After forcing myself to get through more studying and practice, I found myself enjoying the language more. I find that if I do more of something, I like it more, I don’t know why, but if it works I guess I won’t change it. That being said, yesterday I didn’t do lessons or Genki as I had a pretty busy day in general, today I did Genki and Wanikani Lessons, got really confused on honorific verbs but managed to understand it a bit more. Usually if I don’t understand something immediately, I will eventually as long as I keep learning and develop a context. When I know all of the language, it’ll be really easy for me to understand it as all of it clicks together like a puzzle, so the more I do and learn, the more I’ll understand.
Genki 1 workbook arrived! Now I can finally start drilling grammar more, and most importantly practice it more so I’m more comfortable with it! Need to find where stuff got a bit more confusing and the point in the book where I became more uncomfortable with the grammar, but I think I found it. Since I already went over it a while ago, it should be easy, but still get me more familiar and comfortable with the grammar. I’m choosing to do the workbook pretty much at my own pace unlike Wanikani and Bunpro with my 3 grammar points and 15 Wanikani lessons per day, kind of similar to the way I’ve been doing vocabulary. I’ll make sure I get through at least a lesson on the Workbook every couple days considering I already learned the grammar in volume 1 Genki.
Have been slowing it down a bit. I have been procrastinating learning level 10 kanji for the past couple days, but just got them all into my review queue. This past week I’ve been kind of tired and have slowed down Japanese still doing reviews and grammar lessons, but today I feel my stamina for it coming back so I’ll try to get back onto my feet and joining a book club or something. I’ve been getting pretty confused with a lot of the different kind of verbs like honorific, modest, and humble expressions, but they’ll sink in the more I do them anyway. Main reason I slowed stuff down for the past week or so is because Japanese felt less fun, but it’s coming back after slowing things down this week.
When doing the 20 kanji yesterday and today I didn’t really look at the mnemonics too hard because I just kind of wanted to get the lessons done fast and then drill them in through reviews. I used to do that for some levels but it was really frustrating because I didn’t have the meaning/reading back to back plugin and setting on Tsurukame but now that I do it’s less frustrating to drill that way. It’s much faster for me to learn with mnemonics though despite the longer lesson times and comprehension times and thinking power. I’ll do the level 11 kanji with mnemonics to get the habit of using them again as it’s gonna be easier to learn each kanji and better in the long term.
Am also immersing myself by changing app languages to 日本語! Changed my phone language to 日本語 and some other apps as well.
Not too much of an update, but here it is!
Some new progress markers coming up are here:
- Genki volume 2 almost done! I think more than halfway done now or like 3 or 4 lessons remaining, not too sure
- Wanikani level 11 in sight! Painful I’m on my way!
Just to remind myself of my goals and make them sink in, reassure myself of what I’m working towards:
Alright then!
With all that being said, not gonna burn out, and gonna make my goals happen, gonna keep going, no matter what!
You are really getting there! Great work. I sometimes have to slow down a bit, too.
Are you using the radical too or only the mnemonics ? I’ve found for myself that instead of the mnemonics adding the radicals like a gamified recipe was enough for the early memorization with much less cognitive load. It may be a good middle ground and after a few levels it has become second nature to do so.
Glad to see you’ve regained some of your stamina 
Thanks! I also find slowing down when I feel overwhelmed definitely helps in the long term.
Even if I’m not using mnemonics radicals do also help me memorize faster, not too much faster, but it helps that I can think to myself that for example if I put a bundle on a scooter I get fast, etc.
Thanks!
For more immersion and to just get more vocabulary if I can, I changed my phone language, and all language settings I found to 日本語. Gonna be a lot of decoding!
Have been feeling lazy to do Wanikani lessons but am doing them anyways because I’ll never stop!
I just hit lesson 22 of Genki in the volume 2 book. Just gotta wait it out a bit more then I’m done getting all of Genki into my Bunpro reviews. Then I’ll speed through both Genki workbooks to drill stuff in a bit more, and then I’ll move on and start working on Quartet. I might do Quartet alongside Genki workbooks and Quartet workbook so I can get both done at the same time, not too sure. But I’ll figure it out.
