School is overrated
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I hope I can speedrun as well. That would be great to be able to speak Japanese fluently. It takes a long time though, and I only started putting myself seriously on it for 5/6 month or so. 
You’re addicted and should seek help. This comes from someone who was a shut-in, played 5000 hours of CS, 10000+ hours of League, granted I was lucky to make money from that, but I quit games completely and living my best life.
The countless hours of playing video games though, desensitized me to everything in life. The dopamine overload makes everything else seems like a hassle to do, your social skills are complete zero, in fact spending so much time playing games only builds your social anxiety, as you’re so far from the norm that you don’t know how to act with others. I had to go to therapy for 5 years to dig myself out of this hole. I’m not saying that’s where you’re at. It’s my story, but it can definitely be yours as well if you let it go out of control.
I was very similar to you, setting unreasonable goals for myself and grinding like crazy. Balance is where it’s at. If you read this “balance” thing and you think “bullshit” to yourself, then congrats… you are at exactly same point in life that I was once at, and I’m telling you right now, it’s not bullshit. Balance is the key. As the saying goes… a wise man learns from mistakes of others. I’d go to therapy if I were you, the only reason to spend so much time on video games is if you’re a pro player and it’s your career. Otherwise you’re using it as coping mechanism, same as I was. Wish you luck.
Ps. You said you can’t wait to see how gaming translates, it doesn’t. Gaming provide spikes of dopamine, which destroy your perception of progress. Reading books, learning something that shows no effects for a long extended period of time give very constant, low increases (not spikes) of dopamine. They don’t work together at all. If you’re still gaming, you’ll likely see yourself thinking of video games mid-learning many times, and getting distracted, which is simply your brain’s withdrawal response, requiring constant stimulation. I tried minimizing games/dopamine activites like reels etc. and “rewarding” myself for study time, and it also didn’t work. A complete dopamine detox, where I don’t game & don’t watch social media whatsoever helped me get back control of my life, and that’s the best advice I can give you.
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That’s actually some of the best advice I’ve heard for studying the jlpt.
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Not really accurate.
I’ve never watched/listened to a NHK broadcast.
I have however mined 100ish episodes of one piece and have already passed the N3.
However if Doraemon is your comprehension level, N1 this same year is not happening.
Not the “I learned english from the simpsons” approach, that goes into the other advice thread! lol
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Haha I’d one up that and start my story with literally “I learned Japanese from Sword Art Online” 
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y’all noticed that loink hasn’t posted in a bit? I can’t blame them. This thread has derailed massively (I’m to blame, too). Since this is loinks personally log, I would suggest taking aaaaaaaaaall these other discussions into another thread. Maybe loink will come back, after a while.
@loink : wish you the best 
don’t get discouraged by all this noise and off topic discussions in your personal thread. Feel free to start fresh whenever you are ready I’m kinda curious how your journey is going at the moment, so keep us updated some time in the future
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This isn’t a study log thread. If you read the original post, it’s a “Seeking Advice” thread, and it’s been mostly on topic.
I find it very irking that you continuously play at “defending the op” while you dictate what other users do on this platform.
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Nah I agree, y’all are demons lmfao
Let the kid enjoy learning Japanese.
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How is your study going?
IIRC, the rule of thumb for N1 in a year is a minimum of 12 hours of studying per day, every day, with an experienced tutor perpetually on standby unless you’re far into the 99th percentile. It’s virtually impossible unless you have no responsibilities and have a person at your side 24/7 as both a butler and tutor, along with preparations beforehand to avoid any potential lapses or burnout.
It’s still fun though, because for me it’s a case of “Hold your beer, you say? Oh, this is gonna be good.”
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Might have been 10 hours.
Seems to be an uptick in these speed run threads at the moment.
I think a contributing factor is the gamification of language learning.
We have many things familar to gamers, especially those who enjoy rpg games: levels, xp, achievements.
"If I can get to the end-level, then I’ll be fluent at Japanese. I can ground my way through games so I can take that approach here. If I do x reviews or y hours a day, then I can speed-run through to end-level in a year. "
You guys have already made the rest of the argument about why this isn’t a good approach.
Whilst I also find these speed run posts irksome for the reason that they trivialise the vast amounts of learning I’ve done on my long journey so far, I can’t help but feel that this is natural consequence of this gamification. What starts as a technique to drive engagement with content, can trigger addictive-like behaviour in some.
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I feel like more than this, they disrespect or trivialize the language itself.
The JLPT is a decent metric for understanding just how much you can engage with the language, but I feel like there’s something missing by just using that as the end goal.
It’s taking this living, constantly evolving facet of human communication and shoving it into a box with defined limits that you can “speedrun”. That’s just not how language works.
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来年のことを言うと鬼が笑う。
I typed out a wall of text but really the only metric that determines if someone will successfully acquire a language or not is if the reasons that they have for it reflect their personal sensibilities.
Some people are just not made to acquire a language and that’s okay. Same way not everyone is made to play piano at a professional level.
That a language is a living constantly evolving thing matters very little as those are things anyone with a foundation in the language will pick up on through exposure.
A language is a tool, fundamentally. You either have a use for it and so learn how to use it or you don’t.
There is a generational aspect to this as well. Of course the younger you are, the more you will be sensitive to the appeal of gamification. This is a bit sad as I feel the younger learners who go fo this approach end up having a bit of a competitive attitude towards any other methods, like if speed running is the new effective way to do things and any previous concept is outdated. Obviously there is plenty to learn from successful learners who never considered this extreme cramming approach.
I often see a bit of an arrogant attitude in these posts that is so counterproductive, like “I am different, unlike you all I won’t fail”. Well chances are you aren’t any different, just attracted by this approach because gamification and a challenge are both very attractive to the dopamine seeking human brain.
I am pretty sure speed running does wonders for understanding ability if you fit the mindset. There is no reason the understanding part wouldn’t come faster if you go the speedrun route.
Now as far as communication ability goes, I fail to see how it would help in any way and that is precisely the main challenge of language learning, and beauty of it.
You can throw all the n1 vocabulary you successfully crammed and just end up awkward or incomprehensible to a native. Fine tuning this takes years, whatever the approach.
I have seen quite a few people with limited vocabulary that were fantastic communicators when I was living in Japan. My impression is that this should be the aim if your objective is to actually use the language and not only understand it.
I’d put communication first, THEN adding knowledge to level up your ability to where you want it to be, not the other way around. Why would you put all the details first if the foundation isn’t there?
Gamification is hardly applicable to communication, so maybe there is another type of satisfaction to find from it. A successful conversation is the strongest motivation boost I have had personally, maybe not a constant flow of dopamine but a highly effective and stronger occasional intake.
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まま、それはやつの最後の目的じゃなくて、スペドランの目的だけですとおもう。