As for me, let’s see… After hitting level 60 back in 2021, I finally got to live my dream of attending a Japanese language school at KICL in Kyoto. I took the JLPT N2 twice, but unfortunately, I didn’t pass either time . I was so close, but the reading section always gives me trouble! This year, though, my main goal is to skip N2 and go straight for the N1 – mainly because I’m just over studying N2 materials at this point. Another goal is to move away from JLPT prep and start focusing more on real native materials, like novels, articles, and short stories. I also want to improve my speaking skills.
On another note, I’ve started working as a Japanese → English translator, which I’m really excited about. I’m still in the early stages of this career, but I can’t wait to see where it takes me.
How about you? How’s your Japanese learning journey going? Are you still going strong, or have you moved on from it? I’d love to hear what you’ve been up to!
After going at wanikani at full speed, Now I’m just chilling(movies and whatnot). But I really can’t wait to study japanese more(intensively). But responsibilites first . Really looking forward to college application process (maybe 日本）. Got to learn more japanese though.
Also what N2 materials did you use? (Resources shrink down the more advanced you get ).
I would like to prepare for jlpt N2 when I finally have 自由。
Haven’t made it to level 60, but just dropping in to say that you can totally pass the N2/N1 without ever touching any test prep material. All I did for N2 was a practice test (didn’t even do that much for N1), other than that I just read and listened to light novels (combined with mining Anki cards). After having read 20 light novels I passed the N2, roughly another 20 after that I passed the N1. If you’re tired of them test prep books just throw them in a fire
Being a translator sounds exciting, good luck with that :3
Thanks for the tip!
Yeah, I think I’m just gonna concentrate on reading what I enjoy and maybe rely on mock tests to really hone in on the time management side of things.
Congrats on passing both N2/1!
I used all the usual suspects (新完全マスター and what’s not), but I really liked the TRY series. I think they’re great! The スピードマスター series is pretty great too if you just want a quick cramming.
Hit level 60 early last year - I still don’t consider myself anywhere near done in terms of kanji knowledge and I can see now that I’ll need to constantly practice and review real material or else I’ll just forget everything.
Still, I still log to WK once or twice a week to try to eventually burn everything. Not that it will help me improve or anything but just as a matter of pride. I recently hit the 9,000 burned items, about 200 to go!
I was going to take the JLPT N2 in December but I felt woefully underprepared especially on the reading and listening comprehension section, so decided to take the N3 instead and dedicate 2025 to filling the gaps that I have, and maybe I’ll take the N2 in Dec 2025. I still don’t know if I passed the N3, I got slammed in the reading section because of the time limit but oh well…
These days I fill my learning time with listening to podcasts and trying to also improve reading comprehension. I went to Japan a couple of times last year and went on a book shopping binge, including books which are way too advanced for me (like 村上春樹 novels and others) but I feel like I need a concrete goal to aspire to.
I miss WK and the discipline that SRS gives you. I still have a lot of holes in my vocabulary, especially when finding stuff in the wild, and haven’t found anything that comes close to WK in terms of effectiveness and Anki just doesn’t do it for me.
I also clearly need to work on output but find it hard to find the time to commit to a tutor or a group learning environment where I can practice. Maybe I’ll try one of those new AI tutor things that are popping up everywhere!
