What is your Current Plan of Study?

What are you currently doing to better your Japanese? Is it just WaniKani at the moment? Do you add Kamesame into the mix? Are you using the Genki series? What about Japanese for Busy People? Japanese from Zero? Refold? Classes? Anki?

What is your current plan of study? How much time do you commit?

As for me, I am pretty busy. I run three companies and write around 1,000 words for my fantasy author career. Here is my study:

  1. WaniKani (5-10 lessons a day) and I do reviews about 4-6 times a day. Time: 30 Minutes
  2. Anime: I watch 1-2 episodes of anime. I read the subtitles super quickly then listen as best I can and see what I can hear. Time: 20-40 minutes
  3. I am now incorporating the Genki books. Nothing super series. Maybe 1-5 pages. No workbook Approximate Time: 10 minutes
  4. Incorporating Easy Readers Approximate Time: 10-15 minutes

3-4 are not currently in my plan but I am adding them in. I may change up 3 and 4 depending on what you guys are doing.

Very interested to see what you guys are doing!

My goals: (Basically Everything besides writing lol) Read Manga, Listen to Anime, and communicate (Speak/Listen) with 70% Efficacy (and slowly grow this of course)

Any advice is always appreciated :slight_smile:

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  1. WaniKani when I can squeeze it in during the day, one final clear before bed.
  2. Constantly forget I have an Anki deck, watch the review pile grow and grow as I canā€™t catch up.
  3. Look at Yotsuba #7 on my desk and tell myself to read it more, but rarely do.
  4. Bunpro once every couple days, as doing it on the phone is a pain, and Iā€™m not on computer very much.
  5. Tell myself to get textbooks from time to time.
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I feel this lol

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It tends to differ from time to time. But this is what I generally try to do daily or (as often as possible, sometimes stuff get in the way, as they do):

  • Watch one movie in Japanese without subs or specifically with Japanese subs - sometimes I watch anime or something else instead, but that is not very often.

  • Read something for 20-30 minutes. This used to be about 5-10 minutes before and then it was mostly NHK Easy News. Now, Iā€™ve gotten some easy books on my kindle that I read most of the time.

  • WaniKani of course. I try to do at least one session a day where I clear most of my reviews - generally keeping apprentice items at 50-60 and then add lessons when I feel like it. Other days I just do a couple of reviews here and there throughout the day.

  • Iā€™ve recently finished Genki 1 and plan on starting Genki 2 in a couple of days when I get back to my dorms from after Christmas break.

I used to force myself to do everything daily, but due to having had about 4 burnouts already I am pacing myself way more. Watching movies is something I can end up doing for most of my ā€œstudyā€ time because it doesnā€™t take much out of my head space compared to the other tasks.

My goals: I would love to work with Japanese in the future, whether it will be; teaching, translating, tourism, only time will tell. For my personal leisure activites I just really want to be able to read paperback books in Japanese - I love the way the vertical writing makes it look as if the text is pouring down like rain on the pages. Picking up any Japanese movie and watching it without subtitles is also something Iā€™m looking forward to a lot. It would be awesome if I could somehow get my Japanese skills close to the level of English Iā€™ve been able to reach, that however feels like it could take a while :sweat_smile:

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  1. Wanikaniā€¦ Doing everything it throws at me :rofl: (at least for now, just starting but I was studying ā€œKankenā€ before).

  2. Reading Tokuma anime books (ēµµęœ¬): Intended for kids but great for improving vocabulary.

  3. Satori reader app: 1 chapter every day and doing their integrated flashcard system which much like WK uses spaced repetition.

  4. One or two anime chapters every day.

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Awesome! If you donā€™t mind me asking, what kind of books do you read on your kindle? Also, did you do the workbook for Genki 1? Or did you just read it?

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Thank you! Iā€™m going to check out those books.

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I read books from the N4 list on this website: https://learnnatively.com/

When doing Genki 1 I actually focused on the workbook. Since Iā€™ve been doing immersion for a while already the reading felt redundant, except for the reading comprehension exercises at the end of the text book. They were quite fun.

I would mostly just study the grammar notes and do the corresponding exercises in the workbook. Probably going to try a different approach in reading more for Genki 2 though, mostly just to see which way feels better before going into Quartet thereafter.

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wanikani once a day. 15 lessons each day.
torri.srs- with wanikani mode on- supplemented vocab srs- reviews are in eng/jpn and reversed- 10 words a day.
Pretty much it- those 2 apps already take me around 2-3 hours a day.

I plan to reach 8k vocab and lvl 40-45 on wanikani by the end of year. After that I will ditch wanikani and torii and just gonna switch to yomichan+ anki combo in order to start finally maintaining language through native content.

For grammar iv read fully tae kim guide twice and thatā€™s pretty much it, rest of grammar nuances I try to learn from context sentences.

