Study log - n5 to n3

My goal is to go from n5 - n1. I currently am around n5 level as I used to learn Japanese, however I have lost a good portion of that knowledge. I am currently trying to spend about 2 hours a day using the anki 2k/6k core vocab deck (along with some other individual words/kanji decks) and bunpro’s grammar to learn. If you have any suggestions to help me learn quicker, such as good anki decks that have useful words (even in the 2k core vocab I often get words that I would rarely use in English), please let me know! My goal is to get to n3 for now, and once I am there I will try and continue onwards, but I think I need to go in smaller steps than that lol.

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Welcome!

As far as I know currently the Tango decks with target sentences are the best pre-made Anki decks in terms of quality and how useful the words are. Of course what is useful or not depends on what you are doing with the language.

If it is the 2k deck I am thinking of then this is because it is based on an old newspaper corpus. I am thinking about political words like 旧ソ連 or 副大統領 etc. Having said that, some words in Japanese are quite common and the English translation will look like something you won’t use even though it is a very common word in Japanese.

If you have any questions then feel free to post - good luck!

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For the Tango decks, do you mean " JLPT Tango N5 1000 Most Common Japanese Words in Sentences"? This is the main one on anki pro.

Thanks for the advice, I will try and incoporate it into my studies!

P.S. I will be doing updates on saturdays weekly only, as I want to focus my time on to the Japanese itself instead of onto making this study log

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Week 1 complete: Every day I did about 20 words on anki, then did at least 5 grammar points on bunpro (+ review). I am already feeling more confident with the language! To help improve my listening and reading, I have been watching shows and youtube in Japanese without subtitles, along with reading some basic mangas and using a dictionary to help me. Oh and also listening to Japanese music whilst doing other things to really help immerse myself.

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That sounds like an extremely productive week! Way to go !!

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using the anki 2k/6k core vocab deck

Outdated deck, don’t use it, has many complex and business words that are not useful for now
Use something like Core2.3k or Kaishi 1.5k if you want to immerse ASAP, or you can use Tango decks if your goal is to take the JLPT, but it’s more boring

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As in the " Improved Core 2.3K VN Order V2"? Also I can’t find the Kaishi deck (I’m using anki pro) ill try out this new deck though, thank you very much!

Kaishi is here
Core2.3k is here

I just completed the Core2.3k a few days ago and it was great, it helped immensely with me getting comfortable with easier-level manga and LNs, highly recommended
Kaishi is an alternative that I saw on themoeway guide, but I haven’t personally tested, it also seems good
Also themoeway is a great guide for Japanese, anything you need is there, I think everyone should at least read it once to have a better idea on how to do stuff and save yourself from mistakes that could hinder your progress, read it if you haven’t, it saved me as a beginner

2 hours a day using an Anki deck is a lot, keep Anki under 1h-1h15m if you can, consistency is key, don’t get burned out doing too much Anki because in the end you’re gonna stop for a few days and it would have been the same as doing just 1h/day, I know because I did the same thing, you don’t enjoy the language that way

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Week 2 complete (forgot to write this yesterday lol).

I have been doing 20 new words a day on anki + 5 grammar points a day here on bunpro. Most days I have been listening to at least an hour of Japanese music, and sometimes watching anime without subtitles and listening to podcasts. I can feel the improvement already

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Week 3 done. Couldn’t write yesterday bc of long hours on plane (but still managed to do my grammar and vocab. 20 words, 5 grammar points a day.
I’ve started to listen to ‘Japanese with Shun’ podcasts, trying to do 1 episode a day at least to start to internalise language.
Once I finish N5 and N4 grammar, I have decided to start reading an easy manga (right now thinking chainsaw man, open to all suggestions though!)

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