Another 1 year speedrun thread (N1"-ish", not JLPT N1)

[sushimonster]

1/3rd of the way through N1. Also, cramming is back on the menu. A lot easier to quickly browse thru a lesson, cram it, repeat for the next lesson. Keeps the solution space small which I find useful in the short term. Need to also find time to cram N2 again. Should note the most troubled lessons from N5-N2 and cram those semi-regularly.

An example of the screenshots I take at the end of every review session and save in discord. I did notice that bunpro adds your latest reviews into your profile which I found useful when doing reviews on my phone (those screenshots have low resolution).

[sushimonster]

2/3rds done with N1. Looking to be done by July 11 or 12. If I was super efficient it would be done by the 9th but I’ll probably have a few days where I only do 3 grammar terms instead of 6 (I still owe 6 for today). Reading is getting better and better despite doing no reading outside of bunpro review prompts.

Been doing a lot of cramming for N1. Most of the time, it’s not that the grammar is hard to understand, I simply cannot remember what the terms are when asked to recall. If this were multiple choice, I’m sure my accuracy would be a lot higher. But I enjoy fill-in more because it feels like the brain is forced to make stronger connections.

Seeing some weakness in N2 so will likely need to full-cram that once, identify the troubled lessons, and then full cram those lessons. Will do the same for N3-N5 once N1 is done. I’m sure there are some fundamentals in there that could use a second look.

As an aside, I thought about why the SRS on bunpro feels painful compared to WK for instance. I feel like WK likes to sprinkle in a lot of old vocab you already know like “sheep” for example despite having correctly answered “sheep” forever. Perhaps Bunpro should do this for grammar to make percentages look better and to have mastered terms become less stagnant.

Some random review screenshots so you can reference some real numbers:

Speak of the devil…

[sushimonster]

4 notebooks and ~10 pens, it is done.

Required spending at least 4 hours a day (often more) at an average of 6 grammar points per day for months. An unsustainable pace if it were not for remote work. Time to take a “break”, where I essentially do wanikani per usual and bunpro reviews as they come up. Need to go back and full cram N1/N2 a few times. Don’t consider myself an expert by any means but at least I’ve seen “all” the grammar points so I can start applying pattern recognition with less risk of a “surprise”.

The way forward is to just read a TON using yomitan while maintaining my reviews for bunpro and acquiring new words from wanikani. I was doing a 10k anki deck at some point but I didn’t like how some cards used hiragana instead of kanji so I’m leaning towards the N3-N1 vocab decks from bunpro as a structure way to fill in my remaining vocab (my vocab is probably sitting around 3000 words atm). Not sure when I’ll start that. Vocab is not something I plan to speedrun. From here on, I will develop a comfortable pace for the long term.

[GudGud07]

Congratulations what Books are you currently reading ?

[sushimonster]

Thanks!

I don’t read books yet. Just keeping up with my reviews. I prefer to read things that I can pair w/ yomitan. So if it’s digital, it’s fair game. I’m currently facing low to mid 70% on my N1 reviews and also being stuck thinking longer than I would like while simultaneously understanding the fact that a lot of the esoteric N1 grammar terms aren’t even used often. But it’s ok. I’m coasting right now to take a break and looking to focus up later. Officially hit the 1 year mark in October and my original plan was to drill about 1500-2000 more vocab before that but I’ve scrapped that. Need to dial it down for a bit.

If I were to read a book, it would be one of those Japanese grammar books that goes into more detail on the particles and their meanings/usage. Someone linked one on the forums the other day that looks promising.

[sushimonster]

POV You pressed the WK sync button:

Real sh*t:

Ended up backing out the WK sync cuz the way bunpro does vocab is too different. Will keep them separate.

[polevata]

2 stages full ghosts is the way 🫡

[rustx]

Judging from @sushimonster’s level it looks like hes almost done it.

I believed same as my previous post, this one was the most realistic ‘speedrun’ goal posted on here/wanikani in a long time

[sushimonster]

Thanks! Your words of encouragement were helpful

[ErLouwer]

What exactly is your goal?
It seems that you arent doing “1 year” and neither doing “N1,” so why do you call it “1 year N1 speedrun”?
There isnt something like "N1-“ish”. You either are N1, or you arent.

Also, if I understand this correctly your daily learning schedule has no immerson in it. If you really want to “speedrun” it I recommend reading alot of novels in particular, since that is by far the hardest medium to study.

Also be aware of the three major risks when doing something like this (aka pushing yourself for the sake of a speedrun goal):
A: Burnout which leads to B: The realization that you cannot meet your own expectation which leads to C: a lack of motivation.

