What is your Current Plan of Study?

Japanese Language
#29

As for my routine, WK is the only absolute consistent thing everyday… everything else is interchangeable as time allows. I definitely need to do more grammar work. Bluetooth headphones have been a game changer for me to squeeze immersion into all the possible nooks and crannies of my day.

  1. Wanikani - 15 lessons and clear review queue
  2. Kaniwani - maybe 50-100 reviews
  3. Self-study Quiz Userscript- 100 jap. audio → eng. meaning
  4. Anime 1-2 episodes with Jap sub or no sub
  5. “Easy Japanese Podcast” on spotify… check it out
  6. Comprehensible Japanse YT vids and a few other 'tubers
  7. Duolingo lessons in my down time at work for the heck of it
  8. Anki - 5 lessons + reviews from the Tango and Core2k deck
#30

I came back from a long break (~4 months) of no study, and right now I’ve found a very enjoyable routine:

  1. Wanikani - 30min - All reviews and up to 15 lessons (more than that usually has a hit on my accuracy, and I’d rather delay a bit the level up instead of going back again to the apprentice - guru hell)
  2. Bunpro - 15min - This has completely replaced my textbook right now. The plan was to use it to review N5/N4 grammar before going back to Tobira, but I might just stick with it and use the textbooks as a reinforcement for harder topics, or just for cramming for the JLPT when the time comes.
  3. Anki - 5 min - I create cards with expressions I find in manga/anime/books. I add screenshots from the original material to provide context so its not challenging, but its a good refresher for vocabulary that I find useful.
  4. Read manga - I started this year with the Beginner Japanese Book Club // Now Reading: The Way of the Househusband and it has already helped me a lot with my reading ability. I’m still trying to build my reading stamina, so I try to read at least a few pages every weekday, and at least two or three chapters on weekends.
  5. Passive immersion on Twitter/Youtube/Internet while I’m browsing in general (I don’t count this as study, but depending on how I’m feeling at that moment I pay more or less attention to the content)

Due to work its really hard to get more than 1 hour to study every day, but I’ve come to terms with it! In the past, forcing myself to a strictier plan has caused me to burnout and stop studying for a while (and then suffering to get a ~1000 pile of Wanikani reviews back to 0).

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#31

I’ve been learning slowly for over 6 months now. I started out investing an hour or more per day on top of a more-than-full-time-job but now that I’m well out of the honeymoon period and some of my other hobbies have become more important, I’ve both intentionally and unintentionally scaled it back to 30min or less each day (usually less).

Current plan:

  1. 1-2 Duolingo lessons per day (3-10 min?). Like other people have mentioned, I can’t say that Duolingo is particularly good for explaining anything or even helping me retain it efficiently, but the gamefication is definitely a huge part of what’s helped me stick with Japanese for far longer than I had ever thought possible. When I started, I assumed I’d lose interest and quit around the 4-6 week mark, but over six months later I’ve only had one big break in my streak. Even when I neglect my other studying for a week or two, wanting to maintain my Duolingo streak keeps Japanese on my mind. I probably do my Duolingo lesson and absolutely nothing else at least 2/7 days of the week. It’s been central to the whole process, and not just a starting point for me. It really goes to show that the best study resource is the one that you use.

  2. 10-50 Wanikani reviews a day plus 5—10 new lessons if available (5-20 min?). Wanikani was what I first graduated to once I realized Duo wasn’t cutting it. I obviously like it a lot and it helps retain things very well, as you would expect from SRS. I do find though that it’s a bit TOO easy to use–doing kanji and vocab SRS is a very mindless activity for the most part and so I found myself spending too much time on it relative to more demanding tasks like grammar, native content and my other more important hobbies, honestly. So now I’ve scaled back. I don’t care that it’s not optimal for the SRS; I still get some of the benefit of the SRS timing and I’m staying in the groove which is the most important thing of all, always.

  3. 5-10 correct Bunpro reviews a day (5-15 min?). I don’t know that Bunpro is worth the money for most people but I really like SRS and otherwise have difficulty doing the necessary grammar practice (I’m of the “textbook put me to sleep” crowd). I follow Tae Kim’s guide mostly but have just now found Cure Dolly’s videos and have been loving them as a supplement. Bunpro reviews are very mentally taxing for me so I have to be really gentle with myself when I am having trouble getting through them.

