Ooh, we got this one in French last year and it’s pretty popular, I might give it a try ! May I ask where you are, grammar-wise ? I’m afraid it’s a bit too difficult for me and I found unknown grammar to be way harder to look up compared to unknown vocab / kanji
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I finished N5 and N4 grammar here on bunpro and started with N3 recently. But I have been reading manga and looking up a bunch of grammar points since I finished N5. Grammar wise I would rate the series hit or miss, as it got some strong dialects, but the rest was pretty straight forward and even easier than some supposedely easy manga (in my opinion). But I don’t notice dialect that much and just think about it as some role speak 
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Seems we’re around the same point then, I finished N4 grammar two weeks ago with a few bonus N3 lessons. Thanks for the details, I’ll give it a try 
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Last update was quite some time ago, but I’m still here! Got sick and it was lingering quite a bit, so I thought “well whatever, I’m calling it a vacation now!” and paused my japanese for two weeks and instead just played games and slept it off 
This is the first time that I actually used vacation mode, as I didn’t even felt like doing daily reviews. And as expected, after two weeks my retention has already dropped quite a bit my accuracy is usually around 95% and it dropped down to around 80%! Well, just like coming back to school after holidays, everythings forgotten ^^ Will probably not adding any new points for one or two weeks.
I even noticed my reading ability was down. But luckily just the day I finished my vacation, there was a new speed run bookclub started over at wanikani took me like around 15 pages and my reading felt like before the vacation
Currently, I’m still a bit tired of SRS and the premade bunpro path, but still undecided on what to change. Do I switch to a premade anime deck? Do I just add stuff I get through immersion for a while? I have a bunch of ideas on what and how to switch, but none that actually stands out to me, so I guess I’ll just wait a bit longer, inspiration and motivation usually struck when I find something interesting again. And if I don’t add any new items in my SRS but just keep reading and watching stuff, that’s fine by me, too
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Another option, that I started using all the time, is looking up word really well, reading 5-7 sentences.
Furthermore, I look up unrecognized kanji, especially words that use those kanji. This way I can get the sense of that kanji and in most cases I’ll find out they are being used in words I know, which makes click for me to remember the kanji in a moment, as well as pointing relation between new word and the old one.
Then I might right kanji or word down to struggle with it for a brief time.
Basically I’m trying to make as much connections as I possible can. This way usually it takes just a few encounters to remember the word/kanji. The good side is that I don’t have to do it every time. After the first look up like that, if I can not recall the word and trying to look it up again, instead of initial 5-15 minutes I’ll end up looking it up for only 1-2 minutes because when I start doing this look up again brain sees that it has done it before and loads all the data it has found for the first time. A really useful feature of the brain.
When I started using this method, before long I’ve fought Japanese finally making sense for me, as Italian or English do. If it was like “why this freaking word exists I’ll never remember it” now it’s more like “ok this is something new but I can see how it fits into the general picture” and this makes critical difference for me between flying over the word or making it a part of myself that makes the general picture wider.
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Sounds like a really great plan! 
I’m just way too lazy Even looking up too much stuff destroys my reading flow ^^ But when I do writing/grammar practice I do something similar The more use and connections a word, grammar or kanji gets, the faster it’s learned and the easier it gets to connect to stuff to it
I also love looking up which other words use the same kanji when I look those up, there are so many funny and interesting combinations and by seeing so many different uses, the kanji becomes more “alive” somehow.
I was more wondering in which direction I’d like to go with SRS soon, as I’m not invested in my current N3 vocab deck, I probably phrased that badly though ^^ Adding new vocab from that deck doesn’t give me the same enjoyment I used to get. I learn so many vocab through reading alone, but recently the N3 vocab felt like a mismatch for where I am at the moment. But I also know I’m to lazy to add vocab manually or making my own decks. I’d rather take a mismatched deck than one I would have to make myself (cause I would just stop after a few days ^^). Since I do a lot of manga and anime and don’t care for JLPT, I thought maybe switching to the anime deck here on bunpro might be a good alternative, but I don’t feel strongly one way or the other.
