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I LOVE it! Thanks! You just made my day.
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I’m motivated to stop lurking by the power of tranquilo.
I started studying Japanese just a few months ago in January literally because I was so bored at work I needed something to do. I read, watch movies, and play games a lot in general, and just through my normal routines of finding media, I wound up in a position where by happenstance I was watching a ton of NJPW, playing and loving the Yakuza games, watching anime (DBZ to follow along with All Systems Goku, among others), and reading whatever manga interested me from the library, all at the same time.
… And also I live right nearby a Kinokuniya,
So with all that combined I realized I hardly had an excuse NOT to know any Japanese. I started with just reading the Wikipedia pages for hiragana and katakana and figured I’d stop when it stopped being interesting… and that hasn’t happened yet.
Since I have zero practical need to speak the language (give or take some distant pipedreams that began to form once I started taking it seriously), learning to read is far and away my priority, and it’s reminding me of how much I enjoyed learning to read the first time around (in English).
When I get excited about something, especially new interesting media, I tend to hoard it - so now I’ve got a whole lot of books on a shelf, mainly manga, textbooks, graded readers, and wrestling-related stuff (Nakamura got me into wrestling as a whole and got me through some rough times so when I realized he’s got multiple biographies I snatched them up even though it’ll likely be at minimum years before I can read them), and if I have a goal it’s to read enough of it that it’s not all a huge waste of money (hahaaaa).
As for routine, the benefit of having an extremely boring job with basically no supervision is that I can do Wanikani practically every hour and no one minds. Did enough Bunpro to get grammar basics also, and Duolingo until it stopped being useful.
Usually during breaks and on the bus I’ll read graded readers or, my favorite thing to do other than WaniKani, read an entry or two in A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar, using the example sentences as furigana-less reading practice, with the translations there to check my work.
Beyond that, I’ve started doing that 10k Anki deck (thanks, person out there who made it!) but slowly and a little inconsistently.
I should do more Genki but I’m worried my basic knowledge has surpassed where I’m at in the book (not far) to the point where it’s not very interesting (and so hard to get myself to do it) even though it’s good practice.
But reading is definitely interesting, and I’ve got plenty of material. Yotsuba is pretty much the only thing I can really get through for now - but I can read it alone with decent comprehension and then I’ve got a more rigorous readthrough lagging behind that picking up the details and words to look up or write down.
It’s all a lark primarily to fill time at a job I should probably quit for something better… But hey! I’m enjoying it, and have been taking it a lot more seriously than I expected.
P.S. since this is a stealth プロレス thread - am I wrong that wrestlers inherently make the best mnemonics? Shinsuke seems to like to stand on top of trees for some reason, Kenta Kobashi loves to sightsee and has a lot of opinions, SANADA is calculating, BUSHI is almost a cow but not quite. And well, Naito and Yano… Can’t see how they’d come in handy for WaniKani…
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omg yes to wrestling mnemonics! I use Tanahashi for most of the “えい” (Ace) ones, Naito and Marufuji are the reason I remember both readings for 藤
and then there’s stuff like…
Also I mayyyyy have bought the Okada book (and a few other wrestling books) before I could understand a lick of Japanese, so I can very much relate to the “Well I have this stuff, I might as well learn enough so I can read it” part lol. I ordered Kenta Kobashi’s book about living with cancer which is definitely beyond my reading level, so that’s my next goal post.
(Maybe I’ll start a non-stealth プロレス thread?) EDIT: Here it is, hi hello (cc: @dunlewy @lights @Ddjross)
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ctincton, I love that mnemonic! I’ll have to think some up for myself. Great stuff
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I thought I was the only person completely and totally obsessed with learning Japanese. Now I feel more normal!
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Haha yeah! I have to tell myself to chill out sometimes. I can’t wait for the point I completely understand informal chat, anime etc. One day…
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- listen to podcasts (Hotcast and JapanesePod101) when I do something like cleaning just to get a feel for the language mostly
- watch anime without subtitles first to see if I can keep up
- try shadowing in Japanese movies
- Narrating what I’m doing or want to do in Japanese in my head makes me notice vocabulary I’m missing and forces me to use grammar to construct complete sentences.
- I have Anki on my phone with the NihongoShark deck which solely focuses on Kanji meaning and mnemonic stories for when I have some idle time
- Setting video game settings to Japanese voices if they have complicated systems (because I’ve neglected Kanji in the past) or full Japanese if they have furigana or just use kana
- JapaneseClass.jp for vocabulary (choose the answer system but it helps with passive recognition and the pseudo game system is fun)
- I have a small grammar booklet which is easy to carry around
- And most recently doing WK lessons and reviews whenever they’re ready to finally get a grip on Kanji (waited way too long with starting)
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Nice routine! Watching Japanese TV is a fun way to learn.
