I've started this journey on August 8th, 2023. The reason this even came to my mind was because I was super crazy about collecting manga back then and wanted to buy all the English volumes of Oshi no Ko. I got very frustrated when I found out Yen press only translated the first 2 volumes, and had this crazy idea to pick up and start learning Japanese. Everyone told me how hard it would be, how I need to memorize 2.2k+ symbols etc.
But I started it anyway. My beginnings were your typical stuff: hiragana and katakana, then picking up resources for vocab, grammar and immersion. First I started with Genki 1 for grammar and vocab, topping vocab with Duolingo, no immersion at this point. Later I ditched both resources for Renshuu (vocab and grammar) and Tokini Andy (grammar) and picked up Japanese with Shun as my first immersion resource, later on picking up Yotsubato! as my first reading immersion. After around 500 words learned, I ditched Renshuu in favor of JPDB because I wanted a resource that could help me store and document the vocab I've learned.
Over time, this loop was making me more and more sour, because I was merely using immersion resources that were easy, not enjoyable. Then a good friend from this sub noticed my struggle via the questions I was asking and recommended me Hololive JP for immersion, which singlehandedly saved my motivation to this day. Endless amounts of listening and reading immersion, and at the time, I found it super interesting due to being a vtuber novice. Even though I don't watch any vtubers anymore, that step helped me so much to keep my motivation up.
Today I just finished going through my Kaguya-sama deck that I downloaded on JPDB. I'm currently sitting at 4708 words learned and 833h spent learning and immersing in Japanese. Although I haven't kept track of the number of kanji or grammar points I've learned, I think I'm around N3 level with those considering my exposure to this number of words and doing up to N3 grammar from Tokini Andy's videos.
How time fucking flies, it's not even funny. It barely feels like it's been a year since I started this journey, and I'm looking forward to becoming fluent one day, so I can finally prove to myself first that I'm not some idiot who cannot learn a skill to save his life.
by MemberBerry4