Hello, I’m currently taking my studying seriously after lacking during the pandemic. I memorized hiragana and katakana. Then when it came to Kanji… yep I gave up those 2 years lol.
These last 3-4 weeks though made me realize that kanji wasn’t so bad even at the pace I’m going (still a baby beginner). I’ve been using Anki, wanikani, bunpo, renshuu, Japanese pod 101, and sadly Duolingo (I know, I know, but this motivates me to keep up for the weekly leagues while learning new things). I been studying for about 1 to 2 hours daily switching between apps and videos and I’m happy because I’m retaining a lot of the simple things before things start getting out of hand. I think maybe I’m not doing this right and I would like to turn it up a notch!
Anyways, I wanted to know what are your schedules for daily or weekly learning as a beginner or advanced learner? And what you decided to change since learning from the beginning because I want to apply it too. Give me a walkthrough of your routine.
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my schedule is really simple
every day I study 2 hours no matter what
I’ve been doing this since feb7 2020, and haven’t missed a day yet, but I suppose if there is an emergency I could miss it
if you want more of a breakdown, it’s
* Anki: 30 min
* Read: 90 min
how’s that for simple?
on days with iTalki, then I read less, but same total time
I started learning last November, 2 hours a night, sometimes more if I feel like I need it. My schedule is all over the place and I’m in the middle of revising it because I’m noticing a lack of engagement on my end, but as it stands its:
Sun-Writing practice (kana, kanji, basic attempts at sentences)
Monday-Kanji practice (anki review along with learning 8 new kanji)
Tuesday-Genki (work through it making sure I understand everything before moving on)
Wednesday-Duolingo/Lingodeer (just sit down and do Duo and Lingodeer exercises,
I’m slowly shifting toward Lingodeer though, Duo is loosing its effectiveness on me)
Thursday-Writing practice again
Friday-Kanji practice again
Saturday-Focus on what I feel is the most important
I study for around an hour before and on the way to work, and an hour late in the evening. Mainly just SRS, but here are the apps I use:
– Wanikani for Kanji and some Vocab, using Anki mode probably takes around 15-30 minutes in the morning and same in the evening
– Jalup for Vocab and grammar. Usually around 15-20 minutes per day
– Anki for Vocab (Tango N4 currently). Also around 15 minutes per day
– Ringotan for writing kanji (in order of Wanikani). probably not necessary but the app is really fun. Around 45 minutes per day
– and recently added Bunpro again for grammar and hopefully I’ll stick to it this time . So far taking an hour per day
formatting on mobile 😞
For some quick background — I studied Japanese in college for one-year and made it through Genki 1.8. I was already able to read hiragana/katakana, but had mostly forgotten kanji and vocab.
About a month ago I decided to get serious about learning and have been studying about 1-2 hours per day. This is what a typical study day looks like for me:
GENKI (~1 hour)
-Genki chapter [X] grammar lesson — follow along with Tokini Andy or Gaming Gengo on YouTube while taking notes.
-Genki vocab lesson — transcribe the entire vocab list into a notebook (I feel like this REALLY helps my memory). Then I’ll highlight all the words that feel super unfamiliar. I’ll write those maybe 10x each and make a physical flashcard so I can continue to practice.
-I’ve made it through 1.3 at this point, and have reviewed each chapter three times.
Anki (~25min)
-I have decks for each chapter of Genki vocab so I can really solidify those terms
-I’ve slowly begun to build a deck of my own words (things that are applicable to my everyday life). I include words I feel I have a mastery of already, including Genki vocab.
-My goal is to learn ~850 words by the EOY
WaniKani (~30min)
-I JUST made it to lvl. 3
I supplement this learning path with some podcasts (I LOVE Teppei), very basic reading (I found here on the sub actually), and just started keeping a journal.
