Alright, itās time to make my very own study log and to make it interesting for me and others on the internet, Iāll post my studies publicly. Iāll try to make weekly reports, but I may skip doing them for a while if I end up being either too busy or if nothing remarkable happens.
For the latter, you can mostly expect any mecha content from me because the first three Armored Core games on PS1 are one of the main reasons why I started studying the language more seriously in the last few months. Speaking of AC, hereās the Ravenās Nest logo which is one of the best logos that Iāve ever seen:
While Iām studying to be able to understand anything on my own, Iāll watch any anime that Iām interested in with subs to improve motivation. When I get much better at Japanese, I plan on rewatching series that I completed already without subs. It will mostly involve mecha and space opera series, so this will take me a very long time to attempt.
Brief self-introduction
My introduction thread is privated (guests canāt see it), so Iāll extremely briefly introduce myself. Iām from Slovenia and Iāve been trying to study this language for 15 years at this point (started as a teenager, but life got complicated over the years, so I studied on and off as a result). The only things that I never forgot were the Hiragana and Katakana.
Goals for 2025
reach at least level 30 in WaniKani
try to finish Genki I and II for real
start reading more regularly
start listening to podcasts regularly
do every N4 lesson in Bunpro
Current resources
Wanikani (kanji learning)
Genki I and II (textbook grammar)
Satori Reader (reading practice)
Bunpro (SRS grammar studying)
Jisho (Japanese dictionary)
PONS (a dictionary for many languages; used for English to Slovenian translation and vice-versa if needed for obvious reasons)
Google Translate (in case PONS doesnāt provide me a clear answer)
DeepL (a more accurate translator; will keep the Google one for backup)
Current studying routine
WaniKani reviews at least twice a day (preferably more if I can spend a few minutes at work to do just a few items)
study new WaniKani and Bunpro items whenever possible (Iāll adjust how much Iāll study depending on the mood)
try to study a bit of everything if possible
attempt to read or listen anything Japanese
Resources I plan on using for language practice
Reading
NHK News Web Easy
Satori Reader
Listening
Podcasts:
1. Nihongo no Teppei (already did in the past, but Iāll restart it)
2. Letās learn Japanese from small talk! (I appreciate the episodes being long and the inclusion of vocabulary lists for each episode)
News channels on YouTube
Japanese radio via Radiko
Watching
mecha and space opera anime (especially the older ones); itāll take a long time before I can actually start watching something without relying on subtitles - for now, Iāll just watch to motivate myself if needed
My reward system
After 15 years of attempts, Iāve realized that the motivation for studying needs to be constantly maintained since learning this language can be extremely slow, especially if you attempt to learn completely everything on your own and you donāt live in Japan. In case someone needs ideas, hereās how I do it:
for every essential task completed, I award myself 1ā¬,
any additional tasks (like learning even more Kanji in WaniKani) done in a day also gives me 1ā¬ each,
I can buy anything with the reward money at any point as long as I donāt spend it too quickly,
whenever I buy something, the amount of reward money gets reduced,
if I have any money left from a previous month after entering the next one, it gets transferred, which encourages saving up for something really expensive,
as the previous point implied, there is no limit in how much money you can get.
Iāve been using this system since the beginning of 2024 and itās been rather effective. I admit it isnāt perfect because it canāt save you from being too tired, but it helped a lot so far.
In 2025, Iāll also attempt to spend my time studying at home with no distractions and more focus (two hours or more per day). In return, I get to do whatever I want depending on how much I studied.
This one will be on the short side because itās been only three days since Iāve made this study log and I didnāt write down what I was doing before that. Iām currently in the middle of level 2 in WaniKani and while I could learn the remaining seven Kanji, Iām having a lot of reviews pending for the Guru items this week, so Iāll only focus on reviews for at least day or two.
As for grammar lessons, I did Imabi lessons from #17 to #20 and one for Maggie Sensei (How to use ććļ¼ćć ( = iru + aru)). When I reach lesson #25 on Imabi, Iāll try to start reading NHK News Web Easy, so that I can start applying all of the grammar as soon as possible. I already have Anki set up for vocabulary mining.
I reached level 3 in WaniKani and I only did one grammar lesson (Imabi #21) because I was too busy. While I could probably start reading now, Iād like to do a few more lessons to make it easier on myself. Speaking of reading, Iāll try to join the Absolute Beginner Book Club in the near future.
As for the listening portion that I plan on doing, Iāll slowly start introducing it into my studying routine by listening to podcasts while I drive to work and back, which should be about 30 minutes at minimum every day.