  1. WaniKani every day. I do reviews multiple times throught the day. I group the smaller ones like +5 reviews etc with the larger ones like +100 reviews otherwise Iā€™d be doing reviews all day. I also do all lessons as soon as I get them.

  2. Satori reader, at least 1 story a day. Just reading stuff, learning new words and expressions etc.

  3. Genki 2 right now but will move on to something more advanced soon.

I got the first 3 One Piece sagas in Japanese sitting on my shelf which Iā€™ll begin soon. Iā€™ve already read these in English so I donā€™t have to worry about not enjoying it due to me moving through pages at a snailā€™s pace.

Also, gonna do KaniWani more often since I find that it really helps. Maybe also get on BunPro as well.

  1. Duolingo at least once a day, though I try to do once in the morning, once in the evening, for however long it keeps me engaged. (I know, I know, Iā€™ve heard the complaints about Duo, especially the gamification, but itā€™s what finally got me to actually start studying. The little bite-sized lessons are way less intimidating than picking up a textbook, plus the weekly leagues are motivating for me)
  2. Drops for vocab, at least one five-minute session a day
  3. As many of my reviews (and lessons, when they come up) on WaniKani as I can throughout the day, sometimes on the computer, sometimes using Tsurukame on my phone. I donā€™t always get all of them in a day since Iā€™ll often have trouble focusing or getting myself to start, but since I downloaded Tsurukame, I havenā€™t ended up with more than about 80 reviews at the end of the day going into the next
  4. BunPro reviews at least once a day, adding more every few days or so. Iā€™ll also use it as a reference to look up grammar I havenā€™t gotten to yet when I come across it reading

Thatā€™s it for the daily stuff. The amount of time I spend depends wholly on the day. The rest I donā€™t necessarily do every day, but I try to do at least one thing:

  1. Iā€™m currently reading the 2.43 ęø…é™°é«˜ę ”ē”·å­ćƒćƒ¬ćƒ¼éƒØ LN series, though itā€™s currently above my reading level. But coming across kanji and vocab I learned on WaniKani helps cement them in my head, plus itā€™s a great series even if I canā€™t understand much more than the gist right now. The characters are great, and I adore the anime but absolutely love the novels. I try to read a little bit every day, though thereā€™ve been periods where I havenā€™t read any at all for days at a time
  2. Whenever I watch anime, I try to pay attention to what theyā€™re saying and see how it differs from the subs and what matches up
  3. I have a couple bilingual books (New Penguin Parallel Text Short Stories in Japanese, and Tuttleā€™s Japanese Stories for Language Learners; I also have Lingo Masteryā€™s Japanese Short Stories for Beginners which Iā€™ve already gotten through but didnā€™t particularly like - formatting issues with furigana; more than a few typos; sometimes chose the absolute worst doesnā€™t-fit-the-situation-at-all translation for a vocab word even though theyā€™re the ones who wrote all the damn stories - so I wonā€™t be getting any of their other books) that Iā€™m making my way through even slower than 2.43
  4. Both of Tuttleā€™s Learning Japanese Kanji Practice Books
  5. By Luli Languages LLC, their app Learn Japanese! that teaches kana (inclding stroke order, which I never learned back when I taught myself kana in high school) and some grammar, and Learn Japanese! - Kanji that teaches all JLPT kanji with stroke order plus kanji-based vocab

I also have Japanese for Busy People vol 1 and Tae Kimā€™s Guide, but I, er, havenā€™t touched them yet. I know I should, and I will eventually, but Iā€™m allergic to non-science textbooks. Iā€™ve also picked up a few reference books (English Grammar for Students of Japanese; Kodanshaā€™s Dictionary of Japanese Particles; Tuttleā€™s Colloquial Kansai Japanese - 2.43ā€™s set in Fukui and Fukuiben has quite a bit of overlap with Kansaiben), and Iā€™ve got more on my wishlist that Iā€™m planning on getting eventually. Plus Iā€™ve picked up a few classics published by Kaiousha Bunko that include a CD with excerpts read by popular seiyuu that Iā€™ll start on once I catch up with 2.43, which will be a while. I also have imiwa?, a dictionary app that gets its info from Jisho (or the same place Jisho does) that allows you to save and organize favorites and make notes and allows you to look up kanji by radical, and also has stroke order for most kanji

I am not particularly consistent about anything, including how much time I spend a day much less on what, but this is what works for me right now. But also I have ADHD so I often end up jumping between various things except for when I get sucked into a particular one for a while, so naturally Iā€™ve accumulated a lot

  1. WaniKani - I tend to do the bulk of my reviews at the latter half of the day and learn 0-5 new words/kanji if I feel up for it. I use Jakeipuu with the WK API to make the review process smoother on the go.

