Learning Schedules/Plans - How does everyone learn?

Hi.

I’ve realised as of late due to being quite busy that my learning has got a bit stale and I appear to just constantly be trying to learn/review vocab on Decks.

I was just wondering what everyone does with their learning?, what apps/books/immersion/etc…?, how do you plan your learning ie; 20 mins reading, 10 mins listening, 30 mins vocab etc…?

I was using a few other apps before, and was constantly listening to Japanese music, I tried watching tv shows/movies with just Japanese subtitles but I was just getting completely lost to be honest.
I really should get a tutor/talking buddy on italki at some point as well to help.
At the moment all I’m really learning is 25 words a day and 5 kanji meanings.

But anyway’s, seeing as I’m lacking motivation a bit at the moment, and have no learning plan/schedule, I want to see what everyone else does/is doing to get myself some better ideas of what and how I should be learning again. :slight_smile:

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If this is a lot or not enough, that depends on the level you’re at. Personally, that’s more than enough for me (and probably you). I give about 1 to 2 hours for Memrise a day. Most of it goes for reviewing.
In a hard language like Japanese, the main priority is to have fun, or else you end up getting burned out. Which is something you don’t want after getting so far ahead. I’d recommend the iTalki thing, communication is very beneficial. I know that because of how decent I’ve gotten at reading and listening, yet still can’t force my mouth to form a simple sentence (even though I can do so with my hand just fine).
A YouTube channel that gets recommended a lot in the Japanese learning community is 日本語の森, which is the best if you’re still not that used to listening. They have playlists divided by levels of Japanese and sections of language taught. I don’t watch that much of it at the moment, but I try to at least do one video a day. I just did the Ekubo ones, then jumped to the N3 playlists.
Video games are also a great source, but you have to choose wisely, not to end up with something incredibly hard and useless in actual Japanese conversation. I’ve started playing Clannad, and so far so good (which can’t be said later, since I know the story gets sad later on).
As for manga and anime:
Manga: same criteria used for games. And pick something you know you will enjoy.
Anime: re-watch a slice-of-life anime you finished like a month ago. I remember doing that with AnoHana… I barely understood like 5 words per episode, but it was a good experience. I don’t do this often as of late though.

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That’s understandable, Japanese is a very difficult language, so it will take you some time to get decent at it but it’s worth the effort.

My schedule is organised based on the time of day. I recommend finding a bit of time for everything I’m listing here, but basically : I review vocab as soon as I wake up. If I have classes that day, I usually wake up ~10-15 minutes earlier than usual and review as much as possible + learn new words or sentences. This is a pretty straightforward process in the week-ends but when you have classes/work I recommend finding “pockets of free time” when you’re on break or waiting for the bus. Try to make it so that by the time you’re home, you can just chill and immerse yourself in Japanese.

Now, I’m taking a bit of liberty with learning grammar since from N2 onward you rarely see those stuff, but I used to do it around lunch. Learning grammar should not, under any circumstance, be tedious and take you longer than 1 hour. Our ability to keep focusing on a task doesn’t exceed an hour anyway, so anything more than 1 hour will just be a waste of time when you could immerse yourself in Japanese and discover that very grammar in your immersion anyway. Don’t get me wrong, grammar is very important but you need a healthy dose of it.

So immersion…that is listening, reading, speaking, anything you can think of, just do it, and the sooner in the day you can do it, the better (more listening time = faster progress), so listen a lot. I did the stupid thing of reading a lot of stuff because I was so afraid of kanji and now I can read anything just fine but don’t understand much of what I’m hearing, so don’t be like me :smiley: When watching a TV show, for example, have a pen and paper with you and write anything you don’t understand; DON’T pause the video to look up words, that will slow you down and likely distract you…and you’ll find yourself browsing Facebook or watching Youtube in no time (been through that). When the show ends, take every word, look for it on jisho.org or any dictionary really, and find audio on forvo.

Additionally, what you can do to make the words stick is to take a screenshot of the show when that person says the word and upload it on Memrise (I know this sounds contradictory, but bear with me). That image will help you bridge the gap between the word in English and the word in Japanese. To save yourself some time, you can install the Vivaldi browser which has a built-in screen-capture option and a notes feature to write the words (not sponsored). As Gabriel Wyner said “You have to give the language life.”.

Lastly, before you go to bed, learn a couple new words. The second best time to learn new words is before you go to bed (1st being in the morning).