I love this topic! It’s such a weird phase to be post 60- feels almost like a dream and not the reality that after years of wk you can actually climb that mountain. I’m in kinda a weird phase myself where I took some time off of wk after reaching level 60, and have focused on other things going on in my life that aren’t japanese focused- moving, making new connections, taking on more projects at work, but have also noticed a slight deterioration in vocab recall (understandable because I stopped doing flashcards, only srs is a small amount of bunpro everyday)
I do keep my study log active but goals have been going much slower lately due to me taking a mental health pause, but recently I’ve made my study blog weekly instead of monthly so I have more reason to get stuff done consistently. Being an intermediate is hard, on one level you don’t want to be in textbooks because they’re boring but easy, and the immersion you want to read (above simpler manga like novels) is hard but interesting so the temptation is to do neither lol
I am making progress, but it’s not as rapid feeling as it once was, but when I look back earlier in the year I can see how far I’ve come and how much more ease there is in reading, but it’s still quite the challenge. But even just a little while ago I was reading hanako-kun and trying to be intensive and search up every vocab or grammar I didn’t know and there was like 6 pages I just flipped through that I didn’t have to do any hard thinking about. I expect next year that page count will double to 12 pages no lookups, and so on. It’s just putting the hours in even when it’s kinda annoying and the fun buzz of feeling on the precipice of understanding ~Japanese~ and just being able to recognize kanji is a major win or even parse a sentence is gone in favor of analyzing where you went wrong and puzzling through a kanji compound where you KNOW the kanji but can’t put together the meaning and have to add another lookup to the log, or where you’ve burned a kanji here on wk ages ago and then you look at it in a book and develop amnesia even though you KNOW you should know it
But that’s all peanuts compared to the joys of reading and engaging with content in Japanese, that has always been a dream of mine. It’s hard but that’s what makes it so awesome
Oooh, same here! I’ve got about 200 items to go before they’re all burned. The thing is, though, I’ve made a habit of resurrecting the ones I completely forgot so it’s kind of an neverending list hahaha.
I used to think my weak point was listening and my strong point was reading. Having taken N2 twice, I realized that wasn’t the case. Really need to up my reading game for real.
No way! I’ve been to Japan a few times too. I just got back from a little winter holiday there, actually. A book-shopping spree is always a must for me. Lately, it feels like the only souvenirs I bring back from Japan are books, incense sticks, and sore calves.
Same here! The only other learning resource I love besides WK is Satori Reader. I only use Anki for JLPT preps and not a fan of it either.
I know the feeling! When I started out, I probably bought every easy manga that’s been recommended to beginners, but I never really enjoyed the materials. よつばと is adorable and all – it’s just not the content I’m interested in consuming. What I did instead was buying Japanese and English versions of コンビニ人間 and read them side by side. It was a huge undertaking considering my level at the time. Thankfully, the story is relatively short and I finally managed to finish it after 6-7 months!
Honestly, that exhilarating feeling of when everything just clicks and makes sense is what has kept me going. I get a bit of a dopamine boost when I’m able to read kanji out in the wild and understand random conversations in Japanese in the streets. Of course, there are times when I get burned out but, like you said, it’s nothing compared to having the power (although still somewhat limited) to understand and engage with Japanese content.
I reached level 60 in January 21 and I have never stopped using Wanikani. I have 128 live items and my goal is to burn them all.
I do a lot of reading (especially with the IBC here), only novels, no manga - on kindle, with heavy use of the online translation. I’m watching Japanese movies on Netflix (still with English subtitles), I am using satori daily to improve my listening (first listening to an episode, than trying to understand sentence per sentence). Recently I have restarted bunpro to improve my grammar.
My weak points are in increasing order: fluently reading, listening, speaking.
I do not aim for any JLPT level, I tried some mock tests and manage to narrowly “pass” N3 with very good results on kanji, but only just passing listening with some lucky guesses.
I have been twice to Japan (in 2019 and 2023) with guided tours and want to go once again on my own.
I don’t actually need to take the JLPT for any specific reason, but it’s more of a personal goal and a fun little challenge for me to work toward. Having done WK, I never really have to worry about the kanji part of the test, even though there’s only like 5 questions or something haha!
I got to level 60 just before winter break, so I’ve been enjoying the vacation lol. Mostly, I’ve been studying Japanese history, especially the Heike Monogatari.
I made a long ass video describing what I did (and hopefully soon I’ll make another one describing these past 3 years) but the gist of it is I read books, looked up and learned words I didn’t know, and looked up grammar I didn’t know.
