You all have such beautiful home posts. I’ll try my best!
I’ll be going slower (2 months/unit hopefully) and attempt to work what I learn in to writing and conversation practice. Also, I’m experimenting with a lot of checkboxes that break down the steps more so Ialways know what to do next. Therefore, I’ll just show one unit at a time.
I’m hoping to make weekly updates after I start, checking in on what I’m working on and what’s next. It would be fun to keep up the momentum together 
I’ll post my bingo boards (see below), it’s an idea I had during Genki but I didn’t do anything with it so here’s my chance!
Preamble 
Overall goal - drive forward kanji and active use of grammar
I’ll primarily be using this as a means to motivate driving forward my kanji and active use of grammar, alongside filling in some gaps in grammar knowledge. Based on what I need most, and what others have said about the workbook, I won’t be getting the workbook. If it had looked like more of the grammar and vocab was new to me (see below), then I would have considered it, but my engagement and value from this is going to be based around taking concrete action on my own: deliberately study kanji and grammar, deliberately practice output.
Previous grammar - passive understanding of N4-N3
- Genki I + workbook: thoroughly, but for that it was hard to motivate and took me years of inconsistent effort in bursts.
- Satori’s grammar series, as well as their fantastic grammar glosses: I covered most of N4 and N3 this way, but there are a lot of nuances left I’m sure, and I don’t use it all in speech
- Japanese for Busy People 3: online grammar course since a couple years (slowly, the course is more conversational)
- I learned a smattering of grammar from conversation practice, book clubs, and my grammar reference book
- Genki II: a bit superficially, but at least I did it, with soggy’s grammar group. I had had it laying around so many years by then that otherwise I wouldn’t have done it, so a total win! I wish I had put more emphasis on output, so I’ll make sure to do that with renewed motivation when approaching the shiny new Quartet. I’m NOT buying Quartet 2 until I’m done with Quartet 1 to avoid a similar dive in spark.
Facts and planning for Quartet 1
I pored over the Quartet website and the main Quartet club to assemble this plan.
- Units: 6, and based on what I know about it and my analysis below, I’m planning 1 unit per 2 months
- Grammar patterns: 10 per unit, it appears I’ve already covered 90% (everything except most of the N2 points)
- Reading strategies: 1-2 per unit, read at the start and use throughout the 2 months
- Kanji: 35-40 new to me/unit, stay ahead by one unit, study 8/weekend
- Vocab: ~116 per unit, glancing through, I will know quite a lot already (half? didn’t count but it was a lot). SRS those I’m a bit familiar with before the unit, then add as needed after reading and having more context.
Impressions
It looks like I’ll be familiar with a lot of the vocab, and potentially the broad majority of the grammar. In the first unit, only 1 of the 9 grammar points is new, for example. That being said, I don’t actually use a lot of them in my speech, so creating a bingo card for each unit’s grammar to use in conversation would be a good goal (and I really should go back and do this for Genki).
Expectations and Pace - 2 months per unit
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They say each lesson is 16 hours: 8 Reading, 2 Writing, 3 Speaking, 1 Listening, 2 Brush-up
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For perspective, to get that practice in a habitual way at 2 mo/unit, that is:
- 8 min/day reading, 15 min/week writing, 30 min/week conversation, 1 hour per month for deliberate learning (reading book, doing exercises).
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I know it won’t break down that way, but I thought it would be interesting to compare that to existing levels of engagement. Aside from the writing, I already have habits at these levels of engagement, so checkmark for being realistic.
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I’ve recently created a habit of ~10 min/day of listening and that looks like it will be important to continue outside of this textbook as they have the least support for listening practice (I suppose they might assume a Japanese teacher delivering lessons in Japanese and thus more listening that way?).
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I’ve never been consistent learning kanji >20/mo, but it’s within the realms of what I know I can achieve (24-32/mo).
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I have used langcorrect in the past to get my writing corrected, I’ll revive my account there and see if I can make that a habit.
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So all in all, my pace enables me to take advantage of current routines while adding some challenges (namely consistent kanji and a new writing habit).
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I’d like to keep up my current reading, listening, grammar class, conversation with friend, etc, so it will be interesting if I see a bump up in tracked time (well, I don’t track conversation time or the grammar class, but everything else is tracked), or if I end up doing less of something to make this happen.