That’s about it. TL;DR : review words early in the morning; learn new words after that; do some grammar (maybe while listening to a Japanese podcast); listen and read throughout the day and end up with yet another review + learn combo . And try to stay away from English subs,

Also, you might want to change it up a little. A lot of people would tell you to watch slice of life but, at what point does slice of life vocab become too easy to you? You should watch a variety of topics once in a while, because you probably won’t find words like submarine in a teen drama; nor will you find “love triangle” in a war anime. Basically treat your immersion as though you were a native who can listen to anything without much effort,

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I’m only half way through N4 at the moment (although I have learnt some random vocab from differing levels), so not that far along the learning journey yet, but I can manage to watch a few Japanese kids cartoons and understand most of it with Japanese subtitles as a back up. I have found that my reading appears to be a lot better than my listening at the moment as I usually find myself reading the subtitles instead of actively listening though.

And thanks for the advice, I think something I’ve definitely been lacking lately with learning Japanese is the having fun part.
I’ll try and find some retro games to play on the weekends that are appropriate to my current level or something. Also, find some manga (although I’m not quite sure where I can get raw manga too at the moment), and pick out some anime’s and drama’s to start watching (an episode a day).

So I think my new fun learning plan will be something like:
~ Review words in the morning - as well as learn new words (on decks)
~ Go over grammar (on decks)
~ Listen to Japanese music throughout the day in the background
~ Watch at least an episode of an anime/drama a day/Japanese youtube vids
~ Learn new words before bed

On the weekends I’ll add in:
~ Play a Japanese game (not sure what yet though)
~ Read some Manga

I will eventually add in italki as well when I get some more free time.

Any advice on how to best approach learning grammar?, websites?, books? etc…?

Not sure where I’m going to get the Raw Manga from yet, been looking but can’t find anywhere to buy some physical copies in the UK.

About listening, don’t limit yourself to a kids show if you don’t like kids shows, better listen to something more challenging that you actually enjoy. If you enjoyed Cowboy Bebop in the past, watch that. I know it seems tempting to watch something “for beginners” but there is no native content intended for learners. Same thing goes for reading : if you like philosophy, there’s not much reason to read Red riding. About video games, I second Clannad. Haven’t played it but heard a lot of good things.

For grammar, you need multiple alternative sources. If Genki doesn’t explain something that well, go here http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar . My grammar progression was Genki I and II, An integrated approach to intermediate Japanese and Tobira. That + the above-mentioned 日本語の森 should get you to a pretty solid N3. From then on, it’s mostly full immersion as a lot of grammar comes from inflections and stuff you learned on previous levels. You can look here https://japanesetest4you.com if you want to review grammar faster.

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Ahh ok, I was a bit wary of jumping in with the shows I enjoy as they are mainly aimed at adults, but I guess if they can hold my attention more as I enjoy them I’m more likely to learn then.

Thanks for the advice about the grammar, I will try all of those out.

I’ve still yet to find somewhere to buy/read Japanese Manga though. :thinking::frowning_face:
I was thinking it would be a good idea to find an anime I like and watch that as well as read the manga for it, to solidify the vocab from it.

Well, be it adult or children TV, it is still aimed at natives. It might be a bit more of a struggle to go through content intended for grown-up until you’ve assimilated enough vocab to make it more enjoyable, but it’s worth it. You just need to pick up the pace a bit.

About manga, I don’t know if we’re allowed to post pirated sites, most likely not…but there’s a lot of places if you look hard enough. If you wanna buy them legally though, just go to the Japanese Amazon, don’t worry about it being in Japanese, you can change the language here https://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/customer-preferences/select-language/ref=topnav_lang?language=en_US&preferencesReturnUrl=%2Fgp%2Fcustomer-preferences%2Fselect-language%2Fref%3Dtopnav_lang%3FpreferencesReturnUrl%3D%2Fref%3Dnav_logo and just copy and paste the Japanese name of the manga or book you’re interested in. The shipping is kinda high (at least in my country) but still worth it if you buy a lot of books at once and not just one or two,

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Ahh ok cool, I’ll try ordering some off there then, I was looking for physical copies of manga, as when I get the chance to read I prefer reading from books/comics.
I’ll ask in my local comic shop as well to see if they can maybe order some in, hopefully they can.
Thanks for all the help, much appreciated. :slight_smile: