Lowkey busy as hell right now but decided to make one of these anyway for fun.
About me
Dumb and diligent might be the key words here. I do a lot of dumb things but manage to do some smart things sometimes! I’m the guy that asks the dumbest questions in class and somehow gets a good score on the exam. I’m a WFH software engineer who went to Japan recently and decided it was supremely important that I learn a difficult language used by very few people. Wanted to see if modern language tools would expedite the process. Have Chinese language background. My other hobby that I invest into like a robot is power lifting, which I have done for over 10 years. Much experience in being a robot.
Currently
Started learning Japanese at the end of September 2024. Currently running a 2K core Anki deck, bunpro (grammar), and WK. Have Anki set to 20 words per day and should be done with 2K words by early January 2025. Plan to continue to rote review these core 2K until they’re burned into my brain. Realized very quickly that just knowing the vocab was not enough if you can’t glue the words together so currently drilling grammar. Started with Renshuu but switched to Bunpro. Already read Renshuu’s grammar lessons up to (and including) N4, but am repeating on Bunpro since I prefer their presentation and quizzing. Plan to drill N5 grammar ad-nauseam until its second nature. Currently do 5 grammar points a day. Undecided if I will slow down when it gets more difficult (leaning towards earlier exposure to new rules with weaker overall grasp vs late exposure to new rules with stronger overall grasp). I hear it’s also not good to try to speak early in the learning process but I’ve done it anyway and plan to continue to speak even with limited knowledge. To test my listening, I use youtube and spotify. Will start watching anime in January (I have watched some but not in a serious capacity).
Goal
Want to become reasonably conversational in Japanese. Plan to learn at least 6K vocab (WK/Anki) and N5/N4/N3 by the middle of Summer 2025. I plan to use this log to get input from others on how my study methods should evolve over time. For example, I’ve read that being over-invested in vocab count via Anki deck can be a waste of time. Or that certain methods are better for different reasons (watching anime vs reading novels vs reading manga vs actual conversation). I plan to keep it simple for now (anki/bunpro/WK/youtube/spotify) but later on I expect some revisions to happen.
Finished Bunpro N5. Creating physical flash cards for N5 grammar (Japanese on one side, English translations/variations on the other). Not “think in Kanji” yet but it’s fine for now. Just want to be quick on the grammar points. Will repeatedly cram N5 grammar until I go to Japan again mid December. Goal is to eventually be super solid in N5 thru N3. N2 and N1 is a we’ll see. I rather communicate than be technically perfect.
Starting N4 grammar (5 per day). Got through a fat Anki review pile the other day (fell slightly behind due to putting off Anki until the end of the day/night). 708 words left in 2K Anki @ 20 words per day. I’m low level in WK so it’s still very manageable. Combined with the 2K anki deck, should be slightly ahead in words learned so far.
So I’m in Japan agane. Staying for an extended period this time so I rented an apartment through Sakura House. Saves me ~$2k USD. Also got a month long gym membership for $120. Still cheaper than Equinox! (Heavy cope)
Finished 35/177 of N4 on bunpro. Gonna do 10-15 of these per day and knock these out quickly (again, loose understanding but, fast exposure). Still running Anki while on train, eating, at home, etc. Only 534 words left to learn in the 2k deck. My daily number of cards is around ~200 (new + review + relearn) right now, owing mostly to that 1 time I procrastinated. I hear it’s not good to overly focus on Anki word count, but maybe ditching after 2k is too soon? Might push the 10k deck but eh… doesn’t seem healthy and eats up too much grammar time. Potentially do-able if I set words per day to 5-10. Considering putting the 2k core on perma review and using WK for vocab while I focus on grammar. Also need to start watching more Japanese content so I can just copy what they’re saying and have some stock sentences loaded in my brain.
流石, a robot with an intense study plan. I have some more resources in my humble study log if you’re interested. Sounds like you’ll be able to speed run this no problem while I take copious cat naps.