  4. One anime episode a day (25 min, with my rats). I just keep an ear out for familiar words while I watch with English or French subtitles (trying to keep my French skills up). This is primarily entertainment, not studying though. I myself would not consider Japanese subtitles or no subtitles until I’m good enough that I can be properly immersed in the show. Just what I want in terms of my hobbies. I’m sure it would be excellent studying though.

  5. 1-3 pages of a very light book a couple of times a week (15-30 minutes at a time?). And I mean VERY light. I spent months picking my way through an artbook I had, painstakingly looking up the kanji in the art titles. It’s not efficient studying because it’s mostly new knowledge that I don’t review later, but it is native content in microscopic doses of something interesting and meaningful to me. And I was extremely surprised that by the time I finished it, I actually could pick out more words and phrases than I expected upon flipping through to the earlier pages, so I must have made some good progress!

  6. Casual daily exposure through porn, Twitter and porn Twitter (10 - I-don’t wanna-say minutes). My main goal in learning Japanese is to be able to read naughty manga untranslated and to understand other things that the naughty artists write on social media, etc. Yes, I read porn for the plot. Yes, you can all laugh at me now, just get it out of your system. But it’s been fun actually, because I’ve started to be able to make a stab at reading a tweet and then comparing with the auto-translator to see how I did, and also since I’m the kind of person who rereads the same materials over and over I can come back to something I couldn’t read two months prior and find that I can pluck out and understand a little more each time. I know it seems like a ridiculous motivation but learning the language has genuinely been so fun and interesting and every day I’m shocked that I’ve stayed with it and am still improving. I’m not sure what a reasonable timescale is at this rate for getting anywhere near where I want to be (~2 years?) but I know I’m slowly getting there and that feels good.

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#32

In an ideal world, this is what it would look like:

  1. Wake up at 6AM to do Wanikani reviews. Do no more than 15 lessons somewhere between 7 to 9AM (depending on how many reviews are waiting each hour).
  2. Read something light (currently that would be the Pocket Monsters Special manga). Record every word I don’t know (meaning and new kanji) through a voice to writing app to write out later. Since I usually run into about 2-4 words per page I don’t know, it’s easier to look it up later and read through everything one more time to help commit the words to memory.
  3. Either practice writing 10 kanji characters in kanji notebook or do 5-10 pages of a Kanji Drill book.
  4. More Wanikani reviews!
  5. Practice reading formal speech dialogue aloud (via Genki textbooks).
  6. Either watching a movie in Japanese with Japanese subtitles or a western movie in English with Japanese subtitles. (We have a handful of DVDs of some of my favorite movies I bought here.) More likely to watch anime on my laptop with English subtitles instead because I’m usually in my bedroom with baby.
  7. Read a more challenging text (not necessarily challenging as in difficulty in level but sometimes more time consuming because there’s more words that need looking up). In this case, it would be なぜ?どうして? みぢかなぎもん一年生 because most words don’t have kanji, which means sometimes it takes more guessing word to figure out what the meaning of the word is. Since the list of new vocab and kanji is longer for this one, first scan the text and record vocab and meaning. Then read a second time while referring to the vocab list to help commit the meaning to memory.
  8. Do the last of the Wanikani reviews before bedtime.
  9. Listen to Oyasumi Story podcast while falling asleep.
Here's what my schedule really looks like

Now since I have a baby, if I can accomplish half of that list per day, then I’m pretty lucky. For the most part, I could do a quarter of it, but that’s mostly counting doing the WK reviews and lessons. If nothing else, I’m definitely keeping up on the reviews (constantly doing them every hour if I’m free as well). I also manage to do 10-15 lessons a day too (if I have any available).

I might be able to read two books a day or very many pages a day either, but I definitely make room to read a little bit at least. It helps signing up for the Read Every Day Challenge to help keep yourself accountable, and I haven’t missed a day, so it’s important to keep that streak going! I do have the chance to record new vocab and kanji, and I keep a record in a new post in the thread so I know I’m not just rushing through the text but learning something from it, and I have a reference point to look back on.

The なぜ？どうして？series is really helpful because I’m actually curious about “why this thing is what it is or why it does that, etc.” so I make the extra effort to try to translate everything not only for practice for me, but some of the info might be interesting to other readers keeping track of my reading progress.

When I got back into Wanikani, I decided to ditch the flashcard way and just record all the kanji in notebooks (organized by level). That way, I get writing practice, and it’s easier for me to study from something I’ve written myself than looking at a website or a textbook. I completed two Kanji Drill books for １年生 level last year and ran into some new vocab and got a little tangled up in some of the readings, so now that I’ve learned all of the kanji for that grade, I’d like to get a new copy and see if I’ve made any improvement.

I also joined a Genki 2 study group on Second Life, which was a great way to get a refresher course on the stuff I learned way back in university. I originally joined so I could get more practice on keigo - the polite forms and humble forms - since I don’t use it regularly, and when I’m in the situation when I know I should use it, I don’t know it completely so I feel like I’m insulting someone if I used polite form once for a verb I know the conjugation of but suddenly switch to just plain formal form for a word I can’t quite say in polite form. But last night’s session made me realize how off my pronunciation has gotten and intonation needs a lot of work, so it’s definitely helpful to fine tune what I already know. (It’s like learning Calculus, most of the mistakes you make is simple arithmetic even if you understand the more difficult concepts. So it’s important to revisit the basics.)

I have the advantage of living in Japan and being able to talk to my husband 95% in Japanese every day, so I’m constantly exposed to the language and get plenty of speaking practice. The problem is, we’ll mix some English in our conversations when it’s easier to get a point across or when I don’t know the Japanese equivalent of the word, so I’d like to be able to have more solid Japanese speaking practice with a native speaker where I’m required to use more formal Japanese because I’m used to speaking casually most of the time.

The funny part is, when I first came to Japan, I had a hard time speaking casually because you learn predominantly formal speech from textbooks, so I had to adjust to speaking casually with my husband (because a married couple speaking formally to each other would give people the wrong idea as you can imagine) but now I’m too used to casual speech that I struggle with speaking formally, or worse, I mix up the two in the same conversation. :sweat:

Also, when I’m watching TV with my husband (especially Friday feature film night), we watch with subtitles for my benefit, so I get practice there. I just wish I could find something online where I could watch movies with Japanese subtitles too (just not Netflix because I don’t have a subscription). One of the fun things is watching American movies with Japanese subtitles to see how they translate certain dialogue that seems untranslatable in Japanese.

If I were overseas and didn’t have the advantage of having a family member to practice with, I’d look on italki (if I had the extra cash) or HelloTalk for a tutor or someone to do a language exchange with. The former is better if your only interest is improving your Japanese without feeling obligated to teach English in exchange. The latter is better if you want to use a free service and maybe connect with someone you share similar hobbies with and have a mutual beneficial relationship with. The only problem with HelloTalk is it’s hard to find someone who’s constantly on there. Many people create an account, go on hiatus when life gets busy, and come back a year later when they’re bored or have a lot of free time and think they want to practice English again.

But the bonus of having a tutor or a friend or a coach is you can report your successes or your troubles with, and if they’re a good match, they’ll cheer you on and/or help you out when you’re struggling with your studies. I always feel more motivated to work harder when I show my husband the new level I’ve finished in WK and proceed to read out all the on’yomi and kun’yomi, and he’s impressed and happy that I’m putting in so much effort to learn his native language that it makes him work hard too. So yeah, if you can find someone like that who can be your cheerleader, that’s an extra amount of motivation than just “I want to learn Japanese to do x amount of things” because it’s easy to give up when you start struggling and no one is there to support your dreams.

Lastly, I try to keep my study log updated because it’s not only motivational for me to know where I started and how I’m progressing, but it’s also a good reference point because I list new words I encounter in the wild and I try to explain the nuances of words with similar meanings (usually by asking my husband). Not only is this helpful for me, but I think it helps others as well, so it makes me even more likely to keep it updated so other people can benefit from it as well.

