Returning to WK after a few years away

Japanese Language Study Logs (Public)
1

Hi. I’m an older learner (started learning Japanese in my 30s, in my 40s now). I am very touch and go with it. Got pretty far in WaniKani maybe 5 years ago or so but ended up getting overwhelmed. Decided to start from scratch, so I’m currently on level 3.

I’m learning Japanese to exercise my brain, and because I am intrigued by the history, aesthetics, culture, and values of the country. My dad went to HS in Japan during post-McCarthy Occupation in the late 1950s, so there had various pieces of Japanese art and ephemera in my suburban 1980s home growing up. Maybe not particularly unique, but it definitely planted seeds of curiosity.

I’m also an ardent poker player, so am hoping to eventually play to JOPT. Huge admirer of Okamoto Shiina and what she has been able to accomplish in the WSOP ladies events.

In addition to studying WK, I also watch Japanese news (never been much into anime, but I still love Ghibli), have a whole raft of textbooks and learning materials, use Hobonichi journals and occaisonally practice the daily translation etc.

Hoping to post here a little more to stay accountable to myself - we’ll see! As of today I’m on level 3 of WK. It’s going quickly which is nice. The updates to the site are great, BTW - congrats to the tofugu team.

21 Likes
2

Welcome back! catwave

Best of luck with your studies! wricat

7 Likes
3

Love your mindset!
Good luck! The community more than welcomes you!

5 Likes
4

Glad you’re here and we can all learn together. Hope to see you around and growing !

4 Likes
5

I figured it was time for an update, it’s been about a week. I’m back to the lower levels of the Crabigator temple, and it’s been great here in the mines. Everything is extremely solid in my memory, which is a confidence boost. I’m trying to be more disciplined about paying attention to the subtleties in kanji meanings that I may have glossed over the first time and reviewing sentences more thoroughly.

I’m moving at a good pace with practially no effort (not a surprise after so many years studying), but I’m curious to see when I hit the point where recall starts to slip. When that happens, I plan to shift gears and slow down instead of forcing myself to meet any arbitrary time goal.

In parallel, I’m preparing for the group read of Kiki’s Delivery Service by working through a JPDB flashcard deck for the book. Another side goal is to translate some interviews with Okamoto Shiina, who just made history at the World Series of Poker. If I could do 1 translation of her interviews a week that would be great, but who knows if my schedule will allow it.

Thanks for reading.

6 Likes
6

Another week passed, so here is another update. I’m leveling up pretty well which is to be expected. While I’m not gaming my reviews for a speedrun, I’m 7-8 days leveling up which is a great feeling. It’s interesting to see my shortcomings as a learner, it feels like i’m patching leaks. Sometimes my brain doesn’t engage properly or gets lazy (reading ホテル as テレビ) because my mind just switched off caring and was shuffling through quickly. Or realizing that I hadn’t really internalized some of the mnemonics as they related to the kanji, and appreciating with hindsight how that got me in trouble as future kanji start piling in more radicals or getting similar in appearance.

So I’m hoping this time spent patching up my Japanese learning boat will make for a fitter vessel as I sail ever deeper into the language.

Another important patch I’ve made is relinquishing my need to be good at something, so I can just get on with being bad at it. Oddly, sometimes I resist engaging because it confirms how inadequate my efforts are to the task. A good example is watching news. I think on some ego level I had convinced myself through context clues that I was understanding way more than I was. Once that ego-mind got pushed to the side a little, I can acknowledge how little I actually know. The gift in that acknowledgement is I’m seeing more clearly what I DO know, which is both affirming and gives me direction and motivation.

I know this is all getting a little psychological and long-winded, and in some ways I’m showing my own stupidity or poor learning style, but it’s good to check your flaws. I think overly high expectations of myself in learning Japanese (or other pursuits like poker) creates an ego that functions as a silent killer, suffocating actual improvement.

8 Likes
7

Been there, done that! trunky_rolling
I’ve recently managed to read 震度 as 地震、even though I know both words and their readings trunky_rolling

2 Likes
8

Yes! It only gets worse as the kanji get more complex and interrelated. The temptation to infer meaning on ‘vibes’ is a gross little brain shortcut. The katakana example is pretty embarrassing, but I’m glad you can relate!

4 Likes
9

I once gave up on ホテル completely because I was totally convinced the first letter was a kanji and I couldn’t remember the reading or even the meaning. I think it’s small. No, not quite. Maybe few, no that’s not it either… So annoying when it was one of the words I’d learned even before I’d tried my first kanji.

