So I've been learning Japanese for 3 months now. I'm quite happy with my progress so far but I also can't help but feel like I could be doing more?
My routine is currently like this:
- -Anki ~ 10 sentence mined cards a day (I previously dropped Anki but after experimenting with it a bit, I've found out how to do it without feeling like shit).
- -2hr of Reading Visual Novels ~ I recently finished 思い出抱えてアイにコイ!! and now I'm reading 蒼の彼方のフォーリズム. 95% of my reading is Intensive immersion and I mainly just use Yomitan and DoJG to reference/learn unknown things whenever I encounter them
- -30 minutes of listening ~ Right now, I've managed to find a few romance anime that I genuinely like and I have subs disabled in the background thanks to ASBPlayer and I only enable them when I can't understand something.
Right now, I'm able to keep this routine up with some modicum of effort, but it's not too hard to maintain. The issues that I'm currently experiencing are that I feel like my grammar knowledge and kanji recall could be better. I know the classic answer is "just read more," and I’m definitely trying to stick with that. But I recently came across this reddit post that suggested that one should balance explicit study (like textbooks) with input.
So now I’m wondering—should I actually be doing more focused grammar study and kanji study? Or is it still better to just keep grinding input and let grammar click naturally over time? I'm thinking about finding a Tobira or Quartet book online to see if I can study through it alongside reading Visual Novels (My input to textbook ratio will probably be 70:30 or 80:20).
by LupinRider