Hi there.
Basically, I didn’t practice my vocab for five years and forgot nearly everything I’ve managed to learn in my three years of studying on WK. After taking some beginner Japanese lessons at my uni I’ve realized how bad things were and decided that the only reasonable way to regain this knowledge was to reset everything and start from scratch. Although this time I’m thinking of upping the difficulty by doing Bunpro reviews as well.
Please wish me luck on this second ascent.
If you were in a similar position, what path did you take? How hard is it to keep your motivation up the second time around? Is there some better way? If so, please do share it :3
I was in a similar, but smaller gap. Hit level 28 back in 2017 and dropped studying Japanese altogether until last May. The first half or so of leveling was pretty easy despite having forgotten most of the material so I was able to maintain an aggressive pace while doing Kitsun for normal vocab and Bunpro for grammar. It took me around 4 months to familiarize myself with N5 + N4 material and I’ve been taking it chill since then. Depending on where your classes are at I think it’s worthwhile to cruise up to a comfy level then switch your focus to include more of what you enjoy.
Motivation was a non-issue. It felt super easy in the beginning and the difficulty ramped up pretty gradually so it never felt like I hit a hard wall or something. Having had some experience with WK before removed a lot of the beginner walls and struggles, so really it was just a matter of getting back into the habit of things.
If I had to do it all over again I probably would have used JALUP since that’s a bit closer to what I find to be a good learning pattern for myself, but I love Bunpro as well and would probably say it’s better to use that as a sort of one stop shop now that they’ve added vocab for their own platform. Their vocab is a little rough around the edges, but I think it’s good enough especially with some of the future plans (more example sentences + possible voice recordings iirc) so having an platform that integrates basic IO + furigana based on WK integration + built in vocab based on their own grammar lessons and example sentences is a really good combination for self studying. Personally I think about 3 grammar points per day is the sweet spot, but I’m dropping down from there since I need more time for my vocab to expand. Just make sure to set ghost reviews to minimal, the default setting is overkill for (re)learning, but nice for reviewing mature material.
Bunpro has learning paths and decks (grammar) for the textbooks, but I’ve seen complaints from people who have used it preferring to stick with Bunpro ordering because of the way the sentences build on previous sections. It’s not hard to swap grammar/vocab decks there, so taking a hybrid route might be better if your classes are following a specific textbook.
I hate to reply to a request for advice with questions, but I’m afraid I’ve nothing useful to offer.
I’m genuinely curious, though: do you also feel you’ve forgotten even burned items, or is it mostly stuff still in earlier stages. You demonstrated your ability to recall burned items after a four month gap, so if you’ve since forgotten them, I wonder if it’s something about doing reviews regularly (of other items) that aided your recall originally.
Oh, don’t worry, questions are more than welcome :З
I remember not being able to recall some of the less common burned items for the first 20 levels when I hit level 60. I was thinking of resurrecting some of them, but never managed to find the time to actually comb through the earlier levels to see what items gave me most trouble.
Resetting definitely solves that problem at least
For the burned items from the later levels - I feel like these have been wiped from my memory. This is on me for not practicing properly though.
I’d probably agree with you, doing all the other reviews in the meantime definitely helped with reaching into deeper memory vaults :з
I’ve burned 6186 items before resetting. 1400 kanji and 4300 vocab items plus most of the radicals. But if I remember correctly I felt only about 40%-60% were things I would be able to recall and use confidently (now it’s more like 5% at best). This mostly has to do with how I failed to diversify my learning properly though, so I’m hoping to do better the second time around.
I must say, having a better grasp on grammar thanks to Bunpro definitely helps with not being daunted by the context sentences.
Thanks, haven’t heard of JALUP before, I’ll look into it.
Yeah, 3 points per day sounds like a good pace. Learning new grammar is so much more difficult than cramming vocab, I remember being frustrated in the beginning that I couldn’t maintain the same tempo on Bunpro as I did on WaniKani.
Thanks, I should probably consider fiddling with ghost review frequency, they do seem to haunt me to no end at the moment.
I only recently discovered that they have added paths and it definitely motivates me to actually start following a textbook. I used Tae Kim’s guide to Japanese in the beginning, but if I remember correctly it doesn’t cover all that much. (I think I was able to complete it but I’m not sure)
The courses I attend now use Minna no Nihongo and Genki, so paths will definitely be helpful with that :3
