Introduction
This will be the start of my “Reboot” here on WaniKani. I’ve been studying Japanese for 1 and a half years now. I am a slow learner, but I am persistent, as well as consistent (mostly). This log will serve to give me accountability, as well as give future hope to those who took the slow road. My overall goal is not to memorize as much as I can in X time, it is simply to become fluent in several years, as well as read native material sooner. I realize setting goals is important, so I will simply set the goal of using WaniKani every single day until I clear the lessons. Be it fast, or slow, I will show up. I used WaniKani for several months in 2023, but neglected it afterwards, and as a result I have reset today, March 3, 2024.
What has my journey looked like so far?
I started learning Japanese at the end of 2022. I bought Genki, and Started an anki deck to encompass all vocabulary in Genki 1+ 2. I used anki consistently for 9 months, building up to about 800 known kanji (or so I thought, we’ll talk about that later), and completed Genki 1. Then, December 2023, I realized I was unable to recall most of the kanji I had spent 400+ hours cramming with anki, and I couldn’t speak much at all when given the opportunity. This discouraged me greatly as an hour a day for the past yerar felt wasted, until I realized where I went wrong and changed things this year.
The Error of my Ways and the Anki trap
Although I had sunk more than 400 hours into anki vocabulary, I was punched in the gut when attempting to recall cards I KNOW I had seen in anki, in contexts other than anki. All of my cards were J → E, no “fill in the blanks” or E->J. I realize now, my fatal flaw was only learning Japanese in the context of the anki interface, where I had seen the card a hundred times, and know what was in my deck. I also realize the value of Wanikani in terms of actually quizzing what you know. I had fallen into a trap with anki, where it had become my main study resource AND memorization platform, when it was never meant to be neither. It makes a great study aid to retain material you have ALREADY studied, and only works if you quiz yourself, and can recall information outside of the interface.
I also realized I couldn’t speak much of what I should have known either. I wasn’t very confident in the pronunciation because I never used it, and rarely heard it. This was the result of consuming text for 90% of my study time. This made me realize I need an environment where I can speak and use what I’ve learned, as well as make appropriate time for listening practice.
Going Forward and How I fixed Myself
I’ve signed up for online classes through an organization in my state known as JASK, or Japan/America Society of Kentucky. They offer weekly classes that are guided, and the organization provides an outlet to practice speaking with others. This solves my lack of speaking problem. I’ve started playing Japanese mmorpgs for additional immersion, watching chat, and engaging when I can to output text. I’ve swallowed my pride, and deleted all of my anki decks. It was hard coming to terms how much time I had wasted there. This time, only material I’ve covered in class, or outside will go into anki. Every anki card has a reverse card, and a sentence with the word. This should cover my big two mistakes I’ve made with anki last year. It will also never compose most of my learning time per day again. If I am spending more time on anki than using other resources, that means I need more context for the items in my deck. The hardest pill to swallow was realizing that anki is a memorization tool, not a learning tool.
My Daily Study Plan:
- Review Anki Cards, Add them after Class
- WaniKani
- 30 Minutes of Immersion through Video Games or Youtube
- A Short Grammar Lesson from Youtube OR a Textbook
Goals
Basically what I said in the introduction. I’d like also participate in the beginners book club here this year.
The Log
I’ll make weekly updates here to talk about my class for the week, and any other significant milestones.
Thank you for taking the time to ready this, and I hope to participate in Wanikani as a community more in the future.
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I’m doing the 2K core deck now together with WK and I use WK mnemonics to memorize stuff on the Anki deck. I did about 20% of the deck and so far it’s been helpful, because it’s the most frequent vocabulary, which is not WK’s focus. So I’m being able to understand complete sentences with much more ease - something I wasn’t able to do after 10 WK levels. Combining them has been a good strategy for me. I think your strategy to diversify your study sources will definitely pay off in the end!
let’s see! it will depend on how comfortable I’ll feel with the media I consume).