Share your full routines: How you've worked Japanese learning into your life

For my routine I start by doing some WK (each hour of the day) some KW but only for the burned one because at my level it would be too much. I read one page per day of a japanese book in the evening and sometime play a japenese video game. (More of a story than a game though. Pretty close to the telltale’s game but perfect for studying japanese) I watch a japense guy on youtube and listen to japanese music. Listen to japanese talking in my car and on tuesday and thursday I have private japanese classes with a japanese teacher. And read the japanese only forum.

Have been doing some hello talk but they never talk to me for more than one week. :sob:

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I’m using Lingodeer too, and I’m about 80% trough it. I have heard that it teaches you around the same amount as Genki 1 + 2 in grammarpoints (But I have no clue if this is true or not). Still, I really like it and the added beta “story” they have for some of the lessons now are really great for practicing speaking and reading, but I hope they will put it out for more than the basic chapters. It’s great for keeping a chilled out reviewing of grammar points, and reading! Definetely a lot better than duolingo and similar apps, that uses a similar structure.

The only thing I really don’t like about it is that when you are reviewing with flashcards you need to think about the English translation of each Japanese sentence and word, which is very frustrating from time to time. I would rather see that the reviewing worked pretty much the same way as the lessons, but then again you can review each segement in each lesson (but no visual aspect of what you are good at or lacking in, which is a shame.)

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I am not as organized as all of you, it’s just that I have a lot of spare time during which I don’t know to do so I decided to learn Japanese because I love Japanese culture and in fact, I really love learning this language even though I’m new so I don’t have any habits. It’s just that I naturally do what I love.

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Jesus, reading all this I think I should step up my game.
All I do is WK, Kanji drawing exercises, some Genki and translating H-mangas. :sweat_smile:

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I super agree with the people who make WK their morning routine. I swear, sometimes it’s more stable and consistent than brushing my teeth or doing anything else in life :expressionless: #mixedemotions

Anyway, I’m a really busy person juggling full-time work, part-time postgrad studies, caring for grandparents, and trying to maintain a social life + bingeing anime, so my actual sched looks like this:

  • WK reviews in the morning, and every time I feel idle throughout the day (I swear, it’s reflex now over Facebook sometimes).

  • WK lessons in the morning (before work/class), and/or in the evening (after work/class). I’ve made it a point to go through my lessons faster even if I make more mistakes along the way because as WK says, quantity over quality.

  • Tofugu’s 4500 sentence challenge. I bought the PDF from Tofugu last Christmas, and I try to translate half to an entire page every 1-2 days, depending on how much sanity my schedule has left.

  • Tutoring twice a week (around 6 hours in total). I can’t self-study I s2g, there is no discipline. Plus, my sensei pressures me to do hw and exams, so we go through an entire textbook in a span of 1-3 mos. Plus, my sensei is there to correct me and explain things I don’t get right away.

Ofc, there’s still stuff I want to add, for example

  • Scheduling my Anki/flashcard system. Vocabulary is my weakest, and I really need to build it to something similar to WK’s system.

  • Less serious, but equally educational stuff, like translating J-Pop/anime songs from Japanese to literal English, to domesticated English. I worked on CCS’s “Groovy!” and it did wonders for how I’d read and pause in the right places.

  • Tangoristo. I read Japanese news and stories here and it’s really cool because it’s grouped by JLPT level (so you don’t get too intimidated), but I need to be more consistent.

For people struggling with forming the habit (like me), I think habit-tracking apps do wonders. ^^

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Shia LaBeouf AND Bhikkhu Bodhi? You are very cool.

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WK reviews in the morning, and every time I feel idle throughout the day (I swear, it’s reflex now over Facebook sometimes).

I hear that!

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Wow, all you guys have such impressive routines, it puts mine to shame. I am a 1st year JET so exposure is not an issue. The only good routine I have at the moment is with WK, which I do regularly throughout the day. I was doing the JET online language course, but after going on vacation in December and falling behind, I just gave it up. I used bunpro for a bit, but I wasn`t getting into it that much, which is disappointing because it seems the community rates it highly. At the moment, I have WK and Duolingo, which I started just a week ago. I also watch anime regularly. I am considering joining the Japanese course of Kumon since there is one literally in my street.

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Coincidentally as a JET who is also not doing so well at maintaining a self-study routine, I just had the idea yesterday to start looking into Kumon as well. WK is probably the most I do on my own, I have the iKnow app too but I don’t like it too much…I applied to be a beta tester for the Bunpro app since I don’t really like their website that much but I still didn’t hear back from them ;/
Duolingo is too easy for me since I’m around N3 although it feels like my ability sort of fossilized in between N4 and N3. And the online JET course I totally ignored last year but I want to try to stick with it again this year since I heard that the advanced course was much better than how it used to be in previous years. I don’t watch anime but when I hang out with my Japanese friends I try to use the language as much as possible but that doesn’t get very far when their English is so much better than your Japanese…
But I will try Kumon and hopefully it also works out for you too.

