Hi everyone! Welcome to a simple study log by an easily distracted person.
about
Today marks day 84 of my daily Japanese study and I decided to start a study log for accountability and to boost my motivation.
As you can see in the title: I use vanilla WaniKani. In fact all my study methods are basic, which seems to work for me so far.
I plan to post every Sunday with my study durations, progress and a little summary of how the week went.
how
Nothing fancy here
resources
Grammar: Genki 1 TB and WB, bunpro.jp, physical flashcards
Vocab: physical flashcards, Genki app
Kanji: WaniKani, kanji.sh
why so basic
WaniKani: I don’t use any scripts, that doesn’t mean that I won’t change my mind as I’m still very new.
For now I feel like not being able to edit mistakes makes me focus more during reviews. Also getting things wrong (typo or not) gives me a little annoyance boost that fuels my memory somehow.
I know there are many more scripts but I like to keep it as simple as possible for now, as I can see myself going down a rabbit hole of productivity at the cost of … my productivity.
Physical flashcards: To me writing = better learning. I’ve had words that I found difficult to remember come to me as a shape instead of their sound because of it! Yes, it takes much longer and is less efficient than Anki. I tried to like Anki, but it’s not for me.
Physical grammar flashcards: In between Genki Lesson 4 and 5 I noticed that I had a hard time recalling grammar without help. Decided if flashcards work so well for me why not give it a try… aaand it worked wonders.
My flashcards look like: “な- adjectives past tense negative - add じゃなかった（です）”.
progress
Some days are slower than others but so far I have stuck to my plan of daily study. For me it’s better to do a little everyday than a lot every now and then.
so far
2024-12-01 Start of Hiragana and Katakana. It was important to learn them with stroke order as I already knew that I will not be using Anki.
2024-12-11 Start of Genki. Might currently be the least favorite part of my routine. Once I finish a lesson I notice myself stalling for a couple of days before i start with the next one. I just finished lesson 5 2025-02-15 and am currently procrastinating.
2024-12-24 Start of WaniKani. While I had already made an account before, I listened to advice to not immediately start with kanji after learning hiragana/katakana. I’m unsure if that did anything as WaniKani is my favorite part!
2024-12-29 Start of bunpro I like that it shows the words in different contexts, how meanings can vary.
I also time my study sessions. I’m actually pretty strict with what gets timed so this number is from pure focus sessions. So far I have studied 159h which is ~1,9h a day.
I’m pretty confident in my recall of all material I’ve learnt so far. My progress is slow but hopefully I’m building a solid foundation.
routine
Daily WaniKani reviews + 15 lessons
Daily bunpro reviews everyday + lessons as I progress with Genki 1
Daily minimum 10 minutes vocab flashcards
Daily minimum 10 minutes grammar flashcards
Weekly handwritten vocab test on the newest 100 words
Genki I can’t set a routine no matter how hard i try - heeelp!
goals
I set my goals after a month of studying and finding my routine. Hopefully I managed to make them realistic this way, but I do hope to exceed them.
Summary of the week
91 days of daily study!
I managed to stick with it even though I didn’t feel all that well for most of the week.
With a total of 719 minutes / 12 hours I’m a bit behind on the hours but happy I didn’t break my streak!
Things I learnt
て-form (polite requests, sequence of events, ask/ give permission)
rules (prohibition)
explaining reason
offering help
vocabulary all of Genki lesson 6, but can’t remember つれてくる
Genki & WaniKani went well this week
Finished Genki 1 lesson 6 workbook and textbook exercises! The study log definitely helped my motivation!
WaniKani is still fun. Doing all my reviews in the morning, 15 lessons during the day and one more round of reviews before bed. Keeping everything at 0!
Goals for next week
vocab (all of Genki lesson 7)
start Genki lesson 7
reach WaniKani lvl 8
learn useful expressions about directions
Looking at this week’s log makes me realize that I learnt way more than it felt like. It’s really satisfying to see a summary of your achievements even if they are small!
I’m excited for next weeks progress and log.
I’m so happy to hear that! Tried to make it as easy on the eyes as possible for future me. I just saw that you already hit 60 once and are back at it, so cool!
Day 98 of daily study!
With a total of 673 minutes / 11 hours I’m once more behind in hours - shame on me!
But I DID study everyday and I DID learn new things - good job me!
Things I learnt but haven't internalized yet
present continuous (action in progress) ~ている
result of change ~ている
describing physical features
て-form for adjectives & nouns
verb stem + に行く(go and do)
counting people
Genki and WaniKani were okay this week
Genki
Studied all lesson 7 grammar points and know them by heart
Have only done 2 exercises so far, so don’t know grammar points in context yet
Learnt all of lesson 7 vocab except: しんせつ（な）; あたまがいい; けっこんする
WaniKani
Did all my lessons and reviews everyday
Reached level 8
Made physical flashcards for 見せる; 見える; 見当たる
Wanted to do 15 lessons each day but less were available Wednesday- Saturday.
Goals for next week
Genki lesson 7 exercises
Start Genki lesson 8
Learn useful expressions about directions
Do 5 extra WaniKani lessons on 2 days
Rambling
On the one hand I really wanted to do 15 daily lessons this week and felt slowed down by the level system.On the other hand it made me excited to reach level eight and go full speed again. I’m debating if I should adjust my routine to 20 instead of 15 lessons a day.
