Hello! Oh boy where do I start…
I’m Edwad and I’ve just reached level 60! When I first joined, I didn’t know if I’d ever make it. Now that we’re here, I’m both relieved, stressed, and excited for what’s to come 
. I thought it’d be neat to join in and talk about my journey thus far. This isn’t a guide. If anything it’s a good indicator for what you should NOT do 
. The community here is great and if you’re looking for some serious advice, check out some of the other posts around here or reach out! Now if you have a moment, I’ll ramble for a bit so stay a while and listen
I’ll try to section this a bit so I don’t completely bore you 
About me, how I came to interact with Japanese
Sooo actually my government name is Edward. I misspelt my own name on a math test back in high school and it became a nickname that stuck 
. Growing up, I watched a lot of TV and before I even knew the term ‘anime’, I had loved shows like Dragon Ball Z, Shaman King, etc… with absolutely no idea of its origins. It wasn’t until a couple years later that I came across my cousin’s online alias which started my interaction with the Japanese language. That alias was none other than a certain ninja “Sa-soo-kee”, or that’s how I read it for the first time anyways. Sorry Sasuke 
. Anime became a mainstay source of entertainment but oddly enough, music never really went beyond a brief phase of “top anime op/eds” during this time - Okay but the day Shippuden released and dropped Hero’s Come Back… that was HYPE.
Fast track to December 2024. I had just turned 29 and was looking for a new hobby to kick off 2025. I thought of a few options, but decided on studying and refining my craft to advance my career - I program for a living and so this was mostly learning theory and solving practice problems. This lasted about a week. Turns out this was not a hobby for me and I severely lacked the motivation. At this point in time, I was consuming a lot more Japanese media and there was always this thought of “wouldn’t it be nice to understand the language that had been integrated so much into my life?”. And so, I decided to give a shot in learning Japanese. I didn’t have high expectations for myself. Reading about how difficult the language was or how many people quit after dabbling for a bit really didn’t help. Nonetheless, I told myself: please, try your best to stick with it for at least a year and give it an honest effort. If it doesn’t work out, at least I had tried. Here. We. Go.
Starting in 2025, learning from 0 to… 60?
Okay, maybe not 0. I knew words like TEMEE! orr KISAMA! That’s gotta be useful… right?? No but seriously, I began by scrounging the internet for starting resources. I started by reading the introduction sections on IMABI, and then learning Hiragana by staring at the chart, attempting to memorize, and handwriting into a notebook. Oof. This was time consuming, tedious, and progress was slower than I wanted. Time to try something different.
I installed Anki and imported a Hiragana & Katakana deck. I kept at it for probably 2 weeks before I felt comfortable to move on. I certainly did not have it mastered, but it was enough for me to start learning other things.
I tried a few different resources, but ended on:
- WaniKani: for the kanji base, vocab(?), and some structured learning
- Bunpro: Grammar
- Anki - Kaishi 1.5k: To ensure I was at least getting exposure to common vocab
WK became my main focus and I moved pretty slowly on BP/Anki.
Once I got into the 30s of WK and was ~1/2 through the N3 grammar points on BP, I experimented with some graded readers and listening to podcasts. It kept my interest for a bit before I wanted to try something else. I saw 同じ夢を見ていた as a popular recommendation. While enjoyable, it was tough 
. I was spending about 30m-1hr reading each day. A lot of this time was just trying to process what I was reading. I’d try to interpret it myself and then ask AI to break down each sentence. It was at this point that I found myself taking on too much load - balancing work, life, Japanese studies, and other hobbies. I was still watching/listening to a good amount of Japanese but it was passive entertainment, just trying to catch words here and there. If it had subtitles and was a simple sentence which I thought I should know, I’d replay the bit and listen to it again. This was part of my wind down time and I wasn’t actively trying to learn anything.
Something had to give and comparatively, WK was the most reasonable and time consuming component. Yet despite that, I enjoyed the satisfaction from progressing WK. I didn’t like the idea of prolonging it even further while doing more things in parallel. I was aware of the criticisms in being stuck in the SRS trap and neglecting immersion. Where I was in life, I think it was less about effectively learning Japanese, and more about finding comfort in my routine while visualizing some kind of progress. WK wasn’t going to last forever and the journey ahead is long. Even if this isn’t the most impactful path right now, I’m still learning something. With this rationalization, I decided to not stress about about efficiency or what others were doing and focus on WK. I had more determination to get through it within the next few months so that I could move on to other aspects of Japanese 
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December came along and things lined up pretty nicely. I had just entered the fast levels and had a few weeks of PTO remaining with no plans to travel. I spent this time trucking along and things were going well.
