Finally cracked open N1 after slaying some ghosts. Somehow managed to lose my streak on 6/3 but it’s fine. ~30 days until N1 complete starting today.
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If you did N2 with 6 a day then maybe you’re just built different, but I went for 3 x N1 points per day starting from 2, and retaining them was hard enough. They’re often a bit longer and tend to make less intuitive sense than N2 or N3. But go off! Once you get through them, review is what matters anyways. Amazing work so far!
Thanks! I mostly just followed what others had done already. Write down the grammar points on paper to ensure I read it at least once in a thorough manner followed by lots of cramming. I also screen shot my results from every review batch so I can remember what I got wrong last time. I have a discord channel I dedicate to my Japanese learning where I keep all the screen shots from daily reviews. Ultimately, you just have to keep refreshing grammar points until they stick.
I find knowing the origin or literal translation of a grammar point to be very helpful. Knowing the kanji used in a grammar point also helps. When it’s really whacky, sometimes you just have to come up with your own mnemonic or let it become a ghost so the SRS will beat it into your head.
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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).
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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…
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.
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Congratulations 
what Books are you currently reading ?
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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.
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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.
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2 stages full ghosts is the way 🫡
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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
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Thanks! Your words of encouragement were helpful 
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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.
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I have strictness divide by half and ghosts set to on. Maybe that’s to harsch but it works for now at least
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.
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.
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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.
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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
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