A Beginner’s Study Log

[Kathleen]

みなさん、こんにちは

I’ve decided to start a study log in the hopes it will keep me accountable!

Background:
I’ve watched anime in Japanese with English subtitles for many years. At the end of last year I wanted to start learning a second language, so Japanese was the obvious choice. I started out with Duolingo, and while it was fun I did get frustrated with the slow progress after a few months. So in March this year I started taking a class that uses Genki 1. Since then I’ve added more resources to my learning, but I am still not studying consistently, thus this study log and my study plans!

Resources and how often I plan to use them:
みんなの日本語 1 / Online class (1 lesson per week)
Genki 1 / Tokini Andy (1 lesson per fortnight)
Tobira 1 (1 lesson per fortnight)
BunPro (Daily)
WaniKani (Daily)
Anki (Daily)
N5 Tango 1000 vocab (Daily)
Duolingo (Daily, but only 5 minutes, low priority)
JapanesePod101 (Weekly? Low priority)
Beri Beri Shoushinsha ebooks (Weekly? Low priority)

My goals:
To study consistently!!!
To finish all 3 beginner textbooks by the end of March 2025
Take the N5 in July 2025

Not sure if then aiming for the N4 in December 2025 would be too ambitious? But I can always evaluate that later I guess.

Any input and encouragement would be much appreciated! I will try and update at least weekly.

ありがとうございます

[scarecrowfield]

Welcome to the world of study logs! If I’m looking correct, you’re practicing grammar, kanji, vocab, listening and reading, right? In my study log, I’m making weekly goals (just an idea), because it’s easier to complete short-term goals, sometimes long-term ones are too abstract.

[Kathleen]

Thank you scarecrowfield. Yes, I’m trying to incorporate all the aspects, probably not equally just yet, still needs some fine tuning.

I’ll put up an update at the end of the day with what I got done this week and what my goals for next week are!

[EinarEB]

That looks like a fairly balanced plan for your resources. It is a good idea to start slow with your grammar lessons and 2 new lessons per week sounds like a reasonable pace for a beginner.

One thing that stands out though is that you are planning to use 4 separate SRS + Duolingo. It can get pretty intense pretty fast depending on how many lessons you plan to add on each every day and if you don’t add enough it can feel like you are going at a snails pace and not making much progress on each one.

If I could give you any advice I would probably recommend to drop Duolingo (not useful), hold off on anki until you finish the tango 1k deck, only do the grammar lessons on bunpro corresponding to your textbook and online class (wait a bit before starting bunpro vocabulary), and focus on doing a consistent amount of lessons and reviews on wanikani (helpful for reading and bunpro).

Also if watching anime is what you like, you should just keep watching that regularly (It will help your listening). Turning off the subtitles might feel overwhelming but it will really help your listening in the long run.

[Kathleen]

End of week update:
I only started getting back into some proper study on Friday, so not a full week. A small amount of progress, fingers crossed I can improve next week!

Resources and how I used them:
Mostly みんなの日本語 1 (Didn’t quite finish Ch3 - just have the listening exercises to go)
Yes Online class
No Genki 1 / Tokini Andy (1 lesson per fortnight)
No Tobira 1 (1 lesson per fortnight)
Sat & Sun BunPro (Daily)
Fri, Sat & Sun WaniKani (Daily)
Only Sunday Anki (Daily)
Only Sunday N5 Tango 1000 vocab (Daily)
Yes Duolingo (Daily, but only 5 minutes, low priority)
No JapanesePod101 (Weekly? Low priority)
No Beri Beri Shoushinsha ebooks (Weekly? Low priority)

Goals for next week:
みんなの日本語 - Finish last bit of Ch3 and all of Ch4
Genki 1 / Tokini Andy - Finish Ch3 (am already part way through)
BunPro & WaniKani - complete daily

[Kathleen]

Thank you for the suggestions EinarEB!

Right now on Anki I only have 2 decks - Tokini Andy’s N5 vocab and the N5 Tango 1000. I can’t say I’m a massive fan of Anki yet, so I don’t really want to spend too long on it. I’ve set it to only 5 cards from each deck per day, I’ll see how that goes.

I did think I’d have to drop Duolingo at some point, maybe it’s just a bit nostalgic?! But I have decreased it significantly, today I only did 2.5minutes.

