I find the ratings misleading. If you do not USE this language regularly, it will not matter what level you have achieved. I blazed through progressions years ago. I was so confident. Then I spoke to native speakers and realized I was still a noob. It does not matter what app, classes, etc. are being used, and how well you can achieve levels via these methods, you must have conversations to achieve any level of mastery.
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[#]Visual Novel Setup - TheMoeWay (learnjapanese.moe)
Has instructions for Windows, Mac, Linux, iPhone, Android Visual Novel set up
[#]Animecards Site has instructions for windows
So like everyone else said, Bunpro is not the most important part of learning Japanese. I really need to spend more time with immersion. What I am trying (and not succeding at) is spending more time with native content than time ‘studying’- bunpro, anki wanikani ect.
If your bunpro reviews are set to “reading”, then 100% rush through them. The warning is that the default cloze type can easily grow to 3 hours of reviews a day, which would be much better spent playing visual novels, watching youtube, reading manga ect in Japanese.
A rule of thumb I heard was 1/3 reading practice, 1/3 listening practice and 1/3 ‘studying’- and don’t study more than an hour a day.
I don’t follow this rule, it’s way too easy to get caught up in reading about Japanese that I forget to read in Japanese.
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Is there a better review alternative in Bunpro than the reading cloze? The flashcard options lacks context, so for grammar it seems insufficient, and the other is manual input (which I don’t fully understand the difference between it and cloze). If anyone can explain all the choices for review types that would be appreciated. Overall i’ve avoided touching the review settings as I don’t quite understand it.
On the topic of hours of reviews, Bunpro’s SRS is flawed in comparison to WaniKani in this way; it doesn’t really “space” out well. More often than not you’re constantly jammed with reviews.
And I agree with the immersion comment! Hence I bought volumes 1-15 of よつばと! on my recent trip to Japan! 
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Cloze is the anki name for “manual input”
I meant you can go faster on “flash card” than “manual input”
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I signed up to Bunpro in September in 2019 and scraped a pass for the N2 in December 2019. The caveat being that I wasn’t a beginner of Japanese at the time so could skip all the N5 and N4 grammar. I didn’t have any other passing grades for JLPT at the time but I probably could’ve passed the N3.
But to be honest, since then I have struggled to get my Japanese up a super high level. In the end, passing N2 only took “three months” but the whole journey of getting to a level of Japanese that I am satisfied with will probably take ten years or so.
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That’s precisely the point I was driving at. And I’ve seen countless of people expressing a similar experience because, at the end of the day, learning Japanese is an inevitably long journey.
I feel like everyone comes to this conclusion sooner or later. It’s just a matter of time, I guess 
.
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Unfortunately, what is considered high-level or fluent is simple too subjective to measure. For example. it’s very possible can someone pass the N1 but not have ever read a book in Japanese, while it’s just as possible for someone to have read multiple books and not be able to pass N1. So, I’d rather look at the journey of learning something in time rather than arbitrary measures of success like JLPT. Let’s see where you are in one year, or five years, or 10 years and if you are still trying to learn new things at those intervals. It’s all well and good to have gotten N1 in nine months or Wanikani level 60 in 2 years or whatever, but I think the person who has been chipping away at Japanese every day for five years is probably in a better position than the person who blasted through N1 in a year and then never really took it to the next level for the next four years.
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Reading is very important to me, so I want to get as fluent there as possible. I also enjoy writing quite a lot, so it would be great if I could also write it as fluent as possible (on the laptop). As for handwriting, I surely want to practice it at one point, too, but since I don’t live in Japan, I don’t think that this is quite as important as the other two aspect. While I would also love to get to a near-fluency level in talking, I reckon that this is going to be very, very hard without anyone around me speaking Japanese…
Note that these are my long-term goals, not what I am trying to “speedrun”, as goals that aim for fluency or near-fluency always require a lot of time, and these goals just can’t be really speedrunned 
Thanks, I will keep that in mind!