My main is to get to a place where I can comfortably read manga and play my Switch in Japanese. 🙂
Good luck in your studies
I do anki every day (vocab + kanji) which takes around 40 minutes and is the core of my Japanese learning process. Even if I am dead tired after work, it’s the minimum thing I do. I also try to read 4 NHK easy news articles a day or if I don’t have time then I binge read them all later. Besides that I randomly watch Japanese daily vlogs and sometimes study grammar points, whatever interests me in that particular day. I usually study 1-3 hours a day.
Every day, I do my Anki reviews (30 minutes or less), WaniKani reviews (10 minutes or less), and take handwritten notes on the grammar points I’m learning from Genki/TokiniAndy (30 minutes – 2 hours). Every 2 weeks or so, I manually add new vocab cards to my Anki deck.
I work full time, so my study schedule differs some on the days I have off, but that normally just translates to more time spent taking grammar notes from Genki and TokiniAndy.
I currently study for about an hour or two every day, but that’s just an estimate since I don’t keep track of it.
Throughout the day I do WaniKani for kanji and vocab (currently level 19). I also use the website KaniWani that’s kinda the “reverse” of WaniKani where it shows you the word in English and you have to give it the reading (so no kanji to help). This probably takes me a total of 30 minutes throughout the day for reviews and new lessons.
Then in the evening I usually try to study from the Genki books and watch Tokini Andy videos. That’s maybe an hour in total.
Every week I have a one hour Italki lesson with my Japanese tutor to practice talking and review grammar points.
And then I also recently started using Anki for Genki vocab and have started listening to various YouTube videos or podcasts for more listening comprehension.
I’m studying japanese as my major at uni so it may differ as it’s my obligation but it’s something like this:
3-4 mini bunpou (grammar) points (each takes around 10 min or so) or 1 main point like conjugations etc.
new words (around 50-60 a day but it should be less for a casual learner i think) and just have a look at the older ones. this takes around 40-50 mins, sometimes I skip and do it every next day.
as for kanji, I don’t study anything else on the days that I study kanji and just learn/rewrite 10-15 kanji with its onyomi/kunyomi/and around 5 words that include those kanjis.
I’m at starting N4 level.
Once a week I attend japanese night class for 2 hours.
Every day I spend 30 mins on Anki. Some days if I’m not tired I might revise some grammar for 30 to 60mins in the evening after work.
On the weekends, I will spend a few hours revising grammar, reading ahead on Genki II, and doing workbook exercises. Other than Anki, I don’t use any apps to study japanese, I prefer a physical book. Some weekends I mine new words from anime for my Anki decks. I don’t use any pre-made decks.
I watch quite a bit of anime and some Jdrama, but I don’t count those as study. I also don’t study Kanji separately because I’m chinese and can read most of them. It’s one of the reasons I decided to learn japanese, since I already know the kanji.
Currenly, I’m doing 10 Wanikani lessons everyday (and all the reviews) to learn more Kanji. Time spent varies.
I typically study for 2-3 hours every day. (Not in a row.)
Daily inclusions:
Wanikani/Kaniwani, kanji study app (I just like this because I have a daily streak going), Bunpro reviews, and anki reviews.
I also read *something* every day. I’ve been working my way through Natsume Yuujinchou, now I’m taking a break from that and reading a volume of the Sugar Apple Fairy Tale LN.
(There’s also daily anime watching, but it’s with someone who knows 0 Japanese, so there are subs. I don’t count this as study time, though it does help my listening.)
A few times each week, variable:
Private lessons with 2 different tutors. I see each tutor once a week.
New grammar on Bunpro, usually in batches of 3.
Anime with Japanese subs (slowly working through Shirokuma Cafe).
I inconsistently do writing practice, which I’ll then share with my tutors so I can learn where I’ve screwed up.
The reading and Japanese subbed anime are where most of my anki vocab comes from. I’d like to start adding more listening, whether podcast or YT, and get more consistent about writing practice, but haven’t gotten around to it yet.
I currently review my aniki decks and then just use the language at the same time, adding in words that I don’t know while I use the language