Study background
I’ve been studying Japanese since 2017. I started by learning some simple phrases and vocabulary, together with my boyfriend, before our first trip to Japan during the spring of that same year. I was certain at first that I wasn’t going to want to learn the Japanese writing system and it took quite some time for me to actually start to enjoy kanji (now I love studying kanji, all thanks to WK), but now I’m very excited to learn how to read and have recently read my very first manga in Japanese (Chi’s Sweet home). I’ve finished GENKI I and studied a beginner’s course at the University and have taken quite a few online tutoring lessons. I still feel like a total beginner (even though I’m not), would probably say that my current Japanese level is upper N5/lower N4. My main goal is to reach an intermediate/lower advanced level before our next trip to Japan (which will hopefully be during the fall of 2021 or spring of 2022). Until then I hope to have reached at least level 30-40 on WK. I study Japanese in between working full time in a health care profession, working extra as a wedding photographer, living on and caring for a small farm, taking care of our horses and juggling all of my other hobbies (頑張ります〜)
Main resources
Summary
*WaniKani
*Textbooks (GENKI I & II, An integrated approach to intermediate Japanese etc)
*Japanese reading material: a growing collection of manga in Japanese, Japanese graded readers/Tadoku), Naze? Doushite? (Japanese elementary school books), children’s books in Japanese
*Italki-lessons (online tutoring)
*HelloTalk/Tandem-app for social interaction with native speakers
*My own online language exchange group (Japanese/Swedish), we practice speaking with native speakers two-three times a week
*NativShark
*Watching Japanese anime/TV-shows with the LLN plug-in for Chrome
*Miku Real Japanese resources for Patreons
*Japanese music playlist on Spotify
*Japanese podcasts (such as Nihongo con Teppei, Learn Japanese pod)
*SRS-apps (Memrise & Anki)
*Bunpro
2020 goals
Summary
Reach lvl 20 on WK (9/20) - WK was put on hold at lvl 9
Speak Japanese with native speakers at least once a week - At least once every other week was achieved
Read 5 manga in Japanese (5/5) - GOAL ACHIEVED
Take online tutoring lessons at least once a month - I had to prioritize my money on other things, but I did take a few lessons this year
Finish at least half of GENKI II (lesson 13/23) - Didn’t get around to studying more text book Japanese, will try to pick up GENKI II again soon
Watch anime/Japanese TV-shows/Youtube videos in Japanese every week - Maybe not every week, but at least every other week
Listen to Japanese podcasts every day - At least several days a week
Practice Japanese shadowing audios every week - Didn’t get around to studying with the shadowing audios, it will have to be a goal for 2021
Write/voice record a “diary entry” in Japanese every week - Also lost this goal along the way, unfortunately
Finish phase one of NativShark (lesson 166/166) - GOAL ACHIEVED
2021 goals
Speak Japanese with native speakers once a week or more
Read another 5 manga in Japanese (1/5)
Finish GENKI II (working on chap. 13)
Japanese immersion every day (listen to podcasts, watch videos on Youtube, watch anime/Japanese TV-shows etc)
Practice Japanese shadowing audios everyday
Reach a “solid” N4-level/reach an intermediate level
2022 goals
Summary
Speak Japanese with native speakers once a week or more
Read another 10 manga in Japanese
Start studying An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese
Japanese immersion every day (watch anime/Japanese TV-shows, listen to Japanese podcasts, listen to Japanese music, watch videos on Youtube etc)
Practice Japanese shadowing audios everyday
Reach a solid N3-level/upper intermediate level
Travel to Japan again for our honeymoon <3 and to be able to have conversations with native speakers, without too much effort, in everyday topics
Japanese books that I already have/currently am/want to read: Bookmeter profile
Finished: Chi’s Sweet Home vol. 1 & 2, Yotsubato vol. 1 & 2, Karigurashi no Arrietty vol. 1 & 2
Currently reading:
Planning on reading: Ojisama to neko vol. 1, 2 & 3, 君の名は vol. 1, 2 & 3
It sure is! That’s why I have to remind myself why I haven’t made more progress during these years, the amount of actual hours studying Japanese aren’t comparable to the hours I could’ve put in by now hadn’t I had so much else going on in my life. But slow progress is a lot better than no progress! I will just keep swimming and one day I hope to reach my final goal of fluency! Patience and perserverence! Thank you so much!
