I started with theMoeWay N5 now, with 15 new cards a day + the custom made cards from my lessons with a teacher.
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Take a look at this video too
You can also do this with anime and easily just mine vocab you come across adding it to Anki (you can choose not to add sound as it’ll reduce the process by a few seconds too)
After you have a base level of vocab I recommend doing this till fluency
Here’s a guide Visual Novels - Animecards Site
Oh and if you ever need help finding some VN to play If you decide to do this message me and I’ll DM you details
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Thanks. I will come back to this ones I have some more vocab.
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If this works for you great. I do sometimes review ahead if I finnished my reviews and want to study more.
This sounds to me like a stratagy to never fail a card. If you do not know a card, it is better to fail it, so anki will schedual more practice.
Here is how failing a card with reschedualing works in anki:
Anki will drop the level and make a ghost. By defult it sends it back to beginer, but you can set it to a percentage of the previouce level (Mine is 新しい復習間隔（前回比） 0.50) 50%
My ghost setting is (再学習ステップ 30m 1d 6d. I have to pass 30 minutes, 1 day and 6 days later to excorsise the ghost.
The your stratagy contains a 10m and 1d ghost and no level penalty. If you change this in the settings, only the cards you get wrong will appear again the next day.
The easy and hard buttons “mess up the SRS” because you remember hard answers much better than you think, leading to ‘too many reviews’.
You can turn off ease by following some tutorial (look up “ease hell”).
then instead of grading hard for “cards that are hard” to “cards that I got wrong, but don’t want a ghost”- what actually happens when you grade a card ‘hard’
Also, ghosts don’t affect the the level penalty.
The goal of SRS is to have 75% to 90% retention. That is the spaced part of spaced repetition.
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I have been studying for a year, but I just joined bunpro.
In my first year, I completed all the Pimsleur Japanese audio levels, which was really useful for speaking, but not as good for listening and almost useless for reading. I learned kana on Duolingo.
I also spent 5 months in Japan and got a lot of practice from that! The Pimsleur courses I did were invaluable for my time there, but if you already know basic/intermediate Japanese, it might be too slow for you.
Now I’m learning kanji through wanikani and also writing them in a notebook.
For listening practice, I listen to the Japanese with Shun podcast.
And for more natural listening practice I watch Terrace House on Netflix which is a reality show where they speak like real life japanese people instead of textbook characters or anime characters.
For reading practice, I like using graded readers, and also children’s books. And for fun I also practice reading with a Japanese version of a Pokemon mystery dungeon game I bought at a thrift store in Japan. The game has no kanji and a lot of vocab you wouldn’t use in real life, but I like the series a lot so it’s motivating.
For grammar, other than bunpro, I like the Learn Japanese with Masa Sensei podcast when I want to learn with an audio format. She goes over grammar points quite quickly so it’s great for review but not as beginner friendly unless you’re a fast learner!
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You gave me much more insight in how it works. thanks.
5 months in Japan, amazing 
Then you will have learned a lot I’m sure.
I didn’t know Pimsleur yet.
Thanks for the podcast tip. I commute a lot, so podcasts are very useful to me.
Hi Erz, O wpuld love to immerse in youtube mative content with subs, if you have any guidance where I can start, please shoot me with some links. Thank you
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the rule of thumb is that content you are TRULY interested in is the best content for you. the goal is to find something that you dont watch because you want to learn japanese but you want to watch because its interesting to you anyway and this is completely different for everyone.
anyway here are some of my recommendations:
this one is very beginner friendly because slowly spoken and very calming to watch:
this is a complete goldmine because you have text and spoken audio of self improvement books summarized - one of my all time favorites:
mountain climbing with gorgeous scenery:
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Thank you so much for sharing these videos!
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sorry for digging a past topic but I find the subject very interesting and I was curious of more people’s approach if anyone would still want to contribute. I am especially curious if people combine bunpro with regular study books aimed at jlpt exams (Shinkanzen/ soumatome etc…)
as far as I am concerned:
starting point
intermediate level, conversational from living/working in Japan a few years, but just starting to properly study grammar. the aim is passing jlpt in December, which I have never done.
Most likely will go for N2, I’ll decide when I signup in august if I’d rather step down to N3 if my schedule can’t allow for enough study. I have also completed RTK though kanjikoohii a few years back which was almost my only proper study aside from my initial beginner study. Now I forgot most of it a few years later unfortunately due to lack of proper vocabulary study immediately after.
- lessons/grammar input: Nativshark (1hour/day)
I am half-way and it is getting close to matching my intermediate level. I think their approach is perfect, just a bit too slow/easy for an intermediate level IMO . the opposite of bunpro or a grammar book approach, more natural and casual speech oriented, very “real life situations”. They also have brilliant audio material.