I’ve already announced like 942 times in the WK forums that I will get to WK level 60 in just one year, and I can’t back down from that now 
But, I think adding Anki to my learning routine will definitely a good idea. And thanks with the advice for starting reading as soon as possible!
Thanks for the advice! So I could already start reading when I’m halfway through N4?
Using the language regularly is exactly what I want to do later on (even though it might be a bit difficult for me in Austria to find someone who speaks Japanese lol)! But, I can have written conversations, and if I could write and listen to Japanese, that would already make a great progress for me! I will, of course, at some point also focus at talking Japanese myself, but first, I gotta find a way to meet someone who speaks Japanese
This is something I want to avoid at all costs! I am definitely not planning on stopping to learn Japanese after I’ve learned N1. If I learned N1, I will just fill the time I spent with grammar with some more reading, listening or writing (although since N1 and N2 are basically “vocab”, I think that @CursedKitsune’s approach is also worth trying).
And that is exactly why I wrote that this is going to be a controversial topic in the OP
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Just try it out and see for yourself 
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Then now is the perfect time announce that you’ll be completing Bunpro within the year and sitting the N1 in December
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Yes, definitely sound like you 
That would actually be a great achievement, I think hehe, I won’t be able to take the test officially, tho, because of the situation of my family, but I can certainly try to get to N1 level by December, which would actually be almost exactly one year after I started learning Japanese (I started on Nov 30, 2023)
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Btw now that I think about it: Why has his post been removed?
I probably sound like a broken record by now, but that’s because if I were to do it all over again I would tell myself not to rush Wanikani (or anything really). I’m being persistent here because I honestly don’t recommend doing this, but this will be my last attempt (at least in this thread).
If you read posts made by pretty much everyone that “finished” Wanikani Level 60 in one year, they’ll tell you why they don’t recommend it. I put “finish” in quotations because you don’t truly finish reviewing items until you Master everything, which takes around 1 1/2 years at the fastest speed. That’s because the last SRS for any given item in Wanikani occurs at the 6 month mark, and that’s if you got 100% score on every single review for that item.
IMO, it’s better to finish Wanikani in two to three years, which is still pretty fast, but you slightly mitigate falling into the trap that happens at the 6 month mark, where you’re getting hammered by reviews for items you did back then, on top of all the current reviews and other reviews from other SRS stages. If I remember correctly, I think I was doing around 400 reviews a day, every single day (no matter what), when I got to the 6 month mark. And that’s just Wanikani. I was also doing vocabulary and grammar reviews, though definitely not as intense as Kanji reviews.
On top of that, you also have to take into account the times your reviews fall in, because every single hour you miss your reviews pushes the SRS schedule forward in time. It’s like taking antibiotics, where you have to take them religiously at the same times during the day until you finish them, except you’re gonna be doing this for a year! The SRS schedule in Wanikani is MUCH more strict than BunPro’s do to this. Maybe if you have zero responsibilities this won’t be an issue, but not that many people have that luxury.
The result of this might be getting fatigued from so many reviews, but that depends on the person of course. Perhaps this won’t happen to you but, regardless, it’s gonna require hard work. Hopefully you’re up for it (though you missing 4 days when you JUST started kinda gives me pause).
Anyway, I’m not talking out of my @ss here, but from experience. Even after reading all of those people who got to level 60 in one year give the same advice I’m giving you now, my stubborn self still went ahead with it because I was gonna be different (or so I told myself back then. What a noob! ). Now I wished I had listened, so hopefully you heed my advice. If not, good luck 
. If you’re dead set on getting it done, you’ll do it. I’m sure of it. The real question will be, was it really worth it?
Alright, I’m out. Take care!!
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On an Apple Silicon Mac, Parallels Desktop + Windows 11 (ARM) will run most VNs effortlessly, including those with DRM protection, and those downloaded from Steam. Textractor fully functional. Unfortunately once you include Parallels and a Windows 11 Pro license, the cost is pretty close to that of a cheap laptop. Another option is CrossOver, which works for some VNs that I tested but requires a bit of tweaking.
