Watching Netflix Japanese shows with Japanese subtitles really helped me break down the barrier of watching Japanese content without getting bored. Definitely I owe passing N2 to watching all of Dragon Ball Z haha. These days I don’t use subtitles but it is a really useful gateway. It goes without saying don’t ever use English subtitles too.
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Use cram to study points before adding it to your study list. I tried this recently to get a bunch of practice in my head before letting the SRS do its thing. 
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Interesting. How many points do you do this for in advance and how long? I might have to try this. I suppose it’s almost the same type of thinking that I/others do with anki - create new cards steps so you see it the day you learn it, and then once more the next day before it ends up actually gets changed to “learned” and SRS begins.
This.
You would be surprised how many people don’t actually use their knowledge in real life application.
YOU WILL NOT PROGRESS unless you use the stuff you learn. People limit themselves to only doing Anki / Bunpro / Wanikani reviews and expect to eventually become proficient at Japanese by only doing this.
The number of people who reach level 60 on Wanikani and still can’t read basic texts is mind blowing.
Honestly, I used to be like this, but the minute I started USING my Japanese, I improved ten fold.
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I usually add 2-5 in one sitting, depending on how easy they are. I’ve been adding 10 points per week in this second round of N2. (First round I was adding 4 points per week.) This past weekend, I added 20 in one day using cram (because I just wanted to finish it out by the end of May).
I always felt that jumping into some grammar points were just really shaky ground from the start. But this way, I get to be more comfortable with it before starting the SRS. It’s only been a couple days so far, but I feel good about it.
Here’s one that’s pretty unique: Flying around Japan in Microsoft Flight Sim 2020. It may not directly help with learning the language, but learning about the geography from has helped ground my Japanese language and cultural knowledge. Plus it’s just a good time all around. I had a gorgeous flight flying low along the Tenryuu river (天竜川) up to its source, Lake Suwa (諏訪湖), before landing in Matsumoto City (松本市). Absolutely beautiful area, surrounded by mountains. Mount Fuji (富士山) is impressive as well. It’s as beautiful as all the pictures show it to be, but what pictures don’t show is how absolutely massive it is. When flying around the slopes near the base, it’s as though the entire world has been rotated 30 degrees to one side. It’s very disorienting when flying since it makes you feel like you’re constantly banking, even when flying level. In my most recent flight I started exploring Hokkaido (北海道) starting from Hakodate (函館市), and let me tell you that the whole Uchiura Bay (内浦湾) area is stunning.
For anyone who wants to give it a try, I recommend starting on Tanegashima (種子島), south of kyushu (九州), and flying north from there, checking out any landmarks and cities that interest you along the way. Good times, lots to see! Bonus points for listening to a Japanese show or podcast in the background. Double bonus points if that show or podcast was produced in or is about the region you’re flying over.
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I recently became disstatisfied with the balance between writing and reading, which are too much out of balance, and impaired progression and remembering of kanji, vocabulary and grammar points So I decided to increase outputs by writing more. But since I do not have someone fluent in Japanese at my disposal (and Hinative or other sites may not be enough ) I had to devise a way to check grammar and meaning of what I wrote whenever I want to.
So I first write something in bunpo-check.com and correct until there is no more grammar error, then translate with deepl.com to be sure the meaning corresponds to what I mean. Using bunpo-check.com is a very good exercise since there is no explanation about the errors: this force to think really hard about the possible reasons of the error, which helps understanding grammar points and nuances .
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I add every single new word I see to an anki deck and review them everyday.
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I use bunpo-check and journaly.com. If you write too much, you may not get all the corrections you need, but it’s something! 
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I did my first transcript of a dialog (a podcast episode) in Japanese last week and I want to keep doing it. It was really challenging and time-consuming but worth doing. I then shared it on Journaly and got some corrections and could compete the bits I didn’t understand.
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Sorry for the reply to an old post, but thank you SO much for this. I’ve been improving so much in the past week just by adding this to my routine.
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No problem! Playing around with Anki is half the fun to see what helps. Recently I’ve changed my new card steps to be 40 90 1440 so I see the card one more time the next day before it officially becomes a “learned” card. Plenty of ways to experiment - add another day, increase/decrease graduation number (mine is currently set at 2), utilize the WONDERFUL ease auto-reset feature so you’re not stuck in ease hell, etc.
I do this sometimes, so I can study both English and Japanese at the same time. 
That’s why I’ve added some English channels aimed at Japanese in this post.
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Every time i take a shower, I memorize a list of around 7 words or grammar points i find difficult and repeat them. I take however many items that fit working memory, and try to create a little story/“sentence” to make it easier to remember. It’s not a grammatically complete sentence (probably unnecessary), but sometimes i put a verb in て-form or insert a の somewhere.
This has really helped me recently, and i’m running out of items i’m struggling with, because i usually remember these well after this.
I collect these “difficult items” in a list or spreadsheet, ideally regularly, but often just before the shower. (actually i could tag them in Anki)
You could probably apply this to other activities like running or cooking, any chores.
