Hello! I’ve been studying Japanese for about 4-5 years now, with college courses, a year in Tokyo, and many hours sunk into WaniKani as all parts of my progress.
Part of leaving college has been loosing a lot of that steady routine that is essential for language learning, and combined with the fact that my Japanese understanding has never been the most well-rounded (what’s grammar? not kanji - don’t care) I’ve found myself in a weird funk of not knowing where to go to improve. I want this study log to work as a way to organize my thoughts and efforts and help me track down where I’m spending my time while I study.
I’ve officially decided to test myself with the N3, and have my eyes set on the N1 in a year or two, so I’m using those as benchmarks for my goals.
Categories:
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Reading
Perhaps my most neglected skill, outside of menus, train station posters, and shopping tags, I’ve never pushed myself to use Japanese in longer contexts. My speed is pitifully slow, and my ability to remember any grammar has been stunted by all my reading being essentially “苺: ¥500”
My goal for myself is to read alongside some of the bookclubs both here and on the WaniKani form. I’m attempting the intermediate clubs (non-participatory in the forms, but I am chugging along with FMA and 君の名は, I promise!) I also participate in the weekly Renshuu discord reading challenges, which are great because they’ve so far been self-contained stories/passages I can finish relatively quickly and feel proud. Will track what I read in future logs. -
Vocabulary
I have fooled myself on vocabulary. I love kanji, so it was easy to trick myself into thinking I know words because I know pictures. I do not know words. At least, I don’t know how to use them myself. I want to go through all the words in the Bunpro decks with example sentences, starting from N5 (even if I’m trying to pass the N3) because I want to see these words in context. Hopefully, supplemented with reading, I can figure out what words are.
I’m still figuring out exactly how to track words learned, but hopefully I come up with a system before log 1. -
Listening
This is so easy I watch so much anime.
…
Just kidding! Kind of - I want to switch over to English subtitle-less media. I made another thread about natural Japanese Youtube channels that aren’t focused on language learning to watch - spending time in Japan has made me comfortable with the uncertainty of conversation and listening a lot more than it did for reading. I want to track minutes of English-subtitle-less media watched, since right now I think I’m facing an issue of quanity of input. -
Grammar
This is a grammar site! Tracking is just what grammar I do on Bunpro. I’m not marking anything as ‘mastered’ even if I know it, because sometimes I don’t actually know it when it comes time to reproduce it. While I love completing things and would love to ‘win’ at Bunpro, that’s only a means to an end at ‘winning’ Japanese. I’m already almost done with N5 on here, and have some headway into the N4 and N3 sections. By December, I want to be finished with N3. If I finish ahead of schedule, I may pause on any new points at that time to review for the exam and explore other resources.
At this time, I’m not tracking output as that’s not tested on the exam, but I will be searching for ways where I can output and cement my study more cleanly.
As a quick goal reference:
- Complete all N5-N3 Grammar by December
- Complete most N5-N3 vocab by December
- Finish a book or 3 (by, guess what, December)
- Steadily increase my pure Japanese listening input
- Pass the N3 this Winter (Hopefully by a large margin)
Now, all that’s left is starting Week 1 of tracking and getting down to business! 頑張りましょう!