On an Intel-based Mac, you could go with Boot Camp, Parallels or CrossOver.
For the few Mac-native VNs out there, I don’t think there’s anything like Textractor, so it all boils down to finding a way to run Windows apps.
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I am very much an outlier in my journey, but I’ll share my own experience anyhow.
I started studying Japanese around 10-11 months ago. I finished Bunpro’s N5-N1 + Kansai within 6 months and am now currently level 48 in WaniKani, next level starts the last stretch of WaniKani, where all the levels are short (3.5 days at min), so I’ll be “done” within two months.
Now… Was this all worth it? For me, yes, but only because I am now putting all this time spend studying into use by immersing in native content - if I would’ve left it at that, without this crucial step - I probably would’ve begun forgetting a lot of things by now, voiding a LOT of the time and effort studying. Essentially wasting it.
I was only able to be this extreme because of my life circumstances, however. Whatever you choose to do should fit your own circumstances. There is no one correct pace.
The most important thing is to go at the pace that allows you to show up daily and progress, even if a little bit 
It’s going to take years anyhow, so you need to take care not to burn out.
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Yeah, this is something I’ve thought about, too, and if I reach level 60 in WK, I won’t consider it “finished”, only “completed” in the sense that I’ve seen all the items at least once, but actually finishing it will take longer than a year, of course, even if I reach level 60 in a year
This might sound freaky, but… I actually like doing a lot of reviews 
You could even say that I am addicted to doing reviews if you really want to 
That does not mean that I am not aware of it, though This is something I’ve already thought about quite a few times, and if I would be able to manage it, but we’ll see
I think about it like this: I doesn’t really matter if I go at full speed now, because if I end up not being able to handle it, I can always change my schedule later on.
I am one of the lucky ones to have that luxury This is why I came up with the “Japanese in one year”-thing in the first place, because I have too much free time
I just looked back and it were actually 5 days lol, but that was only for grammar, don’t worry I don’t think I should force myself to something if I don’t want to do it on that day, because if I do that, I will most likely not remember as much as if I am doing it because I really want to After all, even if I’m going at a fast pace, it should still remain fun
Also, a quick side note I’d like to add: Due to WaniKani having waaaaaaaaaaay more items than BunPro, it is actually way more relaxed to go through all times in BunPro in one year than going through all items in WaniKani in one year. This means it is not mandatory that I have to study new grammar every day, I should only do my reviews every day
The reason I started learning Japanese is because I want to start using it myself, whether it is through reading, listening, writing or something else, I really wanna use it and engage with it! And that as soon as possible
I will, thank you! 
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OP, I actually remember reading your initial challenge post on WaniKani (I tend to lurk on those forums rather than actually reply). I say just go for it. If you’re the type of person that likes a challenge, why not? The worst thing that can happen is you’ll end up forgetting a lot but it’ll be way more accessible to your brain when you relearn it.
I get the feeling you’re younger (still school aged maybe?) and I did some nutty challenge stuff too when I was that age, because what’s youth for if not to throw yourself at things with reckless abandon?
The only thing I say to be wary of is burnout. It does sneak up on you. You can plan to do something 100% forever but regardless of your resolve, sometimes your body and your brain will just start smacking you over the face and your cognitive abilities can turn into hot jelly. Best way to hold that off in a very fast marathon like this is to look after yourself. Where possible, give your brain plenty of vitamins and nutrients, sleep well, try to get some exercise in too even if it’s light. If you find burnout creeping up you can’t hold it off forever, but you can keep it somewhat at bay for a time. Having a goal date (like one year, as you do) can help too, because you can keep telling yourself “It’s just [x] months” as a motivator.
I say this all as someone who’s studied a semester of human anatomy at uni, which is an absolute gauntlet. The amount of rote memorisation I had to do was enormous, and the basic self care strats above are what got me through happy and with a good score.
Best of luck!
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must have had some problem with reddit admins since it was admins that removed it and his account the mods said
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OP have you learned any other languages, especially in that fast fashion? Or is it your first time trying to “speedrun” (at least some of) this process?