About halfway through level 3 at the moment. I should be able to level up during the week at this rate, especially if I learn 15 items or more every day. While I could pay for the yearly subscription right now and Iām 100% willing to do it, Iād like to see if thereās any flavor text left at the very end.
Anyway, I started listening to the āNihongo Con Teppeiā podcast from the beginning while commuting to work and I can already kind of understand what Teppei is talking about in each episode. However, grammar and vocabulary need work, but at least I started applying what I managed to learn from Imabi and Maggie Sensei.
Speaking of Imabi, I got through nine lessons (#30 was the latest one) this week and I think I should be ready for reading as well. Iāve discovered Tadoku thanks to the WaniKani forum user ādrdruā and this particular resource seems to be the perfect starting point. Level 0 seems to be extremely accessible due to the stories being very short, simple themes and them having many pictures, so you donāt have to constantly look up what every single word and sentence means. In case anyoneās interested, click here. There is also a post on Reddit from 2021 that has many stories already compiled and sorted by levels, so you donāt need to download several dozens of stories initially.
While these beginner level stories may not have Armored Core/FromSoft levels of intrigue, they are still way more suitable for me at the moment than the Furigana-free text thatās full of political, war, and machine/mecha vocabulary. It would be extremely sick if I was already good enough to read that, though.
Made it to level 4 after more than a month since I started using WaniKani. Pretty good pace, but I think it will eventually get slower because Iām starting to focus on other aspects of the Japanese language as well and I might have less free time during the week in the future. If possible, Iād like to get as close as I can to level 30 until the end of the year as originally planned.
I started reading via Tadoku, but I realized after a few days that vocabulary mining is not very efficient with this resource because the PDF files donāt seem to allow you to copy text no matter what, so Iāll need another resource thatās more mining friendly ā¦ unless I can find an OCR method that can handle any Japanese vertical text without problems on top of the left-to-right text.
I only managed to do one single lesson on Imabi during the week (lesson #31). The most important change to my studying routine was drastically increasing the amount of items I learn on WaniKani per day because I think the current pace is too slow for me now. I decided to start doing 15 items minimum instead of 5. Whenever possible, I try to do 30 in one day (usually between Friday and Sunday).
This will drastically increase the amount of reviews that Iāll get in one day (the most I had so far was about 70 items). Iām motivated enough to dedicate hours of my free time to learning Japanese at this point, so Iām not worried too much about this. If all goes well, Iāll pump the minimum amount ever further. A very risky strategy, but Iām tired of doing it very slowly after so many years.
The second most important change was ditching Tadoku because vocabulary mining turned out to be too bothersome with this method, which nearly destroyed my motivation to do any reading; I might use it from time to time to test myself, though. I decided to switch to Satori Reader because itās been recommended on this forum a lot and it seems way better for reading practice. I really like it so far and it actually restored my motivation to study even more.
I should start doing at least one grammar lesson per day instead of doing several of them at once in order to make the reading practice more effective - any extra that I can do in one day would be nice.
My overall motivation at this point represented by a Pizza Tower animation:
Reached level 5 during the weekend. I decided to start prioritizing radicals and Kanji as soon as they become available, so that I can level up at least a few days earlier than usual. If needed, Iāll only do reviews for a day or two once in a while in order to not burn out.
As for grammar, I only had time to reach lesson #37 on Imabi this week. Fortunately, the lessons start to get shorter at this point, but there are still some that take a lot of time and energy to go through.
At the moment, Iām very close to reaching level 6 because the remaining Kanji items are already available, but Iāll write this report first in order to not break my habit of writing one. In the next hour or two, I should be level 6 by then if I donāt do any major mistakes.
Iāve also stopped using Imabi a few days ago because its crew significantly changed how the lessons are ordered in the āBeginner Iā section where I was at the time, which really messed up the progress I made. While I understand that the website is being remodeled in 2024, I didnāt expect it to change this drastically, so I decided to switch to something else that shouldnāt suddenly change on a whim. Then again, I admit that its content was a bit too much for me and I didnāt learn some of it. Iāll return to Imabi when my fundamental knowledge will be good enough.
After making some research, Iāve settled on Genki since that one shouldnāt change out of nowhere and is recommended by a lot of people. Iāll need to adjust how I study with it since the textbook was meant for classroom/group studying, but Iāll be studying it by myself all the time. Despite this, Genki seems to be more fun, yet more manageable compared to Imabi so far.
