[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":342},["ShallowReactive",2],{"navigation":3,"\u002Fblog\u002Ffinishing-kaishi":47,"\u002Fblog\u002Ffinishing-kaishi-surround":337},[4,26],{"title":5,"path":6,"stem":7,"children":8,"page":25},"Blog","\u002Fblog","blog",[9,13,17,21],{"title":10,"path":11,"stem":12},"Anki Baby Steps","\u002Fblog\u002Fanki-baby-steps","blog\u002Fanki-baby-steps",{"title":14,"path":15,"stem":16},"Finishing Kaishi","\u002Fblog\u002Ffinishing-kaishi","blog\u002Ffinishing-kaishi",{"title":18,"path":19,"stem":20},"GSoC 2026: a Hopeful Rejection","\u002Fblog\u002Fgsoc-2026-a-hopeful-rejection","blog\u002Fgsoc-2026-a-hopeful-rejection",{"title":22,"path":23,"stem":24},"Pico Router Changes Directions","\u002Fblog\u002Fpico-router-changes-directions","blog\u002Fpico-router-changes-directions",false,{"title":27,"path":28,"stem":29,"children":30,"page":25},"Work","\u002Fwork","work",[31,35,39,43],{"title":32,"path":33,"stem":34},"D-Map Cache","\u002Fwork\u002Fdmap-cache","work\u002Fdmap-cache",{"title":36,"path":37,"stem":38},"Focal Grid","\u002Fwork\u002Ffocal-grid","work\u002Ffocal-grid",{"title":40,"path":41,"stem":42},"Pico Router","\u002Fwork\u002Fpico-router","work\u002Fpico-router",{"title":44,"path":45,"stem":46},"Valhalla","\u002Fwork\u002Fvalhalla","work\u002Fvalhalla",{"id":48,"title":14,"author":49,"badge":50,"body":51,"date":328,"description":329,"draft":25,"extension":330,"image":331,"meta":332,"minRead":333,"navigation":334,"path":15,"seo":335,"stem":16,"__hash__":336},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Ffinishing-kaishi.md",null,"Japanese Study",{"type":52,"value":53,"toc":317},"minimark",[54,59,63,76,80,92,105,109,112,131,134,138,141,148,151,157,160,166,170,191,194,228,231,263,276,280,283,286,293,297,300,305,314],[55,56,58],"h2",{"id":57},"tldr","TL;DR",[60,61,62],"p",{},"I've finally finished the Kaishi 1.5k deck after 116 uninterrupted days of Anki, learning 1,500 Japanese words along the way. What started as a daily grind has turned into a habit I genuinely enjoy, and a pretty good starting point for my Japanese journey. With around 95 hours spent on flashcards and another 15 on immersion, I've started getting a feel for basic Japanese, though my grammar and speaking skills still have a long way to go. Now it's time to build on this foundation with Genki I, more comprehensible input, and eventually sentence mining. Next stop: JLPT N5!",[64,65,66,69],"callout",{},[60,67,68],{},"This article is part of a series of articles documenting my Japanese study progress.",[70,71,74],"card",{"icon":72,"title":73,"to":11},"lucide:arrow-left","Previous article",[60,75,10],{},[55,77,79],{"id":78},"a-brief-feeling-of-victory","A Brief Feeling Of Victory",[60,81,82,83,91],{},"In my last article on this topic I had projected the completion date of the ",[84,85,90],"a",{"href":86,"rel":87,"target":89},"https:\u002F\u002Fankiweb.net\u002Fshared\u002Finfo\u002F1196762551",[88],"nofollow","_blank","Kaishi 1.5k deck"," around the end of October. Well, I'm glad to say that, with a steady average of 15 new cards a day, I have finished it in the first week of October. Difficult as it was, I feel like I just completed my first major Japanese milestone! In terms of sensation, I'd compare my current sentiments to completing a very dense saga of fantasy books. Nonetheless, as the term \"starting deck\" suggests I feel like I just barely scratched the surface of the Japanese language and I foresee at least another full year of dedicated study before I'm able to hold anything akin to a natural conversation.",[60,93,94,95,104],{},"One thing that's for sure is that I have lost my reservations about fully committing to the language. In my previous article I had said ",[96,97,98,99,103],"em",{},"\"I'll definitely try to drop another article ",[100,101,102],"strong",{},"if"," and when I finish the entire Kaishi 1.5k deck\"",". No more \"ifs\". Completing the deck has proven that with sustained effort I can make demonstrable progress, which was all I needed to know to delve in fully into the learning journey.",[55,106,108],{"id":107},"my-thoughts-on-anki","My Thoughts On Anki",[60,110,111],{},"Let's get straight to the point, I LOVE ANKI. The sheer usefulness that one can derive from such a simple and free application is just baffling to me. What's probably the greatest thing about Anki is the community deck ecosystem (shout out to 栗, aka Donkuri, and the rest of the team for creating the Kaishi deck)! Think about it, someone had to painstakingly assembly one and a half thousand cards. Each with a unique yet frequently used word, including images, pronunciation clips, pitch accent notes, etc.",[60,113,114,115,119,120,119,123,126,127,130],{},"I have to be honest though to anyone curious to try out Anki for long-term learning, it's going to be really freaking hard starting