It’s been a while since I started learning Japanese. To be precise, I began studying it in 2017 when I enrolled in a Japanese Studies degree at uni. Unfortunately, at the time I was struggling with my mental health and I didn’t learn much; the experience ended up kind of traumatizing. After that, I couldn’t bring myself to touch Japanese for three years.
During uni, I somehow convinced myself that I wasn’t good at learning languages, and after I ditched Japanese, I kept jumping from one language to another. Eventually, I started studying Korean seriously and even began understanding phrases in K-dramas. That reignited my passion for learning languages. I stumbled upon some lessons on Japanese philosophy, poetry and art, and fell in love with Japan all over again. After that, it was decided that I want to give another shot at Japanese, and finish my education after learning Japanese to a N3 level.
My Wanikani journey
At some point I found Wanikani. I did the free levels, and I loved it. But I was broke, and I couldn’t afford it, so I started using the Anki version of wanikani. But it wasn’t the same. When I was around the 12th level, I decided that it was time to pay the subscription, as I finally had the financial opportunity to do so.
I was doing my reviews daily, and things were going great. But then life threw me a curveball in June, and I lost all my habits, free time, and momentum. When I logged back into Wanikani yesterday (07/12/2024), I had 1,890 reviews waiting for me. Over the past two days, I’ve been tackling them consistently with a renewed sense of motivation. Since I’ve managed to establish a steady study routine before, I’m confident I can recreate it now.
Plans for 2025
Reach Wanikani lvl 30
Read 君の名は
Get a tutor
Finish Tobira 1
Finish Tobira 2
Start Tobira 3 (probably won’t be happening)
Try bunpro
Read 10 books by Japanese authors or essays about Japan or Japanese culture
Previous months
December 2024
December milestones:
Finish reviews
Reach level 14 → Couldn’t finish reviews, so couldn’t do it
Read 1 story or news post → didn’t do it
listen to 10 “nihongo con teppei” episodes → Ended up listening more that 3h of other posdcasts.
January 2025
Finish reviews
Reach level 14 ← review hell is back
Listen to 4 hours of podcast ← did not happen
Read 7 NHK easy news
Tobira 1 (idk what chapter, but a chapter)
Read The theory of kawaii → 100% done
Read a few chapters of Genji Monogatari → 10% done ← didn’t even touch the book this month
Japanese essays and books by Japanese authors I've read
Теория каваии - Инухико Ёмота (The kawaii theory - Inuhiko Yomota)
February March milestones
Finish review hell once again
7 NHK easy news
7 Todoku stories
Tobira 1 - 2 chapters
Read the shinto book at least to 60%
Read a few chapters of Genji Monogatari → 10% done
A fellow poetry reader ! Really cool, do you read waka too ?
One little trick that can help you if you listen to these episodes on Youtube : using the extension rikaikun on the subtitles when you don’t understand a sentence. That’s something I do all the time when I watch a podcast here (I talked about this extension so many times here on Wk that someone will end up believing that I’m paid to advertise it… but no, I just think it’s a great tool and I wish I had known about it earlier in my journey)
Anyways… welcome to the Study Logs, I hope this thread will keep you motivated
I’m more into haiku. I stumbled upon a few waka, but didn’t really had the opportunity to appreciate them yet. When majoring in Japanese Studies I didn’t understand Japanese poetry at all. But in April or May, after watching online lessons about Japanese aesthetics (wabi, sabi, yuugen, shibumi…), the lecturer started giving examples of the aesthetic in poetry (mainly haiku), and then I understood a lot and fell in love with it. After that I started following the lecturers on telegram, and sometimes they talk about some haiku and analyze it. That’s how I interact with haiku and learn more. I didn’t have this experience yet with waka. I rarely read poetry by myself, but I aspire to do it at some point. Right now, I plan on reading Japanese literature by period, and reading research about that period. I have a few books on history of Japanese literature I want to read. But first I have to rebuild my reading habit. As I said previously, I ended up without any positive habit for a little more than half a year now, so first things first .
If you can recommend some waka poetry, I would love to give it a shot!
I have it installed since years ago, but I didn’t think it works on subs! Great to know, thank you!
When I move to harder videos and podcasts it will be of great help. When I was studying Korean, I was using migaku, and I loved it. Maybe at some point I will be able to afford it again (stopped using it to pay for Wanikani). For now it seems like a great substitute! Thank you!
I hope so too! I wanted to start a studylog ages ago, but for some reason I couldn’t bring myself to do it until now. It always motivates me to read about other’s journey, and how they overcome difficult times. I hope, at some point, my studylog will be of similar value to someone. (Well, it is of great value to me, but that’s not exactly what I’m talking about).