Took a break from learning new stuff, so all I did for the whole week was do reviews in WaniKani and Anki. Well, I did technically learn new cards in Anki for the Lesson 1 vocabulary in Genki I via the premade deck I found on Anki Decks | Genki Study Resources, but I already knew most of the words, so that hardly counts. I donāt regret it at all since I was starting to feel burned out and I needed to rest.
From now on, Iāll try to level up in WaniKani every two weeks at most instead of one because I need to focus on other aspects of the language as well. Not being a NEET or a student with Japanese as their major makes it harder for me to dedicate more time to this language. With this change, it will be very unlikely that I can reach level 30 by 2025, so Iāll be more realistic and lower the goal to at least level 20.
My explanation regarding recent changes
There might have been lots of changes in the last few weeks to how I study, but it used to be much worse in the past because I refused to do any changes. This resulted in a very slow and ineffective way of studying Japanese that lasted almost 15 years.
Things wouldāve been much different if I had the mindset I have nowadays. Iād very likely have high level Japanese knowledge by now and would even start studying other languages, like Croatian because itās the easiest language in the world for native Slovenian speakers. It wouldāve been even easier to me due to being used to learning one of the hardest ones prior.
Iāve managed to finish the first actual lesson in Genki I while doing every single exercise in the textbook and the workbook that could be done solo. Learning grammar this way turned out to be way more effective compared to just reading lessons on Imabi and do zero exercise afterwards.
As for WaniKani, Iāve only managed to unlock the remaining Kanji and that was pretty much it. Iāll try to Guru the remaining ones by the end of the week to stay on track.
Reached level 7, but Iāll need to focus on vocabulary items for a few days because I currently have about 160 words in total available and Iād like to significantly reduce that number before I start with radicals and Kanji. On top of that, I completed 3 sections out of 6 in Chapter 2 in Genki I. Iād like to do the remaining 3 as soon as possible and attempt completing Chapter 3 as well if Iāll have enough time.
Iāll also try to restructure my very first post as planned and give it a bit of personality at the same time during the week because I find it a bit dull now. I kind of have a gist on what Iād like to change and maybe what would my āshtickā be.
Iām about halfway through level 7 at the moment and Iāll be able to unlock the remaining Kanji within two days. Reaching level 8 by the end of the next week should be doable. Until then, Iāll also work on vocabulary items because I have over 100 of them and my goal is to learn at least the ones from level 6 (only have 83 of them left at the moment).
As for Genki I, Iāve finished chapter 2 and learned all vocabulary words for Chapter 3 via Anki. Iāll start working on Chapter 3 tomorrow because the very first lesson is about verb conjugations and is rather long compared to other lessons so far.
Iāve also updated my first post as planned. Iāve added some stuff, hid certain sections to make it concise and even replaced the emoji in the title appropriately. My study log will be mecha themed from now on because the first three Armored Core games impressed me so much that Iād like to play them in Japanese eventually. While the localization does its job well, Iāve noticed that some VAs get recycled a lot and some of the translations are questionable at times. The 0:42 timestamp in the following video is a good example (spoiler alert for Armored Core 2 and Another Age in case youāre interested or are playing right now):
That one female VA being used multiple times across several games in various roles, including a twist AI villain, makes it a very jarring experience as well. Iām not sure for all of the games, but the Japanese versions of the first three games at least tried to have variety in their VA casts from what I saw.
Iāve also recently discovered an anime series called āArmored Trooper Votomsā which seems to have inspired From Software due to the way how the mecha suits in that one use boosters, which is extremely cool and is one of my favorite features in AC games. It will take me several months before I can watch it or anything similar without subtitles or at least with Japanese ones. I also need to finish the remaining classic Space Battleship Yamato series and movies that I havenāt seen yet.
The most notable achievements this week were:
1. reaching level 8 in WaniKani
2. actually starting to immerse myself in untranslated Japanese media for real
WaniKani is going well so far and Iām consistently leveling up every two weeks, which is good enough for now.
The second point gets a bit more interesting: Iāve started watching Game Center CX again after many years thanks to Twitch (some people are streaming the episodes on it ā¦ for now at the time of writing this). I used to watch it a lot with English subtitles, but eventually lost interest in it.
Iāve been watching it the whole week now and I actually like it even more this time thanks to WaniKani because I can actually read some of the text already. One of the Twitch streams even plays raw episodes, which I really appreciate because it forces me to pay more attention if I want to at least get the gist of whatās happening.
Iāll spend more time on Genki I next week because of two Labor days weāre having here in Slovenia instead of just one. I took it easy this week in order to not burn out right before the holidays.
