What is your study schedule?

Bunpro
#1

Hi everyone :wave:,

After taking the recent JLPT, I realized I desperately need to change up my study methods. Slogging through textbooks for hours just doesn’t sit well with me anymore, and I want to make learning fun again. My main goal right now is to drastically improve my reading ability/vocab while having fun.

I know “effective” means something different for everyone, so I’d love to know:

  • How do you structure your daily study schedule?
  • What methods, tips, or tricks have worked best for you?
  • How do you incorporate more engaging/fun materials into your routine?

Whether its related to reading or to grammar. Let me know.

I’m sure others will find it of use too.

Thank you!

4 Likes
#2

Hello!
As an upper intermediate learner (N2 aiming for N1), here’s what works for me!

daily goals:

  • clear anki queue
  • listen to 5 mins of a Japanese podcast
  • study at least 10 mins (this ten minutes can include the above activities)

I usually manage to study an hour or more each day but I set a 10 min goal to get the ball rolling!
I use an app called Finch to track these personal small goals, and an app called Studyplus to track my overall study hours. I find tracking very useful personally because it helps me feel like I used my time meaningfully and shows my progress and effort even when I don’t feel like I’m improving.

My daily routine is usually something like this-

  • listen to my podcast for 10-30 mins on my commute (tbh I often be zoning out, I try not to be hard on myself though and just track maybe 50 percent of it as study time. mornings are hard and I’m bad at forcing myself to listen to stuff, so for me keeping the habit is more valuable than doing it perfectly and catching everything)
  • Clear my anki queue throughout the day
  • not so much lately but I also work on my bunpro queue (I used to clear it every day but fell to the wayside during summer)
  • read a few pages of a book or recently play a videogame in Japanese (this is more like most days, not every day, because life gets in the way)

I also attend conversation practice 1x a week and a group class 1x a week. I use textbooks sporadically! I don’t enjoy textbook study so I only do it when I want to. I don’t mind using a textbook in my group class, but I just don’t vibe with it for self study. That said I did enjoy TRY! N4, because it’s mostly exercises.
I do think my 1x a week group class does a LOT to cover my bases for grammar so bunpro and reading reinforce that. We use the textbook Dekirunihongo (intermediate). That said, it means I only really go out of my way to study grammar once a week!

My number one tips are

  • be kind to yourself. study doesnt have to be perfect
  • be ok with not understanding everything
  • balance boring study (SRS etc) with fun study (reading something you like)
9 Likes
#3

Hi! I’m around N3, I moved to Japan recently and for the next few months have no job or school. So I’m able to spend all day on Japanese.

  • listen to like 2 hrs of podcasts throughout the day
  • watch around 4 episodes of anime
  • a couple youtube videos
  • read a couple chapters of manga
  • read a chapter of a light novel if I feel like it
  • minimal pairs trainer for pitch accent
  • numbers listening trainer
  • rtk reviews and 30 new kanji each day
  • anki mining/vocab reviews
  • bunpro 3 grammar points a day and reviews
  • conversation with a tutor if we have one scheduled

Of course I’m really lucky to have nothing else to do all day so I try to fit in as much as possible

4 Likes
#4

This is wonderful and I hope it pays off with the amount of input you get. I remember when I had such time during covid. Now barely any haha. Give and take I guess.

Where have you moved to prefecture wise if you are ok to share?

Thank you!

2 Likes
#5

For me, I clear my wanikani and bunpro reviews, add 5 wk cards, 5 vocab cards, and 1 grammar card.

Then, 15-30 minutes of listening (currently watching manpuku on netflix!)

Usually this totals up to about an hour a day and I can’t afford much more than that with my current lifestyle :slight_smile:

4 Likes
#6

This is still a step in the right direction. Progress!!

Is 5 WK (wanikani cards)? do you write your own vocab as well or are you using anki?

Keep up the good work!

