I’m starting this study log because I need something to keep me accountable.
My history with the Japanese Language
I have been trying to learn Japanese since around 2008 and for various reasons have made no real progress. I attended university to study Japanese in 2008 but at the time was dealing with a lot of issues at home and I couldn’t complete the course.
I fell into a spiral of mild depression, job hopping and not really having any stability in life so Japanese took a complete backseat and I didn’t study again properly until around 2016 when I was introduced to WaniKani by my brother. I did the free levels and enjoyed the process enough to pay for a few months and decided I would try and give the JLPT N5 a good go - as this was something to work towards! I studied hard, kept a good schedule and managed to pass the exam in 2019! I was over the moon and remember ordering N4 books on the train journey home from the exam because I felt so confident and that’s when life threw me another set of curveballs.
As much as I tried to stay consistent with my studies, I lost one of my cats to cancer, my grandad passed away on my birthday, my dad passed away on Christmas Day and my grandma passed away not long after that. This all took place over the course of a couple of years and derailed everything I had setup for myself - not only with studies but just life in general. I was lucky I had a good/supportive job (the one I’m still in) so I didn’t need to worry about making rent etc.
That brings us to today. It’s the beginning of a new year and I’m going to try my hardest to succeed in 2025! I have just been through a bit of a transformation with my physical health over the last year losing around 23kg of body weight and now working on gaining strength and muscle and the discipline I used to achieve that is something I want to incorporate with my Japanese studies.
Plan for 2025
Reach level 30 on WaniKani
Finish N5 and N4 pathways in Bunpro
Complete Kaishi 1.5k Anki deck
Pass the JLPT N4
Complete Genki books
Complete Quartet books
Find a tutor to practice with
Plan for January
This month is going to be a catch up period where I want to clear all my reviews in WaniKani, Bunpro and Anki and then start getting on with new cards/lessons.
At the time of writing (2nd January 2025) I have: 429 WaniKani reviews (Level 10) 253 Bunpro reviews (Level 28) 215 Anki reviews
I’ll also be reviewing the Genki chapters and trying to gage where I’m up to so I can continue with the books.
I’ll be researching Japanese tutors to try and find one I can start meeting with on a regular basis.
I hid a lot of the post because it seemed long and I didn’t want it to flood the post! If you took the time to read it, thank you, but this is mostly being created so I have somewhere I can update every week with my progress. With that said, I am hoping to meet others on their journey and share how we are doing!
I am thinking that Sunday would be the best day to post my updates so you can expect to hear from me in a couple of days with an update of where I’m currently at with my reviews!
Thank you! I have been looking through the absolute beginner options since making this post actually and there are some fun looking books so I may take one up for a challenge!
Welcome and congrats for coming so far! As someone who has experience with life events delaying their studying, I feel you. Something I’ve learned is a good steady pace that you can keep or at least not fall behind too much when unexpected life events come up.
I pushed really hard to reach level 30 in about a year while I was pregant, then the second born came along, other personal stuff happened, and I came back having to reset a few levels down just so I could think about logging back into Wanikani again. And that was 8 months ago. I think I’m really going to have to reset to at least level 20 just to get the motivation back to make logging in everyday a habit again.
Anyway, everyone is on their different paths to reaching Japanese fluency or at least a reasonable understanding of the language and the culture. If you don’t have any reason to speed through it (like for a job transfer to Japan in a few months), there’s no shame in keeping a steady pace. Time will pass, and if I had even just leveled up once a month for the past 3 years, I would have been much better off than I am now. Just my two cents!
I am definitely going to take the approach of being kind to myself because I think that’s basically been my downfall all these years. I think the goals I have set myself are attainable but I will also not beat myself up at the end of the year if things don’t go completely to plan!
I see you’re now level 20 so looks like you did reset a little so I just wanted to say I hope this helps with your studies and I have bookmarked your study log as well to see how things go! We can do it!
That’s right! I am now clear on both WaniKani and Bunpro! I’m going to wait a couple of days before doing any new lessons for WaniKani because I want the dust to settle on reviews so it doesn’t become an avalanche. As for Bunpro, I will be keeping up the Genki vocab side of things daily but halting grammar until I know where to continue off on the books.