Then came January of 2026. The month I would reach level 60. Just one more month of this grind and things would slow down 
. Well January was not kind and things got a heck of a lot worse. Some life events happened and I also ended up getting really sick. I became super stressed and motivation was in the gutters. It came in waves. My studies was something I could fixate on and keep myself busy. I was still accomplishing something. Other times, it was a chore I was forcing myself to do. It was unhealthy for me but I drifted through each day, awaiting other factors of my life to get better rather than adjusting my study routine. I started to experience symptoms of burnout, doubting myself and questioning if this is something I can really afford to continue with - if I should be prioritizing other things in my life. I was still determined to hit my personal goal of 60 if nothing else but a big 
to everything bringing me down.
Jan.26, 2026. I did it! The long awaited day and boy did it feel good. I wish this day could have come under better circumstances, but I’m proud of the work I put in over the last year. I’m relieved to have made it through and excited to move on to the next stage of my learning journey
I talk about some pictures with numbers
WaniKani
The moment I hit 60:
I wouldn’t really pay attention to the accuracy. Once I hit the fast levels, I fully committed to doing my reviews on the IOS app Tsurukame. I have it set to Anki mode where I just answer both the reading and meaning in my head and then reveal/grade at once. I use to believe in typing the answers to help improve retention. It ended up becoming too tedious and my hands were getting tired from trying to type in 400+ reviews lol. It just wasn’t worth it for how much extra time and effort it took. Recently, my sessions have been closer to the 75% mark when using the app.
It was a wild ride. I have an addictive personality so this was likely a result of that. The pain is temporary. The memory? Eternal.
In all seriousness, make sure you’re getting good sleep and pace yourself. This shouldn’t be painful. If you end up following a similar trend, what I have to say was never going to change your mind 
This is how the reviews looked to cap off the month of January 2026. The next couple days is forecasting 300-400 reviews. Beyond that, it’s showing 200s so that will be nice 
Bunpro
I just do grammar here. I integrated with WK just to see how much vocab it picks up and covers. I don’t think it’s entirely accurate as I’ve come across vocab during reviews whose meanings I don’t know, but knew the kanji involved. Maybe I just forgot, or maybe the hide furigana setting is based on kanji rather than vocab .
Anki
Has been pretty much on maintenance mode after getting through Kaishi 1.5k, Hiragana/Katakana. I started at around 10 words/day and then shifted down to 5 once things picked up. Kinda surprising how accurate the FSRS setting is. I had it set to 95% and it’s right on the spot 
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Time breakdown
I keep an activity log to help track what I’m doing, keep myself accountable, and stay focused once I start a task. In the last month where activity peaked, I was spending roughly 2 hours each day on SRS. Some days were longer and others shorter, mostly depending on what WK content was available:
- WaniKani: ~1.5 hours
- Bunpro: ~30 minutes
- Anki: ~5 minutes
Reflections on the year, improvements, shortcomings
Summing it up, my study time over the past year was comprised of SRS systems. Firstly, let me just say this: Do NOT do what I did. After a certain point, it was more about maintaining my routine rather than effectively learning Japanese. I’d say you really need to able to dedicate 3-5 hours of study time so that you can keep up with this amount of SRS without impacting your immersion time. I’ll leave it at that since it’s a bit ironic coming from me. There are a ton of great level 60 posts which talk about their experiences with immersion so check them out!
So how do I feel about my current abilities?
I’m still very much a beginner. There’s only so far you can get with SRS in this time frame. With the path I’ve taken, reading is by far my strongest area. I have noticeable improvement in reading speed and comprehension of sentences during reviews. I’ve found myself reading and using the context sentences in WK during lessons/reviews once I got to the later stages. It’s always a treat understanding Japanese in the wild.
Even with all this SRS, vocab still holds me back. There is a lot of vocab on WK that feels like reinforcement to the kanji rather than being practical. Yes I can take guesses at the reading/meaning based on the kanji. Right now, it’s not as practical since I have Yomitan for instant look ups during sentence reviews or just encountering Japanese in the wild. I have no doubt this will be much more useful learning new words once I begin mining.
Reading is really hit or miss depending on the content. Sometimes I just understand it. Other times, it’s a mix of words / grammar points I recognize, but really need to pause and think about how it’s pieced together. And then of course, there are things I just don’t understand at all. I imagine it to be kind of like knowing the alphabet and sounding out sentences in English.
Listening and speaking is just how you would imagine it. Things that I’ve gotten a ton of reps in or fresh content is usually what I might pick up on. Common, simple phrases come a lot quicker. If I had to describe it, it’s like taking a snapshot of what was said, and then my brain needs to think about it and process. This makes it difficult to keep up with conversation. Speaking is practically non-existent. I only occasionally speak to myself just to reinforce some learning 
Final thoughts
Ironically, getting through WK in the time I did was a S.M.A.R.T. goal I had set for myself. Specific. Measurable. Achievable. Relevant. Time-Bound. Maybe you could question the relevant part of it with diminishing returns but eh . My goals had shifted but I was still determined and was progressing my Japanese in one way or another.