1 Like
#7

I generally go through my Bunpro reviews and then ~5 new grammar points

Then I go through my Anki reviews, and do generally 20-30 new cards (number depends on how much I sentence mined the previous day, as it’s my only source of new vocab now)

After those are done, I generally try to get at least an hour or two of active immersion, although the amount I do each day varies wildly, some days I get very little and others I spend 5+ hours. During immersion I sentence mine for new vocab that looks interesting, usually aiming to get around 20-30.

My immersion (video/audio) is primarily through YouTube or anime. For reading its typically manga or VNs.

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#8

My typical routine is the KanjiStudy app in the morning before leaving for work, I learn 3 kanji a day. During/after work I do 5 minutes of Anki that’s my kanji deck, I make it all by hand during the weekends. I’ve got it so the Anki deck is one day offset from my KanjiStudy app, today’s KanjiStudy kanji will show up as new tomorrow on Anki. This reaaally works for me. I also do Bunpro after dinner, I only use the site for grammar so I only have 10-25 reviews a day. I add 3 grammar points on the weekend mornings for 6 a week total so I then review them during the week.

Basically I keep SRS to ~30 minutes a day. I don’t do vocabulary SRS, I spend the rest of my time playing games/reading manga/novels in Japanese instead. I’ll learn vocabulary slower without SRS, but I’m having a blast reading/playing everyday so I’m okay with that.

At the moment I’m studying for the JLPT for the first time (N3) so I’ve added in 2 months of 新完全マスター work everyday. I made a schedule and assigned myself roughly 4 workbook pages from 2 of the books (I’m using the 文法, 読解, and 聴解 books) everyday and that takes me about 20-30 minutes after work. I have the schedule set for only September and October so I’ll be able to refine in November redoing things and taking practice tests.

After the JLPT I will chill (kanji break!) and make new study plans for 2027 because I enjoy mixing things up to keep it fresh. My advice would be to not be afraid to try new study methods/mix things up a little, or throw things that aren’t working into the bin lol.

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#9

Question on this. Recently i have felt that Anki is not worth it for me. I feel it as a big chore even if i do get through reviews. Though I do know the power behind using it.

Do you think its a must have?

I wasn’t really finding my own vocab but more of N2 Tango deck premade deck. I felt after the recent JLPT that man I didnt learn really anything from that deck that helped me.

In terms of immersion, are you always looking up stuff when you dont know the meaning or are you listening? I feel i really want to enjoy the books or videos im watching but i really have no good balance for when i should be looking up stuff vs enjoying the content.

1 Like
#10

Thanks! I start school in six months so the Japanese study is on 110% until then. I live in Tokyo! I’ve dreamed of living here for years now so its truly awesome. I moved from a town with a population under 40k to a place with over ten million people lol.

Anyways everyone, 頑張ろう！And in difficult times of your Japanese learning journey, remind yourself the reason you’re studying, idealize what you want to be able to do with Japanese, remember to love yourself, and remember that showing up is half the battle.

2 Likes
#11

I’m right there with you, I’m relatively new to SRS in general but Anki has been a SLOG to get through. I’m kinda just hoping with enough time I’ll start to enjoy it lol.

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#12

I think at higher levels, doing your own sentence mining certainly helps with retention a fair bit. Overall, I do believe Anki is quite important for actually retaining and learning a large amount of new vocab. Maybe you could try doing it this way, as using a premade deck up at N2 likely feels a bit detached.

When I’m doing immersion I don’t look up every word I don’t know, but if it seems important to understand the context of that scene or sentence I usually do. Since I use popup dictionaries and screen readers all I have to do is click the word on the subtitle anyway, so the process is quite smooth. This way I can enjoy the content and mine new words at the same time without awkward breaks in content.

I don’t really listen to podcasts too much, since I mainly just use YouTube or anime for listening, but when I do use podcasts I don’t look up any words since it’s much more of a pain to do so.

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#13

The biggest challenge is overcoming the hurdle of comprehension in early learning. As you continue to learn new words, the Kanji will become more familiar and new vocab is much less tedious (to an extent, its certainly still the biggest slog of language learning).

I’m not sure what level you are at with vocab, but sentence mining makes vocab a bit more enjoyable in my opinion as all the words you learn are directly connected to content you enjoyed and immersed in.

