I feel like that’s what Lingq is trying to be, but without being able to integrate directly with Anki, it’s really missing out. I do wish I could sync my Lingq words with my anki progress, rather than randomly seeing a word I marked low like three months ago and going ‘oh, yeah, I know that now.’
Lingq is yet another app that used to have an API and does not anymore. Someone reverse engineered it ages ago (so, out of date), but I looked at what he found and it didn’t seem like it would be useful for what I was trying.
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It’s becoming a bit hard to maintain this log but here is the report!
Summary
In short my times for learning looks like this:
Reading - 2h/day
Active listening + mining - 2-2.5h/day
Half active listening + just active listening - 2-3h/day (not tracking)
Words (with new approach) - 2h/day
Kanji
Gave up even on reviews with 1700 kanji, I’m not planning on learning them any further any time in the future. Right now I’m reading only with firigana on and offing it for words I know well. Also recalling kanji for 15 seconds every time is not fun at all. Anyhow words distinction (without furigana) is pretty high right now
Grammar
It started taking less than 10 minutes every day so I gave up on reviews a few days ago, all the grammar I’ve learned and needed is already in my head because of massive exposure.
I may start adding 2ish points I’ve encountered and added as a phrase to Anki during other activities just so the time is ~30m for bunpro.
Reading
I started reading Mushoku Tensei about 10 days ago. It wasn’t pleasant but now it looks like I’ve encountered enough words, so my speed of reading was 17-20 words in the past few days so if I continue it for 2 weeks or so without jumping from this book to something else, the amount of new words will be even pleasant to read. Not taking any words from it right now.
Listening
Great stuff, I started to understand audio content, most of Onomappu I can understand 80-90% of the time, most videos I’m holding the line of what he is talking about (not like I’m barely holding the line, but more like I’m really watching stuff I understand)
When I’m cooking I’m listening to mikurealjapanese (diologs) which are harder but I can catch some topics, like 4-6 minutes not understanding anything, losing all, and then 4-6 minutes understanding the next topic in the same video.
Was able to hold fully watch one 40-minute interview on her channel and didn’t get lost a single time, it was a life description or something, pretty proud of myself.
All of it was acived within last week, my progress is huge with the time I spend, but when it comes to native content it’s hard, I managed to understand one video about shadowing a few days ago but it’s it for now, even close language learning content is still hard. When I stared rewatching Mob Psyco a few days ago I got feeling that I’m not getting anywhere as I couldn’t understand a singe word (at least it seamed that way).
On the other hand watching last 3 episodes of Dandadan in Japanese gave me almost 0 struggles while I was not really concerned about Japanese at that moment at all.
Active listening
I started going through my beloved 葬送のフリーレン and extracting all good phrases (nice frease has new words within top 12k or I just like the words like 清貧, and I can understand it, some phrases I add have 3 or more unknown words, but then they should have very straight forward grammar). Thanks @amberglade for idea of setting this thing. Now I have these beautiful looking cards
Words
I was doing about 20 new words for the first 2 weeks after the last post and stared adding only words with new kanji (assuming I will learn words where I know kanji readings quite quickly thought just reading, I still think it is true), but then it stared taking to much time while I wasn’t seeing those words for days and weeks. I gave up.
Righ now it’s been 7 days since I’m doing just listening practice with phrases I took from Frieren. Right now I think it’s extremely effective.
- I add 80 cards and it takes about 60-80 minutes
- Retention is 90% and I never fail card, can click hard but not fail.
- It’s comprehension speed training
- Training in understanding what they are saying by separating sounds (there are so many times when I “know” words but can’t get them, as well as speed from previous point)
- New grammar point tracking
- Instant actual usage training
Doing this I actually understood that just by practicing my basics I will be able to understand a lot, a lot more even without new words.
With that new words are sticking well, and what more important I learn how to say them (many times it’s hard to even read them, so listening a dozen times and repeating helps)
After seeing the word I added for a few times I remember it, but words I haven’t encounter for a long time aren’t taking much time to review because if I hear it I can probably guess the mining from my card unlike when it’s single word card.
Kanji is not a problem, I even remember words because I work with subtitles and if the word repetes a few times it’s writing just sticks to the point where this word is not new. And if not, I always read with furigana.
So I love this method and will continue adding 80 cards/day while it’s getting easier with each day.
Speaking
I took 2 italki meanings and was surprised how well I speak, I lack vocab, but almost all the constructions I wanted to say were in my head 驚いた. Not very fast, brain is not working well like I’m sick or something but I’m definitely not dying in Japan. Understanding what the opponent is saying is harsh.
I think it’s important to speak, my brain started thinking in Japanese and is looking for construction and words a few times (like a shower), I even can think in Japanese, just it’s not very convenient because I stop quite a lot without knowing words, I would right them on the paper, but there is no paper in a shower. Some king of reinforcement.
As well as I started noticing constructions and words I wanted to use, not many but a few every day since then.
There were a few days with bad time performance, but it’s due to the start of the long-lasting programming pet project, will to learn is quite stable.
Ok, that’s it, took me 1 hour to write, but I’m glad I did it, sorry for the mistakes in the second half and have a good learning!
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8 hours?
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More like 6 - for days where I can not learn 6 hours for some reason so on avg it’s 5 or something + 2-3 hours of listening while cooking, cleaning, and already starting procrastinating with it (it was the main point, I become fluent in English by procrastinating for like 2 years from b1) (I mean now it’s been 2 years, but I had no trouble even one year ago, so last year or even one and a half it’s barley any new words)
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Wow, 6 hours still a lot of time, I don’t usually pass 4 hours (I guess). Good luck!
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Another member of club “Onnomappu is surprisingly easy to understand”. I don’t really listen to stuff made for learners (unless it’s videos about distinctions or nuance) as much anymore, but I remember it being crazy how understandable he was.
I recently checked what percentage of the Mob Psycho anime I understand and it was too low to bother watching. I’m going to start doing the prepare>experience strategy by pre-learning words from Persona 4G and then playing that section. I know a little under 70% of unique words so I can focus on the ones with higher frequency before, then learn those words as they come up as I’m playing.
I haven’t been doing that with the games I’m playing now (Pokémon, 妖怪ウォッチ, シャドバス) but that’s because I started those at over 80% total words known, so it wasn’t as big a problem.
But, my 4 hours a day are mostly spent doing reviews. I don’t even track my gaming time because it’s not even every day, lol.
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Since you’re into 葬送のフリーレン (so am I, big fan) you might want to visit this site. The formating of the pages also makes it a great mining resource, just make sure that the “off”-box option isn’t marked.
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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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