So I’ve been in Japan a little over a month now. Finished the 2K deck (the last few hundred words are fake… mostly Katakana vocab). Finished N4 in bunpro as well. Going to just review/cram N4 until I go back to the states in about a week. Will start N3 when I return. Immersion learning is actually non-trivial when you only have ~3.3 months of Japanese under your belt. That said, the 2K deck is surprisingly effective.
The plan now is to perma-review the 2K Anki deck while continuing to add new vocab via WK (and misc sources like YT) while focusing on grammar (N5/N4/N3/N2) in bunpro for the next 3 months. Might crack open the 10K anki deck depending on how good I feel about grammar progress (lowkey 20 words per day is manageable… just don’t miss a single day or the review pile is hell). Gonna start watching Terrace House to improve my speaking/listening xd.
Also if anyone has some tips or suggestions, I’m all ears!
Terrace House sounds like the best idea out of this post, it’s a skill that’s separate from Anki and Bunpro, but it’s still pretty useful ^^
Good luck WFHing Robot, no more zero days, only days with a 0/0 at the end ^^
I think you also might be at the level right now where it’s worth it to start engaging with Japanese content, whether it’s manga or books or anything else - you won’t learn Japanese faster than just by engaging with Japanese language out there !
Second the Terrace House bit - great practice. Plenty of other TV shows etc. out there as well but it doesn’t get much more natural than unscripted conversations in daily life settings. Maybe try getting into reading as well. A lot of grammar etc. didn’t really click for me until I saw a whole load of examples of it actually being used.
I’m through around… 15 episodes of Terrace House (slightly less than 1 episode per day). I’ve determined it would be good to know more grammar before trying to read/watch TOO much content (at least N5-N3 should be covered). I’ve also realized that my ability to recall N4 grammar was well below where it should be because I used the SRS system on bunpro incorrectly (it’s based on an honor system like Anki, not like WK where when you’re wrong you’re wrong, no going back). So I was getting destroyed by the reviews. Partially my fault because it was hard to keep up with bunpro and anki deck while I was in Japan working west coast hours (I slacked on bunpro and focused on finishing the 2k deck which was hitting me with 240 reviews a day). TLDR, I had to reset my bunpro progress. I get around 90% accuracy in N5. I’m starting N4 from the beginning. At 6 lessons per day, I’ll be on track to finishing N1 in around 132 days or 5 months. Trying to mimic this other guy where he finished N1-N5 in 180 days at 5-10 lessons per day. His strategy was to hand-write notes. I am doing the same.
I was also about to start a custom deck but I noticed that the 10k anki deck includes many of the words I would have added to the custom deck so I went ahead and started doing the 10k deck. Currently doing 200 wpd until I get thru the words I already know from 2k deck.
Current strategy is:
2k deck (on review, takes ~30 minutes as opposed to 2-3 hours when I was learning)
10k deck (variable progression but probably 0-10 wpd while I focus on Bunpro)
WK (currently very easy compared to everything else, default settings)
Bunpro (main focus N4/N3)
Terrace House
I’ve also seen curedolly mentioned a lot… need to look into it. I will stop learning vocab is it hinders my grammar progression. Supposedly, N3/N4 are harder than N1/N2 so I will devote extra time to this.
Finished N4 in bunpro (properly this time, with correct SRS usage via honor system). Going to let it marinate for a few days before cracking open N3. Same idea, 6 grammar points a day (3 morning, 3 evening). The strategy I employed was the same as another guy’s strategy where he writes down all the grammar points in writing. I don’t remember the last time I had a pen run out of ink but it happened here. ETA for N3 is roughly 36 days at 6 grammar points per day. Some days I do 3 grammar points, some days I do 9. Never more than 9. Looking to finish N3 by end of April.
2K deck now has roughly 60 cards per day which takes me less than 10 minutes to review. 10K deck is now caught up to where new cards are actually new vocab. Doing a conservative 10 new cards per day, sometimes less. Still doing WK at a leisurely pace (I value grammar more than vocab at the moment). Default settings. I watched roughly 30 videos from cure dolly. There’s sentiment on reddit that while she criticizes the conventional way of teaching Japanese, it is best for most people to go through conventional methods and then shift to cure dolly way of thinking. Probably going to do this myself. It’s just way easier to do what bunpro tells me to do.