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#33

I love this!!

My routine in order of priority:

  1. Weekly conversation with Japanese friend
  2. Daily reading (Satori 1 chapter or 2年生・10分で読める伝記)
  3. Weekly Genki II study or online grammar course
  4. Anki reviews
  5. Kanji (currently trying Wanikani and comparing to KKLC)
#34

Study plan:

  1. At least 10 WaniKani lessons a day
  2. Review at least 50 items on WaniKani & all reviews on Houhou in the morning &
    evening
  3. Read at least one news article or short story or listen to a Japanese podcast a day
  4. Take a lesson Japanese lesson at least once a week
  5. Write a post on lang-8, HelloTalk or italki at least once a week

I’ve tried to make it as simple as possible to make it less overwhelming for me. I do tend to study more than what I plan to do but this allows me to not feel guilty on days where I don’t feel like doing much. I need more speaking practice so may take up shadowing.

My goal:

To become proficient in Japanese. I struggle with goals as my main motivation for studying Japanese in the first place was due to liking the way the language sounds and wanting to have a second language.

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#35

Flashcards -20 minutes
Reading-10 minutes
Kanji- around 15 minutes
Translating anime - about 30 mins
Watching anime without subs - 1 to 2 episodes
Making flashcards using japanese dictionary- varries
Pronunciation practice- 3 times a week.
Procrastinating- 1 to 2 hours

Annnnnd I’m currently procrastinating

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#36

Procrastination is a crucial part of any study routine :smiley:

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#37
  • WaniKani reviews: 3 or 4 times a day, ideally to get to zero, but with a time limit (30 - 45 min depending on circumstances) to keep it from taking up all of my time
  • New lessons: 10 to 15 a day, but I keep the number of items in “apprentice” below 120, otherwise I forget too much and get frustrated
  • Bunpro reviews: twice a day for ca 20 minutes
  • New grammar lessons: irregular
  • I try to read one Satori reader episode per day

Something I try to remember, is that finding a pace I can keep up is more important than hitting a specific number at a given time and risk burning out.

My main goal is become able read (manga), the second goal is to understand movies and such. Speaking and writing can hopefully follow later.

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#38

This year:

  1. Get to lv60 on WK
  2. Complete N2 grammar on BunPro
  3. Start learning the extra kanji for N1 that WK doesn’t teach… #salt
  4. Learning new N3/2 vocab
  5. Reading my Japanese Alice in Wonderland book
  6. Playing Undertale in Japanese
  7. Watching anime/dramas/Hololive/YouTube etc
  8. Keep chipping away at my 中級から上級への日本語 textbook which I’ve had for years but only just started properly.
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#39

I’m not a huge fan of a ton of structure for things that aren’t required of me, (not my strongest trait!) so I’m still keeping everything aside from WK pretty loosely scheduled for my studying.

  • Every morning between 9 and 10am I do between 10-20 items on WK depending on the difficulty. This typically takes me an hour because I like to write the kanji as well as the mnemonics down in a notebook. I know that’s crazy to some people but it drastically improves my retention. It’s night and day compared to if I don’t write it physically down.
  • WK reviews are done at 1pm and 9pm each day, sometimes more if I’m bored and I’ve got random reviews that pop up. But I always get to 0 each day. That’s my rule.
  • I try to get some kind of immersion in daily, between 30-90 min. Sometimes anime, sometimes YT videos. I like watching ウェザーニュース on YT. It’s like a guilty pleasure because I grew up watching a ton of The Weather Channel as a kid just as background noise. It’s a little silly lol
  • 2 or 3 times a week I work through Genki. I take notes on the grammar, do the practice in the book and the workbook, and then watch Tokini Andy’s videos for each chapter, as well as any one-off videos if I’m confused about a specific grammar point. I’ll reference a secondary written grammar source as well if I need to.
  • I add a few cards every day to my custom Anki deck. Most of the time it’s working ahead to future Genki vocab to get prepared for the next chapters, but I also throw in random stuff I find through immersion. Anki is definitely low priority for me right now, but I do reviews every day at the least.
  • Finally, I procrastinate a lot by coming here or watching too many videos about learning Japanese or language learning in general, and get nothing done. But at least the procrastination is relevant! This is what I tell myself to justify it lol

Going forward my biggest change I want to make is adding in a lot more immersion and add reading asap.

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#40

Mostly wanikani.
Keeping with duolingo only to keep my streak.

My main “study” is following the news, tv shows, radio and youtube channels of my favorite idols and some j drama here and there if something tickles my fancy (which is quite rare lately :weary: )

And my class will hopefully next wednesday again, if omicron won’t f* it up.

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#41

勉強しましょう！ thread

And keeping track of it :slight_smile:

#42

I just play videogames in Japanese and hope something sticks :flushed:

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#43

My current plan:

  • Read books every day
  • SRS words on koohi.cafe
  • Do the rest of the N1 grammar on Bunpro. Progress: 62/165.
  • Crack open Shinkanzen Master N1 grammar book soom ( = soonTM)

Goals: Read faster. Know more words. Take the N1 when I feel confident I can pass it :cherry_blossom:

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#44

I mentioned my study goals in some other threads, but for a reminder, I am aiming for N4 this year (well, want N3 but it may be too challenging and I do not want to rush and stress myself. Also I MUST learn all Elementary School kanji.)
Right now I use these tools:

  1. みんなの日本語 1 as a textbook.
  2. Use Kanshudo free version for textbook companion, grammar, vocabulary and kanji practice. Really a great site, like it.
  3. Use Kani Study app for writing and reading practice. Most writing though. Paid version, but I have a notepad + pencil, so it is a perfect tool for me for writing practice. I am pacticing writing of kanj which are 1 level before my knowledge. For example, I started 3rd year joyo, so I am practicing 1st and 2nd. I test reading for all kanji though, but it is when I have free time.
  4. Use Anki joyo kanji cards for learning kanji.
  5. Use easy news to practice reading.
    That’s quite enough, I believe.
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#45

I do WaniKani with the goal of keeping my Apprentice number right around 100. I usually spend anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour a day with WaniKani. I use Tsurukame exclusively on my phone for WK.

I also do all my Jalup reviews plus learn 10 new sentences a day. I’ve already gone through all of the Beginner level once, and after a long break from studying, I’m doing it again. I’ll be done by early February. Once I start Jalup intermediate, I doubt I’ll get more than 3 or 5 sentences a day.

I started BunPro back a week or two ago and am trying them for the trial month. I’m not sure if I’ll keep it up or not, but I’m leaning towards yes. I think it would be a tough way to learn new grammar, but so far it seems like a pretty awesome way to review and reinforce what I’ve already learned.

As soon as I’ve finished Jalup beginner, I’m going to start TokiniAndy’s Quartet class. My current intention is to methodically do the entire thing, but we’ll see.

I’ve also joined the Death Note book club here on WK and will start that on the 22nd. I will probably keep joining clubs until I’m reading too much. I also own and read Japanese Graded readers, and I’m just starting on Level 2.

For listening, I find the Jalup app to be pretty great. I’m up to almost 800 sentences, so I listen to them at random while taking a shower or working. I also listen to the Graded Reader stories and the Quartet books are full of stuff to listen to.

I need to go back to watching more anime. I will probably ramp that up as I hit Intermediate.

For reference, I’m 52 and have an empty nest. My wife and I do our own stuff after work, so I end up with plenty of time, most of the time. I finally feel like I can devote time to learning Japanese!

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#46

I find that I tend to study a lot when I’m procrastinating other things, which I guess is kind of a good thing? Not sure!

I think the more detailed and formal I make a study plan, the less I want to do it. I’m more consistent at a slower pace.

Currently I take classes ~3 times a week with a local school. I’m on the blue Minna no Nihongo book but that’s not to say I remember the grammar we’ve learnt so far. Sometimes I take top-up review lessons via an online school because the lessons are cheap. And even more occasionally, I have a 1:1 session with a tutor to practice free talk.

WK, I do max 100 reviews a day. I space out my lessons and keep my apprentice items under 100 too.