I like your patching a leaky boat analogy. Yup. That’s exactly what it feels like.

6 Likes
10

Absolutely! We have to work out the best ways of learning for who we are, not who we want to be or want to emulate or are afraid we are. Being honest with yourself is also a good practice for life in general, because it’s hard to accomplish your goals or improve yourself if you don’t have an accurate picture of who you are and what you’re working with (and occasionally against!).

3 Likes
11

Going through a similar experience here! Similar age, similar story, similar time away, except that I had a few false starts in getting back into the language and WK through the years. So instead of resetting (again), I decided to power through over 1000 reviews. Took over a month. But, for as much as I forgot and as many reviews as I failed, I also remembered a lot and burned hundreds of items in the process, so that was motivating!

Now I’m starting on all the lower level lessons that were added to WK over the years to start catching back up - items that didn’t exist when I first started. That’s even more motivating because they feel fresh and new, but are built on content that I remember well, so it’s breezy and easy.

The key for me is going to be finding a steady and maintainable pace instead of always being so eager to get to the next level. It feels like it might stick this time.

Good luck with your learning!

8 Likes
12

Thanks for sharing your story, therr – solidarity on the long and winding road.

100x over – yes on the “finding a steady and maintainable pace instead of always being so eager to get to the next level.” This past week I had a wedding to go to! It took up a lot of time and energy. Some other stuff was going on! Probably will take 10 days to level up instead of 7-8. I don’t want to trip about it, it’s so counterproductive. Just going to turtle along, as it were.

In addition to slowing down on WK this week, I also have been pretty slow on the JPDB Kiki flashcards. I always struggled with Anki, and had a eureka this week: Japanese flashcards are silly hard. Yeah some sentences are easy for me, but there is so much I don’t know! It is serious brain work to get through them sometime. It doesn’t serve me to get frustrated with myself, it just takes the time it takes.

I will say that watching the news feels incredible. I’m excited about what I can parse and infer. It’s very motivating.

So that’s the update for this week. Keepin’ on!

5 Likes
13

水曜日 アップデート !!

I leveled up! Level 5 took me 10 days and change, which wasn’t the best feeling, but I think level 6 is going a little faster. Haven’t been watching the news as much but have been better with my Kiki’s Delivery Service flashcards. I’m signed up for the Kiki’s read-through that is starting next month or September… not sure how I’ll keep up but I’m hopeful I can carve time to try. My husband watched a Godzilla movie this week (Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah, 1991) a few days ago, and it was a lot of fun listening and parsing the words. It’s annoying how I can pick out meanings when I have subtitles on, but once they go it’s so much harder! Great movie, btw. My other Japanese media consumption was watching the 4-part NHK series following Hayao Miyazaki fro 10 years. I’d seen parts of it before, but I was really in a head-space for it over the course of a few days. Again, lots of English support, but the Japanese language exposure was satisfying and who doesn’t love the pathos and determination of Miya-san?

Until next week, ganbatte.

6 Likes
14

I recently discovered this channel and I really like it. If you like news, you might also like this.

And yeah, the ego thing is horrible. I used to avoid immersing (e.g. reading manga and books in Japanese) because it felt so bad to not get anything… But since then I’ve somewhat gotten over it (plus my Japanese got better), so now I can actually immerse and get better.

7 Likes
15

Thanks for reading my study log and sharing the great resource @nenad! How encouraging to be able to understand what they are saying! Definitely will practice with it.

5 Likes
16

You’re welcome, it was an interesting read. That it was psychological made it better! Love to figure out how things work to make them better.

Easy resources are invaluable, especially ones that are more casual, for the lack of a better word. The subtitles (and the fact I can see his face) also help immensely. I tried Nihongo Con Teppei and couldn’t get into it for the life of me.

4 Likes
17

Yeah, I really like listening to his videos so far, I probably should do more of that since it’s probably been close to a month now. I’ve been using Comprehensible Japanese a lot recently, though, and it’s good too - but a little variety now and then is good. :slight_smile:

4 Likes
18

Another Wednesday update! Purely for continuity’s sake! Because I don’t have much to share at the moment.

Family reunion this past weekend meant less Japanese than usual. I did manage to keep up with WK which feels great. What motivated me was my recent experieince of seeing how easy it was to miss a few reviews when I went to a wedding a few weeks ago. Because I neglected WK, it took me 10 days to level up. While kind of annoying, it was a good learning experience in that it motivated me to stay more on top of things. The review really don’t take that much time if you make them a priority over zoning out.