I agree with the people saying go for it, as long as you have the energy and the motivation theres no reason to purposely hold back. But i do think you should be careful with your future expectations. I would also say im someone who likes to do reviews like on bunpro or WK, and ive been using Anki since like 2016, for different languages. 10 reviews? easy. 100 Reviews? fun. 400 Reviews? Pain 
the further you will go on bp and wk and in your personal studies the harder the content will be - and the reviews will get harder.
Doing 100 reviews of words you remember just fine and have no problems with? great, but also in a way wasted time. Thats what the SRS is for after all, so you dont have to constantly review words you know perfectly fine. But doing 100 reviews where you really have to try hard to remember, have to remember mnemonics from months ago and what ever, realizing you cant remember it…with grammar having to read up on it again… that can take a looot more time and a lot more energy. Also should you start sentence mining, which many people learning japanese do, its also gonna take a lot more time to review these.
I think if youre enthusiastic then the beginning of learning a language will always feel exciting and - in a way - easy. But do NOT expect it to be this “easy” forever. But if youre prepared for that, then sure
Either way i would say, stop worrying so much about the future and where you will be in a year, focus on where youre at now and what youre doing now. Go as fast as you want to, as long as its not burning you out. But dont be hard on yourself should you not reach the goals you want to reach in a year - who knows what happens in your life in a few months that changes how much you can study per day, you just dont know. and PS: i also second the post from @Jose7822 , going fast on WK at first can be really good, but speedrunning lvl 60 is often just not as useful (or fun) as you think in the beginning. I would recommend focusing more on getting started on reading easy material, getting comfortable with N4…N3… eventually N2 material - before focusing so much on learning N1 Kanji or Grammar.
And in general!! Its better to only do 10% of your reviews than none. I know the feeling of thinking “400 reviews… i cant finish these today, so i will just not start at all”, but its just not about finishing it all fast, just keep going!
No matter what you end up doing - Good Luck!!
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I am actually almost 17, yes And maybe you’ve already heard that I am in homescholling because of bullies, family and so on, which is why my schedule is so insanely flexible!
Thanks a lot for sharing your personal experiences and for the adivce! I will definitely keep it in mind, thanks!
Yes, I’ve already learned English and Latin, though I have to admit that I’m learning Latin for the third year now. I wouldn’t say that I really speedrunned it, but if I had a lot more vocab knowledge, I could read pretty much every Latin text there is, as I’ve already learned all the grammar that I found
I totally belive that lol, I think I might be scared a bit if I woke up one day and had 400 reviews at once Then again, I do have a pretty high accuracy (on WK, on BP, it’s near the global average), so I’m usually pretty fast with my reviews 
That is definitely true, although I would like to add that over time, you also get better (at least I hope so )
Sentence mining? Sorry if this is a stupid question, but what is this and how can I do it?
I’ve already read a lot about the intermediate wall/plateau/the time where you seem to not improve at all, even though you’re learning all the time. Some said they’ve never experienced something like that, other say they’ve been there for months or years. I believe this will be the moment when it stops being easy?
If ever something happens in my life, I would, of course, always (temporarly or, if necessary, completely) adjust my pace to be able to handle everything, as it is indeed very important to not burn out. I am not completely sure, but I think my Mum had a burn out shortly after our dog died, due to all the stress she was having, and it was awful to see in what condition she was. She needed a full month to completely recover! And, in the WK forum, I’ve also talked to someone who had a burnout, and he said although he was able to manage everything so perfectly before he had his burnout, he is still not able to do so, even though months have already passed.
Don’t worry WK level 60 is something I still want to get at fast, but I have a lot of free time (in fact I have way too much lol), and thus it won’t be really hard for me to also start implementing to consume some material while also keeping my pace at WK and BP, although I reckon that keeping my pace at BP won’t be too hard anyway, since it has a lot less items to learn than WK
But, again, if at any point I realise that I can’t handle everything, I’ll adjust my pace and start prioritizing certain points more than others!
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