I’m going to japan for around a week this Friday. I’ll probably start a travel log for that trip, small update/note to self.
Other than that, today has been pretty normal with another new large conjugation set to verbs but it’s an easy pattern so I should be fine. I’m on like lesson 22 or something in Genki Vol 2 now. Like 2nd last. Causative verbs. Like said before I’m gonna finish workbooks for Genki Vol 1 & 2 before moving onto Quartet, or maybe alongside Quartet. I do need more vocab too so I’ll start ramping that up as well.
Post pics for sure! That sounds fun C:
After the week in Japan, my studies have been severely impacted. I had fun during the trip despite it being short and not doing too much interesting stuff. It was kind of boring and the log was kind of scuffed but if you wanna check it out here’s the link. https://community.wanikani.com/t/tokyo-hokkaido-travel-log/70005/9 I think of it as a trial run before spending 6 weeks there in the summer.
Anyways, when going to Japan, I was worried because most of my reviews arrive during the day because of the way I time when I do reviews and do them in the U.S. Combining this with the jetlag and the 16 hour time zone difference, I usually did reviews once every 2 days tackling around 130 with full anki mode to speed things up. I didn’t do any new lessons in Japan and pretty much did the bare minimum as for reviews which was I think the first real slowdown since before I started Wanikani in December. After this I found it much harder to get back on track but I’m on my first full day back in the United States now, and have done my 3 Genki grammar points and will finish my 15 Wanikani lessons in a bit. I’ve usually been concentrating most of my reviews for Bunpro and Wanikani in the morning, 7 am for my first review session, 9 am for my lessons and reviews, 1 or 2 or 3 pm for my second review sessions and then around 8 or 9 for my last review session. That schedule has been really thrown off but I’ll be easing back into it.
As for the humbling I expected and received in Japan. I really second guessed learning Japanese as a whole. But for once, since December, I thought of myself not learning Japanese and what I would do with my immense amount of free time, and realized, I haven’t thought about that since before starting Wanikani, and realized this is the only thing to cling to and I’m too far deep, and I smiled a bit, knowing that digging myself so deep into the language that I couldn’t bring myself to stop at this point was what I had in mind whether I was planning it this way or not, but it really reassured me, that I’m more focused on this than I think, and this wasn’t a break, this wasn’t an interruption, it was a difficulty check, a check on my progress, and I learned how to use and apply what I’ve learned in the real world, in Japan. A trial run, and I didn’t understand a lot despite being through Genki volumes 1 and 2, and second guessed myself thinking I’m 2 books in and I can barely understand stuff. But I noticed that most of the grammar if not all of it I could understand. If anything, I had difficulties stringing my own sentences together and with vocabulary. Also with slang and the spoken language itself. That gives me 3 fronts to improve on. Vocabulary I built a path for. Stringing my own sentences together is what I’ll do after I’ve finished Genki volume 2. (last chapter only 3 grammar points remaining) After that I’ll do the Genki 1 & 2 workbooks as the only applying I’ve been doing is via Bunpro reviews which is great and gives me a start, but for me to be fully comfortable, and faster, I’m going to need to start using those workbooks. So after Genki volume 1 and 2 I will do the workbooks and tackle their vocabulary before moving onto Quartet and tackling that beast which I will. I might be only on day 1 of recooping my rhythm and regular habit of Japanese, but that 1 week of slowing down has absolutely given me some stamina back and I can now adjust my Japanese learning rythm with what I’ve learned so far and make it better. I’m just worried about my future self giving up, which is what I can’t do. I need to delete the procrastination for it I developed in Japan which I will. I will not give myself other options and get my habit back together, stronger. It’s worked in the past, and I’ll figure out how to make it work this time. The hardest part is starting and continuing, and that’s what I’ll do. There’s my update.
