Topic says it all, I am just curious to see what resources people use daily when studying Japanese and around how long they spend on each resource. I am in full time education and have two part time jobs so learning is quite difficult sometimes and I feel that I am cramming knowledge in and it feels to fragmented to remember.
If I have a solid guideline of what to use each day that would make life a lot easier, because I have kinda been jumping between different apps and resources recently. Thanks!
My resources daily -
WaniKani - 30-45 minutes (10-15 lessons, all reviews completed)
KaniWani - 10 minutes (Recapping what Iāve learnt previously and going from ENG-JAP)
LingoDeer - Around 15 minutes a day (Vocab and Sentences)
Misa Ammo Grammar Playlist - 1 Video a Day
For immersion +
Normally an episode or two of an anime Iām watching to finish off the night - currently watching Haikyu!!
I occasionally watch a few Japanese gaming youtubers
Sounds like youāre pretty busy, so you may want to focus on things that you can do throughout the day. Like the WK cellphone app to to reviews when youāre walking between classes or similar, and maybe a podcast that you can listen to on your phone when commuting.
I think the JPOD101 podcasts are a pretty good way to start getting into grammar. Iād recommend even slowing down on the WK a bit and make sure youāre getting a little grammar here and there.
As for my routine, the only things I am doing religiously every day are these:
WaniKani: Finish all reviews (about 100/day) and do 5 new lessons
Anki (four active decks): Finish all reviews (about 100/day total) and 5-10 new lessons
On top of this, I average about two or three hours a week of reading, and about two or three hours a week of listening. I pick up a lot of grammar this way, because I look up grammar points I donāt understand, and also because a lot of the material I am reading is discussion of Japanese grammar which is written in Japanese.
Wanikani and Kaniwani are currently the resources I use daily. The rest of my āstudy timeā is dedicated to consuming native material (light novels, manga, games and visual novels), while looking up what I donāt know in a J-J dictionary.
Iām about to finish WK too, then Iāll go back and finish Tobira (thereās 2 chapters left, I think).
I read NHK news and listen to the NHK news podcast. I usually pick out about five words that I donāt know and add them to my anki deck along with the sentence they came from. I drop in to wanikani to work on my kanji a few times a day.
I donāt necessarily do all of this every day, but several things, so I can also vary what Iām doing to study. It helps keep me motivated if I can switch one thing out for another if I really canāt focus on it that day. Only WK is every day, in combination with some of these:
Currently refreshing my katakana on Memrise
The grammar book Unlocking Japanese in conjunction with the authorās Youtube page - KawaJapa CureDolly (I was almost startled away by the voice filter and visuals, too, but try at least a full lesson or two to judge the content if you check it out). I take lesson notes by hand and later transcribe into a big Google Doc so that I cover everything twice
KaniWani/KameSame
HouHou to look up words while using Japanese Graded Readers, and add them to SRS
Listening to Japanese audiobook for Harry Potter 1 while reading along in the Japanese version, also looking up words to add to study decks with HouHou
Watch Japanese-only youtube channels
NHK Easy/ the TangoRisto app for Android
The apps Kanji Tree and Kanji of the Day (KanjiOTD)
Good luck! Combining Japanese with such a busy schedule must not be easy.
.WK, 10 lessons plus all reviews (including the 4 hour refresh of the ten lessons, 8 hour one if Iām up).
.KaniWani reviews, unlocking new levels once the apprentice items dissipate.
.Right now Iām picking up a fair bit of grammar and reinforcing my reading/writing skills by talking to natives, though this may not be a permanent thing.
.Iāve recently opened Genki up again and plan to read through it slowly.
I do WaniKani daily as well as Rocket Languages Japanese (Reading, speaking, writing, listening, etc.). How much depends on time, but I do at least an hour each a day and usually much more. I also watch Japanese YouTube videos and watch a couple of TV programs. Iāll be ordering some graded readers soon, and have a co-worker I can practice speaking with.
