I love writing and community and I want to feel more engaged with the continuity of my study so I’m going to have a go at a study log! If this is the wrong category to post someone please let me know!
My mantra for this study log is my favorite phrase in 日本語, 強くなりたい！
The key to sustaining this log will be celebrating my successes and recognizing that the discipline cycle is action → reward → motivation.
You can’t be sure motivation will always be there to bring you to action! But if you take action and reward yourself, you can be assured that this in itself will be self-motivating!
Never underestimate marginal gains! Being in school and doing an internship at the same time is busy but we are always busy. Happy people are those who are focused and work hard. Don’t make excuses. Find a way! I’m going to take my reviews more seriously now. I always get scattered when I find some new avenue to work Japanese into my daily life. It’s important to have variety so you don’t get bored, but you’ll never make any progress if you are always jumping around.
Blue Period shadowing today: 15 mins
Wanikani reviews today: 162 → 139
I’m thinking of recording my shadowing sessions with Audacity and posting them on Soundcloud so I can see my improvements! The only problem there is for the poor passerby who stumbles upon my SoundCloud and hears my terrible pronunciation For now that is!
I hope everyone reading this is doing well. 頑張って下さい。皆さん！
I like your enthusiasm and positive mindset! It is quite difficult (especially in the beginning) to build up the discipline to keep at something like learning another language, but I’m sure you can do it. I think shadowing the same piece of material can be good to notice various grammar patterns / vocab usage too.
If you keep up kanji study with something like Wanikani, it truly makes a difference in your reading and overall comprehension too. 頑張って！
ありがとうございます！ @AngelicRuin
めっちゃ嬉しい。Your words are powerful!
Level 47 is awesome. I’m sure you will be able to watch anime without subtitles easily with your dedication, if you haven’t been there already!
Everyday is different. It’s not always so important how we feel. What’s important is that we show up.
Wanikani reviews today: 139 → 82
今日は日、皆さん、For some of us, if we have a lot going on, the start of a new week can be scary!
Tonight when you prepare for the day tomorrow, instead of saying :
“What if I don’t get enough sleep?”
or
“What if I’m not as productive as I need to be tomorrow and don’t have time to study Japanese?”
Ask yourself:
“What if I wake up feeling completely refreshed tomorrow?”
or
“What if I have an amazing day tomorrow and stay focused enough to meet all of my goals?”
Tomorrow I will continue to stay on top of my reviews!
I’m starting to realize how important Wanikani is to get benefits in all of my other studies.
I blazed through my reviews today when I normally take a long time to get through them.
What do you guys think about trying to do reviews quickly? Bad or good? Honestly, I’ve never tried to do them as fast as possible but I think it was quite fun and helped me to see some weak spots!
The end of the month quarter is near, as well as the end of the quarter!
I might change them over the next 4 days but I’m thinking:
4th Quarter Goals
Half of Blue Period Memorized
For this I will continue to mix in shadowing while watching and studying my Anki deck created with the yomichan add-on, Anki-connect, and Language Reactor.
How: 7 minute portion of the show shadowed and memorized every month.
Check in Month 1:
Check in Month 2:
Check in Month 3:
30 pages of Pocket Monsters Vol. 1 memorized
For this I will continue to look-up kanji and grammar points. Right now all the words I look up in the manga are on my Japanese dictionary on my phone. The app does allow me to put them all into an SRS deck, which I have been doing, but I’m still not sure of the best way to write down and revise grammar points. I will come back to this.
How: 10 pages memorized every month.
Check in Month 1:
Check in Month 2:
Check in Month 3:
Level 7 Wanikani
I am currently at level 4. This would be 1 level every month starting in October. I will have to take my reviews more seriously but I think it’s time to start picking up my studies. I know for sure now that I 100% want to be able to read and speak Japanese. I want to make it a part of who I am. I am committed now. No doubt about it!
I’m starting to really get back into my reviews
It’s important to reward yourself, but don’t make too big of a deal out of it!
When studying a language, we want consistent and steady motivation.
We should try to train our brains under this reward schedule, so if you make a huge deal out of studying for 20 minutes because you generally felt well that day, you might confused your brain!
Stay strong! Stay consistent with small rewards and moments of gratefulness for your study time each day everyone!
Wanikani Reviews:
96 → 52
Wanikani Lessons:
3 → 0
Blue Period Shadowing:
5 minutes
かいぜん。Continuous improvement. Keep your system simple, that way you can keep improving it until you are extremely comfortable with it, then start to add in a little more!
Wanikani Reviews:
95 → 7
Blue period Shadowing:
5 minutes
We’re going strong! For the first time in months I’m completely caught up on my Wanikani reviews and lessons! Tomorrow starts the new quarter so I’m getting ahead on my goals!
Another day of crushing reviews ladies and gentleman!
I also started a fun little side project which I’m not tracking here, I am writing a sentence everyday to make a short story using Godan verbs, with my group of friends on discord as the characters! It’s been pretty fun so far and one original sentence a day in Japanese is totally doable!
Blue Period Shadowing this week:
Minutes spent shadowing 0 → 0
Blue Period Shadowing today:
Minutes spent shadowing 0 → 0
Pocket Monsters Vol. 1 this week:
n/a
Pocket Monsters Vol. 1 today:
Amount of times Flashcard Deck Studied 0 → 1
New words added to Flashcard Deck 0 → 16
Blue Period Shadowing this week:
Minutes spent shadowing 0 → 0
Blue Period Shadowing today:
Minutes spent shadowing 0 → 0
Pocket Monsters Vol. 1 this week:
n/a
Pocket Monsters Vol. 1 today:
Amount of times Flashcard Deck Studied 0 → 1
New words added to Flashcard Deck 0 → 16
皆さん, ハッピー月曜日！
Practice is going really good! I feel like I got a better understanding of the に particle today.