I made it happen. Genki’s grammar points from volume 1 & 2 are finished. All into my review queue. (Bunpro) Now what’s next is that I’m going to be doing a lot of vocab and shove it into my reviews and do the workbooks probably at least the parts in the workbook where I know I’m not too comfortable with the grammar points.
Whoa I just skimmed Quartet 1’s first lesson and thought to myself WHOA, THAT looks like a pain, WHATEVER IT IS. I think unlike for Genki, for Quartet I’m going to be having to pull out tonianki’s youtube series and get all the help possible. Maybe it’ll be easy when I get more vocabulary and kanji? But I don’t usually understand most of the complicated english in both Genki books and Quartet has even more which I don’t understand, but no matter whtat, I’m going to push through it. No matter what.
Haven’t done an update in a few days, and I’m doing a new learning strategy before moving onto Quartet. I’m doing 20 new lessons on vocab in Bunpro and have been skipping some days in Wanikani to lighten the load a little on that side, but am working to tackle both and today I did both 15 Wanikani lessons and 20 Bunpro vocab from the Genki books. I’m also doing at least one or two of the Workbook pages from Genki every day so that by the time I get vocab from both Genki books I’ll have the workbook done/internalized and I’ll be more comfortable with the grammar points and pretty much everything I’ve done in Genki. That being said, on Bunpro I have one missing N5 grammar points and around half missing of N4. Considering I’m taking the JLPT N4 this summer and am working to pass it, I really want to be finishing Quartet volume one or get those grammar points done as fast as I can, while understanding them so that I have more time to prepare for the test. Which is what I’ll be doing. I will be passing, I’ll make sure of it. If I don’t I don’t, but I’ll do everything in my power, to make sure I pass, no matter what, so I will. After that I’ll tackle N3, and if I have WAY too much free time which I probably will this summer, I may be able to do N2 in December. But I’ll aim for N3. If I am comfortable with N3 early, I’ll try to do N2. We’ll figure it out. But for now, N4 is where I’m aiming for the summer JLPT.
Haven’t done an update in a bit because things have been kind of the same. But not good same. I’m doing 20 new vocab on Bunpro every day but Wanikani’s 15 is a hit or miss. Today I’m tired of being lazy and forgetting to do stuff so every day I miss I’ll do 30 the day after. I’m also kind of frustrated that I’m forgetting a lot of Wanikani stuff. Maybe I need to make my review times consistent and stop procrastinating. That’s what I’ll do. Anyways I’m also frustrated that I do 3 bunpro review sessions every day and I know I’m doing 20 new vocab every day but I get 80 reviews 3 times a day on bunpro getting me 240 a day on BUNPRO ALONE! which just pisses me off, I feel like I’m doing something wrong, which I probably am, but I think I’ll do grammar 3 times a day on bunpro which has very few reviews as I am doing vocab lessons now as I finished Genki vol 1 & 2 grammar decks. And then I’ll do vocab maybe twice or 1.5 times a day we’ll see what works out, I think that’ll balance out the workload a bit.
But I’m also kind of worried that if I’m struggling and losing grip now, how am I going to battle quartet and that immense book. I’m going to get myself back on track. For now I’ll take it one day at a time. Today I’m doing 30 wanikani lessons to balanace out what I missed yesterday. Ever since my Japan trip I’ve been doing each level in like 25 days compared to 10 which is the pace I used to have which was fine. I’ll figure out a way to balance workload a bit more and get the job done.
Alright I’ve gotten back into it more with my studies and am more consistent now. Learning vocabulary on Bunpro is painstaking as always without userscripts. It’s alright I’ll manage. I’ve also disciplined myself with forcing as much kanji into me as possible for levels on Wanikani as soon as I can so that’s good. I haven’t been too active on the forums though. I’ll come back to them when I feel like I do. 
Wow that’s a lot of reviews Bunpro aren’t I excited. I changed an import setting from Wanikani so that all my Wanikani items are SRS 8 in bunpro now. (Seasoned) This is because I need to practice vocabulary more to prepare for JLPT N4 as I have reading the kanji down and the most of the grammar already. I don’t know how, but I’ll get the job done.