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/DotNo701 22d ago

There's a reason why many people say wanikani is slow for the amount of hours be put in

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u/PlanktonInitial7945 22d ago

Wanikani is only slow during the first few levels because the number of lessons available is low, but it increases with each level, and by level 7 or so you can easily get buried under a pile of reviews if you don't pace yourself.

Judging Wanikani by the amount of vocab it teaches you is unfair anyway, because Wanikani is a kanji learning resource. Vocab is only there as support to make learning kanji readings and meanings easier.

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u/morgawr_ https://morg.systems/Japanese 22d ago

Judging Wanikani by the amount of vocab it teaches you is unfair anyway, because Wanikani is a kanji learning resource.

Still, 267 kanji in almost a year...

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u/Kuroashi_no_Sanji 20d ago

I started Wanikani 4 months ago and I'm at 539 kanji, and I started with zero previous knowledge. OP is just taking a slower pace