A good start to the year for sure and hoping the momentum can continue at a good pace!
Not levelled up in WaniKani but I have done quite a few lessons and I’m almost caught up in things added to previous levels and the current one so I can start making progress on level 10 content this week. I have also done quite a few new vocab bits in Bunpro and making nice steady progress there too.
In terms of Genki, I have managed to go through the first 7 chapters of Genki for review and believe this is roughly where I was up to. Had a flick through the rest of the book and some of it seems familiar but this is where I’ll continue from this week!
I’m still looking into a tutor but this took a bit of a backseat this week as I had a lot on with work and was just making sure I kept up with reviews, lessons and reviewing Genki.
Overall, very happy with the week and ready for another week of consistent Japanese studies!
I’m doing well but need to start ramping up grammar now.
With one of my goals being to take the N4 exam this year, ideally in July, I need to put together a rough plan. That’s the job for this week - to lay out the chapters leading up to the exam date and also incorporate some specific JLPT practice books as well.
I have moved onto chapter 8 of Genki and I also cleared my Anki reviews too! Nice to be at zero reviews almost every day and I should see a level up on WaniKani this week too!
I may dabble with some reading this week so I’ll be checking out the absolute beginner clubs to see what tickles my fancy!
Hope everyone has had a great week and your studies are going well!
Time for the weekly check-in and things are still moving along nicely. My current issue is fitting in grammar time so I need to prioritise this and try to build a better schedule otherwise I’m not really going to make any progress!
I did level up on WaniKani this week so that is very exciting! I have a boatload of lessons to now get through (150 or so) and this is my fault for only doing reviews and not keeping up with lessons. We live and we learn though, eh?
Despite the lack of grammar studying, I have not been this consistent with my reviews in a long time so I’m taking that win and not beating myself up too much.
Let’s move into the next week and get some grammar in! Hope everyone is doing great and enjoying their own studies!
There’s been a lot going on at work and some life admin to do this week but I still managed to keep on top of my reviews as do more lessons in all three tools. A few revues left for Bunpro but I’ll sort those tomorrow morning.
I have also moved onto Chapter 9 of Genki and it’s going well. It is still somewhat reviewing grammar so I’m progressing nicely but I don’t want to get into a bad habit of rushing and not studying new grammar points or those I’ve forgotten properly.
Having said that, I saw someone on Instagram talk about how they went through the Genki and Quartet books (which I own the first book of) at a decent pace and just getting familiar with grammar before going into proper immersion and using the grammar dictionaries as a reference.
I kind of like this idea and think this may be a good approach for me as I actually don’t enjoy getting bogged down in textbooks and lose the motivation and discipline to finish them if it starts to drag. I’ll put some more thought into it and see where we go!
We have very similar goals. I don’t use the Genki textbooks because I feel lazy when I open up a textbook. Instead, I learn grammar through this playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjFjJi2bXNa7u-tOOwZ7gxLBhSps2fiNk&feature=shared, which is basically a compilation of both ToKini Andy’s and Game Gengo’s entire Genki 1 series. I stopped after finishing Chapter 10, so I’m on 11 now. Before moving on, I wanted to review some old grammar points, and on Bunpro, I’m also level 32.
After completing the Genki series, I plan to move on to Quartet. I’m using my own modified version of the Kaishi 1.5k deck—I made it similar to WaniKani/ToriiSRS so that you have to type your answer in Anki, and it then highlights your answer box in green or red for right and wrong, instead of just clicking on ‘Pass’ and ‘Fail’ like in the original deck.
My WK level is only 8, but I plan to reach level 30 by the end of this year. I currently have a 189 day WK review streak and a 151 day review streak on Bunpro. I only just started speeding up my progress on WK recently by doing new lessons more frequently. I also started doing a challenge where I aim to do all my reviews and lessons within the day so it’s 0/0, and currently my streak is 9. I already have a great iTalki tutor, but it’s only for casual Japanese. I record all of my lessons. I also want to finish both the N5 and N4 pathways on Bunpro by the end of the year. I’m not sure about taking the JLPT, though.
