Thanks for the deck again.
My mentor said that it is actually better than our 2k deck. So we made it the way it has audio on the front side and everything else on another (with my core 2k deck I was using words in kanji on the front and everything else on the other side)
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Good god.
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But if you make it audio only in front, then you will not be learning the readings right? Why not just keep it as words in kanji in front, and then the rest in the back? That way you’re going to learn the kanji as well as you learn the vocab.
And yes, the 1.5k deck is more optimized the the core 2k deck that came before it. I think the 1.5k deck might be a refinement of the core 2k deck actually.
True, I will not learn reading. But the way with remembering the words from listening makes a bit more sense if I want to listen.
I want to read as well, but I think when I know the word I’ll have 0 problems associating it with written word (because remembering meaning of word is not a problem when I see it).
I’ll try this for one week, and then I’ll see what works best for me
Hell nah, it’s not working.
I am just bad at remembering the words.
I’ll do a bit of both, more with word/everything else, les with sound/everything else.
Second option works really well for listening when whole sentence is on the front page as well, so I think it is useful anyway
Same here, I heard from other people in previous tests that N3 did the recordings twice. that was a lie.
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It’s time for next update!
Grammar
I’ve successfully added all the n5 grammar!
I was missing a few days, but in the end we can calculate that I was adding topics with speed of 5/day.
Most topics are sticking very fast, in 1-3 days, and 10% I guess in 3-5 days.
Some conjugations with irregular verbs and verbs that looks like ru-verbs causing some problems, but I have less and less of them.
Kanji!
I’ve added 1400 kanji!
Right now going with speed of 60/day (for last 4 days).
It took me 1 month and Anki says I’ve pent 60 hours on it, but it is probably 70 or even 80 because I was looking English words up a lot.
Vocab
I just gave up on this part for now.
Reading + listening
I’ve watched frieren one more time on the background and now I can here quite a few words I didn’t knew in first time.
Most importantly I was doing a bit of reading + listening on lingq and stuff that was kind of hard 2 weeks ago now is just on my level of comprehension!
Next
- Im going to learn 7 or 6 or 5 points of grammar/day for sure (maybe after a small brake from adding stuff)
- finishing kanji in 13 (15 max) days
- adding 30 minutes of words righ now and +2 hours of words after 15.09 (when kanji is learned)
- reading at least 30 minutes/day
Thoughts
All this is quite hard, especially kanji which I’m a bit tired, it’s not hard anymore, it’s just a routine.
Bunpro give every time something new so it’s interesting to do.
I really want to include more reading with sound, and lingq is ideal for that, I even think I can learn quite same amount of words there as in Anki, mb less in the start, but after fluency probably more.
Ok, that’s it!
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Something that’s helping me make the grammar points really come to life beyond the same SRS sentences, slow down on bunpro around mid N4-N3 grammar and read more. Seeing grammar points in the wild and recognizing them for what they are when you don’t know what to expect is important for comprehension. I still get things wrong or uncertain while reading every now and then despite getting it correct in SRS so I look things up every now just by searching in bunpro and then to double check I understood it correctly until I feel certain about it. The advantage of having done them in bunpro as SRS is that even if I don’t remember what something is, I can still recognize the grammar point and look it up which I would have no clue what to even search for when I first started especially the longer ones.
I’ve just been steadily pacing at 4 points a day mid N3 and fine with that even though I probably could go faster.
I would like to do even less SRS and just read more, but for now it’s a necessity so I can have even more fun reading in a few months. Hoping in a years time when I’ll be at around 2200 kanji and 7-10k words and definitely finished all the bunpro grammar points I can really just focus on reading. Feels like the best way to solidify everything I’ve “learned”. I still get a few words and kanjis wrong every now and then while reading too even if I get it right in SRS, so using the language is incredibly important. Especially since you may see slight variations of what you’ve learned on Bunpro and you need to get used to that as well.
If you like VNs, textractor+yomitan makes it effortless to look up words and kanji while reading. I spent a good few days reading a VN with grammar only halfway into N4 and still had half decent comprehension, just depends on the difficulty you choose. It’s a lot more effortless now than then, but I think that’s because I’ve been reading while studying, not because I’ve been studying more grammar. I don’t think I’ve come across even half of the grammar points in N3.
