“It’s been a long time … but my time is finally near!”
~ Scott Bakula or something
How it started
I started using WaniKani on the second of October, 2018.
It had been a strange couple of years for me. Around the end of 2016, I’d been diagnosed with a pretty bad case of Graves’ disease, which had forced me to drop much of what I was doing. My blood pressure had been dangerously high when they tested me, and so I was given instructions to avoid any strenuous activity until it settled down. What’s more, the medicine I was taking to slow my body down also slowed my brain down, making me extremely lethargic. I even came close to losing my student housing due to poor results, but was able to get a medical exemption.
However, I’d been thinking of learning Japanese for a while, and one thing I did to keep my mind from shutting down completely was to learn one kanji each(ish) day.
As my condition started improving, I was told that I needed to start exercising regularly, since my metabolism was being kept artificially low. This took the form of long walks, which then started incorporating a bit of jogging.
At the start of 2018, I started taking an evening class in Japanese; I’d started working at the university, so it was only a short walk away when I finished up at work.
My social life had deteriorated quite a bit since I got sick, and these spirited classes quickly became the highlight of my week.
Furthermore, a few weeks into the class, my teacher relayed a message from one of her contacts at the Swedish Culture Foundation in Hokkaidōo. They were planning to host an event called the Tōbetsu Sweden Marathon (although it’s actually a half-marathon), and they figured it would probably make sense for there to be some Swedes participating in the event. Therefore, they were offering to fly 10 students out to Tōbetsu to take part.
I’d always wanted to visit Japan, and I was getting better at jogging, so this seemed like a golden opportunity. I felt like the chances were very slim that I’d be selected … but then again, these sorts of things tend to suffer from low application pressure because everybody else thinks the exact same way, so I figured it was worth a shot.
It seems my thinking was right, because in the end, only 7 people ended up going, and I was one of them!
I got my first positive response in March (although the confirmation wasn’t until June), and the event was in August, so I had about 5 months to 1) learning enough Japanese to get around, and 2) run a half-marathon.
This was probably just the motivation I needed, because I made good progress on both. I remember finding quite a lot of solace in the realization that regular training actually did give results. It had become clear that my illness would probably have some lifelong effects, and I’d found that thought rather depressing. However, I came to realize that even if my theoretical potential was reduced, I could still increase my utilized potential, and become better at both running and Japanese than I’d ever been before.
August came, and I landed jetlagged in a Tokyo that was pushing 40 degrees. I’d learned the word 蒸し暑い before going, but I didn’t realize its true meaning until I got there.
My first Japanese language victory was reading the words スイカフラッペ, which enabled me to survive in the heat.
My day wasn’t over yet, though; I still had a plane to catch to Shin-Chitose, then a train ride to Sapporo and another train ride out to Tōbetsu. I ended up dozing off several times on the final train, but set a timer that would ring a bit before my stop.
I reached my hotel quite late at night, and spent my first ever night in a futon.
The next day, I got to meet my fellow runners. In the evening, there was a press event where we got to go on stage and introduce ourselves in Japanese.
I needed to get up early for the race the next day, and ended up not sleeping a single wink. With a temperature of 32 degrees and high humidity, I was quite worried about how the run would go, although fortunately the adrenaline seemed to do its thing, so I actually ran a personal best, which I’ve never been able to beat since.
When I’d asked my boss if I could take a week off from work to go to Japan, she’d said no, insisting that I take two weeks, so I spent the next couple of weeks milling around Sapporo.
I honestly don’t remember much of what I did on that first trip, but I remember it was the most excited I’d been in a long time.
Oh, and I was introduced to the concept of 締めパフェ; a dang good concept that should be made universal.
I knew I wanted to go back, so I decided to keep working on my Japanese. I’d heard of WaniKani before, but I remember being a bit skeptical towards the approach. I’m quite interested in etymology, so the idea of learning “incorrect” radicals seemed a bit ludicrous to me. It also seemed to me that using mnemonics would be too slow in real-time contexts.
However, I’d listened to the Tofugu podcast episode on keyword mnemonics, and the idea that mnemonics were meant to be “shed” over time made sense. It also struck me that if WaniKani could teach me over 2000 kanji and 6000 words, maybe it didn’t matter all that much if the radicals I’d used to learn them were “wrong”.
And so, I signed up for WaniKani in October, and bought a lifetime subscription during the year-end campaign.
How it’s been going
Since then, I’ve kept going back to Japan once per year (except for 2020-2021, due to the pandemic). On my first three trips, I only hung around Sapporo, but since then I’ve taken to starting my trips in Sapporo and then heading south, spending anywhere from a few nights to whole weeks in Hakodate, Sendai, Odate, Akita, Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe and Hiroshima.
My WaniKani progress has been, shall we say, uneven. As you can see, at one point I went more than two years without a single level-up.
I’ve made several attempts to get back into it, but the sheer weight of reviews has been quite overwhelming. I’d start with around 1200 pending reviews, work my way down to 800 over the course of several days, only to stumble and end right back where I started.
And so, the thing I’m happiest about right now isn’t actually reaching level 60, but finally getting my review count down to 0.
Going to take some effort keeping it that way, though.
I still have about 1000 lessons left to do, though. I’m also planning to go through my burnt items and unburn anything that hasn’t quite stuck.
What’s next
I’m planning on taking the JLPT N2 next week. I honestly haven’t spent nearly enough time studying, so I’m not sure how it will go, but I think it will be a good experience, regardless.
More importantly, I recently received approval from my boss to work remotely from Japan for three months, so I’m currently waiting for my digital nomad visa. My plan is that if that goes well, I’ll spend four-five months there next year.
