A torturous method of learning that is working better than I anticipated

I have been learning Japanese for 2 years now. Since I have no plans of ever going to Japan and/or interacting with a Japanese native my highest priority is to be able to fluently read and listen. When I first started learning the language, I frequented this sub, followed random tutorials, dabbled with RTK, Anki, Cure dolly, Genki, Tae Kim etc. This probably gives you an idea that I was learning more about the resources than learning the language itself. A year had passed and it was going nowhere so I decided to buckle up and devised a plan that will make you question my sanity.

I bought a few LNs on Book-walker. 隣の天使様、回復術しのやり直し、アキカン. The 2nd one is already raising some red flags right? Now lets get into my setup.

Since I legally bought these I could justify truly owning them (I am not 100% sure about this). Doing this enabled me to cast some programming spells and I ended up with a tool that lets me consume the books in very deeply trackable ways. Some features of the tool

– How many unique words I have encountered.
– How many unique kanji I have encountered.
– Rarity distribution of encountered kanji.
– Color code words which even though not seen before I should have a good chance of taking a guess at.
– As a make progress in the book. the growth of unread part’s comprehensibility is highlighted by known words/phrases and kanjis.

Its design had some flawed assumptions but net effect is significantly positive.

Now the actual method of using it.

– I spend 30 minutes everyday on any one of the books that I am feeling like that day. I continue from where I left off on the previous day with the help of a dictionary. I only care about reading in this drill and throw understanding out the window. (I know there are words that require good comprehension to be read correctly e.g. 避ける).
– I spend 30 minutes to re-read the previous days content only relying on memory.

I supplement this with pure immersion of Japanese media to develop understanding of the meaning of the words. Its hard to quantify but this should give you some idea that I am watching 二人のビッグショー featuring 藤圭子 and 八代亜紀 and I understood almost all of there banter in between the songs. Interesting thing to note with immersion is that I have randomly acquired a bunch of words that I didn’t even encounter in the reading material yet e.g. けむり , ひづめ ,くさい , いらいらする , わくわくする and about 20 more. I have even understood some pitch accent and long vs short mora jokes.

In case you are still wondering about the torturous part, try reading a book in a language you don’t know. I have amassed over a 1000 kanji doing this for 10 months. I am not counting the words but a lot of the stuff I watch has become enjoyable. Reading is still a pain though.