Oh, I love talking about myself and my Japanese studies! Here: help yourself to my post-lv60 1337 strategy!
Anki
The corner stone of my studies. I have the following anki decks:
- A grammar deck constructed from sample sentences from nihongo no mori youtube videos I’ve watched (done with N3, soon done with N2, will probably take a break after that, since constructing the cards is becoming a chore). Around 10 cards a day.
- A grammar deck based on Tae Kim, as well as random sentences I’ve looked up when playing Japanese RPGs (this is just around 3 cards a day nowadays though).
- A kanji deck containing all the kanji I encounter. It’s almost identical to WK and I make up my own mnemonics. I do these while I eat breakfast. I add about 20 kanji every other week.
- A vocab deck. This is the big one. I add all vocab words I look up and study about 100-150 cards a day. I work through this during the day.
Listening
I’ve also made a WK-ish web application for listening practice. It’s basically like WK except you only hear the word spoken, then after you answer you get a sample sentence read to you. I find this eventually drills the sample sentences into my memory so I can use that to remember the words more easily. I do 30 of these in the morning and 30 more in the evening.
I also like to watch let’s plays in Japanese from time to time, it’s pretty low-pressure since I like watching them even when I understand nothing, but it probably help a little.
Reading
I read at least two pages in a Japanese novel each evening.
Written conversation
I have found two chat buddies on HelloTalk that I write to… sporadically…
Spoken conversation
I have 3 one-hour skype sessions per two weeks with italki tutors.
Future stuff
After visiting Japan for 10 days and having confirmed that listening is by far my weakest skill, I’m experimenting with creating listening comprehension flash cards from TV shows.
I’m watching Netflix with Japanese subs, and using those subtitle files as well as some audacity fiddling I create the cards from the sentences and words I don’t understand…
I’m also considering adding an extra listening-only card to my regular vocab deck.
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I seem to mostly be using wanikani but also doing a memrise course biased on Genki. I’ll be taking a Japanese college class here soon and they use the book. I have a job that i get little free time, so I will bring my ipad with me and do my wanikani reviews when I have some time. After work, exercise, and eating ill spend my last 30 mins to an hour studying. Doing wanikani lessons or going through a few pages in the Genki book.
I spend my days off mostly studying for my college classes and little bit of Japanese but mostly homework and etc for my classes.
Working full time and taking other classes really limits time I can study Japanese sadly.
Seems to be a slow process but going, only about 2 months into learning Japanese and I feel like a know a lot. I do have little envy for some full-time students with the time on their hand to spend a few hours a day just studying for Japanese.
Plantron, yes, New Japan Pro-Wrestling is a great way to learn! Actually, that’s what got me interested in Japanese. I got tired of reading subtitles and then wondering how accurate they are. Other programs in Japanese I get on YouTube or NJPW World really get my interest and that helps me stay motivated. It helps me see improvement when I understand what’s being said, too.
Yano is who I use for the Mnemonics for “low/below” as in his low blows! I haven’t figured out one for Naito yet, but I will one day.
Ha ha, don’t worry! Both of their names will come in handy very soon!
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I’m just waiting for the chance to put Naito in there! I promise I’ll know that kanji very quickly!
Thanks for all the details about your routine! As I reach the latter parts of WK, I’m finding that I want to increase my studies outside of here a bit more once again, so I might steal some of these ideas from you.
Would you recommend nihongo no mori? I’m always on the lookout for grammar resources I haven’t tried yet.
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At the very least I can definitely recommend their japanese-only N3 (with Kento) and N2 (with Yuki) video series once you feel that your japanese level is good enough to understand them!
To me personally they felt like the natural progression from Tae Kim that I’d been searching for!
And also I felt that those teachers weren’t super difficult to understand. Yuki also often had pretty good explanations for the meanings IMO.
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Ignore this if you already know about it… I’m always going on about this website.
Gives your ears big muscles 
I tried it, and I guess I’m kind of trying to accomplish something similar, but the dealbreaker for me was that there didn’t seem to be a way to SRS the videos themselves…
To each their own though 
If it was your cup of tea, then it’s likely someone else’s as well (if not mine specifically)
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I got interested in Japanese watching superhero series like Kamen Rider or the Metal Hero series. This NJPW thing sounds kinda interesting too. Although I don’t watch pro-wrestling in English, maybe the Japanese version is better. Thanks for the pointer!