Joined WaniKani, thought it was amazing as my family speaks japanese but did not teach me as a kid.
Got stuck on level 11 as the pandemic broke out and was not able to sever the head of the review-pile monster with my katana
January 2022
Restart #1 and with a burst of energy and freshly baked new year resolutions I set forward on doing Wanikani a little bit every day.
Got stuck on level 11 and live to not see the sunset above the peak of mount 11.
January 2023
I am once again here at Restart #2, and this time I feel like this is the time. So now I reach out to you, the community, and ask: What are your daily tasks to fulfill your japanese goals on a daily basis?
I have tried to use KaniWani and Bunpro, and I will continue with that now. But I did not manage to get a good structure with how to use Bunpro. anyone god any good routines there?
What UserScripts, WebApps and other sources gives you the knowledge to speak the language of the land of the rising sun? I look forward to hearing from you guys in the community and to be a part of it once again, as I was 3 years ago!
(I have questions for you, but you donāt have to actually reply to me with your answers. Just think about your goals and relationship with using Japanese each day rather than only studying Japanese each day.)
When you quit WaniKani, why werenāt you able to finish your pile of reviews? What it too boring, too intimidating, too hard to remember the vocab, etc?
Why do you want to use apps? Are you relying on the structure apps provide to avoid discomfort from the unknown? Are you doing anything else with Japanese other than WaniKani and Bunpro? Specifically, are you doing anything thatās actually fun and not just only serious studying all the time? (Ex: Learning lyrics, watching a TV show, trying to read a manga.) Do you do a mixture of input (reading, listening) as well as output (writing, speaking)?
Personally, Iām studying for JLPT N1 so Iām focusing on increasing my vocab, kanji recognition, and stamina by reading articles/books + making my own mnemonics. I just study on my own with a dictionary and use Google a lot. Boring answer, I know.
As for routine, if you surround yourself with Japanese, it becomes impossible to not use it. I listen to Japanese music every day, most of the channels I subscribe to on YouTube are Japanese (or focused on language learning), I read Japanese manga on my phone during breaks/before bed, I force my friends to listen to me talking about studying Japanese, my phone and computer language are set to Japanese, my hobby is Japanese vocal synthesizers. So I guess using Japanese should be your new lifestyle.
Yeah, I have to find uses for it. My motivation is that is is a language my family has spoken for two generations now. So to be able to bring that tradition forward is what I want to do. And I guess to make the most of my studies, I should find things to watch and read that are in japanese, so thanks for the answer!
Do WK reviews (run out of lessons sadly) 6-8 times a day. (Keeping on top of them is key).
Do Kitsun reviews 6-8 times a day +30 cards from 10k deck, +15 cards from JLPT sensei JLPT 1-5 deck. (10k vocab deck, voiced sentences)
Atleast 5 hours of active immersion daily (although gotten near 8 for the past whileā¦) Most of the time japanese drama with japanese subtitles, check up on new words constantly and try to deconstruct sentences)
Doing Kitsun over anki due to the fact that the layout is better and has some easier controls. I had a hard time keeping consistent with anki so went with Kitsun, totally worth it.
SRS takes about 2hrs a day, give or take, + the immersion, 7hrs if I low ball it, lately 10+.
Would also recommend Satori reader for beginners. sync with WK and they remove furigana for kanji you know, itās voiced, and each word is translated and have some phrases that are explained. Would recommend if you knew 2000 most common words + got N5-N4 grammar nailed.
In short:
WK
Kitsun
Satorireader
Would not recommend for beginners:
Bunpro - too frustrating dealing with verb conjugations as beginner, not all that helpful. Better off reading up on the grammar points and making/finding a deck of JLPT 1-5 grammar points. Donāt skip grammar points because itās a higher JLPT-level, and try to get through grammar as efficiently as possible, less frustrating when dealing with immersion later.
Honorable mention: Yomichan, can be used in browser to hover over words to get them instantly translated. This one is almost crucial when dealing with immersion, saves so much time and effort.
Iām taking it slow at the moment, here is my routine:
Wanikani:
Morning:
Do all ārecent mistakesā upon waking up.
Do all available reviews.
Do 9 lessons.
Evening:
Do all available reviews.
Do all ārecent mistakesā before bed.
Bunpro:
Do all available reviews, morning and evening.
Do 2 grammar lessons (including reading the linked articles/watching the linked videos under the resources tab) unless āghostsā are above 9, else wait until they are under 10 again.
Satori Reader:
Read one āepisodeā every day.
Other things:
Write in my japanese diary
Consume some japanese content if I feel like it (youtube videos, streams, music, podcasts etc).
I totally forgot, and itās important now that you mention it. Use ārecent mistakesā as much as possible, saves so much time and effort later on.