While having a routine itās important, having a sustainable one itās even more. For me the first months I was pushing it too muchā¦ to many lessons, daily grammar objectives, reading, listeningā¦ I wanted to cover all, which got seriously tiresome after 9-10 months. I donāt think Iāve skipped my japanase routine more than 3 days for the last yearā¦ which I donāt know if itās something good or not really.
Having a very minimum to strive for every day itās what I do every day now.
Zero my reviews every day in WK with 10 new lessons.
Then a regular week Iāll do a chapter of Japanese the Manga Way and watch the KawaJapa lesson of the week.
Besides that I like to read 2-3 stories of either a Graded Readers series or 10åć§čŖććä¼čØ (native reading) aimed at 1-6th graders.
Reading itās the activity that really allows me to see how much Iām progressing, since itās really clear what kind of material I progressively am able to understand. Watching a show itās great for improving audio comprehension, but itās much more difficult to measure progress with it, so itās not neccessarily the most reassuring activity when starting.
I 100% agree with you there, I do feel that I need to focus on grammar more and cut down a bit on WaniKani due to my tight schedule. I didnāt know there was a WaniKani app so thats great news. =D I will be downloading it straight away.
I have never used Anki before so Iām going to research what itās about and possibly start using that more often. Thanks!
+1 for Japanese Ammo w/ Misa. That channel has helped my understand some grammar points that I kinda knew but never understood. Sheās so good at explaining things.
Daily I only use WK and KW. At least once I week, Iāll have a look at some grammar, and watch my occasional anime. But more than this would take away too much energy from work and the rest of life.
I used to be this way, but discovered a couple of scripts I highly recommend:
WaniKani Over-ride: Just like it sounds like, this app gives you the ability to ignore a wrong answer. I resisted this tool for a long time (and agree it can be tempting to mis-use), but I try and do my reviews quickly and got an occasional āwrongā answer that wasnāt really wrong. For example, typing a synonym that wasnāt in the want kanji list of acceptable answers.
Jitai: this one is great. It is a font randomizer that displays each of your Wani Kanji reviews using a randomly selected Japanese font. I found that before using this script, I would sometime not recognize kanji I knew that I encountered in the wild because they looked slightly different due to the font with which they were rendered. Jitai helped this a lot. Sure, it makes your reviews harder, but you can always click on the item and toggle it back and forth between the randomly chosen font and the original WK font.
Anki is similar to Wani Kani, but more general. Basically it is a flashcard program. You can download all sorts of premade decks for Japanese or other languages, or legal terms, or the capitals of all fifty states, orā¦you get the picture. You can also make your own decks containing vocabulary that you encounter in your studies. If you donāt know already, you can add ććć as your first word, meaning āmemorizationā.
The downside to Anki is that the interface is not as pretty as WK and it costs a whopping $25 if you want to use it on iPhone like I do. Otherwise it is free on the web (ankiweb.net) and on Android. If you have a cellphone, itās a great way to sneak in reviews throughout the day.
But as I mentioned earlier, pace yourself on the flashcard programs like WK and Anki. Slow and consistent wins the race. And gives you time for grammar, etc. It seems a lot of people get wrapped up in doing reviews and end up getting unbalanced in their Japanese knowledge. (At least thatās what happened to a friend of mine. )
Just downloaded a deck called āJapanese Core 2000 Step 01 Listening Sentence Vocab + Imagesā so I guess Iāll get started with this and go from there. Making decks also sounds like a good idea for the future but right now Iāve still got to wrap my head around some grammar techniques first, thanks for your help and advice. ^-^
I can related to how busy you are. When I was in university I worked full time and had a part time job at school, along with taking classes.
I used WaniKani everyday, tried to watch one video on Japanese grammar a day (even if I had seen it before), did Japanese homework and just watched anime.
Today I have more free time and use WankiKani, and different Japense materials I bought for studying. Currently using Tobira but almost finished and moving into Kanzen Master N2
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