I just love how there is an anime about just everything 
So educational! Probably 
I’ll try to take a look into all recommendations I get, but being on crunchyroll obviously makes it easier for me.
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Now that I’m reading “石けんのひみつ”, I’m pretty glad I got all those chemistry related words from Dr Stone, they DID come in handy!
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hooray! 
Today is finally the day! All N4 items made it into my review queue 
Feels totally huge, like I climbed a mountain or something Not sure where to go next yet. Maybe I just sit on top of this mountain for a bit, enjoying the view. The next mountain is already visible on the horizon, waiting to be climbed, too. I’m already hyped for that, too.
Maybe it’s time to reflect a bit on my journey and progress so far?
It’s almost been two years, now. I’m very happy, that I never had a longer pause or fell off the waggon even though I do struggle a lot with my health, leaving me unable to learn every now and then. The beginning of my journey had been chaotic as I tried basically every tool, site, app there was out there until I settled with bunpro last october and got lifetime I’m still team “duolingo is a great tool for beginners”, I’m aware that’s controversial.
I would consider my journey as very successful so far My main goal for learning japanese is actually the progress of learning, as I just love learning languages, the process of learning vocab, doing reviews, making new connections, understanding more, it’s very satisfying. So I’m very glad I decided on japanese, as this is a language you can learn for a decade without becoming too proficient. All my learning decision were made with a focus of enjoying the progress, which kept the spark alive for almost two years and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
My secondary goal is to understand manga/anime/light novels, and I’m right on track here I can already enjoy easy manga and very easy anime and as time progresses I will only become better with them. But if it takes a few more years, I don’t mind at all.
Where do I go from here? Well, N3 is the next step obviously. With the next wanikani lifetime sale I’ll start kanji. I’m already hyped for that. The only reason I didn’t do kanji yet was, that I didn’t need them so far. But now that I can theoretically start reading harder manga, many come without furigana (at least the ones I really want to read). And though I don’t feel like I’m at light novel level yet, the ones worth reading for me obviously don’t have furigana either.
Longterm, I see myself totally getting into yakuwarigo (character role grammar). That’s way more interesting than regular speech grammar (for me). I haven’t looked into it yet, but I guess all good ressources for that will be japanese only. So I have to wait a bit more until my japanese progressed enough to really get into it.
Anyway, time to party 
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You spoiled what the 250k exp badge looks like! 
But seriously, congratulations. Taking some time to let everything sink in and feel good about what you achieved, and then moving on to new stuff sounds like a good idea.
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yeah, that’s my go to language, too
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It’s time for some small random updates!
Currently reading: Ruri Dragon | L21
Such a cute manga with nice art With this one, I’m looking up most unknown words and try to grasp unfamilar or vague grammar. It’s not too much, though. Very fitting as an easy read for my level
I just watched The Most Heretical Last Boss Queen: From Villainess to Savior | L27? without subtitles by accident, thinking it was ranked L22 After a few episodes I thought I was stupid for undertsanding so little, then I looked at the page again and felt really great understanding so much I still watched it till the end without subtitles. I was able to grasp the overall plot, but there was a lot of dialog where I was completely lost. Definetly worth a rewatch later on
Currently watching Orange | L21 and language wise it’s a nice fit. I have to activate subtitles for the letters though, as I can’t read kanji yet. Storywise I went in blind expecting a casual high school romance but it seems it’s a rather sad story so far. Not in the mood for a downer right now, so I might drop this, if it gets too much. Feel free to spoiler the mood of the ending to me ^^
As I’m now starting with N3 I reduced my daily new items to 1 grammar and 10 vocab a day. It kinda feels like a vacation now So obviously I had to fill the time with something new and I decided trying textbooks. I already have the genki 1 but it felt like I wasn’t really getting much out of it in the beginning. Now it’s obviously way too easy to learn something new, but it’s perfect to practice output with already learned grammar and vocab. I was thinking about a way to deepen my N5 (and then N4) grammar and thought I might reset the N5 grammar deck, using the SRS to write a sentence everytime I have to review the grammar. But just working through genki gives me plenty of writing practice and resetting stuff sounds sad
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No spoilers here because I’m only partway through volume 2 of the manga at the moment (and because I can’t figure out how to blur spoilers on the Bunpro forums for some reason), but I’ve had the same reaction to it as you! I actually have to take frequent breaks from reading it because it’s often very emotionally heavy. I keep telling myself that the ending can’t be THAT bad because it seems like such a beloved story, but there are definitely beloved anime and manga with sad endings out there, so I’m bracing for the worst…
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Thanks for your additional input. Sometimes I’m in the mood for really sad stuff, so I’ll keep it on my “watch it later list”, if it gets too heavy for me right now.
