ADHD has been flaring up lately and this’ll help!
