Month one of Japanese from zero, here is my stack and what has me second-guessing
About a month in since I started Japanese from absolute zero. Full time job, 1.5-2 hours on weekdays and 3-4 on weekends. Long term goal is working in Japan in 2-3 years, short term goal is N5 by summer and then N3 after that. I have no anime background at all, so no free ͏ride on vocab recognition.
Here is the stack I settled on after two weeks of chaotic jumping between different language learning apps and YouTube channels. I want honest feedback on what is redundant and what is worth adding.
Kana. Killed hiragana in 5 days through Tofugu mnemonics and DrMoku, katakana took another week. Now it is maintenance only through reading.
Kanji. Wani͏Kani, currently level 2. I understand why everyone complains about how slow it is, but the mnemonics genuinely stick. Running Kanji Study alongside so I do not lose handwriting, otherwise I only recognize and never produce.
Vocabulary. An͏ki with the Kaishi 1.5k deck, 15 new cards a day. Hitting the classic beginner problem: I recognize the word in its Anki context but freeze when I see it in a manga or on NHK Easy. Started manually adding example sentences to each card to fight that.
Grammar. Genki I as the backbone plus Tae Kim as a free reference whenever Genki feels dry. One chapter a week.
Listening and soft speaking. This is the part I am least confident about. I am testing Pro͏mova app for short scenario dialogues, essentially japanese speaking practice for 10-15 minutes a day, so I produce sentences out loud from day one instead of waiting until N4. Not sure if this is too early or actually the right call. On top of that I run Nihongo con Teppei in the background while cooking and cleaning for the ears.
For those of you who hit N5 in under a year while working full time, what would you cut from this stack?