out. At least that was my experience. It feels like a relentless grind having to break your brain to remember last weeks word while getting a dessert of 15 new completely unintelligible words. The saving grace is that after a month or two you start recognizing many fundamental aspects of the vocabulary, making further acquisition much smoother. Plus, you get used to the Anki workflow and you start to understand better when you should be pressing ",[116,117,118],"badge",{},"again",", ",[116,121,122],{},"hard",[116,124,125],{},"good"," or ",[116,128,129],{},"easy",".",[60,132,133],{},"All things considered, Anki was more than enough for me to effectively learn the very basics of Japanese. Obviously, my vocab has vastly outgrown all other Japanese-related language skills (e.g. grammar, writing, speaking), yet that feels completely fine to me. I see my current knowledge more of a jumping off point for my further study than anything else.",[55,135,137],{"id":136},"a-quick-overview-of-the-stats","A Quick Overview Of The Stats",[60,139,140],{},"Let's go over the main points. I've studies 1,500 unique Japanese flashcards over the course of 116 consecutive days (4.8 months) spending an approximated 95 hours in the process. Of course, I tend to see the same flashcards repeatedly, leading to a running total of 21,000 reviewed cards. While the daily workload increased substantially over the months, going from a couple dozen reviews a day to a couple hundred, my daily average minutes in Anki stabilized after the second months. This means that I got faster at reviewing the flashcards roughly at the same pace in which my daily workload was increasing.",[60,142,143],{},[144,145],"img",{"alt":146,"src":147},"anki review stats","content\u002Ffinishing-kaishi-screenshot-2.png",[60,149,150],{},"Importantly, having had repeated exposure to 1,500 flashcards does not mean I can reproduce every single word on command. Thankfully, Anki breaks down my young and mature words in order to better understand where my passive and active vocabulary ar at. As of the 8th of October only 572 flashcards are mature and likely to be recallable on the spot. This will hopelly increase while I let these cards mature in anticipation of the commencement of my sentence mining.",[60,152,153],{},[144,154],{"alt":155,"src":156},"anki card count stats","content\u002Ffinishing-kaishi-screenshot-3.png",[60,158,159],{},"My 95 hours are sadly approximated due to a self-inflicted oopsie I caused. Looking to speedup my reviews I used Anki's on screen timer function. I set it a maximum of 10 seconds and was very pleased to find out my average seconds per card dropped from 15 to 8. This cut my total review time nearly in half! Only after more than a week did I come to find out that those 10 maximum seconds indicated the utter most time Anki will track my time per card. This meant that after 10 seconds Anki stopped tracking my time completely. Assessing myself throughout that week, I was already getting suspicious seeing as my wall clock time indicated the same daily allocated time while the in app time was showing major gains. Anyways, in general I planned my daily reviews around the morning time right after breakfast, which the below shown chart attests.",[60,161,162],{},[144,163],{"alt":164,"src":165},"anki hourly breakdown stats","content\u002Ffinishing-kaishi-screenshot-4.png",[55,167,169],{"id":168},"new-study-methods","New Study Methods",[60,171,172,173,178,179,184,185,190],{},"Since my last article I've last article I've started tracking my study time outside of Anki using ",[84,174,177],{"href":175,"rel":176,"target":89},"https:\u002F\u002Fprod.refold.la\u002Flanding\u002Ftime-tracker",[88],"Refold's study tracker",". I understand very well only studying flashcards is not efficiently going to bring me to an advanced level in Japanese, which is why I've already started immersing with graded materials. Being the open-source enthusiast I am I've also started using ",[84,180,183],{"href":181,"rel":182,"target":89},"https:\u002F\u002Fyomitan.wiki\u002F",[88],"yomitan"," and ",[84,186,189],{"href":187,"rel":188,"target":89},"https:\u002F\u002Fchromewebstore.google.com\u002Fdetail\u002Fasbplayer-language-learni\u002Fhkledmpjpaehamkiehglnbelcpdflcab?hl=es",[88],"asbplayer"," to further optimize my immersion.",[60,192,193],{},"Below you can see the breakdown of the additional 15 study hours spent outside of flashcard learning.",[195,196,197,210],"table",{},[198,199,200],"thead",{},[201,202,203,207],"tr",{},[204,205,206],"th",{},"Activity breakdown",[204,208,209],{},"Skill breakdown",[211,212,213],"tbody",{},[201,214,215,222],{},[216,217,218],"td",{},[144,219],{"alt":220,"src":221},"refold tracker time per activity","content\u002Ffinishing-kaishi-screenshot-6.png",[216,223,224],{},[144,225],{"alt":226,"src":227},"refold tracker skills