I hope this is helpful for someone. Just somethings to keep in mind:
- I started to study Japanese by myself for 1 year in January 2012. I used to have weekly evening lessons for 3 years or so from January 2013 to mid 2016. During that time, I went through Japanese for Busy People, Genki 1, Genki 2 and one entry intermediate book.
- Took a break for 2+ years
- I spend 2+ months in Japanese language schools (June 2018 and June 2019 ).
In January 2018, I started to study Japanese again…I bought the Bunpro lifetime subscription sometime in May 2018 (when there was no N1, hardly any N2 and very little N3 grammar points, no Paths, No Cram). During that time, I was really lost and I knew that I needed to drastically change my learning methodology…
So for a few months, I just experimented… ie started to learn Japanese from ゼロ (zero). Over time I figured out how I would like to use Anki (custom kanji / grammar / vocab / sentences / JLPT questions ), Kanji Senpai (for it’s pre-made JLPT kanji / vocab decks) and Renshu (more kanji / vocab / grammar / sentences). It was Bunpro’s turn.
I reset my Bunpro account and started to make grammar notes in my notepad on December 11th 2018 and today is 30th December 2020!
Start December 2018:
January 2020 to Now:
My idea was to use Bunpro as extra practice and a tracker of which grammar points I have “done”. Before I knew about Bunpro, I bought Kanzen Master, Nihongo Soumatome and some other grammar / JLPT Books:
Using sticky notes, I will find the same grammar point everywhere, make notes in Japanese (some notes have some English) and then mark it on Bunpro for extra practice. If its not on Bunpro yet, I would add it to Anki (and add in on Bunpro later when its available):
Overtime this is my grammar note: I try to have the structure, meaning and some easy for me to understand sentences. Sometimes I have small, very badly drawn pictures for better description.
I used to write the grammar on the left, now I just write the structure of the grammar…
Naturally over time, I started to rely more on Bunpro and their extra reading section, especially for N1 and later sections of N2 /N3 … There were times when I was really really happy that a grammar on Bunpro had a Readings sections and links to websites with extra info. I could swiftly check them out and get extra sentences, if I needed them.
Sometimes, I would also search the grammar point on Google / Bing and find more examples and explanations eg typing “たほうがいい jlpt”
Bunpro in general has a lot more grammar points. Eg. After finishing Kanzen Master N3 + N3 Drill Book + Nihongo Soumatome N3, I still had 30% left on Bunpro.
For N5 and N4, I generally followed Bunpro’s lesson structure as sometimes the Lessons build on top of each other!
Some things that I realized over the last 2 years.
- Bunpro has a great community.
- The website has changed for the better and feels more and more complete.
- It will take more time than you think to complete everything.
- Some grammar points especially in N2 / N1 will take time…
- In an ideal world, I would have added new grammar points when my daily reviews go bellow a certain level (like 30ish a day), not in chunks when I had more free time. It would have helped with pacing…
- From time to time, learning grammar was really exhausting…
- Reading has become more and more important!
- Its good to have a more holistic / balanced approach…My grammar / writing (and now reading speed) skills are far above my kanji / vocab / speaking knowledge … oops… hehe.
Reading Recommendations:
- Read what you want!
- Shojo and Shonen manga are great (hopefully set in modern times) as they have furigana on everything. Furigana (how the kanji is read) is great as it speeds up searching for words.
- There is also Kadokawa Tsubasa Bunko (角川つばさ文庫) published books. These are great as they have furigana on everything and are kinda N4/N3 level.
Here are some of the Tsubasa Bunko books on Bookwalker: https://bookwalker.jp/label/714/ - There is also Satori Reader
- Nearly every manga / light novel is on Bookwalker JP / Booklive / eBookJapan with free samples.
Bunpro has really improved over the last 2.5 years. I really believe its worth trying it out and in a way the whole service may be lightly underpriced hehe…
The Cream feature can be really useful from time to time to jog my memory.
Overall, I am really happy with my investment. It took me some time to figure things out. Bunpro is really amazing and the database of grammar points and sentences (and Haruna’s audio) are really really special. It does make things a lot easier!
