What is your "Japanese Learning" routine?

Japanese Language
29

For serious 勉強 time:

  1. WaniKani - This is my primary tool. I have both the Ultimate Timeline and Dashboard Progress Plus installed so I can schedule new items and see big review stacks coming up. I visit multiple times a day to keep each review stack low, and I make sure not to learn new items at certain times if it’ll result in a big review stack. Sometimes I’ll learn things earlier or later to break up stacks, but I always make sure to learn Kanji or Radicals only if I’ll be able to make the 4-hour review within that same day.

  2. KaniWani - I do this all the time alongside WK. Sometimes the reverse recall can be super brutal but it really helps cement the kanji, order, and reading. Just overall very useful for reviewing vocab, as well as identifying and smoothing out struggling items. I feel like I know things much better after I’ve put them through the Kaniwani wringer.

  3. Bunpro - I simply adore this site. I started off slow but have ramped things up recently to try to keep my grammar somewhat at pace with my kanji knowledge. I feel like my grammar comprehension has improved considerably from all the tricky questions that involve multiple grammar concepts at once. I do reviews daily and add new grammar points 2 - 3 times a week.

  4. Human Japanese - I read a chapter or two every week. This is one of my favorite resources to just read and relax while learning about Japan and its language. I really enjoy the laid-back pace, gentle-yet-thorough grammar explanations, audio examples, and friendly quizzes.

For fun:
When I’m done studying for the day or just want to chill with something in Japanese, I’ve been cruising through the following sites on rotation:

  • Weblio - A Japanese-to-English dictionary. I’ve been looking up all sorts of stuff here recently. I like the example sentences and related vocab. There are so many parts of this site I have yet to explore, but this place feels like a playground.

  • Blogmura - The holy grail (at least for me) for links to enthusiast blogs. This is like the lost library of Alexandria for Japanese sites, blogs, practice, etc. You can’t pull me out of this place.

  • YouTube - I love the Japanese side of YouTube. I get to learn about birds, fox parks, and things I haven’t even thought to look up yet. Look up something in Japanese and away you go~~ :stars:

  • Additionally, I’ll follow various Twitters, check out free manga samples on official sites like Pixiv, kick back and watch some anime (English subs for now), and play games with Japanese audio (though I just ordered my very first Japanese import game recently). Plus, I joined the beginner book club, so I’m really looking forward to that as well!

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