Thanks!
But I think I’ll just buy all the frieren in paper, I don’t like this format to much because how it’s quality eats furigana which I like so much (
Do you mean words review for 4 hours day?
Yeah between 4 srs systems (including bunpro, obviously.) I have found a way to decrease the inefficient flash cards but unfortunately I guess it’s going to take months (it’s been 1.5 months since I implemented this plan and yet I still had 250 flashcards today, without adding a single new word to that service 😮💨) before I can fully transition to the more efficient method. 
I also decreased bunpro to 1 new vocab a day, since reaching N2, but it doesn’t seem the reviews have decreased at all. Bunpro takes the least time over the course of the day, though, so it’s not a huge contributer.
So it goes when you’re bad at memorizing. If I could learn just through passive listening like you can, this would be a lot more fun. But it’s still worth it learning Japanese anyway 
last week I typed the longest message I’ve ever sent to one of my friends without needing a single dictionary lookup. 
The passive listening is not my main source of learning, I’m not even tracking it 
But don’t you like my approach with mining and active listening on cards?
Also what has you came up with for lowering reviews if it’s not a secret?
Yeah but it’s a huge chunk of your day according to your notes. For someone like me, it’s very cool to hear that’s even an option for other people. Same for the sentence mining, for me it made my reviews much (over 10 times) longer while simultaneously decreasing retention.
The sentence mining approach seems to work great for you, yeah. I have no issues with it, it’s a very common approach, I think. As for active listening on cards, I dunno. I already have listening cards, I assume it’s like that? I think it’s been useful for me to have listening based cares but most people don’t seem to need them. Whereas, I needed them, that’s why I wrote the whole app to make them . I’m kind of surprised you would make listening cards instead of watching YouTube though, you seem to be averse to doing reviews and you don’t seem to need them?
It’s not a secret, it’s just I’m migrating one of my apps to a different app I’ve been using for a while that’s more efficient.
I had too many words to start over cold turkey (about 3k) so I thought I could ween off, but apparently that takes a lot longer than I had thought.
It’s almost midnight and I am at 220 minutes. Just gotta wrap up the last of my reviews !
Wow how is it possible?
Where do you take words then? I mean you can setup the same format as you like in anki just for your cards you have relation to from context.
Like default kanji/everything, sentence card, listening, sentence listening, multitype cards if you want a good rotation (I assume if you have all these types for cards you’ll learn it pretty well)
Quite common for my taste
Wow, you’ve made an app to make listening cards if I’m not misunderstanding?
Hearning “averse” for the first time, I assume this sentence means that I’m to focused on anki whereas it’s superfluous?
It might be, but I think dedicated studies of cards are really necessary for rapid progress. It’s like listening but where I can focus every single second and work only with optimal level stances. Also repetition is crutual, to add card to anki I need to get it right, then I listen this setnece a few times, and after when I meet this word even if I don’t remember it, I will look it app with anki and see that it is in my deck, will call that moment and relisten it to understand what is the first time I interacted with this card, this way I can meet card only a few times and remember it. Right now I see a lot of benefits, there is a high chance that my mind exaggerates it and if it’s so I’ll probably discover it in future months 
I actually took this topic in mind that the Japanese community (me included of course) focuses on those numbers too much. After some point I think it’s necessary lower the usage of helping tools, or the brain might not be accustomed to catch and learn words from the air (again some kind of intuition hypothesis or what it is)
Which words do you use if words from immersion?
Idk, I gave up on 3 decks with words when they started overwhelming me and just kept immersing and gathering new words in new decks while those are still a little bit in my mind, I know that I was learning them so they stick a bit better when I see them even if I can not recall them in isolation or even in a sentence.
Of course it’s you thing, but I’m a bit worried that you do so much srs, do you have time for using those learned things?
Like where do I get them from? Conversations with friends, mostly. Then I run my app to make the cards. Yes, I have 5 card types. None of them are sentences since they don’t work for me, but it’s been going well, it’s just a lot of reviews, which is why it takes 4 hours a day.
Yes, it’s the one I described to you a month or so ago.
It means the opposite of what you thought.
I bet this theory is because that seems to be how your brain works, but I don’t think this is true for everyone, like me for example. I think it’s just likely that most people like me simply do not learn second languages 
.
Yes, I don’t count it towards my time but I talk to my friends, play games, and read books when I have the time. I don’t have the time every day, but it’s either this or I can’t learn Japanese so unfortunately all I can do is optimize. If my brain worked like yours and could pick up dozens of words an hour with minimal reviews, and not doing N2 content or kanji studying, I’d probably do a lot more immersion, tbh. More conversations with friends as well.
I’m hoping I’ll eventually get to a point where I can complete things faster and where I don’t have to study so much every day to play these games, but it probably will be closer to the 3 year mark for me.
You can think of us as being on opposite extremes of the Japanese learner community. Whereas most people are average, you’re very fast, and I am very slow. I put in a lot of hours, but I still don’t make up for the time save of just being average at memorization, so despite doing more work, I know less. I tried spending as much time as an average person, for some months, and I learned about 20 total words during all of those months . It was untenable, you simply cannot learn a language that way as human lifespans aren’t infinite, so I had to decide how much I wanted to learn Japanese vs having more time for my other hobbies.
But that’s why I’m so fascinated by you! It’s cool that you can do things this way. It’s interesting to see how so many strategies that don’t work for me are so simple for you, and how quickly you can make progress while skipping many steps I have to do for understanding. I hope you keep posting your updates until you are fluent.
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You were telling about time tracking app only if I’m not confusing, and I forgot about it one time before that 🥲
Maybe you were explaining that one to another person?
I’m sorry to here you are struggling so much(
Also thanks a lot for you kind words and compliments!
I’m not remembering dozens of words in an hour, more like adding those 80 sentences in 80 minutes just to get familiar, it’s not mamorizing, it’s really just sound brake down practice and guessing meaning every time from the context, in hope I’ll meet this word a few times more to learn it in context.
You probably remember how I was struggling all those month trying to remember words with just kanji on the front, last time I trying adding 20/day I ended up with more then 2 hours per day only after 15 days as well as all words not learned properly, like 70% were back in review queue after a few days, as well as 60% retention. So it’s defiantly a huge overtake
thanks a lot I’ll do my best 🫡
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I’m still not quite getting it -_-
I explained the card making app first, then realised you meant tbe timing app, and explained that after. They were in the same post.
You’re actually the first person to say that to me! usually people just say “oh well keep it up” which is kind of depressing haha, but I know they mean well.
You are welcome.
Hmm maybe I’m misremembering the last part, but I thought you’d successfully gotten the words back up after the initial set back, after you stopped learning kanji? Maybe there was another post after that, that I missed.
How many words do you think you know / learn in a day these days, then?
I’m currently at 15 a day but going to try to up to 20 since my retention is over 90%, but I’m worried about time, obviously.
I also regularly take jlpt listening tests (I mean, I regularly take all the tests, but) for training listening to sentences, it is getting better but is definitely my worse category atm. I like them, though, because there is often a twist. Whenever I get the answer right to one that has a twist on the first try with no replaying audio, I feel really proud of myself.
Sorry, I meant because you stopped doing kanji, grammar, and I think vocab reviews. You seem to dislike doing reviews.
I stopped learning kanji about a week ago because I got tired and demotivated.
There was a point in time when I had nice results with anki by adding words I am familiar with, but then I switched to another tactic where I add words only with new kanji readings and I got stuck again.
Righ now as I said I’m adding 80 cards/day but front a page is an audio sentence + screenshot so I can guess the meaning of the target word every time if I here it correctly (so the task is to here the unknown word in a sentence, understand sentence, and say the word’s base form outlod) I don’t know how much words/day I learn but it totally depends on how much times a day I can see that word in new sentence. Like if I can see it 3-4 times in the same day and 1-2 the next day it’s probably will be highly recognizable in context.
I looked on it more from perspective like: I have database of words I’m familiar with reference sentences, every time I see the same word in a new sentence I make myself more familiar with it so many cards have some sort of 5%, 10%, 20%, 50% learned-rate, and it grown every time I see the word. It’s like the tactic where I know the words I need to pay attention to. After a few encounters 2-4 after adding I can recognize them, usually.
Also I think it’s perfect material for making general cards to learn in the future.
After I have 2000-3000 I think ill take 200 words from first 1000 and go though them to see how much I know, then I’ll multiply it by 5 and will know the approximate number of words I’m learning
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Got it!
Not particularly, I just don’t feel that it’s the necessary thing at the moment, I need to work on basics I think
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It’s been 10 days since the last update so here is a new one:
Time
Avg study time for the last 10 days is 4.4h/day
Something like 15h of listening
And I’ve read half a volume of Frieren without tracking time (I wonder how many words it is? 5k mb?)
Reading
I’ve almost done no reading, just couldn’t concentrate at all.
But I’ve been recovering and doing 1 hour for the last 3 days.
- As I said half of the first Frieren volume in paper (I haven’t do a single lookup so far)
Listening/mining
I’ve finished Frieren and now I have 1150 i+1 listening cards, it was about 2.3 hours on average
Anki
It’s the section for the words, but now it’s not only words but listening comprehension, reading, grammar, and making old words stick in stone.
So I added 650 cards in 10 days. 150 short but I guess it’s ok.
Listening
I’ve watched the first season of Mob Pshico with relative comfort, not like I was understanding a lot, I don’t know how much i was understanding, sometime laughing from jokes and fully getting the line because I’ve watched it 2 times before that.
Also listening to “Yuyu no nihongo podcast” and other podcasts, it’s already quite comfortable to do!
Also I want to ask help for with content, I need some good quality travel channels and programming channels (like Fireship or something about finding a job as a dev), thanks!
Grammar
Started adding grammar 3 days ago and added about 15 new point from premade bookmarks.
Plan
Form now on doing:
- 2h anime sentence mining
- 2h anki
- 1h Bunpro (as much as I can)
- 1h reading (msuhoku tensei)
- No tracking YouTube, anime, and manga included
Hope I’ll be able to do at least 5 dedicated hours/day this week.
I also plan on making a new update post the next Saturday to make myself a little bit more accountable
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To sum up:
Bunpro:
n5 - complete
n4 - complete
n3 - 17/219
Words:
I had 1000 cards in 3 different decks that I gave up, and now I have 1150 other type sentence listening cards.
Reading
More than 100k words of reading on LingQ (250k characters on avg)
Time
I’ve been tracking time since I’ve learned hiragana katakana and radicals, from 01.08.2024 and it’s been 548 dedicated hours of study.
Also, I think 150 hours of untracked 70-100%-attention listening is good enough of an assumption.
So in total, 700 hours
But I don’t really care about 150 listening hours for now and usually saying plain study time
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In my limited experience as well N3 is where the grammar starts to get very specific. I’m about halfway through it myself, and it’s a lot more ways of using words in some grammatical way then inflection rules.
So, seems like you’re doing good. If you’re able to read and listen then that matters way more than anything the tools tell you. If you can speak with another person, you’re there. Everything else is meta.
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I wanted to make a post but idk.
Not everything is going smoothly.
Now my active learning time is 5 hours and I think it’s time I can squeeze out of myself every day so I’ll have minimal losses while having time for manga, youtube, chatting, anime etc.
For now, it’s:
- 2h - reading (mushoku tensei with furigana on, it’s fairly enjoyable now)
- 1h anime mining
- 1h Anki listening practice with mined cards
- 1h bunpro
- a few hours of free immersion
Maybe I’ll add 8-12 cards a day from what I’m reading and messages in English/Japanese card type, I want to know how well it will work.
I got a Japanese human to chat with, it was painfully slow in the beginning but after writing ~ about 70 messages it started feeling natural and looks like time spent was divided buy 3.
I bought 1-6 volumes of Frieren, I can read it with really little problems as I did it with subs and made over 1k cards.
I also got 2 easy books one of which is little prince:
I’m looking for a nice setup with iPad or iPhone to make easy word lookups by writing kanji. Maybe you know good apps or convenient websites?
I think ill be reading them in my free time and making 5-10 pepper cards a day with necessary for me words.
My progress is not as big as I wanted, I still can hardly understand any youtube, but there are some good sides like my reading speed is growing in real-time, my understanding is better, and chatting is easier, so I’m not going to give up my fast pace at least for a few more months, and I’m already making my mind up to prolong term from 01.03.2025 to like June, I’ll see how my understanding will go, but for now I hope I’ll be able to do something like Frieren - doing travel for a travel and not for results
Thanks for reading!
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I’m glad you found a Japanese human to talk to as opposed to a Japanese macaque or a Japanese bear or something. 
I’m impressed if you can read Frieren with little issue. Is the grammar fairly simple?
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Ye I guess that is the regular approach in most jp learning cases
Grammar is fairly simple, of course there were some hard sentences while I was mining cards from anime but I managed to resolve most of them using google translate, ChatGPT, and my mentor. + I’ve watched it so many times that I can just guess what some structures mean, probably