If you want my advice: Have fun doing it and Ignore N(anything) for now.

[aPaincake]

I have strictness divide by half and ghosts set to on. Maybe that’s to harsch but it works for now at least

[aPaincake]

What do you find different between them? The thing I sometimes struggle with is hints being very different or Bunpro expecting me to know a meaning which was not on Wanikani.

[sushimonster]

The speed run was essentially a series of mini speedruns: hiragana/katakana (1 week), 2k Anki deck (3.5 months), bunpro grammar (214 days), and as much vocab as I naturally pick up along the way (wanikani, reading bunpro prompts, random readings). Started during the last week of September 2024 so the end (1 year) is basically the beginning of October 2025. I finished the mini speedruns about 2 months beforehand so I was just coasting on reviews for a bit and adding vocab via wanikani. I watched a bunch of Ghibli films, Terrace house, and other things but didn’t explicitly log them. This was on top of a full time job and travelling for about a month or two. Final stats is probably around 4k vocab and N1-N5 grammar. Goal was to get to a point where I’m mostly just adding vocab and not worried about grammar anymore. By finishing bunpro grammar ASAP, I get more time for it to marinate and can focus mostly on reading and vocab.

[sushimonster]

So I use wanikani very passively to pick up vocab but I found that bunpro vocab uses a lot more context to describe the words. So you need to have a deeper understanding of the words to answer the vocab reviews for bunpro (which is good!). However, there’s this idea that too much SRS is paralysis so since I already started WK, I don’t exactly want to do bunpro vocab on top of that cuz I’m at the stage where I should immerse a lot more. If I were to do bunpro vocab in addition to wanikani, I would do it backwards… start with N1 and go to N3. N5 and N4 I will probably have picked up passively by the time I’ve done N1-N3 on bunpro. If you are only doing bunpro vocab, stick to bunpro vocab IMO. I like the systems on bunpro more.

[aPaincake]

I actually do vocab on both Wanikani and Bunpro. Wanikani helps me with kanji and readings while Bunpro helps with output and seeing them more in context. Yeah, too much SRS could be a problem but I try to keep it manageable in the long run by pacing myself

[sushimonster]

Random update. It’s been 18 months since I started learning Japanese. Official start is Oct 2024 but I did spend 2 weeks end of Sept on Hiragana/Katakana (Renshuu nmenonics carried). Very busy at work and other academic endeavors (probability theory and machine learning). Currently finished 9 out of 13 chapters in the Harvard Stat 101 textbook. In 2018, I coded a tetris AI based on the genetic algorithm in python. This time around, I vibe-coded a tetris AI in C++ based on reinforced learning.

As for Japanese, I’m keeping up with reviews but have not done much immersion outside the occasional Ghibli film. I’m just too busy recently. That said, I did watch the Evangelion 30th anniversary short on Studio Khara’s website entirely in Japanese which is neat.

- YouTube

Quietly doing my reviews on WK and Bunpro. Just hit level 29 in WK so almost to the half way point. Have yet to try any of the JLPT practice exams but if I had to guess I’m realistically at an N3 level. And even then, it’s dicey because my knowledge is pretty evenly spread across all levels, but I think the tests will focus more on N5-N3 mastery. Considering taking actual classes to work on speaking. Also, it would be nice if Bunpro had a newgame+ setting. It’s worth going over N3-N5 again.

Here’s the latest data:

[xotlanc]

Nice progress.

However I would recommend doing some JLPT practice exams for example in here. I’ve heard most people have tendency to overestimate their language level and mock exam can provide you with some realistic feedback. Better to be realistic at N4 than imaginary N2

Looking forward to more updates, お疲れ様でした!

[sushimonster]

Yea I worded it poorly. Should have said at most N3 .

[xotlanc]

You did not mention anything about vocab, are you doing some anki decks or just relying on Wanikani?
Also doing any listening on the side? Would welcome some N3 listening recommendations if you have those. I’m still searching for something that will keep me engaged in addition to learning value.

[sushimonster]

I used to do WK and Anki but I decided I was spending too much time on Japanese and needed to balance things. Fortunately, the speedrun phase is over so I have no problem dialing things up or down to a manageable level. I don’t do much listening besides the occasional Japanese youtube video or listening to myself repeat review prompts from bunpro. If I had more time I would just watch anime or Terrace House. You can try enabling auto-Japanese subtitles in youtube and use Yomitan to translate things you don’t know.