tl:dr – if you were looking to push towards moving from beginner to intermediate and had 9 days off work in a row, how would you maximize that time?
A little bit of background before my actual question. I’ve been studying japanese on and off for the last 3 years, and i’m currently about a month into a very “on” studying moment. I would say 90% of my studying has been Kanji, primarily using wanikani, although in the last month I’ve been working to get more comfortable with loan words as well. Towards the end of 2020 I’d leveled up in WaniKani to \~45, had about 1300 kanji learned, but I’d say I was comfortable with around 1000. I reset my level in 2021 after a long hiatus and i’m level 13 now (about 400 kanji “learned”, but I’d say I’m closer to 600 kanji that I’m good with). I pick up ones I used to know pretty quickly when trying to read, play games and watching japanese subbed content.
I’ve got a week off of work coming up in the middle of September with no plans, so in a perfect world I’d love to be able to devote 8+ hours that would normally be spent at work each day into really hitting japanese hard and see if I can walk away with some noticeable gains. Its probably obvious that my weaknesses are grammar and any words that are primarily shown in hiragana, leaving me pretty poorly equipped to understand much when immersing into content. If I am able to spend a good chuck of a day off currently studying, its usually about 4 hours and it usually includes:
\-playing about an hour of a game in japanese and translating everything I can (currently ni no kuni, i’d say I’m able to figure out about 40-50% of the dialogue in the game correctly, and can make guesses that are close on almost all dialogue, currently 4 hours played)
\-watching japanese movies or tv shows either with no subtitles or japanese subtitles. I can usually make it one episode or 20-30 minutes into a movie before I need a break. I’ve not found the best content for where I’m at currently, but I try to get the most out of this by repeating back what characters say, since I’d say a native speaker could speak a sentence that i know 100% of the words/grammar for, and I still probably wouldn’t understand it because the speed my brain in processing their talking
\-wanikani vocab lessons and reviews – probably 90 minutes most days, in 10-15 minute sessiosn throughout the whole day
\-read a short story on satori reader – takes me probably 30 minutes to review vocab and get through a couple paragraph story. this is pretty recent addition and feels pretty valuable
\-japanese with masa sensei podcast – listen to this while walking my dog, probably 40 minutes each day. I’m not always paying close attention, but i’ve noticed it making some difference
\-harry potter audiobook – listen to this while i’m driving, probably 20-40 minutes each day. I need to replace this with satori reader stories of my level, which I’ll probably do in the coming weeks.
Over the years I’ve bought a ton of books that I’ve mostly not used, but I’m happy to hear any success stories you may have that would motivate me to pick these up. Really any suggestions on how you’d spend or have spent long study days would be appreciated!
1 comment
Firstly, what do you do for grammar? does wanikani offer grammar? I never did it, so i cant judge. Other than that, you can just do what you already do, just longer. If you never did grammar, this would be a good point to start.
But 9 days with 8h instead of 4h wont make a big difference, I would rather do my normal schedule and enjoy my time off, but everyone as he pleases.
If you want to jump to intermediate (using jlpt standards) you need ~1500 vocabs,~300 kanjis and all n4-5 grammar. But obv. this is just according to n-levels and not “actual” language level.
Edit: I used the Minna no Nihongo series in the past, and it worked very well for me, the 4 books go up to like ~n2.5ish grammar wise and using it complementary to my other study methods(anki,immersion,kanji) boosted my input speed alot.