I’m on level 7 and will be unlocking second half kanji in a few minutes. It’s been 51 days since I restarted WK – I think from level 31? I just did a little calculating and if I stay at about an 8-day level-up pace for the rest of the year, I’ll be at level 22 when it’ time for the JLPT in December (which is 73% of N3 Kanji). If I take it I think I’d want to go for N3, but that might be delulu). Not sure when the sign-up date cuts off, I’ll call an audible. I am a weirdo that hates school but loves tests, so the JLPT is kind of appealing to go for.

With the magic of claude here is my level up projections if I can stay on top of things. Let’s see if this post later comes to haunt me with its optimism:

Level 9: Sun, Aug 17, 2025 (Day 8)

Level 10: Mon, Aug 25, 2025 (Day 16)

Level 11: Tue, Sep 2, 2025 (Day 24)

Level 12: Wed, Sep 10, 2025 (Day 32)

Level 13: Thu, Sep 18, 2025 (Day 40)

Level 14: Fri, Sep 26, 2025 (Day 48)

Level 15: Sat, Oct 4, 2025 (Day 56)

Level 16: Sun, Oct 12, 2025 (Day 64)

Level 17: Mon, Oct 20, 2025 (Day 72)

Level 18: Tue, Oct 28, 2025 (Day 80)

Level 19: Wed, Nov 5, 2025 (Day 88)

Level 20: Thu, Nov 13, 2025 (Day 96)

Level 21: Fri, Nov 21, 2025 (Day 104)

Level 22: Sat, Nov 29, 2025 (Day 112)

Level 23: Sun, Dec 7, 2025 (Day 120) ← JLPT

Level 24: Mon, Dec 15, 2025 (Day 128)

Level 25: Tue, Dec 23, 2025 (Day 136) \

Level 26: Wed, Dec 31, 2025 (Day 144)

Level 27: Thu, Jan 8, 2026 (Day 152)

Level 28: Fri, Jan 16, 2026 (Day 160)

Level 29: Sat, Jan 24, 2026 (Day 168)

Level 30: Sun, Feb 1, 2026 (Day 176)

Level 31: Mon, Feb 9, 2026 (Day 184) ← Back to the level I think I reset at

6 Likes
19

Here is my Wednesday update!

Making my way through level 8, just unlocked second half kanji. Keeping up with everything nicely. I put in a request for a script I thought might help shorten my study time - some kind of countdown timer:

Today I heard back about this script, but haven’t had a chance to try it: WK Reviews: The Final Countdown (userscript)

But for the past few review sessions, I have done a little workaround. I set up a spreadsheet with a column for date, total cards, time spent in minutes, approximate accuracy, and then cards per minute, seconds per card. By putting in my numbers before every session, and setting a stopwatch timer to keep myself accountable, I’m setting myself up for accuracy and speed expectations which keeps me slightly more on track (I am prone to clicking away to other tabs when I get bored or frutrated). Because I am still in really easy levels, my accuracy has been between 95-100% and it takes me about 4-6 seconds per card. I’m happy to have this way to keep myself accountable. (I also think this will be useful data to see how I’m faring when cards get harder).

Almost all other Japanese study has fallen off a cliff recently, kind of dealing with an emotional hangover / getting back in the groove after hosting family. Glad WK is staying on point. One little Japan culture adjacent thing was learning about a project called Hundred Rabbits. Canadian artists / programmers who met working in Japan. They live on a sailboat and sailed from North America to Japan. New fantasy unlocked: sailing the seto inland sea. They are pretty easy to find on youtube and patreon. I bought their travel log of their trans pacific voyage and am looking forward to reading it.

Good luck with your studies everyone!

6 Likes
20

Not the Wednesday update I expected to write!

Without realizing what the implications would be, I switched my browsers to Brave. I’m now flying without scripts. :smiling_face_with_tear: I think this might be the universe’s way of telling me to slow the f down. Despite having consistent 95% plus accuracy rate, I do have more than 160 apprentice items (probably due to erratic vocab additions). So I’m officially off the path of speed and on the path of ‘I guess we’ll see how this goes, typos and all.’

Also - how is it almost September!? I think I did some idle musing about “wonder if I could challenge myself to take the N3 in december?” – LOL. LMFAO, actually. Haha – time passes quickly and yeah, 3 months? :rofl: Not sure what i was thinking. Maybe next year.

So, brakes involuntarily slammed, reality check on timing… so what’s good news? Started reading Kiki for book club! Cleaned up my office! Feeling good about all the above. It’s a hobby, not a grind.

Til next week - good luck everybody.

7 Likes