[Kathleen]

Week 44 of 2024

Completed Checklist

	月	火	水	木	金	土	日
BunPro	[x]	[x]	[x]	[x]	[x]	[x]	[x]
WaniKani	[x]	[x]	[x]	[x]	[x]	[x]	[x]
Anki	[x]	[x]	[x]	[x]	[x]	[x]	[x]
N5 Tango vocab book	[]	[]	[]	[]	[]	[]	[]
Duolingo	[x]	[x]	[x]	[x]	[x]	[x]	[x]
Online class					[x]
みんなの日本語							[x]
Genki I							[x]
Genki I Workbook							[x]
Tobira I
Tobira I Workbook
JapanesePod101							[]
Beri Beri Shoushinsha ebooks							[]

This Week’s Goals
[x] みんなの日本語 → Finish Ch3 from last week
[x] みんなの日本語 → Complete Ch4
[x] Genki (& Tokini Andy) → Complete Ch3
[x] BunPro & WaniKani → Complete daily

I feel like I’m doing better this week! I achieved all my goals
But now my brain feels full and so I’m done for the week except a few BunPro and WaniKani reviews later this evening (今ごご4時50分です。)

[Kathleen]

And if anyone can explain to me how to make checkboxes I would really appreciate it

[scarecrowfield]

for some reason I can’t do it on Bunpro’s community, but it works on Wanikani’s just fine

And I just copy paste what I post on Wanikani here.

[EinarEB]

You’re doing pretty good! Two hours of consistent, active study each day will definitely take you far!

Are you thinking about adding any immersion to your routine? Learner-focused materials are useful, especially when you’re starting out, but relying solely on them can lead to a bit of a shock when transitioning to content meant for Japanese natives.

Even if you’re only picking up a word here or there, having some authentic Japanese material to revisit is valuable, it lets you check your understanding and see how much you’re progressing over time.

[Kathleen]

ありがとうございます。

I’m doing a limited amount of immersion at the moment. I listened to 2 Japanese with Shun podcasts this week, although I didn’t understand much. Half the time that I’m driving I’ll put on Japanese music. As part of the Tokini Andy course there are some graded readers including the Tadoku ones. So not too much at the moment.

My general idea was to focus mostly on my learning texts to get to approximately an N5 level and then increase my immersion. I have a few podcasts saved, will get Satori reader, aim to buy some manga (including よつばと!) and hopefully find some anime online that has Japanese subtitles.

Or should I be increasing my immersion now even if I’m not understanding much of it?

[Kathleen]

Week 45 of 2024

Completed Checklist

	月	火	水	木	金	土	日
BunPro	[x]	[x]	[x]	[x]	[x]	[x]	[x]
WaniKani	[x]	[x]	[x]	[x]	[x]	[x]	[x]
Anki	[x]	[x]	[x]	[x]	[x]	[x]	[x]
N5 Tango vocab book	[]	[x]	[x]	[x]	[x]	[x]	[x]
Duolingo	[x]	[x]	[x]	[x]	[x]	[x]	[x]
Online class					[x]
みんなの日本語							[x]
Genki I
Genki I Workbook
Tobira I							[x]
Tobira I Workbook							[x]
JapanesePod101							[]
Beri Beri Shoushinsha ebooks							[]

This Week’s Goals
[x] べんきょうします → Minimum of 15 hours
[x] みんなの日本語 → Complete Ch5
[x] Tobira → Complete Ch1 (can’t remember where I got up to last time )
[x] BunPro & WaniKani → Complete daily

Completed all of my goals! Even though I woke up sick yesterday and have lost most of my energy Hopefully it’s just a quick cold and it won’t affect my Japanese next week.

There’s still a few hours of the day left and I have a few WK and BP reviews coming up, but here are my weekly stats atm.

[EinarEB]

I think doing a little immersion regularly is a solid approach for now.

よつばと! is a great choice! I remember reading it soon after learning kana, it was helpful for reinforcing my hiragana and katakana. Since then, I’ve reread the whole series whenever a new volume comes out, and it’s been rewarding to see how much more I understand each time.

For anime with Japanese subtitles, animelon.com was pretty useful (hopefully it still is). Japanese Netflix (with a VPN) also has Japanese subtitles, though it’s not quite as learner-friendly as Animelon.