Writing sentences and asking questions is causing growth! Don’t underestimate a sentence everyday!
Blue Period Shadowing this week:
Minutes spent shadowing 0 → 5
Blue Period Shadowing today:
Minutes spent shadowing 0 → 5
Pocket Monsters Vol. 1 this week:
Amount of times Flashcard Deck Studied 0 → 1
New words added to Flashcard Deck 0 → 16
Pocket Monsters Vol. 1 today:
Amount of times Flashcard Deck Studied 0 → 0
New words added to Flashcard Deck 0 → 0
Blue Period Shadowing this week:
Minutes spent shadowing 5 → 10
Blue Period Shadowing today:
Minutes spent shadowing 0 → 5
Pocket Monsters Vol. 1 this week:
Amount of times Flashcard Deck Studied 1 → 1
New words added to Flashcard Deck 16 → 16
Pocket Monsters Vol. 1 today:
Amount of times Flashcard Deck Studied 0 → 0
New words added to Flashcard Deck 0 → 0
It doesn’t seem like I’ll have time for my reviews but I showed up and got a few done and was able to get shadowing practice today! No reason to be disappointed. That’s enough.
Blue Period Shadowing this week:
Minutes spent shadowing 10 → 20
Blue Period Shadowing today:
Minutes spent shadowing 0 → 10
Pocket Monsters Vol. 1 this week:
Amount of times Flashcard Deck Studied 1 → 1
New words added to Flashcard Deck 16 → 16
Pocket Monsters Vol. 1 today:
Amount of times Flashcard Deck Studied 0 → 0
New words added to Flashcard Deck 0 → 0
Blue Period Shadowing this week:
Minutes spent shadowing 0 → 0
Blue Period Shadowing today:
Minutes spent shadowing 0 → 0
Pocket Monsters Vol. 1 this week:
Amount of times Flashcard Deck Studied 0 → 0
New words added to Flashcard Deck 0 → 0
Pocket Monsters Vol. 1 today:
Amount of times Flashcard Deck Studied 0 → 0
New words added to Flashcard Deck 0 → 0
Blue Period Shadowing this week:
Minutes spent shadowing 0 → 0
Blue Period Shadowing today:
Minutes spent shadowing 0 → 0
Pocket Monsters Vol. 1 this week:
Amount of times Flashcard Deck Studied 0 → 0
New words added to Flashcard Deck 0 → 0
Pocket Monsters Vol. 1 today:
Amount of times Flashcard Deck Studied 0 → 0
New words added to Flashcard Deck 0 → 0
I think I found a method I really like for practicing shadowing/learning through anime.
I got overwhelmed by trying to make flashcards at this point in my journey while trying to keep up with Wanikani reviews. Also I think if you use a browser add on like language reactor, it is kind of acting like a flashcard system since you can jump to and replay exactly where sentences end and begin. The only downside is they don’t have built in SRS… But if you properly schedule in your mind and keep track of the shows you are studying じゃまー、いいと思いますよ！ だから！My plan is…
Using Language Reactor extension in the morning for 10-15 minutes to go through the part of the show I am learning (Right now I am memorizing the first third/7 minutes of a show) I will:
Try my best to recall the words from the show first before I start in the morning without audio or subtitles.
Hiding the subtitles and audio I will use the images from the show and try to imagine I was in a
similar situation, where the words/sentences/grammar might actually be useful, as if I was having
a conversation with someone in the image setting.
While doing this I will try my best to hear the melody of the sentence (Pitch accent is cool )
Try my best to go through it with only Japanese audio
Hiding only the translations now until I get to the 7 minute mark without looking at the translations.
Try my best to go through it with subtitles and audio now
At this point I will use subtitles and audio, I will also allow myself to finally look at the translations
if needed and try to properly place them into my memory with interleaving (learning technique)
I’m going to time this tomorrow to see how long it takes if I’m not worried about time at all, but still trying to stay as focused as possible.
So this is a new system I developed for staying on track with 1/3 of my goals for the 4th quarter of 2022! As for Wanikani, I think it is working well doing it right when I wake up in the morning and then whenever I have time throughout the day as well. For reading manga, I might focus more on just trying to read through it without memorizing/looking up every single word. I think actually using it in this way will keep me more motivated I believe it’s really crucial to figure out the things that keep you motivated and use them skillfully.
I really like your study blog! It’s so great to see other people’s progress on Wanikani and other Japanese language studies, and I enjoy seeing how you bring in other materials to improve your learning. I’m purely focusing on Wanikani right now so I can get in a groove, but I definitely want to copy your idea of rewatching/rereading anime/manga to fully capture what’s going on. Breaking things down into bite-size pieces feels much more possible than just diving in and trying to understand things I’ve never seen before.
I also like the quote of yours I noted above. As a native English speaker, I still encounter English words I’ve never seen before, so I can only assume I’ll encounter situations where I’ll encounter Japanese words I don’t know during times where it’s not realistic to look them up. Having the courage to just keep reading when you don’t know a word sounds like AMAZING practice for that.
For now that is! 
Tomorrow starts the new quarter so I’m getting ahead on my goals!
)