That’s such a weird visa policy, but your plan makes a ton of sense given how it works!
I’m curious what you define as a “very easy light novel”. What are some examples of easier things you’ve read?
I haven’t timed myself recently, but I probably read closer to 5-10 pages per hour, highly dependent on the content. I may read 10 pages in an hour when it’s easier, but then get stuck on one paragraph for 10 minutes another time. Plus I’m still stuck in the habit of looking up nearly everything, even when I get the general meaning.
Incidentally, it takes a bit of pressure off me. I’ve also been speedrunning WK, but I was doing the week per level pace rather than the theoretical minimum 6d20h pace because I didn’t want to get up in the middle of the night all the time. I knew there were people who’d done it faster than me, but I figured I’d be the first person to do it without userscripts and with no prior knowledge of Japanese. But now I know that no matter what I do, I won’t be the first or the fastest. On the one hand, it’s disappointing, but on the other hand, it means less pressure.
But enough about me. I wish I had praise to offer commensurate with your achievement. Congrats!
Holy f*ck. Less than a year, no scripts, and no prior knowledge? Majority 6d20h/3d10h levels? 29 books + 100 manga VOLUMES (not chapters) + misc while completing rtk and doing bunpro in the meantime? All with a full time job? Is that not pushing the very boundaries of what is thought humanly possible? That’s just insane. Absolutely insane.
Thank you! I used to sleep 8 hours average but started waking up two hours earlier in order to study Japanese. I got surprisingly used to it soon enough, it wasn’t as difficult as I had imagined. I’ll try to keep the habit up even without Wanikani lessons. More time for reading is always welcome!
Thanks! I might consider taking N3 instead of N4. I’ll see how my studying goes without Wanikani!
Indeed. It’s the 日系四世 visa for residents of my home country. I don’t understand why it needs to be so strict when the 日系三世 visa doesn’t even require any proficiency test but I’m glad enough I have a chance to go live there.
Some of the easiest ones include キノの旅, うちの魔女しりませんか, この素晴らしい世界に祝福を, ゼロの使い魔, 俺の妹がこんなに可愛いわけがない, エロマンガ先生. キノ and 俺妹 are my guilty pleasure because of how simple they are and how used I am to the vocabulary in them.
Nothing wrong with looking all words up but I think it might be useful to attempt reading without a dictionary sometimes! Games helped me a lot with that since they usually don’t give me the time to look things up. Maybe reread something you already know the story of, or attempt easier books you aren’t as interested in could also help stop this habit.
There’s no need to be the first! I imagine other people had done it before me anyway. It’s great enough you have such a high goal for yourself, other people don’t need to be involved. Good luck finishing all levels in a week and studying the language!
That’s a nice tool! My overall accuracy is 96.54%. I’m sure it will drop a lot once I start burning level 40+ vocab but that sounds about right with my current review sessions. What’s yours?
I wanted to do my absolute best! Learning Japanese and moving to Japan are my priority in life right now.
Thank you! Working harder or not, good luck with your studies!
I suspect that everyone has a natural amount of sleep they require, which varies from person to person. Personally, I wouldn’t be able to sleep 8 hours if I tried. Although I think 6 is a little low for me. My guess is that 6.5 is a reasonable average for me.
Here are my current stats. I seem to be doing a lot worse than most people.
Note that almost all the missed apprentice radical reviews came in my first week before I got serious about speedrunning.
I’m only just reading this now, but programs like this really exist? Is that new? Sounds like a really strange setup but then again the longest I think you can stay in japan otherwise is 6 months.
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Ok, thanks for answering it here. Trying to look it up it was not what I expected lol, was thinking 四世 had to do with level or something. So it’s to do with fourth generation descendants of japanese in other countries? (particularly brazil it seems?) I saw a wikipedia page on it and then looked it up in english to find this article 4th-generation Japanese visa applicants hamstrung by language, age requirements - The Mainichi
Sounds bloody rough from one of the stories, to have spent 10 years of your childhood in Japan and then get kicked out because you’re not of ethnically pure descent, and coming back on a foreign visa. Japan really does try hard to keep its blood pure. Screw them I’d say, going for N4 makes total sense for your case. You can study japanese the way you want rather than studying specifically for the jlpt. Although aiming for the jlpt does give some structure if you don’t have it, otherwise you can focus on learning parts of the language you deem more important/fun than a test.
Those are still good stats! I remember my accuracy in wkstats being about 80% at first then it gradually got better after I started reading more often (gradually lowered after level 40 too). Good luck with your speedrunning! You can do it!
Sorry for the late reply! That’s exactly it. The visa for fourth generation descendants of Japanese. All family I still have are third generation descendants that moved to Japan a few years ago so I currently live alone in my home country. I wanted to move and be closer to them but it wasn’t possible until this visa program opened up somewhat recently. It sure has very strict requirements and there’s high chances things won’t work out but I’ll regret it forever if I don’t do my best now.
Yes, I have met a few people with similar stories and it sure is unfair. I really wish there were other ways but I doubt Japan will ever change in this aspect…
Thanks for your comment! I’ll keep studying a bit everyday following the JLPT structure but I might focus more on having fun consuming more native content from now on.