As for what I’ve been up to recently, things have cooled down quite a bit. I mainly just input japanese and try to train my listening nowadays. I’ve also read a few books this past month but at my level the books I read can’t really be considered studying anymore I feel like. I’m more just trying to maintain a japanese mode brain by inputting zatsudan while slowly improving my listening from it. I live and work in japan and communicate with my coworkers in japanese too, so its just kinda like a slow progression at this point. On my 8th year now and probably over 10000 hours in if you count active immersion time. Just kinda is what it is.
Nice topic idea!
I hit level 60 last summer so it’s not that long ago. No life changes for me (but none were planned either), but the time freed from the constant reviews (around 200/day, now it’s more like 30/day) is well used. I’ve expanded my horizons, before I had focused on reading only, now I put also time in listening and in trying to output myself. Still using a lot of lookups when reading, so right now I read on material where those are made easy by technology (novels or manga in a browser so I can use Yomichan or Visual Novels with texthooker). I did read one physical novel and I will do it again, but I’m so much slower at it, I want to continue the other methods for now.
The goal is to be one day totally off the crutches, then I will include video games in the material I consume would be also nice to be able to talk but I see it more as a bonus than a goal.
Just hit 60 about a month ago, so I’m still trying to bring down my review pile and have it settle in now that there aren’t any new lessons. But my eventual goal is to burn everything, it just doesn’t feel complete if I don’t.
I’ll be starting Bunpro this year (and finishing hopefully next year). Then I’ll probably attempt to take the N1 by the end of 2026. Since I should have a bit more free time as WK winds down, I’ll have more time for immersion and sentence mining on Anki, which should fill in the vocab holes as I prep for N1.
As my comprehension gets better I’d also like to be able to catch up to current One Piece at a faster pace (started reading a few months ago, currently on vol.14) and add more immersion sources to my daily schedule. I’m not much of a VN guy but I plan to work through the Danganronpa series on my Steam Deck (perfect immersion device btw), but I’ll also be adding SMT V or a similar game as the main daily source of immersion.
I much prefer using an SRS system for learning so hopefully Bunpro will help me see big gains in grammar since it’s my weakest area, but I’ll be supplementing it with a ton of daily immersion and Cure Dolly videos.
I think 60 is viewed as reaching some Valhalla and the truth is that it just opens the door but there’s still so much more to learn, so much more adventure to be had, which can be demoralizing to some but also exciting in its own way
Totally agree here, I like to view WK as preparation for a marathon, and immersion and consumption the actual marathon. While this may sound incredibly demoralizing to someone just starting out, I also realize that we sometimes forget it takes a lifetime to really learn a language and that 4-5 years on WK or other material is rather small compared to the 30-40 years of using the language outside of that.
I think there’s this idea that when learning languages as adults there’s a clear finish line to fluency but that bar is a very personal thing, and constantly shifts as our priorities change. Even as a native English speaker I still learn new things, I just don’t actively study it anymore, but I definitely don’t feel like I’ve mastered the language either.
As we get more familiar with a language I think we forget how much work it took to get us to that point, we start to feel like that language was always a part of us, and therefore, doesn’t feel like we had to do “real” study at all. We also forget that we are immersed in our preferred language 99% of the time and that kind of immersion is what keeps us sharp. Since we’re so used to that, we never stop to realize that we’re getting practice for that language pretty much 24/7 compared to learning Japanese (unless you live and work in Japan). Having to match or catch that pace I think is the real marathon of learning a language that isn’t spoken where you live.
. I was so close, but the reading section always gives me trouble! This year, though, my main goal is to skip N2 and go straight for the N1 – mainly because I’m just over studying N2 materials at this point. Another goal is to move away from JLPT prep and start focusing more on real native materials, like novels, articles, and short stories. I also want to improve my speaking skills.
).
would be also nice to be able to talk but I see it more as a bonus than a goal.