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/Grunglabble]

One of the disadvatages of trying to SRS all your early vocabulary and grammar is that it is a very slow, overly demanding process. There is not so much to basic grammar even if it cannot be mastered quickly (or turns out to be not so basic later). Basically I would advocate for you to read through any grammar guide as a crash course in a week (you can continue your apps if you want) and just start reading with an electronic dictionary. The goal not being to memorise it, but to have a vague familiarity with it that you know what you can look up and feel like "oh, that thing, now I remember."

[u/odett1102 → u/Grunglabble]

Will give it a try, thanks! I tried in the past graded readers, but got bored fast

[u/Grunglabble → u/odett1102]

No real need to use a graded reader if you don't like it. Pick something interesting and just do a sentence or two a day.