Listening practice:
-Play a game in Japanese, Ghost of Tsushima
-Listen to a podcast-episode everyday: Nihongo con Teppei
-Diary entries/voice recordings in Japanese at least 3 times a week: HelloTalk moments
-Listen to Japanese music: Spotify playlist
I feel like the past week and a half has been good and that I’ve made some noticeable progress. One small step at a time! I’ve noticed that my listening comprehension has improved (I’ve started rewatching a previous season of Terrace House, with the help of the Language Learning with Netflix plug-in, and have noticed that I understand a lot more than when I started watching TH about a year ago), I’ve gotten a better “flow” in Japanese conversation (as long as I’m talking about a topic of which I’m fairly familiar) and I’ve noticed an improvement in my reading abilities (especially while reading manga). I recognize a lot more kanji and frequently come across new kanji being introduced by WK. It feels really motivating to actually notice these small signs of improvement! Before this I’ve had a longer period of feeling like I’m not improving at all (even though I know that isn’t entirely true), despite making efforts every day. So I’m very happy right now!
Thoughts on Japanese music as a language immersion approach
This is a Japanese song that I’ve been listening to a lot lately, one of my favorites so far. I’ve also started to memorize the lyrics and know how to sing the first verse of the song. Listening to Japanese music is a great method of immersion I think! I usually listen to my “favorite Japanese songs”-Spotify playlist while driving my car. I also believe that the more a song “sticks” in your brain, the easier it should become to memorize vocabulary from it (hopefully). I used to struggle with mixing up kanashii and sabishii but after listening to the song Kanashii Ureshii a few times, that problem went away, haha!
I see that you use Miku sensei’s Anki decks and shadowing. I have been using the Anki decks a lot but I have never really gotten started with the shadowing. I really like her decks though!
本当にありがとう！！!
For me it’s actually the opposite, I’ve been using the Shadowing audios a lot more than the Anki decks (but for some reason I’m just not a big fan of Anki at all, no matter how much I try to be ).
I just finished my second ever manga in Japanese: よつばと (Yotsuba&) vol. 1 (which means I’m also closer to fulfilling my goal of reading 5 manga in Japanese by the end of the year).
Some of the chapters I read through with the just keep reading mindset, similar to the 多読-way, not minding that there were words and phrases along the way that I didn’t understand and instead focusing on the context of the story as a whole. Some of the chapters I read through using Bilingual Manga and reading each page first in Japanese, then reading the same page with the English translation. While reading the first two chapters I also did some repetitions of a Yotsuba&-vocab Memrise course and combining this with the just keep reading strategy. I loved the story and I loved how the flow of reading got better and better for each chapter. I encountered many of the WK kanji (lvl 1-8) and WK vocab along the way, which also made comprehension easier (and I think it makes the kanji and vocab stick even better, seen in context). I still only own the first volume of よつばと and would love to buy the physical copies of the coming volumes before continuing reading the story, but I might succumb to temptation before then and continue reading the story on Bilingual Manga. We’ll see! The plan is now to finish reading vol. 2 of チーズスイートホーム (Chi’s Sweet Home) and then moving on the the おじさまと猫 (Ojisama to neko) series (as I already own the physical copies of vol. 1-3). I feel totally hooked on reading manga now and I’m glad that I already have built a small library of physical copies to delve right into!
Today I finished my third ever manga read in Japanese. やったね！
チーズスイートホーム (Chi’s Sweet Home vol. 2). The cute story of a kitten who gets lost, after she’s been separated from her mother and siblings, and then gets adopted by a family who happen to live in an apartment where cats are strictly forbidden. Chi and the little boy in the family become friends from first sight and play a lot together. Chi and the father of the family have a bit of a falling out after a visit to the veterinarian. The story of Chi is a really cute (and humorous) tale with short, easy sentences in fairly basic Japanese and a story that is easy to understand and follow as a whole, even without understanding every single word and phrase. A great first manga to read! I was very happy to notice that my reading speed has greatly increased compared to when I read through vol. 1 of the same manga series (which was also my very first manga read in Japanese) recently. Also, after reading よつばと (Yotsuba&), Chi’s Sweet Home actually felt very easy in comparison. I will continue my cat adventure read by revisiting おじさまと猫 Ojisama to neko vol. 1 (which I found a bit too difficult the first time I attempted it, so I switched to Chi’s Sweet Home after a few pages). I’m very excited to see if おじさまと猫 will feel a little bit easier this time around, or not. I’m also planning on starting a おじさまと猫 book club here on WK before I start my read, so if you’re interested in joining in, give me a shout!
It looks like your bookclub is going to be a great success! I can see that loads of people are signing up and expressing an interest in reading along! Thank you so much for getting this going!
Well done on completing the first volume of Yotsuba! And though you are busy now of course, when you do get around to reading more, don’t forget the Yotsuba bookclub here on WK, and our weekly live readings too!
I will keep updating! 
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