The goal is to finish N3 by end of April, N2 by mid June, and N1 by August. Once bunpro grammar has been covered, it will be put on perma-review in the same manner as the 2K anki deck. Goal afterwards will be vocab (10K anki deck), immersion, and output. The thing I care about the most personally is output but immersion is necessary for listening which is gonna be important as well. Still haven’t delved much into reading besides bunpro review prompts. I have noticed that I pick up way more words when listening to Japanese audio whether it be vocabulary or grammar points. Slowly but surely. Will update again when N3 is finished.
Just finished N3 in Bunpro doing exactly what I said I would do. Going to take 5 days off bunpro before starting N2 which should take another 36 days at 6 grammar points per day. Still running Anki 2k/10k and WaniKani for vocab. They’ve definitely taken a backseat for grammar. I don’t do the 2k deck daily anymore, but every 3 days. The 10k deck I do mostly daily with 5 new words per day. Since I am doing Anki and WK simultaneously, I don’t attempt to push that many new words on Anki, especially when grammar takes up most of my time.
Now that I’ve finished N3, I’m going to start reading visual novels to speed up my grammar/vocab learning rate. Recently watched Totoro and Kiki’s delivery service and understood most of it which felt nice. I want to try to watch Grave of the Fireflies without subtitles (I’ve never seen the movie before), but that’s a long way off. I plan to become fairly proficient before I attempt this. Haven’t watched Terrace House for a while but I still watch random youtube videos in Japanese. More focused on reading now than listening. Since I’ve finished N3, I can confidently spend more time immersing without getting stuck as much.
Speaking has been on the backburner as well. Trying to figure out reading first. Saw some posts related to passing N1 in under a year and the method is basically to read as much as possible as soon as possible. So while I don’t plan on taking the JLPT, I do like this idea of reaching a point where your vocabulary just explodes and you learn super fast. So I’m going to try to reach that point. I’ll update again when N2 is complete!
Renshuu to learn Hiragana/Katakana (~2 weeks/Complete).
Anki Core 2K deck (~3.2 months/Complete)
Bunpro Grammar (~4.8 months, December Start)
Wani Kani (~7 months, October Start)
Still have 2 months to go before finishing Bunpro grammar. I’m now running an Anki 10k deck at 30 words per day. My new favorite tools is Yomitan w/ Anki deck mining. I use it to help me get through bunpro and to read VNs. I haven’t gotten very far in VNs but it’s a start. I’m using Textractor to grab the text and the plan is to mine all the new vocab w/ Yomitan (super convenient).
Current Goals:
Finish Bunpro (2 months)
Push towards 10k vocab (currently around 2.5k)
Read
From anecdotal evidence, the people who learn vocabulary fast form some sort of reading/anki deck loop that supercharges their vocabulary learning rate, and my goal is to form this loop. Basically, you read to speed up your anki deck progress and you use anki to speed up reading progress. Doing this, learning 30-50 wpd is not unheard of. If you tried doing this with Anki alone it is difficult due to lack of context.
While there’s no end to language learning, I’m trying to make my first year super effective by pushing certain milestones. Namely, cover most grammar points and push vocab count to a reasonable degree. The first milestone achieved was finishing the 2k core deck. The next milestone will be completion of Bunpro grammar. After that, my goal is to push 10k vocab through reading/anki. That’s about 7,500 more words than I currently know. At 30 words per day in anki, I won’t reach this goal for at least another 9 months but that’s fine. Should be around half way there so roughly 6,000-7000 words. I will have a lot more time to focus on vocab/reading once Bunpro is complete.