3 Likes
#15

oh fr! sentence mining is great! I mined my first like 4-5k words from anime, and I’ve switched to only mining from Japanese YouTube because I like watching anime without feeling the need to mine words from it, and especially now that I have a large passive vocabulary and growing that isn’t my priority.

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#16

I doing a sort of “restart” for me (mainly for writing, reinforce somethings, and bit better study habits but here’s what I do):

-Study about 3/4 Kanjis a day

-Read an article or two/some pages of a book

-Add an average of about 5-10 words at least

-1/2 grammar points

-Review for about 30 mins

-Write a several sentences on a word document (going to switch to physical writing and luckily I have a whiteboard I write now so I don’t waste precious paper).

  • I have 2 sessions a week with my Italki tutor.

  • (extra) I do VR Chat maybe once a week if I can and I play video games in Japanese (mainly into Visual Novels now.)

3 Likes
#17

Sorry haha, I realize how that was unclear - yes, 5 wanikani ‘lessons’, and then I use the bunpro vocab feature!

Slow, steady, sustainable has been my motto and it’s gotten me very far! As far as your concern about making learning fun again, I cycle the 15-30 minutes I spend outside of flashcards (which are very frequently not fun, but I am strict with myself about them) with whatever feels the most fun at the moment. Most frequently that’s listening practice, but sometimes it’s reading and on rare occasion I’ve got the energy to go out and do some writing practice or speaking practice hehe

2 Likes
#18

mine is a little less organised than everyone elses TT

  • do bunpro during classes if i have free time
  • if not do it at home after (aim for about 100 reviews)
  • anki for kanji (20)
#19

I do Anki on the bus.
I got an hour unpaid break I read a paper Japanese book. (Not allowed to scroll at work)
I write down unknown words in a notebook.
When I get home from work, I add those words to Anki. (Example sentences from subs 2 srs)
Japan class on Thursday.
I watch the new Episode of Yomi no Tsugai when it airs each week.

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#20

I’d like to share what I did while working full time in the past, and what I do now while catching back up after a break. For reference, while I haven’t taken the formal JLPT exam, I would rate my past grammar somewhere as “early N4” and my current knowledge as “amalgamation of mid N5 and some N4 grammar”.

What worked for me while working:
I’d study in two sessions, once in the morning, and once during lunch (my department had longer than usual lunches, was nice).

During the morning when I had time to myself, I’d predominately study new grammar from my textbook. During my second session, I would catch up on SRS (anki, Bunpro, WK), and then read a book or NHK Easy News. I kept a physical notebook on me, and would write down sentences that I was close to understanding but needed to study further IN ADDITION TO my hypothesis on what the meaning might be.

If I had any extra time at night, I would work through my notebook here on Bunpro until I had a better grasp on what I marked down previously. I’d say this habit accelerated my ability to understand things the most, and the grammar points I’d learnt this way I still find easy to use despite my break.

I also made time for listening and shadowing practice, but mostly just as a secondary activity while doing things around the house.

What I do now
Mostly the same, except I’m unemployed and find my day is a little less structured. I do my grammar reviews and SRS in the morning (+ 20 new in WK, “2 old 1 new” in Bunpro), and then find something enjoyable to do in Japanese for a few hours in the evening. I still keep a physical journal on me, and find continued success with my old research strategy.

How I keep it fun
I pick things that I loved in English, and I try to engage with it in Japanese instead. At my level, I try to keep it focused on things with simple language like どうぶつの森, 牧場物語, Girls Mode (Style Savvy), and so far one of the ウマ娘 manga called スターブロッサム. I get frustrated by manual dictionary lookup, so I like using tools like owocr & JL for lookup. I also have a modified 3DS so I can easily OCR on a computer using something like Artic Base or NTR+Snickerstream. I look up anything I don’t know & do my best to understand it, but don’t note down anything for further review unless I see something multiple times or it seems personally useful to know.

Mindset is also key for me. It’s exhilarating to come across something that once gave me trouble & realize I understood it right away. Chasing that high keeps me wanting to study and practice more.

I wish you a lot of luck finding something that’ll work for you!

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