I try and find shows on Netflix, currently watching a J-drama on Netflix (albeit with English subtitles…). I bought a cute cat manga so I can practice reading kanji (80% have furigana though).

I also have an dictionary app on my phone (Takoboto), I take it to all my classes. I used to write down new words but now I look them up and add them to a list on the app and then transfer them to AnkiDroid. From there, I try and spend 10-15 mins on Ankidroid 4-5 times a week.

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#47

My current plan goes like this:

I clear my WK review queue every morning and add 15 lessons. If I still have time left before work I read some easy news using the app Todai. I clear my reviews again around midday and in the evening if I can.

I used to do one chapter of Genki every week, then every two weeks, and now, well, no chapters at all because I needed a break. Going to try and pick up Genki 2 again soon and do maybe 1 hour a week just to get back into it.

I listen to Nihongo Con Teppei and Learn Japanese with Noriko when I’m out for walks. Catch a word here and there, sometimes a whole sentence! Occasionally I watch (listen to) something on Netflix while doing crafts.

What I’d like to do more of is reading but I’m sort of stuck on not doing grammar at the moment…

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#48

Last year, my daily study plan varied, which was nice, but resulted in often focusing a bit too much in one area (and therefore ignoring another). Starting December of last year, this has been my daily grind.

Full Immersion: Any/all entertainment must be in Japanese. This includes, but is not limited to, casual YouTube watching, music, podcasts, video games, and social media. If I sit down to watch a TV show or a movie, it has to be in Japanese. I usually spend 30 minutes to an hour every day watching something intensely (stopping after every line, reading the Japanese subtitles as needed, making Anki cards as needed). And then usually two hours of more general Japanese input (watching stuff without subtitles and without pausing to look stuff up, using my Japanese Kindle Unlimited subscription to read books and manga, etc). I also use Satori Reader and NHK Easy News, but will probably start dropping the latter in the next few weeks for regular NHK.
Note: I have an exception to full immersion. Since I’m married, if my wife wants to watch something together in English (usually MCU shows, The Mandalorian, etc), we’ll watch in English. But since she enjoys anime, we often watch stuff in Japanese together anyways.

WaniKani: Last year, when I started WaniKani in earnest, I averaged one level per week. This was doable, since I had some kanji knowledge beforehand. I’m getting to the point, though, where lots of the kanji is completely new to me. Going to slow it down, and do 10-15 lessons per day (but keep my reviews up-to-date to prevent backlog). The amount of time I spend daily on WaniKani depends on my number of reviews, since I keep them at zero.

KaniWani: I couple this with WaniKani, to help reinforce not just kanji, but vocabulary, etc.

Kanji Study App: I couple this with WaniKani. It has a “speed recognition” multiple choice test that I use for 10 minutes of intense focus daily. Great app, used as supplementary reinforcement.

BunPro: 3 new lessons a day, plus clearing all my reviews at 11pm daily.

Anki: I clear out all my Anki reviews daily. Time spent varies, depending on number of reviews. I have an ongoing “words found while immersing” deck that has a couple of thousand sentences I’m slowly learning daily. I also have a JLPT N3 vocab deck I’m working through.

JLPT prep: I have some test prep books I work through. One series of them has daily study questions that I go through daily. Starting next month, I’ll probably start on the heftier JLPT prep books.

Glossika: Shadow practice.

HelloTalk: I post a paragraph in Japanese every evening, and get corrected by native speakers. Incredibly useful.

I also have a weekly call with a Japanese teacher through Italki which has proven to be immensely valuable, since it’s forcing me to output on the fly.

This sounds like a lot, and it does sometimes get chaotic, but I’ve been able to keep up without much issue. The biggest “time consumer” is just direct immersion (reading, watching stuff, etc), but when you think of it as “well, I’d be doing this anyways, just in English, so why not make it a learning experience”, it makes it a lot more palatable. For example, I’m playing through Pokemon Brilliant Diamond, but instead of playing in English, I’m playing it in Japanese. It goes a bit slower (since I stop to make sure I understand all NPC dialogue, Pokedex entries as they come in, item descriptions, etc), but I’ve learned so much while playing a game I’d be playing anyways.

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