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.
Tools
Anki
Bunpro
Wanikani
Youtube
Spotify
Anime
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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.
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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.
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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. 
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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!
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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 !
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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.
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Update
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.
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