I would preferably do this after failing reviews from the new lessons I made 4 hours prior (first review cycle). Sometime multiple times (donāt need this though, once is enough). But canāt stress how important that button is.
Thats some greats tips there! Donāt know if I can be able to get up to 7-8 hours of immersion a day unfortunately, but as much as possible I will want to do! I have not heard of either Kitsun or Satorireader so I will check those out! Thanks!
Great routines there, and very feasible! I follow the Genki book, so I have that on the side of my bunpro, but I had completly avoided that there was a āresourcesā tab under each grammar point, so I will be there from now on as well! Will make sure to check out recent mistakes and do them as well . right now I am just waiting and waiting for level 1 to be completed so that I can crack on!
Yeah, Itās good to have an honest plan and expectation I will also focus to have my streak going on my timeline, as that is a motivating factor for me both on WK and on Bunpro
Welcome back! It looks like youāve already got some really good recommendations, but Iāll add a few to the pile:
If youāre using Genki, Seth Clydesdaleās site has free practice questions and vocab decks, and ToKini Andyās commentary playlist is absolutely fantastic. He breaks down the grammar really well and explains some things much better than the book does.
For slicing through big piles of WK reviews, having an Undo button is a big help. I make a ton of typos when Iām tired. For desktop, the Double-Check script will give you an Undo, and the Flaming Durtles app for mobile has one built-in (along with a ton of other useful features).
If you have Android, the Akebi dictionary app is great. Itās easy to use, and you can set it up to auto-export words you look up to Anki.
I donāt get why you review your srs 6-8 times a day?
I found batching with strict timing much more manageable, even with 350+ review a day on wk (which are slow reviews), without impact on velocity in the long run.
For example, with WK timing, do lessons at 8, first review at 12, second review at 20, then all the items will be batched in the evening.
Same with kitsun / bunpro / any other srs really.
Wrong items will naturally be reviewed next morning / noon /evening depending on stage where they failed.
Some super tips regarding genki there! Unfortunatley i have iOS, but have downloaded the Tsurukame app for doing my reviews on the road I think that the size of the pile actually was not the problem I was having, but it represented a bgger issue more or less. The pile of 700+ reviews represented the 700+ kanji/vocab that I vaguely remember and a review will only remind me that I do not know this kanji/vocab. So a restart will give me the possabillity to once again naturally learn the kanji in order and not force myself through a pile i dont remember
When you got stuck on level 11 again was it was overwhelming review pile that made you quit again?
Someone on WaniKani showed me MaruMori recently. They wouldnāt have an app until later this year, but Iāve been really liking their grammar lessons so far and Iāve been through so many different grammar apps too.
There is also Crystal Hunters manga which teaches you Japanese vocabulary and grammar. Itās pretty motivating being able to read an entire manga in Japanese without struggling.
For me Crystal Hunters isnāt part of my daily routine I just reread the guides and volumes a week or two before the new volume comes out. I can see that it gets easier and easier for me to read the volumes every time so itās definitely worth investing in. They have Japanese (easier version) and Natural Japanese (harder version). I have all the volumes for the Japanese version.
Not daily, but for fun I use J-crosswords which is a Japanese crossword puzzle app. You can make custom crosswords on the Renshuu app, but you have to manually input in the vocabulary which takes time to do.
I have the Bunpo app, but canāt use it comfortably on my iPad so itās for use on my phone own.
I have started reading a manga recently and the first episode of the anime came out today. My grammar knowledge is low so Iāve been having to go really slowly through it, but the app Nihongo Pro helps in very quickly looking up vocabulary just by clicking on the word. So studying the words and moving very very slowly through the manga has been pretty exciting. I am going through slowly since my main focus has been learning kanji/vocabulary from WaniKani.
To you besides WaniKani I recommend Crystal Hunters and MaruMori. I think just using these three resources would help you out a lot.
If you like video games go wishlist Nihongo Quest N5 and Shujinkou on Steam. These two games are Japanese language learning video games.
Isnāt necessary, but easier to manage small batches throughout the day, besides, accuracy tend to be better if they are done more often. On average I have about 500 reviews daily, along with 45 cards, itās somewhat time consuming, doing them just three times a day is fairly tedious.
Satori Reader is for those around intermediate level. I would hold off on investing into that at the moment in my opinion. Yeah the developer who created Kitsun created MaruMori.
I hate textbooks myself, but if you are using Genki then you should check out the youtuber Game Gengo. He has some videos that goes along with the Genki lessons using video games.
I go on the WaniKani website to learn 5 (I never do all lessons at once so my reviews donāt get out of control ever), then do recent lessons and recent mistakes. Then when they come up again I do recent lessons again and then go on the Tsurukame app to do them.
I will also focus to have my streak going on my timeline, as that is a motivating factor for me both on WK and on Bunpro