Thanks for taking the time to share your current progress and goals. I’m finding that I can stay on top of my reviews without any issues at the moment and I’m getting through new lessons regularly but dedicated grammar study is the thing I’m having the most trouble staying consistent on.
I will have a look at that playlist but I also pay for TokiniAndy’s course but I’m finding I don’t do everything for each chapter so not sure if it’s worth sticking with it on the website. I may just use the free YouTube videos to get through the grammar books for Genki and Quartet then move onto immersion properly.
I also like the idea of recording italki lessons! Something to go back to and see where improvements can be made.
A single level up in Bunpro but no level up on WaniKani this week though I have made good progress through lessons! I have stayed on top of Anki and I’m a good chunk through this my first deck now. Definitely getting a lot more vocab to my arsenal!
I’ll finish those outstanding reviews before bed but I wanted to record accurately where I’m at the time of writing.
I NEED to make a proper effort this week to get my grammar on track so let’s get that sorted!
Anyway, bed soon then it’s the start of a new week! Hope everyone is progressing well and enjoying your studies!
I used to pay for his course too, but I stopped and now just rely on the playlist I linked to you. It contains both Game Gengo’s Genki videos and ToKini Andy’s. Occasionally, if I feel like I need to study the grammar points more, I’ll search on YouTube for ‘Genki lesson x’ to watch other YouTubers teach that same lesson and I’ll skip to the specific grammar point that I’m struggling with. The YouTubers ‘Shiro Neko Japanese’ and ‘Yuko Sensei’ have also covered Genki content. I would then add the grammar I just learned to Bunpro and listen to all of the audio clips for more examples.
I have supported Andy for a while and do love the content but I just wasn’t using the website so I’m stopping my payments and going to just use the playlist you linked. Thanks for sharing!
It’s great that Andy has done videos for Genki 2 and the Quartets as well. Not sure if Game Genki has gone that far?
Another Sunday and another week of Japanese studies in the bag!
This week has been pretty productive to be honest. I levelled up on WaniKani so I’m now at 12! I will now include how many lessons I have left as well because level ups don’t come as often so it would be nice to track that as well.
Not entirely sure how to keep track of Bunpro in the same way but I have almost finished the N5 path and some of N4 has already been ticked off as I’m following the Genki book path.
Anki I have decided to track how many new cards in my current desk are left and will note when I move onto a new deck.
With reviews all under control, I finally made some progress with grammar!
I have ditched going through the books via TokiniAndy’s course in favour of the YouTube playlist that @ihatethislanguage popped in a comment - thank you so much! This has been way more engaging for me and I have progressed much faster! The Genki books are pretty much a review source for me and filling in knowledge gaps for things that never stuck so I don’t need to be going crazy with them.
I have also been reading a great beginner book called Short Stories for Japanese Learners by Japanese Language Park. It’s been great to be able to understand short stories without too much trouble and the format is really nice. You first read the story in Japanese, you’re then asked a few questions about it and afterwards you have some useful vocab and a full translation to go over if you need to. I think there are 4 books in total so far and I’m still on the first but it’s given me a massive boost of confidence to actually use my knowledge to read something!!
Looking forward to the week ahead and getting some more studies in. This may be the week I look at the book clubs!
Unfortunately, he hasn’t. After the Genki 1 playlist, I’ll probably only focus on ToKini Andy’s Genki 2 and Quartet vids and look up any specific grammar points I still struggle with. I’m sure many YouTubers have covered these same grammar points, even if their lessons aren’t specifically tied to Genki or Quartet.
As for Game Gengo, he may not have covered the other books, but he has some other great vids, like a two hour long one that covers every single JLPT N5 grammar point with video game examples. He also has similar vids for every N4 and N3 grammar points, which are even longer. Additionally, he has a playlist covering every N5 kanji with their kunyomi, onyomi, as well as some common non-standard readings, along with word examples from the 10,000 most useful words according to kanshudo.com. These vids might be useful for review since, at our current WK level, we’ve covered almost all N5 kanji as well as most N5 grammar points according to Bunpro.