The great thing is that I still love interacting with the Japanese language and I still want to understand it. For the majority of my life, it’s been a part of it and I don’t see it leaving any time soon. Relatively speaking I’m only a year in and I’m going to have a lot more time freed up in which I can spend in immersion. I’ve definitely learned A LOT compared to where I was just starting out, and now the gains are only going to get better actively immersing in content with the base I’ve built.
I’ve always looked up to the people who’ve shared stories of the various content they’re working through, or completed along their journey. It’s a great feeling to be “joining along” and starting similar activities outside my usual routine as well
Looking ahead in 2026
Japanese
For the next week or two, I plan to take it slow and bring down the review count in WK. I waited until the weekend to write this post so I’ve already completed the remaining lessons. I’ve been slowly working through the reading passages over on Bunpro here, and plan to catch up to where I’m at in terms of SRS. If I can understand all the highlighted grammar points in that passage, I check it off. Otherwise, I leave it unchecked and revisit.
I still intend to finish off all the grammar points in Bunpro and keep up with my reviews. So far, I plan on burning everything or at least getting far enough that it’s just the outliers remaining. Knowing me, at that point I must as well burn em right?
Once things slow down, I plan to begin mining into Anki at a slow pace. I haven’t decided what I’ll do first, but picking up where I left off with reading 同じ夢を見ていた, or playing a game are my top choices. From some of the content I’ve been watching, Heavy Spoilers RPG: The true identity of the final enemy is the hero’s father looked fun. From there, I don’t have a concrete plan but I want to keep this time dedicated to actively learning from content I enjoy.
When I have some more time I’d like to take a few JLPT mock exams just to experience it. Taking the official JLPT is way down on the bucket list but it’s a neat collection of badges I’d like to collect some day. Right now, I definitely do not need the added pressure
Life Rants… ( best to ignore this tbh )
I mentioned that life has been tough lately and I’ve been in the pits. I came close to burning out and had to question my priorities in continuing Japanese studies. I hope it’s a matter of riding it out and healing with time. I’ve also been sick since early January and I’m coming up to week 4. I’m so sick of being sick. I’ve been fortunate that things have been slow at work which gave me a lot more time to hunker down and deal with everything else going on. The slowness is getting to a point which is beginning to worry me however. Things are expected to pick up soon so fingers crossed. It’s a strange thing to talk about here, but I work in the tech industry and there’s been a strong push for AI adoption in software development. Hearing speeches during demo’s from leadership of how tasks which would take X days can be done in X hours is worrying. It’s a skill which I’m going to need to hone so that I can ensure performance. Anyways what I mean to say is job security might become a real problem and I might need to be studying for my career rather than my hobby. Nonetheless, I’m gonna try as hard as I can to continue on, even if it’s just a short review session each day. If I need to step away, I hope I can retain my passion and pick it back up one day.
Thank you
I haven’t directly interacted with the community much, but I love lurking in forums and reading about everyone’s experiences. You’ve given me so much motivation, knowledge, peace and energy. Thank you for all the wonderful posts. I’ll be here in the shadows
Thanks to the team at WaniKani for providing such an amazing medium in the Japanese learning space. It might be easy to criticize, but it’s difficult to create a product that many can invest hundreds of hours into. I’m grateful for what WK has attributed to my learning.
TLDR
I hit level 60, yay!
I mainly did SRS for a year, but I’m looking forward to branching out my studies going forward. There’s a lot for me to learn and I hope this passion allows me to find time to continue pushing on.
I don’t recommend you to do only do SRS if you have the means to supplement it with other material. You won’t learn Japanese as effectively as you otherwise could.
Big thank you to the community for lifting me up when things were hard!
I wish I had a picture of cake to share with y’all but celebration will need to wait for a bit while I recover. For now I’ll settle on giving myself a profile picture 
To anyone reading this. You got this. It may not be easy but hard work pays off. Stay consistent and you’ll reach your goals eventually. I’m sure we all have some regrets about the past but the next best thing we can do is to take action now. がんばって! 
I was really hesitant to post this. I haven’t been here long and I don’t have nearly as much meaningful experience as the others before me. I’m just a dude who likes Japanese and committed to something in my own way. If anything I hope I could show what you can accomplish by showing up every day.
. The struggles here have taught me so much about discipline and determination… just realizing how much I can give myself to something makes me feel a little better about finding comfort in transition.