/lit/ - Literature

I studied it mainly because I wanted to read untranslated visual novels but in the process it also rekindled my interest in literature in general.

Started with Anki Core 10k, Tae Kim's Grammar, and Heisig's first volume of Remembering the Kanji.
Tae Kim was good for a quick crash course but didn't cover everything so I ended up using an Anki deck based on the Dictionary of Japanese Grammar to supplement it.
Remembering the Kanji is good as a crutch to remember kanji at first but I wouldn't call it necessary. Honestly I've forgotten 90% of the mnemonics by now and a lot of them didn't even correspond to the actual meaning of the kanji.

After a few months of grinding I started reading Yotsubato. I used the reading pack for volume 1 (probably still linked on the DJT page somewhere I'm guessing) which contained explanations for the vocabulary and grammar points in each chapter. It was pretty painful and slow but after the 1st volume I managed without the reading pack and just looked stuff up on Jisho when I saw a word I didn't know. Think I read like 5 volumes or so before putting it down for other stuff.

After that I moved onto other shounen manga. Basic harem shit like To Love Ru. I think I also read a few volumes of Cromartie, which was surprisingly easy. For listening at that point I was mainly still watching anime with English subs but I'd always try to turn them off when possible and go as far as I could without relying on them. Usually only succeeded with simple SoL stuff, anything more complicated than that I could only pick up bits and pieces.
I also started a new Anki deck in addition to the Core10k one in order to start mining words. Jisho + Rikaisama addon made it easy to import new cards.

After a few more months I started reading some basic moe visual novels like Flyable Heart and Amagami. Moved on to some slightly more complicated stuff like Maruto. after another month or two. Also started reading some light novels (Spice and Wolf).

After I pretty much just read a lot of manga and visual novels every day while mining new words and grinding Anki. Didn't start reading books much until last year when I finished Tanizaki's Naomi, Kawabata's Snow Country, Ranpo's 孤島の鬼, a few Akutagawa stories and some contemporary stuff. Now reading Dogra Magra by Yumeno Kyūsaku after hearing about it from a denpa game. Still reading visual novels and some light/web novels pretty much daily as well. I stopped using my mined deck because I wanted to move on from drilling Japanese-English associations and have started just using Japanese to Japanese online dictionaries and encyclopedias instead.

Anyways my best piece of general advice - pick a study method and stick with it. Don't obsess about optimal methods like DJT autists, but feel free to revise your methods once you've gotten experience to know what works for you and what doesn't. Be patient the first few moths - after you start reading native material studying becomes pretty fun.

>Write what's on your mind.
These gangsters stole my divine inspiration. All that matters to me. My identity. Now I stole their lives. They burned in a flame of justice. Their screams of pain are echoing the same way as my agonized scream ringed when I learned about their betrayal.

No, I do not regret anything. These trains are sacred to me. I hope the mourners can forgive me, but their relatives and loved ones died for a just cause.

t. Barisaku-kun