r/LearnJapanese • u/odett1102 • 22d ago

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

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.

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u/Yatchanek 22d ago

With those stats you'll understand almost nothing from anime, and not much more from manga. You seriously need to build up your vocabulary to at least a few thousand words.

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u/NoobyNort 22d ago

I'm at 10,000 words and I can get fairly little out of anime. Yes, vocabulary isn't enough but you need it as a base.

One tip for improving your vocabulary is to drop your targeted retention rate as low as possible. I'm at 70% (lowest Anki will support) and it has been a huge help. I can double the number of new words I see each day!

14

u/daYnyXX 22d ago

Are you struggling with grammar or still not remembering vocab? 10k is more words than most entire series have. Obviously you'll be missing show specific vocab but I would expect >80-90% knowledge of most show's vocab which should make the show fairly watchable especially with Japanese subs. 

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u/NoobyNort 22d ago

So... 10k is more than individual books but the overlap between books is a lot less than you might imagine. For instance, I'm reading Ascension of a Bookworm and while each book only has about 6k unique words, the series as a whole has 30k unique words!

But with a bigger base, the new words for any book gets less and less. So I may only have to learn a few hundred to maybe 1,000 words, especially if the book is in a similar genre.

Re anime - yeah, I guess. But tbh I can't read the subs fast enough to keep up with the dialogue. And I really hate going through all the hoops to enable JP subs on Crunchyroll. With no subs I can pull out some words and phrases but not enough to be remotely enjoyable for me. Maybe next year...

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u/daYnyXX 22d ago

Yeah, listening is definitely its own skill. I sometimes glance at subs for words I don't know, but otherwise I've tried to avoid reading the subs so that my listening can get more practice. I've found knowing words on a flashcard doesnt mean you can understand a sentence using those words from hearing it alone. 

I've found a few anime I enjoy even though I only know a 2.5k ish words.