My accuracy is well in the 90s and WaniKani is really fun, but I don’t want to burn out.
I’ve read that reviews really start to pile up from level 20 onwards.
I also noticed my previous study log had a mistake and fixed the amount of total hours studied.
Looking at this week’s log makes me feel like I could’ve done a little more but seeing a week with all green checkmarks feels great!
Looking forward to next week!
After I learnt hiragana it felt as if I won’t be able to also remember katakana.
After learning katakana it seemed like no space in my brain was left for kanji.
After I learnt my first few kanji I felt confused by on’yomi and kun’yomi but I tried anyway.
100 days after I wrote my first hiragana, I can say that I comfortably know over 400 Genki vocab + whatever doesn’t overlap from WaniKani.
I can say that I have 81 kanji enlightened and covered 95% of JLPT N5 kanji.
And that I worked my way through more than half of Genki 1 grammar.
What I’m trying to say (and I mainly say this to myself) is you somehow MAKE space for more words, more kanji, more grammar. Even if you feel sure that you hit your limit, just keep at it!
You didn’t think you’d be able to remember katakana and look at all the things you remember now!
I’m setting my goals one Genki lesson at a time. My “big” goal is participating in the total beginner book club. And I hope smaller steps will help me to stick with my daily study.
I like following along as I feel like I’m at similar stage in the language as you with Wanikani and around half of Genki done. Thank you for sharing your journey with your really cool artwork as well.
Thank you!
So happy you’re following along. I was hoping someone that’s at a similar stage would comment at some point! It’s easy to feel like everyone is so far ahead, nice to know of others at a similar level.
Good luck with your studies
yeah aseprite is an amazing program with many features and worth the price but you just want to try pixel art maybe check this: https://www.piskelapp.com/ .
And if you enjoy it maybe aseprite is worth it for you later on!
Day 105 of daily study!
With a total of 779 min/ 13h I’m almost on target! This was a rather difficult week. From my first glance at the new grammar points it seems like this week won’t be easier.
What I learnt
つれてくる
Present continuous (action in progress) ~ている
Result of change ~ている
Describing physical features
て-form for adjectives & nouns
Verb stem + に行く(go and do)
counting people
Genki parts of the body
Overview genki lesson 8
Genki and WaniKani went well this week
WaniKani
Great WaniKani week, did all reviews and lessons every day but didn’t do extra lessons.
(some of this weeks vocabulary was harder than usual). Still level 8 with 16/30 kanji.
Genki
Completed all lesson 7 textbook and workbook exercises. Minimal mistakes, but took a lot of focus and the present continuous does not feel natural to me.
Had a look at all lesson 8 topics to get an overview before tackling them next week. Have a feeling it won’t be an easy week.
Goals for next week
Genki
Lesson 8 grammar (flashcards)
Lesson 8 vocabulary
Start textbook exercises
Useful expressions about directions
WaniKani
Do all reviews and lessons daily
One day of extra lessons
Rambling
When learning a language one advice that comes up a lot is to make the learning process fun. I don’t know that I particularly enjoy studying but recalling my new knowledge is fun.
This week I felt as if I hit my limit again. The present continuous was a bit more challenging than previous grammar points for me.
For example:
Q: おとうさんはなにをしていますか。
A:（お父とうさんは）ぎんこうで はたらいています。
“Father is working at a bank” sounds like he is currently working there to me. “Father works at a bank” comes more natural to me. I’ll just have to get used to that.
I also decided to post my log on Monday because my reviews came in kind of late on Sunday.
I guess sometimes I will post Sundays and other times Mondays from now on, depending on my reviews.
Congratulations!! It’s so cool that you were consistent for 100 days!
Consistency is my biggest enemy, and also what I have learned is maybe most important (for me) when it comes to learning Japanese. I got the farthest by literally showing up and doing no matter what (and stalled majorly when I neglected regular practice).
It’s cool hearing about your goals!
What I’m trying to say (and I mainly say this to myself) is you somehow MAKE space for more words, more kanji, more grammar. Even if you feel sure that you hit your limit, just keep at it!
^^ THIS is something it took me way too long to learn, and I’m trying to remind myself every day now. Every now and then I stall a while thinking there’s no way I could possibly add more and retain it all. But I wanna finish Wanikani for real, and I think my brain can handle more than I believe. Nice to hear it put so succinctly
I got the farthest by literally showing up and doing no matter what
Couldn’t agree more, just getting started helps a lot. I see you’re level 28 and I hope that I will make it that far.
Did you also get hit by the level 20 workload increase that people talk about? It’s the reason I limit myself to 15 lessons a day.
Hm, yes when I started getting items back from burning, I’d say my review load went up a bit! I do anywhere 60-100 reviews once a day, and 15-40 reviews another 2 times a day. My schedule is pretty wacky, so unfortunately it’s not super consistent.
I also had several periods over the past few years where I couldn’t designate as much time to Wanikani, so I got stuck trying to bring down a major review backlog before doing any lessons. You can take a glance at my level up charts in my study log to see how truly inconsistent I’ve been hahah. There have been years worth of procrastination on a few levels D:….
But I find that if I stick as closely as possible to using Wanikani how it was designed (doing the reviews when they come up), even 100 reviews at a time can go by like a breeze. I’m feeling motivated to remain consistent now because it’s been SUCH a long time and I want to make it to 60 at last!
how
progress
goals