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This is somewhat similar to what your are doing, I use the NINJAL databases to see how words/verbs are used and the frequency of different constructions, Databases | NINJAL
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Ooh I hate writing in Japanese but that sounds like a really good idea, I could probably benefit from doing that
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I have reviewed item X in Anki and thought “Isn’t this Y?” more times than I can count.
Of course, I would then study the difference between X and Y to make it easier for me to distinguish between the next time that I ran across X or Y. After a while, I started recorded these mistakes in the Anki card for item X. That’s when the fun started …
After I started recording this in Anki, I realized I often make the same mistake 6-12 months later, and I had completely forgotten about the note to self not to confuse X and Y(!)
Recently, I decided to use SRS to train my brain to distinguish between the kanji / vocab items that I was mixing up. I did this by creating cards where the front side is a “mix-up pair” and it asks me to recognize both of them. Here are a few examples of how I mixed things up. Your list will be different.
投 役
更 便
停電 充電
そっくり そっと
超える 越える
This added remarkably little to my Anki decks:
- One “mix-up kanji pair” card for every four kanjis
- One “mix-up vocab pair” for every 25 vocab items.
I find these new cards be my most challenging cards because they contain >>my<< mix-up pairs. This is just another tool, but I sure wish I had done this earlier.
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I’ve tweaked my Anki settings a bit recently and so far it’s resulted in some positive results so I figured I’d share it with you all and see if it’s something you’d maybe try yourself!
- Adjust new card steps to add in one more day of review. My current steps are 5 30 180 1440. When I see a new card I’ll add my mnemonics or notes, hit good so I see it in 30, then 180, and then the next day it will be mixed in with that day’s review. My graduating interval is 3 days so if I press good on the card on 2nd day I’ll see it in 3 days time after that.
- My Lapses steps are set to 40 160 1440. Initially I debated adding 1440 but it’s been much more useful. New interval has always stayed at 70%
- Migaku Dictionary add-on to help import things to my cards instantly (pictures, audio, japanese dictionaries, multiple dictionaries w/ freq count, etc.)
The main thing that holds this deck together would be my Reset Ease Automatically add-on which adjusts the ease of my cards every single time I close Anki from my computer. If you’ve been in ease hell, you know exactly what I’m talking about. I’ve set the minimum to 200 which means no card’s ease will ever drop below that. This allows me to hit “hard” on cards I slightly struggled with and I see it in 2x whatever the current card’s day was (4 days → 8.) You can adjust this as you see fit obviously!
Let’s say I get a card wrong, I will see it twice that day and then once again tomorrow. Because I have the Ease Adjuster, if I still forgot the card the next day I can hit hard again which makes me see it again tomorrow before adding it back to the review pile. If I didn’t have this adjuster my cards would have an ease of 130% (I believe is the lowest it goes?) and I’d be miserable. I very rarely hit hard the second day during review but life happens yaknow? All in all adding an extra day to my review and new cards has seriously helped me out. Yeah, you’re gonna be adding more cards to your review per day but to be honest these review cards are going to take no time at all to answer since they should be fresh in your head. It’s an extra 2-5 minutes (depending on how massive your decks are) that I really think is going to help you out. At the very least, Ease Adjuster should be on everyone’s radar because it’s seriously going to reduce the amount of time repping which can then be used to either immerse or be lazy and browse youtube oh! and if anyone is interested, I have a very generic card outline that can be used in conjunction with Migaku dictionary so everything looks nice and clean. i know people have used yomichan to make anki cards but i’ve switched to migaku for now, just a ton easier and cleaner imo.
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review steps of 30, 180 and 1440 seem soooo long! is that basically the default? seems like you don’t see a card again for ages after just a few reviews. I might prefer the Wanikani/Bunpro model there. (even though i also use and like Anki)
But in general it sounds like you’ve set it up well for yourself!
I use Migaku as well, but still use Yomichan for creating Anki cards automatically. Can Migaku automatically add audio for a word? What about frequency?
Review steps seem long in terms of how often you’ll see the cards? Hm honestly I would disagree, I think you see it a ton. I would see it two times in the first day after learning it, then once more the next day and then after that it becomes learned and I see it in 3 days. I believe the next time you would see it your ‘hard’ would display 5 or 6, one of the two. That’s pretty often imo because you gotta put some trust in the SRS that it’ll lead you to where you need to go. You could also very much so drop the graduation interval to 2 so you’d see it after 2 days instead of 3, but that’s a little too much for me. I think if you wanted to create the Bunpro experience you’d drop it to 2
Yeah Migaku does all that too! Yomichan is fine for a quick look up while browsing, but I don’t like card creation. There’s a couple really good videos out there that show how quick and easy it is to install everything. Basically you just have one giant window inside anki (Migaku) and you enter the word and it’ll show you everything you need, and you can also dictate what things it’ll show in the first place. All the dictionaries are the same ones Yomichan would use and if I remember correctly you put the freq lists inside the add on. There’s usually 4 audio sources to choose from for the words, so the variety is good. When I get home I’ll link a video showing the setup if you want
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