I totally get this. The word “momentum” you used in your first post is really the most adequate ; I lost it too with Wanikani and my reading habit, but I guess it’s a learning experience. I have to slowly get back into it.
If you are curious I have all my recommended sources on the first post of my translation thread It’s entirely classical Japanese though, perhaps you want to focus on modern Japanese right now ? But there are a lot of overlaps between the two anyways.
The truth is that we will always fall out of good habits. But every time we restart them, we tend to stick with them a little longer (at least in my experience). Hopefully, at some point, we’ll spend less time on harmful habits and more time cultivating the good ones .
I’ll definitely take a look later! Actually, I’m more interested in classical Japanese right now. Before I stopped reading altogether, I was reading The Tale of Genji and The Pillow Book. The only modern thing I was reading are essays.
I’d love to restart those books by the end of December or early January . We’ll see how it goes, because I don’t really have a plan right now for that habit.
The month is almost over, and it didn’t go as planned.
I have a bunch of reviews, and I just hope I’ll be able to complete all of them by the end of January. It was going great until I reached 500 reviews. I just couldn’t get past that number of reviews, because they just kept accumulating day after day at a faster pace than I could do my reviews. And there were a few days this week I couldn’t do any review at all. So… back at 784 (at least, we are not at 1000!).
I did listen 3 or 4 hours of podcast. But it wasn’t the nihongo con teppei podcast.
For future milestones, I probably won’t be including specific resources. Tomorrow I’ll read the story or news post, and will listen to that podcast so that I can cross at least those points out.
Overall, it was not the worse. But I really hope I’ll be done with the reviews soon, because it’s just depressing.
I hope it will be a wonderful year, full of adventures and happiness.
At some point, I learned the hard way, that New Year’s resolutions doesn’t work for me, and that I should just create a habit that will eventually lead me to the initial goal I had. But this year, I would like to try to make a resolution again. Just to see if I changed and this time I won’t sabotage myself.
New Year’s Resolutions
Reach N3
Read 君の名は (I bought the book years ago)
Reach wk lvl 30
Read 10 Japanese books (essays or classical literature) ← not in Japanese
Breakdown of milestones
Reach N3
Get a tutor
Finish Tobira 1, 2 (3 would be nice too, but I don’t think it will be happening)
Problem: I have a hard time opening a book to study. Have to look up for a solution (or an alternative). I really like Tobira books tho, so I would really love to finish them. Tobira 1 and part of 2 is more a review for me, because at uni I finished both minna (there’s a bunch of stuff I don’t remember, though).
May be trying bunpro.
Read 君の名は
By summer or autumn, I will be focusing on learning the vocab from the book, reading the corresponding chapter and learning new grammar on the go.
Would be nice to read some books/manga that are my level.
Reach wk lvl 30
Create a habit. If I can’t get my reviews done every day, it’s ok. The important thing is to do at least something every day.
Read 10 Japanese books
Will be reading at least 10 pages a day of something. This month I would love to finish The theory of kawaii (Inuhiko Yomota), and advance Genji monogatari. I don’t think I’ll finish it, because it’s looooong.
January milestones
Finish reviews
Reach level 14
Listen to 4 hours of podcast
Read 7 NHK easy news
Tobira 1 (idk what chapter, but a chapter)
Read The theory of kawaii
Read a few chapters of Genji Monogatari
And that’s it
How did your New Year’s celebration go? What are your resolutions? What are you planning for January?
If you are still hesitating before taking a subscription the content is actually free to look up to, only the SRS is behind a pay-wall (perhaps you already know it)
That seems interesting, I will put it in my bookmarks so I can purchase it later !
It was pretty comfy actually, nothing special As for the resolutions… well ; I think those don’t really work for me either but maybe I will try once more this year, don’t know yet… I think that, like you said, creating a habit to do at least something, anything, every day, is important… the most difficult part is of course the beginning, when the neural pathways are not imprinted deeply in the brain, we have to walk over them again and again, to make a dirt road among the grass.
I think it was not actually translated to english! I’m reading a russian translation of the book.
It was recommended in a course about japanese aesthetics. So long I like it.
I actually think that every time we try to create a habit, we try to do it in its final form. Ignoring that a habit is a bunch of smaller habits. So maybe starting with something ridiculously small is the way
I’m gonna count that as finishing my reviews, even though I won’t be starting the new lessons until next week or so, because I will be having a lot of reviews still:
After the 1894 reviews, I have a bunch of words that leveled down to apprentice and guru. I will probably be trying to clear it out a bit before starting learning new words.