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What is a JET? and why don’t you like iKnow? I LOVE iKnow, mainly for the sentences. It’s the only program other than RS where they speak out the sentences so you can get a feel for the rhythm and sound of the language spoken by natives… at least the only one i have found.

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JET = The Japan Exchange and Teaching Program, so basically an ALT (assistant language teacher) in Japan although there are JETs who are CIR (Coordinator for International Relations, I think they’re translators rather than teachers?). It’s a government program to teach English in Japan.

With iKnow I don’t like the aspect of rating yourself on how well you know the word, like the multiple choice and fill in the blank stuff is great but when you have to rate yourself on how well you got it kind of like Anki, for some reason I can’t get into that! Like what if I think I know the word really well so then I choose the ‘I know it really well’ button but I actually don’t? Also my supervisor at work (long story short, he’s a Japanese-American who did JET himself back in the 90s and he’s been living in Japan now for the last 20 years or so and is around N2-N1ish level) has used iKnow for YEARS and he said that they never change or add to their content :expressionless: don’t get me wrong I think it’s a great program to learn vocabulary and I probably just need to use it more to get used to it

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Not surprising, i just want to use it to learn the top 10000 words, so i can start to read real heavy textbooks and understand them at least a little bit.

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Thank you
Hopefully Kumon works for both of us. What little reviews I have found online mostly seem to be quite positive.

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Ha it’s nice to see there are other people into this. It was actually one of the things that made me want to learn Japanese. I also like Japanese anime, music and games but I started watching NJPW at WK9 and really wanted to be able to understand what they were saying. I had a nice moment watching this year’s WK when Okada was thanking everyone at the end and I realized I could understand the general gist of what he was saying.

Things I do

Wanikani - Every day whenever I have time, I always try to make sure my reviews are at zero before I go to bed.

ANKI - I have a few decks I use. Genki: this is just all the vocab from Genki that I add as i do each chapter. Random Words I find myself: This is literally what it says, if i’m watching an anime or reading an article or talking to my language exchange partners and don’t know a word then I have the Yomichan browser extension that adds anki cards for me (I’d advice people look this up because it saves so much time being able to create a card with one click.) and then I have the core 10k deck that I got off this forum somewhere. I forget their username (sorry) but someone here created anki decks in the Wanikani style. Every word has a few cards; ENG to JP, JP to ENG, Audio only, Example sentence, Example sentence audio only. I’ve only been doing this a few weeks so a lot of the words so far I already know but it has made it clear how far behind my listening skills are as a huge chunk of my reviews each day are the Audio sentences because everything else I pass pretty easily.

Kaniwani - I’m not good at doing this on a regular basis. I WANT to do it every day but i’m usually so burnt out by everything else this tend’s to get neglected.

Memrise - I have this entirely for the Genki grammar courses because when I first started I struggled with conjugation and this was a good way to be forced to drill them. I now know I could set this up elsewhere but I have over a year of SRS built up so I just keep doing it through Memrise.

Bunpro - Fairly recent discovery but I like that it let’s me see where the gaps in my knowledge are. When I finish a Genki chapter I go hunting for the grammar point in Bunpro. I find reviews don’t build up too quickly so this is something I don’t worry about doing every day if I run out of time.

Genki - I try to do a chapter every 2 weeks but I don’t keep a strict schedule on this because some chapter’s are easier than others and it also depends on how much time I spend doing my reviews. Usual routine for Genki is add all vocab for the next chapter into Anki and wait a few days, then read the chapter and write down notes for all grammar points in my personal notepad, add the grammar points in memrise and bunpro to review later and then when I can consistently pass those reviews go back and do the chapter questions.

Other than that everything else I do is just casual stuff with no routine. Reading NHK easy news articles, watching anime, listening to music, there’s a youtuber called Japanese ammo that I watch sometimes and she does good lesson’s to compliment what’s taught in Genki, let’s plays: no subtitles obviously so this isn’t so much about being able to understand them more than just having some casual Japanese to listen to in the background. I also talk to a few people on the Hellotalk app my phone when I have time and I have a language partner from Tokyo on Skype.

I do have a question for people actually. I’m finding as I progress the SRS burnout gets worse as the amount of reviews goes up slowly. By the time I’m finished with my WK/BP/Anki/KW/MR I’m not finding a lot of time to learn new things like I used to. The problem is I find the SRS really useful so I don’t really want to drop any of it but it feels like it takes up 90% of my time. Has anyone else had similar problems and what did you do about it?

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this really a good thread

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At the very least I try switching video games I play to Japanese. English → Japanese translation is not the most reliable study material and should probably be taken with (more than) a grain of salt, but I at least find it’s usually reasonable katakana practice, since I don’t see katakana often enough to be nearly as comfortable with it as I am with hiragana.

