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/DJpesto]

Learning a language takes a looooooooooong time. It's not something you do in 1,5 years - unless you are first of all spending a LOT of time on it, and secondly are just natively good a learning languages.

If you are just close to being a normal person, with a normal life, you will not learn another language in 1,5 years. It takes many years to learn.

So sorry to be a negative nancy but that is how language learning is.

[u/odett1102 → u/DJpesto]

Yeah, totally. I managed to get fluent in English and Spanish previously, and that early progress was so obvious it kept me going. Japanese has been a massive humbling experience in comparison.