Wow that is huge.
I just finished my first 100 words in the deck (it was like 6 days since I started doing it) and I have avg time of 21s/card.
On deck with Italian I have 12s/card.
But actually, mb auto timer or just not thinking about the card if it immediately doesn’t appear in mind is the way to go 
I did too much knaji and now my brain works only to remember them 
Yeah pretty much I don’t spend much time on a card, if I don’t get it within a couple seconds, I just fail the card and move on. I think that’s a better strategy and helps you learn more cards faster. 4.5-5 secs is far from the peak, for my other deck that’s all review (the kaishi 1.5k deck, which I highly highly recommend, since it’s highly optimized to teach you all the most common words to use in native media for immersion purposes), I’m down to 3.5 sec/card, and I’ve heard of people online who can go down to 2.7 sec/card.
If you’re at 21 sec/card and you’re doing 15 words/hour, then that means if you get down to 5sec/card, you could do 60 word/hour, which is the same pace as me at 50 words/45 mins, so really the key difference is just to reduce the average time taken per card.
I like to study for a long time too, but the vast majority of it is comprehensive input instead of SRS. I’ll happily struggle through a comic for 5 hours but the most I can do on Bunpro is 2 lol. It’s a wonder I haven’t burnt out studying so much, I’ve already been warned of it under my study log. I think it’s because I’m not afraid to just do less in a day when I realize I’m getting tired of it. A lot of people who get burnt out are the ones who force themselves through day by day, so make sure to avoid doing that. Good luck
Definitely +1 to burnout issue. Having burned out from Wanikani a few years ago (same reason - forcing myself through so many reviews), I think it’s good to trust your own feeling as to when is it too much and dial down the lessons or even not finish all the reviews — though would recommend doing the latter only after dialing down lessons to 0.
The hardest thing about the N3 test when I took it was the listening. There is a portion of the test where it has blank pages with only A B C D. You listen to the conversation and the question they ask. Then you listen to the answers read out loud. If you can not take notes, remember what was said, and write the corresponding A B C D answers down before choosing the correct letter to fill out; do not take it. You also can only listen to the recording once. There are no repeats, at least for me there wasn’t :’) I somehow passed but listening was my worst score, because I expected them to repeat the recording twice like N4. Nope
I’ve made a decision to a study log from this thread, at least for some time, so here is an update.
About me and Japanese
I started learning Japanese on the 23.07.
Learned kana in the first 3 days as well as all radicals in the next 3 days after kana.
After that I was wondering what am I gonna do next while reading on lingq so I got the basic understanding of grammar (like the first 5 or 7 topics of Bunpro)
Then I decided to do a challenge and learn all 2200 Heizig’s kanji meanings in one month then I was learning 80 kanji/day until 13.08 (with breaks on Sundays). This challenge was ok, but I decided that I wanted to learn the language as well, and this wasn’t achievable with 80/day mark, at least not in the temp I wanted to go.
Kind of start of the log? - present
So after 11.08 I decided to move to more balanced studies (but gave up 80 kanji/day only on 13.08) and now I’m sitting on something like:
40 kanji meanings / day
2 hours anki words / day
7 topics Bunpro / day
Results for first week (10 days)
The plan
I don’t have time right now to write about it, and I’m not totally sure about it as well. I think I’ll continue doing the same stuff.
Reading as well as other input is lacking, but I decided that it can wait despite all the comprehensible input hypotheses (which I like). I just feel this way right now. Also I read Tadoku Stories but very little.
What are my thoughts
The hardest part is time management.
The second hardest part is words which readings are not sticking.
The first I manage with the Pomodoro method + book with my timed plan for the next day.
The seconds, I think is already better, the more words I know better associations I can make within the language. But my brain started coming up with interesting associations outside of Japanese, but most words for know are just a bruteforce meaning/hiragana or sound. So I hope improve and move from adding 20 cards / 2 hours to 35-50 cards / two hours.
Next
So ye I’ll try to write an update after I finish n5 grammar, or just when I have time (on Sunday for example).
Nice, suprised you can learn so much kanji, but not as many words. I think at 1000 kanji learned, you know enough kanji that you can stop dedicated kanji study and do only vocab. I highly recommend the kaishi 1.5k deck, it’s a highly optimized deck designed to maximize your coverage of the most common words seen in Japanese native media.
After kaishi 1.5k, you can basically start doing Japanese native media such as anime / video games / manga/ books and get enough understanding to use that as your main source of learning and immersion. It should only take 1-2 months to get through kaishi.
Wow that’s a nice deck! And I see that I can enable Pitch accent somehow. But I don’t know if it is good idea to switch right now, in the process of learning that one.
About stopping learning kanji, the problem with Heisig is that you need to learn all of his kanji because they are sorted in radicals way. So I basically know like 1/2 of most commonly use kanji but only 1/2 of n5, 1/2 of n4 and so on… anyway when I know kanji it is much easier at least with words’ meanings so I’ll just continue for 40 more days to get all most common.
Though, I’m planing of finishing 1500 words until the end of next month no metter what. I beleve as well that it should be enough for understanding a good part of language! (I have this kind of vocab in Italian and watching anime is quite comfortable)
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)
Good god.
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.
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
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!
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.
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
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.
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!
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.