comparison","content\u002Ffinishing-kaishi-screenshot-7.png",[60,229,230],{},"In terms of comprehensible input materials I highly recommend:",[232,233,234,242,249,256],"ul",{},[235,236,237],"li",{},[84,238,241],{"href":239,"rel":240,"target":89},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.youtube.com\u002Fresults?search_query=nihongo+learning",[88],"Nihongo-Learning",[235,243,244],{},[84,245,248],{"href":246,"rel":247,"target":89},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.youtube.com\u002F@OkkeiJapanese",[88],"OkkeiJapanese",[235,250,251],{},[84,252,255],{"href":253,"rel":254,"target":89},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.youtube.com\u002F@JapanesewithShun",[88],"Japanese with Shun",[235,257,258],{},[84,259,262],{"href":260,"rel":261,"target":89},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.youtube.com\u002F@DailyJapanese",[88],"Daily Japanese with Naoko",[60,264,265,266,184,271,130],{},"As for reading, I have had mostly stuck to ",[84,267,270],{"href":268,"rel":269,"target":89},"https:\u002F\u002Fnews.web.nhk\u002Fnews\u002Feasy\u002F",[88],"NHK News Web Easy",[84,272,275],{"href":273,"rel":274,"target":89},"https:\u002F\u002Fyomujp.com\u002Fen\u002F",[88],"Yomujp",[55,277,279],{"id":278},"my-current-level","My Current Level",[60,281,282],{},"I think my current Japanese level should clearly be divided between my input and output capabilities. In terms of input, I am currently able to decipher the main themes of JLPT N5 graded texts (and to a lesser degree audio). On a sentence by sentence level, I can comprehend the majority of most sentences in graded formats. Anything above N5 however will quickly turn into a wall of unintelligibility again, meaning I still have a long looong way to go.",[60,284,285],{},"As is natural, my output lags far behind. My lack of grammatical basis severely limits my ability to use my acquired vocabulary, leading to \"neandertal-like\" language. I tried to benchmark myself with the below unscripted video. Hopefully I can make another one showing meaningful improvement in another couple months.",[287,288],"iframe",{":allowfullscreen":289,"src":290,"style":291,"title":292},"true","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.youtube.com\u002Fembed\u002FRteXTs2oOfQ?rel=0","width:100%;aspect-ratio:4\u002F3;border:0;border-radius:15px;","Video",[55,294,296],{"id":295},"whats-next","What's Next?",[60,298,299],{},"Having acquired the vocabulary from the Kaishi deck has opened the door many new ways of fruitful learning. As mentioned before, my main focus point for now should be bringing my grammar up to par with my vocab. My main tool for this is Genki I (see below my copy I bought in Tokyo a while back). I will take me through all basic use of particles, noun and verb conjugation and even useful set phrases.",[144,301],{"alt":302,"src":303,"width":304},"photo of genki textbook","content\u002Ffinishing-kaishi-photo-1.jpeg",300,[60,306,307,308,313],{},"Of course, I'm not planning on stopping my Anki habit. Somewhere in the next two months I want to start building a consistent sentence mining habit and in the meantime I'm planning to reinforce my current knowledge by practicing handwriting. Additionally, I'd also be interested in practicing grammar with a ",[84,309,312],{"href":310,"rel":311,"taget":89},"https:\u002F\u002Fankiweb.net\u002Fshared\u002Finfo\u002F247705873",[88],"cloze deck"," in Anki, but I'll have to research that a bit more.",[60,315,316],{},"The next major milestone I'll write about is most likely when I'll be able to pass the JLPT N5 exam convincingly. I don't have any plans to get the official certification, I mostly just want use the mock exams to gauge my level. On the other side, if I were to get any certification in Japanese, it would probably be at N4 level somewhere mid-2027.",{"title":318,"searchDepth":319,"depth":319,"links":320},"",2,[321,322,323,324,325,326,327],{"id":57,"depth":319,"text":58},{"id":78,"depth":319,"text":79},{"id":107,"depth":319,"text":108},{"id":136,"depth":319,"text":137},{"id":168,"depth":319,"text":169},{"id":278,"depth":319,"text":279},{"id":295,"depth":319,"text":296},"2026-10-08","116 uninterrupted days and 1,500 words later, I finally finished the Kaishi 1.5k Japanese starter deck in Anki. Let's go over the facts and what it was actually like.","md","\u002Fcontent\u002Ffinishing-kaishi.jpeg",{},6,true,{"title":14,"description":329},"G8irgGB6TKM_v7lB1U9aYgv5PcQ_Atqd07FkZtf8dro",[338,340],{"title":10,"path":11,"stem":12,"description":339,"children":-1},"After knowing about Anki and SRS for a while I decided to give it a try for my study of Japanese. These are my experience after my first month of daily use.",{"title":18,"path":19,"stem":20,"description":341,"children":-1},"A detailed breakdown of my personal experience applying to 2026 edition of Google Summer of Code.",1792268478650]