I don’t know half of the words I come across, but I do have a half decent foundation of 3k words which makes it a lot easier to just look up the one or two words and understand from context. The most common ones reappear a lot so they help a ton.
Honestly I’m more tired after reading than I am doing SRS, the brain is working overtime to really soak everything in and categorize the context I’m seeing everything in which is like a step beyond “learning” it in SRS. Happens on its own subconciously for the most part, but it’s still using a lot of energy. I think it’s good to do this somewhat early so you don’t sit there with 2k kanji, 10k vocab, and still feel completely exhausted just reading simple entertainment because you’re seeing things in new contexts for the first time. I’d stear clear of anything where they mainly use honorific language in the beginning though, they use different words than the normal most frequent ones.
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I don’t think I can lower the amount of grammar I do( I want to finish n2 till the end of this year.
But I think I’ll be able to add more reading (90 minutes) at the end of this month.
Lowering bunpro to 4 points a day will get me to the start of the n2 grammar, but I don’t feel that it is an ambitious goal. Odd better complete everything in n2 and then hop into a lot of reading, 4-6 hours/day.
I’m not getting the idea of VNs, and don’t feel like doing them(
Anyway, I’ll try to do something with my immersion, because it’s really not in point
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Visual Novels are something that you need a particular taste to get into. Personally, I’m the same with hesitancy to use them.
And with bunpro I think it is better to get a strong grasp on N5 N4 and N3 before doing n2/n1, due to the build up nature of grammar. You can kind of just piece them together towards the mid N2 if you have strong N3 and vocabulary, due to a lot of the grammar being more vocabulary-like.
But yeah, reading is very good for grammar especially. Pictureless novels are even better than VN’s too, but far more difficult.
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I found that lingq works really well for me, it has books worth audio, podcasts, I can import my stuff. But more importantly it knows words I know so I can choose content with difficulty I want!
Also I think it’s very good tool to learn words, as it shows words that I lean hilighted, so I can concentrate on them.
I still thinking about learning words with Anki (and doing it a bit) but maybe just reading with this approach can give me even more words but + all the input thins I need to actually get the language. It’s just theory, and I don’t feel like trying it and giving up Anki, at least with Japanese, but it’s definitely my main tool/source for next 4 months!
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You got me interested in lingq so I quickly checked out the introductory “Who is She” story.
One thing that jumped out at me and might be useful to you, is it might not be highlighting set expressions, and instead breaks them up to individual words.
For example 力になる (力になる – Vocabulary details – jpdb)
“I’m just trying to be helpful”.
It’s actually a similar issue to what I’m having with jpdbReader, sometimes the parsing is not the most helpful. So if a sentence doesn’t make too much sense, try breaking it up with other tools/dictionaries/LLM just in case.
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Already been said in this thread by multiple folks, but I agree and emphasize that there is a huge, huge disparity between “learning” concepts and answering questions correctly on Bunpro, and actually applying those concepts the way a Japanese person would.
I highly recommend engaging the services of a once or twice a week native tutor who you can converse with and who can work with you on the core concepts of the language in addition to Bunpro/Wanikani/SRS tools.
As someone with a somewhat “high” Bunpro level who has been diligently studying (for fun, as an adult with a full time job) for four years, I can still easily get tripped up with N4-level materials (even N5 if I’m honest) when discussing with a native speaker, even though on Bunpro I’m technically working through N1 study points. It’s amazing how comfortable one can be when reading Japanese, and how quickly the brain goes blank when you have to talk 
I don’t say that to discourage, rather as a heads-up that sometimes it’s more effective and frankly more fun to actually utilize the language in conversation and with readings versus crunching away on these apps. 頑張ってください！
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I can see you are really excited about learning Japanese as if it were a set of goal posts…I can see that it helps you feel motivated, I also caution you as others have done here too.
I hope you really listen to their opinion, if it not now, but when you realize what I am about to say, reread those comments and I hope they help you cross the barrier that is passing from the intermediate level to the advanced.
Learning Japanese is a series of iterations, best learned through context not SRS by itself. That is why people suggest you to read or get a tutor. Not only that, in order for SRS to be effective as you want it to be you need to use SRS to help you learn in context.
Why? You learn n5 and as you learn n4, you still learn N5, grammar and vocabulary becomes nuanced, more meaning emerge as you enter N3, so as you move to N2, you will still be learning deeper meanings of N4, and so, it continues.