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Quick update time!
Love, love, love the new listening mode review type Sure, reviews now take double the amount of time but it’s really fun and egaging. It also comes at the perfect time for me, since I really want to up my listening comprehension skills.
Reading: Still reading Ruri Dragon. Since I’m reading it intensly (looking up most unknown vocab/grammar and staying with a sentence long enough until I can name the grammar points used) it takes way longer to read as others. In addition, I take note of grammar I only learned here on bunpro but failed to recognize in the wild.
Textbook: Currently working with Genki 1/2. Doing the grammar exercises from my “failed grammar” list I got from reading Ruri Dragon and reviews. It’s really fun I handwrite all of these and get creative. My handwriting already looks like “cute first grade writing” style, at least in my opinion ^^
Listening: Still all over the place. Dropped the anime “orange” due to the sad vibe (though I might read the light novel, if the WaniKani bookclub picks it up). I’m now watching Couple of Cuckoos | L23 which I think is even easier to understand, it feels like they’re using mostly really short sentences. Trying for an intensive watch here, switching subtitles on and off, and replaying short snippets again and again. This is really exhausting? I can only do like 5 minutes of anime at a time, which probably takes like half an hour with all the replaying. Well, that will probably get better sooner or later. I’ll also started watching youtube videos for learners in the N5 and N4 range. Those are mostly easy to follow and not as taxing, no replays neccessary.
Games: Currently playing “Pokemon: Let’s go evoli”, already got the second badge And I joined the Final Fantasy 1 Playthrough Game Club Thingie on WaniKani on a whim, more fun than expected. Since we are still in week 1 for a while, now is the chance to join in
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I just love the new listening style reviews
I feel like even in the short time of using these, my listening comprehension got a huge boost already. I also noticed, that sometimes I have an easier time understanding a word by listening instead of reading, like hearing it makes it click easier and it’s learned easier. I also noticed I recognize more of my recently learned words while watching anime which is free extra practice.
Currently watching:
In the Heart of Kunoichi Tsubaki | L20
They use tons of short sentences, mostly talk about visible stuff and use easy vocab about everyday things. Not much ninja talk.
Currently reading:
スライムライフ | L18
How could I not love this? It features the cutest slime, the stakes are non-existent and the most important part: it got a cute slime! (yeah, slimes are just the best 
. I can totally relate to the MC who just wants to cuddle the slime all day long).
The language is really, really easy and it got not that much text at all, sometimes whole pages without any. But since those prominently feature the cute slime, I don’t mind ^^
Currently playing:
In addition to everything I’m already playing, I also added “watashi no kitchen” on NES into the mix, which I got gifted. It’s great for learning kitchen/cooking vocab in a very easy way. You even get quizzed on the vocab. Storywise: your a small child cooking for the first time and mama explains everything step by step, walking you through kitchen appliances, cooking terms and recipes. I already learned tons of vocab here
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Did you mean Gameboy Color? When I look it up that seems to be the only thing coming up.
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uff, of course 
i’m still mixing up all those new gaming devices for home use! haha 冗談冗談… Though all old consoles are nes to me…
At least being old has the perk of still having all those devices lieing around, especially with some equally old game nerds in your circle.