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if you like handwriting have ever considered Skritter? Personally vibing with me more than WK, never got warm with the app.
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Thanks for the recommendation, never heard of Skritter Doesn’t seem like a good fit for me, though. I thrive on mnemonics and love the radical breakdown wanikani does, Skritter doesn’t seem to have this. Also no lifetime subscription? That’s an instant “no” for me, too.
But I’m glad there are alternatives to wanikani, as their approach is not working for everybody
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I have to say the Japanese version is lacking in example sentences compared to their main app (mandarin), I have been doing a deck with the 216 most common radicals that Japanese people also use and understand plus their radical sound, it is very practical when you ask or explain to a Japanese person what a kanji is made of
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Proud to report I successfully started my first anime WITH subtitles.
Subtitles used to confuse me too much. I focused too much on them, while understanding too little, leading to me understanding less compared to when I just watched without subtitles. Not sure if it was a issue with reading speed or kanji or my brain just needing more time to be able to process speech and reading at the same time. So I watched all my anime so far without subtitles, but I still were able to follow along easy anime, so overall it was a win
Today I experimented with subtitles again and not only weren’t they confusing anymore but I even understood more now (compared with no subtitles) And even better: WITH subtitles I’m able to watch for longer without my brain getting fried :).
I might opt to watch more difficult anime now with subtitles and the easier ones without. My current watch Cardcaptor Sakura | L22 is on the easier side, and I was able to understand it well enough without subtitles, but I will still watch this one with subtitles for the learning experience ^^
I’m looking forward to be able to watch mid-20 level anime with subtitles from now on
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会いたいな、会えないな、切ないな、この気持ち 
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It’s a very “have to sing along everytime” theme song Hope I’ll have it memorized by the end of the anime
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Thank you for suggesting ギャルと恐竜! I had not heard of but it sounds like a great manga for me right now.
Also wanted to say I love you attitude and approach to learning Japanese and it’s helped me reflect on my own journey and stress less!
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There will be a Gal to Dino wanikani bookclub starting december, just in case you’re interested
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Oh yes! Very much so! Thanks!
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I’ll be participating, too and I hope there will be a spin-off bookclub See you over at wanikani then
All my immersion doesnt leave me with much time (or motivation for SRS)
I wish I were already at a point were I could just say “who needs SRS anymore, I’ll learn through immersion only”. I would anticipate that being somewhere around the 10k vocab range, and grammar completed. But I’m just a measly 3k vocab in (bunpro count at least, I probably do know more, but my brain doesnt come with a vocab count ) and I’m still learning N3 grammar.
I think my motivation for SRS will come back when switching over to focus on wanikani. Learning kanji and using a different UI and a different review type will make feel things fresh for a bit
I decided to switch to the anime deck to see how that goes and lower my new vocab amount to 5. I just want to get over the SRS part of the day quickly to go back to reading and watching anime
Textbook work? hiatus I’d still like to finish genki 2 by the end of the year, but i haven’t touched it for about a months ^^ By extrapolating this data, it’s clear I’m not gonna finish till the end of the year. I’ll just wait till the textbook mood strikes me again. Since I only care about immersion, I take textbooks more like a fun supplement, if they stop being fun than what what’s the point
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With N3 grammar now having japanese explanations, I tried to switch today and it was surprisingly easy Made sure to read the english version afterwards, to see if I missed something, but at least for this entry I got all the important things I’m gonna try the japanese explanations for a while, even if it’s just for the “yay, I could read that!” feeling ^^
The switch to the anime deck was fun so far. As expected it’s giving me only stuff I already know Things like あっ interjection or わ ending particle ^^ At least those words will now be in my queue and accounted for
Over the course of the last two weeks I worked on lowering my daily review count in anticipation on switching focus on wanikani for a while. It should now be around 50 reviews a days, which are quickly done and feels like a vacation from the 200 review days I had around early summer (when I ramped up to finish N4 a bit faster). I hope to be able to keep up with reviews and adding 1 grammar and 5 vocab a day when I add wanikani into my routine, but if that proves to be too much at one point, I’m willing to reduce further until I feel like I caught up with kanji.
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