Summary
Existing habits:
- Daily reading (>8 min/day)
- Daily listening (~8+ min/day)
- Weekly conversation (30 min)
- Additional support: weekly grammar class (60 min 30 wks/yr)
Make these actions consistent habits
- study 1-2 kanji daily in KKLC order
- study 8 Quartet kanji/weekend
- deliberate study (open the book…)
New habits
Action plan and tracking
One off actions DONE July 2024
Buy the book
Upload my Quartet kanji list to the Kanji Study App
Set bookmarks for the various sections so it’s easy to find my next step
Download Quartet I audio on OTO Navi
Finish learning Genki II kanji
Unit 1
Start Date 25 July 2024 - Finish Date ongoing
One-off actions:
Learn kanji for unit 1
Learn vocab for unit 1
Brush-up section 1
Brush-up section 2
Kanji Challenge #1
Kanji Challenge #2
Read/listen to example sentences ppt and mark the grammar points that need attention
Study grammar gloss
Study reading strategies
write sentences based on grammar gloss examples
Reading
Reading section start
add additional words to SRS if needed
See Links related to quartet lesson themes, bottom of resources page
Reading section finish
Writing
Writing Section start
See outline composition sheet pdfs
Writing section finish
Kanji
Pre-learn familiar kanji for Unit 2
Pre-learn familiar vocab for Unit 2
Speaking
Speaking Section Start
See checkpoint pdfs
Speaking section finish
Listening
Listening section start
Listening section finish
Unit template to copy
## Unit x
Start Date xx Finish Date xx
One off
[] Learn kanji for unit
[] Learn vocab for unit
[] Brush-up: Lesson 2 (#3), Lesson 4 (#5), Lesson 5 (#6)
[] Kanji Challenge #xx-xx
[] Read/listen to example sentences (on their resources page) and mark the grammar points that need the most attention
[] Study grammar gloss
[] Study reading strategies
[] write sentences based on grammar gloss examples
Reading
[] Reading section start
[] add additional words to SRS if needed
[] See Links related to quartet lesson themes, at bottom of [resources page](https://quartet.japantimes.co.jp/en/resource/)
[] Reading section finish
Kanji
[] Pre-learn familiar kanji for next unit
[] Pre-learn familiar vocab for next unit
Writing
[] Writing Section start
[] See outline composition sheet pdfs
[] Writing section finish
Speaking
[] Speaking Section Start
[] See checkpoint pdfs
[] Speaking section finish
Listening
[] Listening section start
[] Listening section finish
Week 1: 25-27 July 2024 - getting started
- Book arrived and I flicked through it, and refined my check-lists. It’s quite pretty without the dust jacket. I… gasp … stowed it away and am using the book without!
- Difficulty level - A-OK - my plan looks realistic! I am enjoying having much much less English in the book compared to Genki. It makes it more interesting and I find myself getting drawn in rather than bored, so instant win.
- Kanji - I’ll just knock them out as I go and focus on the ones that look most useful. It seems I can recognise a lot in context even though I haven’t studied them, so that will not be a barrier
- The first brush up section was actually fascinating, I hadn’t known these distinctions between written and spoken plain form!
- I looked at the first kanji challenge section (just a list of similar-looking kanji you’re meant to think up vocab to say aloud). Good grief, how do people learn kanji with these textbooks without an organised method with mnemonics like WK or KKLC (kodansha kanji learners course)? For now I’ll just use these pages as an opportunity to review any kanji I’m shaky on. Maybe I’ll study a couple of the new ones that look useful. I won’t bother to intensively study all kanji that they present, especially for those that are totally new to me and don’t have context.
- I did the first reading section - extensive reading Icould understand most of it. An extensive listen filled in some gaps (kanji words I couldn’t read but know).
- I read the first reading intensively and prioritised the vocab and kanji to learn. A couple days later after having studied some of the target vocab and kanji it was easier to get more nuance out of it. That was interesting, since I did understand it the first time, I guess what I mean is longer passages could stay in my mind so it felt like I more easily got more meaning out of it. I wasn’t expecting it to feel that different, so I’m happy there’s a great rereading potential in this book
- I read the reading strategy sections on noun modification and identifying the target of demostrative pronouns, which was not new to me, but it’s nice that there is so much Japanese - it’s good reading practice so I picked up a couple of new words.
- I studied the きっかけ grammar point which was enlightening as I’ve stumbled on this a couple times recently!
- I started making my own list of the grammar points to make my output bingo card. For example, for といえば I’m making two use square: one for the NといえばX (when thinking of N, X is the first thing that comes to mind) vs using it to change the topic to something new but related. This is an example of a super easy grammar point I feel like I know 100% but I don’t think I’ve ever used in my conversion practice.
- Inspired by the 1st reading before and after questions, I wrote 150 words. Much tougher than expected! With some encouragement I posted it on my log and got some comments and corrections
I’m inspired to write more in Japanese
- Kanji progress: +2 Genki II kanji (39 remaining), +8 Quartet unit 1 kanji (32 new to me remaining)
Week 2: 29 July - 4 Aug - Unit 1 cont.
- I got my reading 1 question text corrected on langcorrect
- Kanji progress: +2 Genki II kanji (37 remaining), +7 Quartet unit 1 kanji (25 new to me remaining)
Week 3: 5 Aug - Unit 1 cont.
- Extensive and intensive read of reading #2
- Kanji Challenge #1
- Kanji progress: - same- Genki II kanji (37 remaining), +4 Quartet unit 1 kanji (21 new to me remaining)
Week 4: 12 Aug - Unit 1 cont. (tired week)
- wrote sentences using grammar points 1-2
- read the example for the writing section
- Kanji progress: +1 Genki II kanji (36 remaining), +7 Quartet unit 1 kanji (14 new to me remaining)
Week 5: 19 Aug - Unit 1 cont. (holiday)
- just kanji and Anki this week
- relevant kanji: +1 Genki II kanji (35 remaining), +2 Quartet unit 1 kanji (12 new to me remaining)
Week 6: 26 Aug - Unit 1 cont. (holiday)
- just kanji and Anki this week
- relevant kanji: +5 Genki II kanji (30 remaining), +2 Quartet unit 1 kanji (10 new to me remaining)
Week 7: 2 Sept - Unit 1 cont.
- just kanji and Anki this week need to get back into it
- relevant kanji: +2 Genki II kanji (28 remaining), +2 Quartet unit 1 kanji (8 new to me remaining)
- Next steps: questions for reading #2, outline my essay
- continue: reading grammar points and writing example sentences, kanji study
mitrac’s home post
Chapter 1 
Chapter 7 
. よろしくお願いします。
Chapter 1
