Context:
I studied Japanese seriously about 20 years ago while living in Japan and was almost at N2 level, back when there were only 4 levels. Since then, my ability has atrophied back to probably what is now beginner N3 level and I've start/stopped studying many times. I recently moved back to Japan on a sabbatical, want to get back into serious study and have 1-2 hours daily to study. My goal is to finally get past the N3 hump for vocab and kanji, along with also improving my overall conversational abilities.
Current Situation:
- Speaking/Listening: Comfortable with daily life conversations without translating in my head, but hit a wall quickly if the topic gets specific.
- Grammar: Solid N3, currently using Bunpro to review and brush up.
- Kanji: My biggest weak point (N3-ish). Down to ~300 kanji from 900. Re-learning via WaniKani because I bought a lifetime subscription a while ago)
- Vocab: Not really sure, probably beginner to mid N3. My wife is Japanese and we sometimes still converse in Japanese, so my basic vocab hasn't atrophied as much as grammar and kanji
The Problem:
My spoken Japanese is ahead of my reading, and overall my lack of vocabulary is bottlenecking my real-world conversations. While in Japan I'm going to start finding group activities (martial arts, hiking) so I have opportunities to practice, but I still need to build a strong conversational vocabulary base without ignoring kanji. Unfortunately, I keep getting stuck on how to study:
- Manual Sentence Mining: I tried this with Migaku to focus on conversational vocab. I loved the idea that if you teach Migaku the vocab you know it can recommend other shows. But the return on investment felt really bad. Like only getting 10 vocab cards after an hour of mining felt like I could have better spent that time just studying a premade list.
- Core 6k / Anki: As best I can tell the Core decks are mostly taken from the Iknow site which bases their list on newspaper and written media frequency. That doesn't really seem to align with my conversational goals, but also its probably okay given my low level of vocab? As for Anki, its an amazing program, but I honestly just fall asleep using it. I'm fairly certain I have mild ADHD and the bland visuals for the cards just doesn't work for me. That and I also get too easily distracted tweaking Anki settings because I'm a python developer (see ADHD reference above)
- Textbooks (Quartet): Coming from Genki, I was super excited about this and its where I originally started, but soon gave up on it because the format was super unintuitive and the vocab and kanji seemed really random.
- JPDB: Love the concept of pre-made core decks customizable by media frequency, and also being able to find video media based on what I already know. However, I'm not sure if its still worth investing my time here, I get the sense that overall the original developer is maintaining the site, but doesn't really have time to continue working on it. Also the bland interface tends to also have a similar issue as Anki.
I'm pretty sure the answer is, no option is perfect, just pick one and get to studying, but figured it can't hurt to post here for advice, support or options I haven't thought of. I do definitely seem to keep motivated with Wanikani/Bunpro-like sites that organize and gamify study for me.
In any case, if you read this far…お疲れ様です。ありがとうございます！
by Flimsy-Adagio3751