[Kathleen]

I tried accessing animelon earlier today because I’ve seen so many recommend it, however the Australian government has decided to block it due to copyright issues so that didn’t work out.

ありがとうございます @EinarEB さんと @scarecrowfield さん。Unfortunately I only have Apple devices at the moment so I don’t think the extensions will work. Options for me to consider are a VPN or getting a cheap Windows laptop for Japanese learning. For now I decided to sign up to Netflix to just see what they have available. I watched the first episode of Beastars in Japanese with Japanese subtitles before bed last night. Did not understand about 95% of it. But I read the manga in English a few months ago, so still got the gist of it and enjoyed it!

[EinarEB]

Shoot… I guess an alternative would be to use something like kitsuneko.net - Japanese and English anime subtitles to download and then sync Japanese subtitles… I often find that a bit tedious.

Or you could try a VPN?

VPN Gate - Public Free VPN Cloud by Univ of Tsukuba, Japan

[scarecrowfield]

If you go to the kitsuneko route, read this: 30 Day Japanese - TheMoeWay - Day 6

[Kathleen]

Week 46 of 2024

Completed Checklist

	月	火	水	木	金	土	日
BunPro	[x]	[x]	[x]	[]	[]	[]	[]
WaniKani	[x]	[x]	[x]	[x]	[x]	[]	[x]
Anki	[x]	[x]	[x]	[x]	[x]	[x]	[x]
N5 Tango vocab book	[x]	[x]	[x]	[x]	[]	[x]	[x]
Duolingo	[x]	[x]	[x]	[]	[x]	[x]	[x]
Online class					[x]
みんなの日本語							[x]
Genki I							[x]
Genki I Workbook							[]
Tobira I
Tobira I Workbook
JapanesePod101							[]
Beri Beri Shoushinsha ebooks							[]

This Week’s Goals
[x] べんきょうします → Minimum of 15 hours
[x] みんなの日本語 → Complete Ch6
[] Genki/Tokini Andy → Complete Ch4
[] BunPro & WaniKani → Complete daily

I feel like I’m starting strong this week! Even with a cold. I just finished みんなの日本語Ch6. Onto Genki! Fingers crossed that I can keep it up.

金曜日 Update

So this week is not going to plan. My cold has started to drag me down, so the week isn’t going to be perfect. But I’m still trying!
With my low energy I let BunPro go most of yesterday and today. So tonight it looked like this:

I did not want to wake up to 200 … so it took me half an hour but I did it!

Although I still didn’t do any new lessons, so I won’t be marking it off on my checklist, I still feel it’s a reasonable accomplishment!

End of Week Stats

Reflection:
So I didn’t end up completing everything like I wanted, but still happy that I made progress despite being sick. I finished Ch4 in the Genki textbook, but haven’t finished the workbook or Tokini Andy. But I aim to finish them tomorrow! Also got my first lot of radicals in WK up to Master today

[Kathleen]

しつもん: How do you try to remember the words that just don’t stick?

I have words I can remember after the first time and words I can remember after a few goes. But then there are the words that no matter how many times they come up I just can’t seem to get them!!! Do you approach these words differently? Do different activities with them? Or do I just need to be repeating them over and over and hope they stay in my head?

[scarecrowfield]

Sometimes, if a word is not sticking I just give up on them (if it’s not on WaniKani since I can’t do that there), because of my level, I know that if that word is really important, I’ll encounter it on the wild, and it’ll stick so much better (I even change to add vocab on Bunpro only if I had already seen somewhere like Satori or Tokini’s lives). Also, there’s this website: Immersion Kit

[Munchakoopas]

You’re doing great! I love how thought out your plan is. <3

My one piece of advice is, it’s okay to take breaks or not hit your initial goals. It’s very easy as a beginner to overestimate what you may be capable of. You have a pretty stacked plan and goal but remind yourself any progress is good, even if you don’t hit your initial goals.

Motivation will always ebb and flow so I try to keep a plan for those days where I really just need to accept minimum effort. Something like “even if I don’t get to studying I’ll at least open WaniKani or BunPro even if I don’t do any reviews.” Another one might be “I’ll at least watch an episode of anime for exposure” but since anime is kinda my comfort thing I try not to overuse it for study purposes.