Hello, it’s been a while. I’m more of a lurker than a poster, but since it’s nearly the end of the year I thought it would be nice to finally sort out my thoughts on my Japanese progress in the past few months.
In summary:
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201x - Learned kana, the first couple of levels of WaniKani and a tiny bit of grammar with typical middle schooler enthusiasm… before getting distracted, giving up and going to learn crochet or something instead.
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December(?) 2021 - March 2022 - Tried WaniKani again on a fresh account (hi!), then got a friendly email which finally convinced me to subscribe after stalling for a while when I reached level 4.
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March - May(?) 2022 - Since I don’t have much disposable income I went at near full speed, aiming to reach the fabled Level 60 in two years or less…
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May(?) - December 2022 - …but due to various things going wrong at once, I hit a major roadblock and burnt out. My reviews climbed into the thousands, and though I got close to clearing them during the summer, for some reason I couldn’t continue after getting a second wave of reviews. I wasn’t doing that well health-wise, so I guess seeing my work “disappear” like that may have been too much. Worst of all though, I lost my beloved WaniKani stickers and postcard during a move
still not over that one
- About a week ago - present - I was gifted a new laptop (thanks mum <3), and with that came a new wave of motivation. During my burnout phase I found a flyer for the Marugoto Online Course, which I took as a sign to get back to using Minato like I did the first time I tried learning. I find it quite engaging, actually, and though I’m scared that this might all be talk and I’ll end up giving up again in a couple of weeks, I really hope that I’ll be able to go through all the courses in a few months (should bring me to around N4 if I’m not mistaken).
I also saw a post which really resonated with me for some reason. I don’t remember the exact wording, but the gist of it was “there is no wrong way to learn, even if the ‘easy way’ might be ‘less efficient’”. Those familiar with Tsurukame may have used Anki mode, and though for some reason I had a bias towards wanting to do my reviews “properly”, marathon typing sessions and all, I now realise that it honestly shouldn’t matter how I’m getting my reviews done, as long as I’m actually doing them. I’m aiming to do 100 a day now, and if all goes well I should be back here in roughly two weeks with a lovely screenshot of a 0 
So, what’s next?
To be honest, I’m not totally sure. I’ve found a couple of things which should form a good basis, but my main issue is I’m not really sure how to go about practicing so that I retain everything (e.g. when should I review, and how often?). If anyone has any advice in that regard, I’d be very grateful. Here are the resources I’m using right now:
- Kanji + Vocab: WaniKani
- Grammar: Minato/Marugoto, Tokini Andy, Seth Clydesdale’s and Steven Kraft’s practice sites (maybe)
- Listening: Japanese with Shun, Nihongo con Teppei, Comprehensible Japanese,
vtubers, roughly 2/3 of my liked songs on Spotify - Writing: maybe LangCorrect?
The one issue with this plan is that I honestly don’t know if I’ll be able to renew my sub next March (the lifetime sale is tempting, but unfortunately Santa didn’t drop a blank cheque down the chimney). If not, I’ll have to look for something else, but I still haven’t given up on making it most of the way through in two years. Only time will tell if this is a dumb idea, but I really hope I’ll be able to do it.
I might update this post if I think of anything else I want to say, but for now I think that’s all. Thanks for reading if you made it all the way down here, and I hope you have a good day
これからも頑張ります！
