I am Aery and this is my learning log. I have been actively learning Japanese for about one year in total now. I had a 9 to 10 month push 3 years ago, but it was sadly stopped due to real life and other requirements, but I got sucked back in about 3 months ago.
I started learning Japanese with the hiragana and the katakana - using homemade flashcards I studied at work and whenever. Then I jumped into learning via Remembering the Kanji, but it was really difficult, and I sort of did not properly study the last 300 Kanji that well. But I finished it!
Next, I did the Core 6k and did some reading of Tae Kim and then Cure Dolly. I did this without immersing, and I think this was both a good thing and a bad thing. Then I purchased a set of One Piece manga and began reading it. The first 3 volumes were super tough, then I was more or less okay by volume 14. I continued reading volumes and then broke off from Japanese. While doing this I studied with SRS until I had roughly 13,000 known words and I did a mock N1 got a passing grade until I did audio and that probably was the straw that broke my back. I had ignored audio in favor of reading and studying via srs for 3+ hours a day and reading manga for several more. Yet I could not parse a Japanese sentence.
My return kind of came on a whim, knowing that I was not great and figured I was probably closer to N3 from rust. I’ve been studying several hours every day averaging 5-6 typically and I clawed back most of my ability, but my audio input was terrible, and my grammar and reading had fallen a lot. That and I never did output. Not sure where I am in ability, but according to JPDB.io I know over 13k words (not redundant) and I casually read N2 manga without issue. Yet I feel inadequate still.
October I did the listening challenge and hit 100 hours which was my goal and while I can parse a fair amount of Japanese audio I have so much to do! November my goal is to read 100 books (manga and/or light novels). So far I have read 146 books and would like to hit 250 by the end of November.
First major goal: I would like to finish Naruto and fill in the gaps in One Piece that I have on my reading.
Second major goal: I would like to continue and ideally read 10 or more light novels this month - I started くまクマ熊ベアー | L23 and did the first 2 volumes, but I don’t like to abandon a series, so I am kind of sucked in now.
I mostly read physical print media, and I use an Exword for look ups. For anime and dramas, I have dvds/blurays and netflix. I’m going to try to do updates whenever I can! I want to be good at Japanese and I hope this keeps my progress steady! 
