What learning activity gives the best results for your time?

I’m spending hours a day on flashcards because my memory is very bad. I am trying to do 40-60 kanji and 60-90 words a week. Plus whatever I learn in my online lessons for the week. I’m currently going through Genki with a teacher. I’ve nearly finished the first book. I have a lot of free time because I’m sick and have few responsibilities. I also an a slow learner ahem. I have a few hours of extra time on top of what I do already but don’t know what else to spend it on.

I have a chrome extension(migaku) that takes Japanese subtitles from youtube or Netflix and I can translate words from them into english. It also underlines the words in different colours depending if you don’t know it, have seen it, or know it. I can spend my extra time doing this.

Or the website I’m learning kanji from (kanshudo) has example sentences of grammar points or words. I can spend time reading those. Or I can do something else. I don’t know what’s the best use of my time

5 comments
  1. Hmm for me it is whatever feels fun to do. I can’t do flashcards for more than 15 min. Without getting bored so I only do flashcards for kanji and words, the rest is immersion.
    Like writing to people, watching 日本語の森 on YouTube. Reading and so on.

  2. Don’t spend hours a day on flashcards. Since you do Genki just add the words of the chapters you’ve done to Anki and nothing more.

  3. I don’t know what the “best” use of my time is, but my two cents are:
    – If you enjoy what you’re doing, you can’t go wrong.
    – If you do a little bit of everything, you can’t go wrong.

    It’s been said often that language learning is a marathon, so the thing that matters the most are motivation to keep at it. Your schedule sounds great with vocab, hard study, immersion, etc. You will definedly learn something every week. So with the extra time you have, I would just do whatever you enjoy the most.

    These days my schedule is similarly varied with a lot of different things. I read both novels and manga, watch anime and livesteams, learning vocab and studying kanji readings. (Since I have the meanings already done and studied) Just a bit of everything every day.

  4. this would likely vary based on various factors such as

    * how far you are in the various Japanese skillsets (e.g. reading, listing, writing, kanji, vocab, etc)

    * what your temperament and inclinations are

    * how much you study per day

    Thus this question is probably too overly-broad to answer accurately.

    That said, reading is a favorite among many.

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