Also, WaniKani every morning. I’m not as disciplined as everyone else is about it. I admit some mornings its 10 reviews and others it’s 100. But I try to do it every day, which is more than can be said for any other resource.

I also take some paper and a pen with me to work and take pictures of my Genki textbook and workbook on my phone so I can practice grammar on my breaks :smiley:

I feel like I understand most everything in the Genki textbook but need more practical use of it in order to solidify the concepts in my mind, like memorizing all the conjugations. I understand the grammatical functions when I see a sentence, but have difficulty remembering how to compose a sentence on my own. Just need more disciplined work and I just might get the hang of it…

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ahhh omg yes – understanding okada’s promos was honestly a huge early motivator for me haha (and why i’ll always remember the readings for 一つ, 二つ, 三つ)

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Self learner in america. pretty new to WK but studying japanese seriously for 1.5 yrs.

Goals: Want to be able to consume native content and hopefully one day speak like an educated adult.

Interests: I have played 囲碁 for 20 years so i follow that pretty closely.

Guiding princliple: I think that unlike WK (which is awesome and helping me do a large task in an efficient manner), UNDERSTANDING japanese is not a body of knowledge, it is a skill. A complex skill like playing a sport or a musical instrument. And it is the skill of ascribing meaning to native japanese sentences. And just like getting good at any complex skill, it is alot more about thoughtful practice than it is about knowledge in some absolute sense (although, of course the knowledge, vocab etc. , is a nessesary prerequisite). As an example, you could have a PhD in biomachanics and know everything about how to swing a golf club, but you still couldnt do it without years of practice.

My routine::

WK everyday

In the beginning I read a lot of grammar texts and textbooks, but didnt study them in a diciplined way

Everyday:
1-2 episodes of a J-drama with japanese subs or no subs

listen to whatever my favorite 2 or three japanese songs are at the moment and pick one thing that I dont understand to figure out (could be vocab, but usually a grammar construction) from each one and study it

read a page of a book

if i feel like it, or if I have had something that has been bugging me that I couldnt understand, ill study some grammar

Things I do sometimes / when I feel like it:
BunPro - Dont do it alot now, but did all up through N3. What I really liked about it is it forced you to type (actually produce) tons of compound verb conjugations which was something I wouldnt have thought would have helped but turned out to make a noticable difference (to me) in my ability to hear them in spoken japanese

transcribe songs in japanese / learn to play and sing them

Those are the main active things I do. I pretty much always have something in Japanese on at my house even if its in the background.

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Its true. But you can think about it this way, if you are trying to become fluent, you are trying to somehow approach the exposure and understanding that native speakers have who have spent their whole lives speaking and being surrounded by and going to school in, etc that language. It takes a time investment.

That being said, a number I have heard thrown around alot is that you have to spend 1 hr a day to make (a reasonable amount of) progress.

1 hour a day would let you do:
WK
listen to 3 songs (look up a grammar construction and a vocab from each that confused you)
watch an episode of something
read a page of something

Just my two cents…

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My schedule is pretty tame compared to some of those I’ve seen here – makes me want to do even more! I’ve been studying for about two months now, but the first month (and a lot of time now . . .) has been spent trying to figure out what and how to study!

  1. Right now I do WaniKani 3 times a day; in the morning I clear reviews that accumulated overnight and I take 15-20 lessons depending on what the material is.
  2. I maintain a list of kanji on Houhou (about 150 strong right now) with words I pick up from my textbook. Houhou gets checked every time I check WK.
  3. In the evening, I clear an anki deck that consists of phrases/words that usually show up in kana
  4. Lastly, I try to read through a chapter of Human Japanese every other night, the first night to record all the vocab in Houhou and Anki and the next to absorb grammar points and other material present in the chapter.

The plan from here is to finish up HJ Beginner, then start HJ Intermediate, make my way through Unlocking Japanese: Making Japanese as Simple as it Really Is* and begin working on comprehension and production through immersion (reading, listening, writing, maybe speaking at some far away point). I’d love any advice people may have on how I might alter or improve my current method of learning :slight_smile:

PS. Here are most of the other things I’ve tried to use and since discarded for my learning process: duolingo, memrise (nukemarine course), Tae Kim (still occasionally used as a grammar reference), bunpro, genki (may skim later to review grammer points from HJ), IMABI (useful reference), Anki core vocab lists. I’d be very interested in striking up a conversation with others who have tried, and liked, some of these to see if there’s something I’m missing.

*I consider this the best $5 I’ve ever spent, and I’m only a third of the way through it. In the first ten pages or so, it explained the difference between は and が in an intuitive and easy-to-understand way that every grammar resource I’ve tried before or since has utterly failed to do (HJ may surprise me yet, but they don’t actually revisit the topic until HJ Intermediate after introducing it in the Beginner text . . .). The author also has a useful blog post floating around somewhere regarding verb transitivity.

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