I've been trying to organize my life/schedule a bit so I'll be productive even in the winter (aka when I'm usually very mentally checked out ╯︿╰)... and this includes studying time! I have an alarm set every night at 9:30PM, just so I'll at least try to touch the studies a little bit!
Last year I had the N5 test to keep me focused and studying hard, but I'm not taking the N4 this year... and so I think I've slacked a lot more than I should have.
I like to use bunpro for grammar and vocab lessons and for reviews, but I've gotten pretty bored with it? Or, I can't really bring myself to keep up with them anymore on most days. I can do a few reviews each night before I get bored, but I don't think it's really helping anything stick. இ௰இ
So... I'm trying to make a study plan for myself! Trying to organize what my goals are, and what things I can try to do! I have to give myself a few different options because I'm really bad at doing the same thing all the time.
Trying to break things down into categories that I can switch between, since I think I'll need different plans for each:
Grammar
Vocabulary
Listening
Reading
One thing that is universally helpful for all of these to me are: practice tests! I learned that bunpro has a bunch of practice tests now ( •̀ ω •́ )✧ I'm really good at studying for tests in particular, moreso than practical application sometimes... so... this is something that's very good for me.
Grammar
For learning grammar, I think my main plan is to go through and make proper organized notes first.
I really hate how bunpro's grammar is organized - it's too disjointed for me, and not grouped in a sensible way... so I need to reorganize it for myself!
That's a lot, though, so I think I'll have to do this in multiple parts:
Going through the grammar lists and making a digital list (and organizing them as I do so)
Writing down notes in my notebook
Making a conjugation flowchart (again)
The conjugation flowchart I'm talking about is... this:
It helped me a lot with my N5 studies - having things in a map makes it easier to try to remember things. I still have a habit of trying to think "how do I conjugate past tense..." and then I'll look off to my left a bit, since that's where my notes were. I think people call this 'mind mapping'? Whatever it is, it's nice for this sort of thing.
(Also because I just like flowcharts.)
Going through grammar lists will probably work nicely for me to review things that I've forgotten... and then rewriting things in my notebook will also be more review.
The flowchart will probably take a bunch of attempts, but that's also part of the process! The more I try to draw it out from memory, the better!
There's also this website which is really good for conjugation drills! So I'll probably do that, too, once I've reviewed things a bit more.
Vocabulary
This one is the hard one... I'm almost forced to review vocabulary through flashcards or other reviews, which works for a bit, but then I get bored!
The best way for me to remember words and vocabulary is to see them out in the wild multiple times... like 糸! I saw that when I was playing Mabinogi (JP) and never forgot the kanji again.
So... I think I have to do readings that use the vocabulary. The best I can think of is playing games in Japanese again, and I want to do that with Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar... but it requires a lot of mental energy!
For now, I'll just do reviews and maybe some reading. But I might try to schedule time to play games in Japanese... probably on Sundays or something? Maybe earlier in the day, rather than later... I'm not sure yet. (。_。)
Listening
I'm really really bad at listening! Even in English! Audio processing is hard for me sometimes, and focusing on what I'm listening to actively is... also difficult.
I think my plan, though, is to maybe just listen along to audiobooks? For like fairytales or children's stories - particularly Le Petit Prince. Things that I know somewhat, so I can roughly understand, while also still actively listening. Having text to fall back on is helpful, too.
Satori Reader is a really nice app for listening and reading practice, but some of the texts are too boring for me... so finding stories that I find fun is probably more important, at least for now.
I also like music a lot, so I think transcribing lyrics for songs that I like and trying to translate those will also help me quite a bit.
(I also want to find a JP radio station to listen in on or something... They have to talk at a reasonable pace, so I feel like that'd be a bit more comfortable too.)
Reading
This one is sort of mixed in with everything else, but also it's something that I need to focus on separately!
I have a few novels and manga in Japanese (like Puyo Pop, and Tales of Crestoria) which I'm going to try to get through slowly. I tried to take notes as I read before, but it was really time consuming and taxing? And it made me give up faster, so I think I'll just try to skim and maybe make notes on sentences I struggled with.
For now, I think the goal is more "try to get through as much text as I can and roughly understand" than "try to 100% understand all of the text that I read". I'll get better with understanding over time, but trying to get things done 100% from the start is going to burn me out too fast.
The study plan!
As for what I'm actually going to do: who knows! I'm probably going to pick 1 of the 4 things each night, and try to figure out what I have the energy to do.
The easiest for me to fallback on is just doing bunpro reviews (boring) and probably listening to music and transcribing lyrics (a bit more effort though)? But we'll see!
The bigger tasks that I'll want to schedule eventually are:
When do I want to play JP games? I should block off 2 hour chunks each week for this, I think.
When should I plan to finish the bunpro N5 tests? I should be able to do these, but I want to review a bit more... so maybe trying one every 2 weeks would be good?
When should I plan to try the bunpro N4 tests? This one is the more important one, and probably the most helpful to keep me on track... But first, I guess I should do the N5 ones until I'm confident, and finish organizing my notes.
I'll probably try to revisit this at the end of each month to make sure I'm making progress, or revise my plan as needed. (●ˇ∀ˇ●)... I'm planning to write the N4 next year (December), but since I'm going to Japan again in the summer: I want to make sure I'm a bit more comfortable, especially with reading! So I want to work hard, at least until May!