- grammar output training : bunpro (1hour/day)
- vocabulary input : custom flashcards from my immersion (30 min/day)
- JLPT practice might be a bit redundant with bunpro but I am starting the 新完全 series books (1 hour/day) I might only do the 読解 one (reading comprehension). to be defined
- output : italki tutoring only once a week for a couple month more while I have enough free time to focus on grammar, then getting to 30min sessions once every two days.
- immersion : lots of watching / listening material (podcasts/YouTube/netflix). (3/4hours a day), also starting to read books everyday whenever possible
I have to add kanji study but I am out of time 
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That’s a very intensive approach. Good luck! I’m sure you’ll pass if you keep that up.
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I hope!
My work situation being not great currently, I am at least lucky to have plenty of time to dedicate to japanese study it so I have been trying to make the most out of it last couple months and I am now hooked
now probably I’ll have to cut my study in half from next summer on but the motivation should stay high hopefully.
I’m a middle-aged working mom, so I don’t have a lot of free time to study. My plan is centered around multitasking and fitting in little bits of studying whenever I have a few minutes of downtime. Most of my studying gets done on the train during my commute to and from work (45 minutes one-way) or over lunch. I also don’t want to sacrifice too much of my short evenings after the kiddo goes to bed, since it’s important to me to be able to do a few creative hobbies to relax.
On weekends I can usually manage to find time to do my reviews, but not anything new.
Grammar: Bunpro reviews & 3 new grammar points.
Vocab: via Bunpro, 10 new words per day.
Listening: Podcasts on the walk from the train to the office and back again. (10 minutes one way)
Reading: Tadoku graded readers, or Yotsuba for the book club.
Kanji: KanjiStudy Android app, in KKLC order. I bought the SRS and the graded reader sentences. 5 new kanji per day.
Edit: I should also mention: I’m a Canadian living in Canada, so no exposure outside of dedicated study for me.
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I have to try tadoku, I keep hearing about it.
reading for me is the one activity that feels less productive as I am so slow and keep on checking my dictionary. I guess easier graded readers should help.
I’ｄlove if you can join my [#]Immersion Log Let’s try something new! - Japanese - Bunpro Community I post whatever I’m using for immersion and would appriciate your recs.
I do immersion and bunpro 20 minutes a day each. Hang with my Japanese friends for about 2 hours a week. I’m feeling like a 怠け者 reading all your study routines.
I still recomend
The reddit has gone dark so I was having trouble this link. each example sentence is from an anime with the original audio so while you do the deck can watch all the anime. Most of the anime is avalible on Japanese Netflix.
edit: if you are not starting from zero I’d change the card template. At my level I would have the audio on the front, Other-front on the back and RemarksBack on the back in a hint feild [#]Ankiのカードにヒントを付ける方法
to get listening practice
I add a little sugar, some cinnamon, cookie dough and chocolate chips.
Just mix together, put in my special Bunny oven, relax for a few minutes, then enjoy the tasty Japanese knowledge treats
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I love the idea you launched but to be honest I’d be pretty terrible at this as I usually keep on the same podcasts or YouTube subscriptions and am not really in the spirit of tracking anything, it’s a mess
One thing I can recommend though is to have a separated account for japanese stuff on YouTube. By which I mean nothing japanese learning oriented but subscriptions matching your own interests as if it was an actual japanese person account, this is why I say my immersion is random, I get most from it.
If you are past an intermediate level that is a great thing to do IMO, I wouldn’t recommend to do this otherwise though as the input should stay comprehensible.
I try to do the same with podcasts (kind of… as I can’t switch accounts), with pocketcasts I have japanese only folders for my immersion, podcasts I searched depending on my own interests. (pocket casts allows you to search podcasts by country which is awesome)
I still use a few japanese language learning ones as well as long as no English is spoken.
BTW the mountain climber above has gotten right in my subscriptions ! awesome channel thanks!
Eroge, books, comics, anime, TV dramas, variety shows, Youtube, movies, radio shows, music, talking to people, BBS.
I used to mine vocab into Anki. I did that every day for a few years but I eventually deleted my deck. I might do it again in the future for obscure words but right now I would rather watch paint dry.
I’m pretty much just going through 100 new vocab/kanji cards from Super Cub and my other JPDB decks every day, plus reviews. The goal being to grow recognition base to 10-20k words, and when reading becomes effortless stop with SRS and switch to pure reading.
On the grammar side, for now only studying N2/N1 that I actually run into. Bunpro is very helpful as a centralized resource for that.
And of course some youtube/twitch/anime immersion.