Here’s my current Bunpro progress (3+3 grammar points per day):
N2 will be complete 1 week before end of month. I will then take 1 week off (reviews only, no new grammar points) before moving onto N1. I’ve been writing down every grammar point in a notebook when I cover it. Currently have 2 full notebooks (N4/N3), and 4 dead pens (shock). I also have mine Bunpro w/ Yomitan to help me remember certain grammar points. Looking forward to shifting the time investment in Bunpro to something else.
Going into the 9th month of Japanese! Slowly but surely~
Been busy with work recently so I dialed back a lot of the extraneous things. Only doing Wanikani and Bunpro grammar currently. Just reached level 17. Mentally, every 20 levels on WK is a milestone but that might turn into every 10 levels once I hit 20. TBH, I don’t think much about WK. I just use it as a passive vocab builder while I focus on grammar.
Finished N2 bunpro about 1 week ago but spent some time in review-only mode slaying some ghosts and taking a ‘mini’ break (no new grammar points learned). Just started N1 today. Here are some of the stats:
Again, doing 6 grammar points a day while writing down every grammar point in a notebook. Working on notebook #4 (didn’t write down N5 grammar points but maybe I will when I finish N1). 6 dead pens? Current ink color is pink. Will update again when N1 is done (~30ish days).
If my bunpro stats look wierd its cuz I had to do a hard reset after starting N3 because I rushed too much and couldn’t remember anything. Also, I mis-used the SRS so everything was being marked correct. Was not conducive to remembering things. Also, I had a 130 day streak going but somehow killed it one day. Was slightly bothered but it was going to happen eventually. No point being deterred.
Finally finished all of bunpro grammar. Took around 7 months at 6 grammar points a day with 1 full reset shortly during the beginning of N3 due to incorrect use of the SRS system. Between bunpro and wanikani, easily 4+ hours a day. My plan is to ‘coast’ for a while. Essentially, continue doing wanikani as usual (15 words per day) and bunpro reviews but no new crazy endeavors like pushing for 30+ words per day. Will take this time to read into the details regarding certain particles and forms and perhaps rewatching some curedolly. But I could definitely use a “break” (reduced levels of effort, not a complete stop). It’s summer time and I would like to travel!! Incidentally, I also culminated a 4 month training program this week and tested all my 1 rep maxes. So it’s high time I dial it down for a bit and relax.
Going forward, I will focus mostly on reading and don’t plan on grinding vocab via anki. We’ll see tho, if things go well I might just do that. Focused on maintaining a less grueling and more sustainable pace from here on. I’ll update again every ~10 levels on WK or if I come up with some changes to my study methods.
During the end of Sept 2024, I went to Japan for the first time. Shortly after, I learned Hiragana/Katakana through Renshuu (1-2 weeks). In October, I began doing the Core 2K in Anki, and not long after, Wanikani and Bunpro. It is now the first week of October 2025 and I’ve officially completed 1 year of Japanese study! While I still can’t speak and my reading/listening is just okay, I feel like I’ve made good progress. Major milestones I have achieved are completing the 2K core anki deck, finishing bunpro grammar (N1-N5), and level 22 in WK. I don’t keep track of the words I know anymore, I have just accepted that I’m going to have to keep reading and re-reading until things just make sense.
My first year was aimed at getting off to a quick start so speed running was the name of the game. I am no longer speedrunning anymore and just doing WK and bunpro at a comfortable pace. Currently, my daily workload consists of WK (15 lessons + review) and bunpro (grammar reviews only, all lessons have been complete). Occasionally I watch something in Japanese but most of my exposure comes from reading bunpro review prompts. I’ve been travelling a lot lately and work has also been busy so I’m now focused on maintaining a comfortable pace. I plan on continuing this for a year and see where I’m at.
After 1 year, I realize it’s going to take a very long time to get good at Japanese. Without a comfortable pace, burnout is imminent. I will continue the pace I’m at and attempt the N1 (or N2) in a year’s time just to gauge where I’m at. Should be interesting!
It’s definitely important to work at the pace and in the style that works for you. I’ve cut down on my lessons here and in MaruMori as well to try to get a more comfortable pace and to start ensuring i have time to work on other aspects (reading and listening mostly).