  2. Read a page of ę—„ęœ¬ć®ę­“å²366ę—„ - Depending on what I read and learn about I add to my kitsune.io deckā€¦I donā€™t know if Iā€™m gonna make it an active deck yet but Iā€™m setting it up.

  3. Most days I listen to a few Youtube videos in Japanese but lately Iā€™ve preferred watching movies and shows on Disney+ that I enjoy with Japanese subtitles if/when available (Iā€™m also learning French so the same thing applies). Sometimes I pick up a manga or news page in the Todai news app and read a few things there. I havenā€™t found a Japanese drama I would like to continue watching but I hope I find one soon.

  4. Online Classes - this is really for accountability purposes and I like having a planned out course when I can. I take Intermediate courses via Zoom with my local Japan Society. I start back 1 class a week in about 2 weeks and Iā€™m looking forward to it.

I log all my time spent in the Polylogger app and would say I spend 30-45min a day on average a day.

My goal right now for 2022 is to focus on learning more vocabulary, grammar, and kanji (N3 kanji as a target) to boost my reading skills. I would love to read my favorite manga but thereā€™s still quite a large gap for those in terms of words. I go back to them from time to time to see if my reading has gotten better - it certainly has!

  1. Wanikani and bunpro lessons/reviews almost everyday
  2. Around an hour or two of Japanese news for listening everyday
  3. Two 1-hour conversation lessons every week

I kinda dropped reading to focus more on listening and speaking, but starting next week until April, I am taking an online reading/writing class at a local university. Graduates get a free class as part of the alumni benefits and since Iā€™m not paying for it, I thought might as well not let it go to waste.

At this point I donā€™t really have a specific goal, and I just want to continue to improve my conversation skills. Just being able to do something I never thought I would be able to, and actually enjoying it is what makes all of these very rewarding.

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Wonā€™t stay this way probably, but this is what Iā€™m doing currently:

  1. Wanikani, three sessions a day
  2. Read a bit of either Kiki or 銭天堂 (I plan to increase my daily reading time)
  3. 30 minutes of listening immersion, either from Youtube or a podcast (recently itā€™s been more like 15 minutes)
  4. Do some Anki reviews, usually 50-100 (takes five to ten minutes)
  5. Conjugation practice with this website
  6. I used to do one section of Genki (2) a day, but since finishing that recently I havenā€™t done any formal grammar study. Debating whether to get another textbook or not
  7. Leech training if I have too many apprentice leeches
  8. 50 minute online tutor session once a week for speaking and conversation practice.
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Very useful, thanks!

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  1. WK do all lessons and reviews 4-8 times a day.
  2. Do 10 lessons on 10k vocab on Kitsun and clear reviews a few times a day.
  3. Bunpro do all reviews and a few lessons once it calms down.
  4. Read using Satori reader, multiple episodes a day at the very least. (5-10 on average)
  5. Get as much listening practice as possible, may it be YT videos or anime. (About 5hrs atleast)

3lIhDt9

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Where do you go to buy manga/books in Japanese?

  1. WK several times a day. It takes approximately 1h a day.
  2. Two Anki decs with n5 vocab. One with single words, the other one with full sentences. It takes max. 10-15 mins.
  3. Bunpro for about 15 mins.
  4. One Genki I chapter (both textbook and workbook) every one or two weeks with several yt videos concerning chapter-related grammar (ToKini Andyā€™s Genki lessons and some shorter videos about particular grammar points. I usually watch each one at least two times). Probably about 6 hours a week.
  5. Audios with n5 vocab before falling asleep. Between 15 and 40 minutes a day.
  6. Reading something from time to time. Mostly on Todai Easy Japanese App.
  7. Other resources when I have some free time. For instance, I spent 6 hours yesterday reviewing vocabulary on KameSame.

I have been studying Japanese for less than three months so far so Iā€™m speeding up with learning grammar so as to be able to focus more on reading.

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I use Wanikani for Kanji studies. Usually 40 lessons a day until I hit 0, review three times a day: when I wake up, when I return home, and before I sleep. I typically need 8-10 days to level up. I invest about one hour a day.

For grammar I use the Minna no Nihongo textbooks. I finished the first of four books, currently on Lesson 30 of the second book. I take 1.5 to 2 hours a day to finish a lesson every two days.

And thatā€™s it! For now at least. I want to get through the grammar part as quickly as possible and then get into immersion. I hope to be at that point by July of this year.

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Iā€™m focusing mainly on WaniKani reviews and lessons every day. Iā€™ve been going at a slower pace recently and my level is still low, so it doesnā€™t take long. Iā€™ve also been reading a manga in Japanese for the 2022 Reading Challenge here.
I also just try to read whatever Japanese I come across outside of studying. Iā€™d like to integrate more things, but Iā€™m not sure what to add. Maybe Duolingo or Rosetta Stone. Iā€™m more focused on learning to read the language rather than speak it, but that may change in the future.

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