I finished reading The theory of kawaii. There were quite a few interesting ideas I didn’t think about. There were some confusing and vague moments as well, however, overall, it was a nice read. I have to reflect some more, and reread quotes before I form my opinion. Will be rewatching a class/conference/idk what to call it about the kawaii aesthetic in Japan, to solidify my view and opinion soon (before I forget what I had read)
I should read Genji Monogatari, as it’s the other book I have on my January list, but I don’t feel like reading fiction. Even though I have a lot to read: I have quite a few books of Kobo Abe, Akutagawa Ryunosuke, and other classical authors. But for some reason, it’s way easier for me to read essays rather than literature.
I’m thinking to read a book about shinto, and don’t force myself to read literature. Even though it would be probably smart to have a month to read only literature or something. I don’t know what would be the best way to read more literature and fewer essays. Welp, at least I read I guess’)
I wonder if you have read 蜘蛛の糸 from him ? That’s such a dark story. It actually made me think about the question of free will, and determinism. Was Kandata always meant to act like he did ? I would be curious to know the buddhist opinion about that question, since they have all these ideas about karma and past lives… the Paradise described in the story also gave me some weird ambivalent feelings, would it be really possible to enjoy it when you only have to look below to see all the criminals suffering in Hell, even if they deserved it ?
I’ve found this book recently, it’s really amazing ; maybe it would help you to read some short stories with these training wheels to have a smoother, easier reading experience ? There are other books similar to it just below.
I didn’t read it, but I have the book. I don’t read literature since uni. In february or march i’ll do my best to read it, so that we can comment on it!
I was planning on reading the tadoku books this next months! I don’t want to spend money rn in japanese books and textbooks (I even started a challenge to finish my current textbooks).
I’m still dealing with the wall of reviews
I have a lot of things to do rn in the programming school I’m in, so that they don’t kick me out :')
I had 2 weeks not doing my reviews much, but I’m back to it.
Rn aiming to do anki for an hour at least.
I’m doing my best to go slowly through the Tobira textbook. I didn’t do new lessons on wk yet, just going through review hell. But it’s ok. I don’t find it dreadful at least.
I’m reading a study about shinto! But I was sick for a week and a half and didn’t really have energy (nor time as I wrote earlier) to do anything. Hopefully I’ll be coming back to reading soon. It would be nice to finish the shinto book, and maybe start the ryuunosuke book by the end of february.
In a way, where I started doing it 4 years ago, did the whole vocab Anki deck for it and I’m doing grammar from it on Bunpro, covered two chapters of the textbook… and my classes are doing the intermediate みんなの日本語 instead ;___; xd
Any favorite texts from Tobira? I really like the reading sesions from it ^^
Also, shinto book sounds fun, hope you get back to reading ^^
Keep going! C:
I’m doing the 2 basic books first! I have low N4 level, because I keep forgetting grammar :')
I hope to finish both basic books, and buy the intermediate to advance one. I do think it’s a really good book, and I find the exercises entertaining. But now doing Tobira is not enjoyable: I moved houses a few months ago, and I don’t have a work space, nor a sofa. In a month or so the sofa I ordered have to arrive, but until then I don’t have a cozy place to do anything. So I just suffer the learning rn. But proud to be doing it anyways.
I probably should write the february goals, since January ended…
I noticed I didn’t mark a lot of the things I did on January as done, so I marked it and hid on “previous months”. I will do my best to not forget marking everything I do.
February was a blur.
It’s been a month and a half that I started being sick, and I’m still sick. It’s not something serious, it’s just bad luck: I had a cold 2 or 3 times, caught a flu, infected my husband, and then he infected me back. I sprained my ankle… I feel like my body decided to have a year worth of illness in a month
So my milestones for march will remain exactly the same. I hope I’ll be feeling better soon, and, maybe, it would be a good idea to write every week, instead of editing the original post with progress and writing here only when I successfully reach a milestone.
February March milestones 
but no, I just think it’s a great tool and I wish I had known about it earlier in my journey)
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It’s entirely classical Japanese though, perhaps you want to focus on modern Japanese right now ? But there are a lot of overlaps between the two anyways.
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. We’ll see how it goes, because I don’t really have a plan right now for that habit.
Happy New Year 
New Year’s Resolutions 
Breakdown of milestones 
And that’s it 
As for the resolutions… well ; I think those don’t really work for me either 
but maybe I will try once more this year, don’t know yet… I think that, like you said, creating a habit to do at least something, anything, every day, is important… the most difficult part is of course the beginning, when the neural pathways are not imprinted deeply in the brain, we have to walk over them again and again, to make a dirt road among the grass.
