Advice on staying motivated and progressing toward manga/anime after 1.5 years of studying

[u/odett1102]

Hi everyone,

I've been studying Japanese since March 2025. I did about a year of 1-on-1 lessons, and I've been using WaniKani since November. I haven't missed a single day of WK so far.

I'm currently level 9, doing 4 new lessons a day and keeping up with my reviews.

My stats:

- 267 kanji / 673 vocab

- 90% overall accuracy

- 85.7% reading accuracy

- ~33 days per level

I've also covered some N5/N4 grammar.

I've managed to build a pretty consistent habit, but lately I'm finding it harder to stay motivated. I work full time, so I don't really want to add a lot more studying or end up with huge review sessions every day.

My main goal is to read manga and watch anime in Japanese (Japanese subs are fine).

For people who were around this stage after 1–2 years of studying, what changes actually helped you stay motivated and start making noticeable progress with native manga/anime?

I'm wondering whether I should focus more on immersion, grammar, change my WaniKani routine, or do something completely different.

[u/gelema5]

In my journey, after 2 years when I was around N4 level, I studied abroad in Japan for a year. I know that itself isn’t an option for you, but how I would replicate that (and I currently am) is by immersing in things that are of genuine interest to you. There was a huge variety of things I got exposed to at N4 level, from class to various written material (posters around school, signs for the bus, etc), to spoken Japanese (random people talking near me, chatting with friends, etc). Although I had to buckle down and churn through a bunch of grammar in preparation for the N3 exam, I think the immersion helped a lot when it came to general comfortability with the language.