Italian is not the same as learning Japanese. Some principles apply but it is vastly different beast to conquer. I also speak several languages. The depth of a language only is acquired through time, hope you find the joy of exploring that life journey that is learning Japanese.
Best of luck!
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I’d love to hear your reaction when you finish Who is She because I …went on a rant.
Anyway yeah, I think it’s best to start LingQ at least post-n5 or you won’t know when it’s splitting some stuff wrong. Kaufman acts like just anyone can just start learning with it but that was not the case for me, and I say that as an avid fan of LingQ who spends hours in it a day reading a lot of stuff I find really interesting (in case anyone thinks to ask, the reason I don’t use Satori is because I only do one time purchase apps. The owner of Satori said he won’t do that because they need the higher amount of funding you get from continuous payment. Maybe someday they’ll earn enough to offer it as an option.)
They recently added an AI function to fix the separation problems, like a few months ago, but it has literally never once worked for me so I’m still trucking along and I have my own system for how I deal with improperly split conjugations and phrases in LingQ.
But I do highly recommend it for anyone who is a fan of one time purchase options and who enjoys reading. You can find pretty much any kind of story on that app. I got bored of shorts and decided to read some longer form content on there last night and already found several that seem exactly like my kind of story 
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This makes a lot of sense, and I’ll be thinking about it for a long time I guess.
I already included 1 hour of reading (with sound)/day, but I can not give up the idea of finishing n2 before the next year…
When I finish kanji I’ll have 2 hours for reading, and also passive listening and procrastinating-listening will become much more useful (because now my procrastination-listening isn’t in Japanese)
Also I don’t think completing grammar with low amount of comprehensible input, immersion, I mean acquiring is a particuarry not good. If I can remember most constructions with just my brain, and then use them to read text and looking stuff up sometimes while doing srs reviews, it should be useful, I think.
At least it’s the theory, and if it doesn’t work - not a big problem, I’ll lose max of 100 hours on it (counting inefficiency for n3 and n4 grammar) in the worst case, but I think it’ll be fine!
You were not asking me, but I’lol second your words about n5.
Only after I’ve added 80% at n5 I was be able to understand things, and now I’m going though mini stories
Fact that I know little words isn’t the problem at all, what I’ve learned from grammar points is enough to go though it!
Also there are some n4 and n3 stuff, but primarily very easy (so I just read explanation and add it directly to my reviews, if I encounter it a few times in a raw)
Who is she for some reason is not easier, or at least not much easier
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Thank you for considering my opinion. I do wish for you to reach your goal.
To me, N3/N2 is intermediate. N1 is advanced intermediate to the maybe the start of advanced. See 日本語参照枠・CEFRとJ.TEST | J.TEST実用日本語検定
Later they will add the Cefr to the JLPT!
https://www.jlpt.jp/e/cefrlevel/index.html
I’m curious if that will affect the actual test or it simply shows what the link above states…
If you feel you’re not going the way you wished it did, keep asking, keep going, keep struggling!!! If you keep that positive attitude I’m sure you’ll find the right way for you to learn Japanese!
It is a bit of effort to find the most enjoyable plus also efficient way to learn! Keep going and I hope you don’t give up! It is a wonderful language to study.
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I’ve been thinking about n2 as slightly above b2, n1 slightly below c1 and n3 is really good b1. At list for comprehension part, don’t know if it is right but looking on words needed it looks that way!
Cefr for Japanese is cool! I want to see how it’s compared to jlpt levels.
Thanks for good words! If my struggling will overcome my good emotions, it means i should do something, but for, my struggles are bearable, and I think I just need to sleep a bit more)) just realized that 6 hours of sleep instead of 8 can cause me -10, -20, -30 % of time spend on same amount of information…
Also, i I’m not going to jlpt this December but I want to test myself, for example do n5 and n4 tests at home at the end of this month, to understand my power level.
Do you know any sites, apps, where I can find real tests, or very similar, maybe test materials from previous years of jlpt, and make test at home?
Question wasn’t directed to me, but anyway…
I’ve been doing JLPT mock tests on Todaii: JLPT Exam Preparation - Preparation for all levels from N5 to N1
It does require you to register, but it’s free. Paid option does give you more tests per level tho. Tests on this site are long and have time limit, so in that sense it’s fairly close to the real deal!
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