Iāve been able to learn every single radical and Kanji for level 8 up until now and I should level up in the next few days if all goes well. Surprisingly enough, the amount of vocabulary items I still have from level 7 is lower than usual (61 instead of nearly 100), so I should be able to learn those by the time I reach level 9.
It took me a bit too long, but Iāve managed to complete lesson 3 in Genki I. What ended up giving me motivation was simply skimming through the future lessons and that made me excited because all of it seemed extremely useful for what I actually want to learn and nothing will abruptly change them unlike Imabi in 2024.
After nearly 5 months of learning with WaniKani, Iāve noticed that it greatly improved my motivation to learn the language. In January, I could barely start studying it because Remembering the Kanji 1 was so much of a slog to use (not having any readings at all was the worst part of it). I made the right choice to switch to WaniKani instead. Nowadays, I feel like I just canāt wait to come home from work and start studying.
This desire is even starting to become more powerful than playing video games, which is actually impressive considering Iāve been playing them for ~25 years at this point very frequently. Fortunately for me, the ones I play tend to be from Japanese developers or happen to have Japanese localizations, so Iām not worried about this.
Speaking of video games, Iāve completely beaten Armored Core 2: Another Age during the week (yes, that also includes all of the post-game missions). Hereās my final AC design that was used for them:
Pretty clunky and sluggish due to the high weight, but surprisingly versatile for the rest of the game once I could afford the necessary parts. The post-game missions didnāt give me too much trouble because I was already used to fighting all those Nine-Balls in the PS1 games. Extremely cool that they appeared at all, let alone being nearly untouched design wise. Pretty cool conclusion to the original timeline.
Iām not in a hurry to start with AC3 because that one starts its own timeline and Iād like to focus more on Japanese for a while.
Iām very close to level 10 and Iām almost out of the Pleasant levels. Level 9 will be my favorite one during my WaniKani journey and Iāll explain why later (itās Armored Core related - the veteran players will instantly know what Iāll be talking about). Anyway, I finished level 8 a bit earlier than usual, but Iād like to maintain this pace for as long as possible.
As for grammar, I only studied the vocabulary used in lesson 4 of Genki I. I should start learning its vocabulary via Anki every day because only doing a certain amount of words at a time and then studying grammar feels too slow and tedious. Fortunately, I already have a dedicated Anki deck for Genki I and II, so all I need to do is to translate the English text found on the cards into my native language; the translations are rather quick to do.
Okay, hereās the reason why level 9 will be my favorite level:
For anyone not in the know, this emblem belongs to a character called āHustler Oneā and his AC is called āNine-Ballā. Without spoiling anything, heās infamous due to how hard he is to fight against. Here comes the ironic part: the major encounters with him are PAINFUL at best and HELL at worst and will almost always contain (your) DEATH. You also feel like you reached PARADISE if you do manage to beat him, especially without Human Plus.
Even his theme song is menacing:
The keywords written in bold capital letters happen to be the names of upcoming level categories in WaniKani. Things will very likely get tougher from now on, but Iām ready for the challenge. I hope I can keep leveling up consistently for long enough to start burning items.
This will be a short one because I slowed down a bit after reaching level 9. While I could keep on going and reach level 10 before June, I decided to take my time instead and relax - this gave me an opportunity to think about how to start studying grammar on a daily basis like I do with WaniKani and I already got an idea. Iām not sure how effective it will be in the long run, so Iāll share my results next week.
A bit later than usual because of work and the following exhaustion in the evening, but at least I got to write this now and not break the streak.
Anyway, now I tried to study grammar during the week instead of the weekends and it turns out that if I have limited time to do something, Iāll actually take it more seriously. During the week, I managed to do one single grammar point in Genki I everyday, but lost motivation during the weekend. I think if I start doing more grammar during the week and start reading during the weekends, I should be able to start learning grammar much more effectively.
Additionally, I started using Bunpro because I heard a lot about it and it seems to be a good resource as long as you know what exactly you need and only use that. There is so much content that Iāll only use it as a supplement for Genki because it has several dedicated decks for it. What I also like about it is that you can see the progress for all five skill levels, which could come in handy if I ever try to go on a JLPT test.
As for WaniKani, Iām close to level 10 and it might happen after Iām done with morning reviews. Iāll post the following while Iām still at level 9:
The most notable achievement in week 22 was reaching level 10, my first double digit level . After that, I focused more on Apprentice items rather than learning anything new.
While I did some grammar, it wasnāt much and it might stay this way for a week or two because of my job (vacations started). Fortunately for me, mine already starts in June, so this wonāt take too long and I should be able to study more when itās my turn.
. After that, I focused more on Apprentice items rather than learning anything new.