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My review queue gave me some random high review spikes, 200+ compared to my chill around 40 I’ve benn having usually ー and it’s almost all expert 1 items? I took a closer look at them and yeah, those are the 100 a day I added in January. While I made sure to sort them into different categories each day, I often enough skipped review days so even though they were added on different days and I put them into different SRS stages they ended up on the same day. Well, ca 170 expert items today and probably the same amount tomorrow.
While I wish my reviews could be more evenly spread every day, I don’t mind too much, expert items are easy and quickly done with. When I’ll see them the next time, they’ll all go into mastered
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Anybod else has constantly shifting “best methods”? It’s probably totally normal, it just currently switching a lot for me
At the moment I feel like I’m getting the most out of watching anime without subtitles. It feels like my brain got another huge upgrade and now watching anime not only got way easier, it feels like it settles learned grammar better than reading. Maybe it’s because of the speed in which they talk, not leaving me much time to think or analyze. Makes my brain realize it better understand fast or it won’t understand anything at all Works best with completely new to me anime. More need to understand.
That’s why I made myself a huge watchlist I love making those and never finish them and I bet I’ll switch focus way before I finish this list again. But it’s fun while it’s my preferred method.
Currently watching My Clueless First Friend | L17. I looked into it a few months ago at first, but it wasn’t really clicking then, so I stopped. This time around it’s an easy watch. Like I can notice the grammar points AND parse/understand the full sentence before the next one drops most of the time. This feels really huge and motivating I’m almost through this anime and notice more and more sentences skipping the “notice grammar point” stage and gling directly to “understood” stage, but I still need way more practice with this.
That makes my current study plan: mostly watching anime Perfect study plan ^^ I do my Bunpro SRS, but currently only dropping new stuff into my review queue every other day. My focus is on watching anime after all
Oh, I also started a 1 on 1 bookclub, rereading my first manga “chis sweet home”. This time it’s a very intensive reading, we take our time with every sentence until it’s completely understood. I already know most of the stuff, but even then deciphering the whole sentence, noticing how the grammar interacts and sometimes explaining it, really deepens my understanding for the grammar itself somehow.
Rereading my first book, which i read 9 months ago in January really, really shows how far I’ve come since then, which is hugely motivating It shows me, the way I structure my learning might be focused on enjoyment, but it also produces real results way faster than I anticipated. I was never interested in fast or efficient, but my way of learning surprsied me regarding both ^^
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Today I reached two hallmark points!
I got 3000 items learned on bunpro I still remember when I was at 2000. In this range, there are still so many useful and common words, that I oftentimes find myself thinking “I just learned that!” during immersion. Sadly I never have the motivation to add words that I already learned well enough during immersion to my queue, I always think “whatever, they will get added to queue when I reach that point in bunpro” But at least it gives me about 3 “free” items in my learn queue everyday, cause I already know them well enough.
I also finished genki 1 today! Yeah, I know, it’s just N5 grammar and I already knew everything in there I just loved handwriting the exercises and trying to make the most nonsensical or fun sentences. Since genki mostly teach standard, I changed it up frequently, one exercise standard, one casual, some role speak here (still my fav!) and some occasional keigo there. I love the range of grammar japanese has
Currently reading my first light novel Orange | L23 and while I disliked the anime and just watched two episodes, I really like the light novel. Reading a novel also seems to be more fun to me than reading manga. I have always been more of a book type person The flow of the language is way nicer in a light novel and I can just read page after page. With manga there was always to much going on (speech bubbles, who says what, pictures, sfx, extremely casual grammar) while with books it’s just nicely written sentences.
But there are not many light novels as easy and furigana rich as this one. I’ll take recommendations ^^
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Congrats Chimmsen! Love hearing about your progress and successes, and I think going through Genki I even when you’re comfortable with the material is a great way to really solidify your skills! 頑張ってね^^
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