I already have a study log on the WaniKani forum, but since I’m lurking around in these forums as well, I thought I could make one here as well. So, here I am, I guess.
Background with Japanese:
I’ve been studing for about 4 months now. I started on November 30th, 2023 with the goal to learn Japanese in one year, which means I want to be able to comfortably read and listen to stuff in Japanese without too much troubles, and hopefully also be able to produce decent Japense text on a level where I can communicate with others. My ultimate goal will be fluency, but that will most likely take me way more than just one year. However, I’m confident that I can reach something like N2 level in one year.
I’ve already finished all the grammar on Bunpro up to N3, and would consider myself to be at around N4-N3 grammar wise. My vocabulary is pretty trash, though, I would rate it N5, perhaps a very weak N4. Note that I haven’t taken any tests yet, and I honestly don’t plan to take any official tests in the near future. What I will do, however, is do mock exams from time to time.
Resources:
Apart from Bunpro, I’m also using WaniKani with a lot of scripts (you can find the list of scripts that I use in the OP of my study log in the WaniKani forums, which I linked above) to learn kanji and am currently at level 19. Of course, I’m going max speed there with one week per level.
Since WaniKani doesn’t prioritize teaching useful vocab first, I also use iKnow for additional vocab studies. I’ve got a coupon for that website that let’s me use it for free for an entire year. Not sure if they are still valid, but if you’re interested, you can find them here.
For reading practice, I’m currently reading all four NHK Easy articles every day since somewhere mid February, and I’m currently also reading through the Tile World Chronicles, but I’ll probably finish them during April. I plan to start また、同じ夢を見ていた as my first book in Japanese by the end of May, so I’m definitely looking forward to that! I also want to try to read more articles from normal NHK, and at some point, completely switch to normal NHK. Since I’m not that good yet with vocab, as I already mentioned previously, I also use Yomitan to quickly look up unknown words. This gives me the advantage that I’m already able to read N2+ stuff as well, because N2 and N1 grammar on Bunpro is mostly vocab and constructions, but not any actual grammar as in N5 and N4.
For listening, I’m currently pretty much only using Teppei 先輩’s Podcast for beginners, and I’m really struggeling to understand anything. My main problem is the speed with which he talks, I think. What I want to try in any case is using headphones, because that should kinda force me to pay close attention to him. I also thought about trying to listen to the audio from the NHK Easy articles first before reading the article, but I’m afraid that there would be too many words that I don’t know.
Daily Study Routine:
- Do 25 new lessons on WaniKani
- Do my WaniKani reviews
- Do 20 sentences with the sentence builder on iKnow
- Add 25 new vocab on iKnow
- Do my iKnow reviews
- Practice speaking with the sentences and vocab on iKnow
- Cram three grammar lessons on Bunpro
- Do my Bunpro reviews
- Write one sentence with every grammar point I missed in my cram session
- Read two chapters from the Tile World Chronicles every day
- Read all NHK Easy articles every day
- Listen to one episode of Nihongo con Teppei for beginners
- Practice or learn the stroke order for seven new kanji every day
Happy studying!
btw it is a play on my favorite manga series:
