Tomorrow, August 8th I'll reach a tree-hundred day streak on the Core2k/6k deck on Anki.
I've always been interested in Japanese culture, though I've never really watched anime (Only watched the first six episodes of JoJo's bizzarre adventure, I've had an interest in Japanese transport infrastructure and technology for a long time. I remember I used to watch the "Only in Japan" YouTube channel when I was younger. I distinctly remember the episode where he drives through a building in Osaka. In 2021, in the midst of a global pandemic, I decided to pick up the Japanese Duolingo course. I didn't learn much during my 116 day streak, the only thing I actually got out of it course is the two sillabaries (Hiragana and Katakana) and that's pretty much it. I personally think Duolingo is not an effective way to learn languages, especially because after a while a lot of people get bored of it and start forcing themselves into doing one lesson per day to keep the streak alive, which also happened in my case.
During the summer of 2023 I discovered a YouTube channel by the name of Livakivi, through a video he posted about his adventures using Duolingo to learn Japanese for 600 days. Through that I started watching some of his other videos, and made myself an idea on how to actually start learning Japanese. So on September 5 I downloaded the Core 2k/6k deck and started reading Tae Kim's guide.
I read the guide consistently for about a week or so but then I simply stopped reading the guide. I kept doing Anki consistently for 37 days until one day I went on a road trip and completely forgot to do my Anki repetitions. But fear not. I wasn't too demoralized and simply kept doing my daily reps. By far the biggest issue I had with my daily reps is that I was doing them right before going to bed so my revews were sloppy to say the least.
Even during this summer break I barely touched the aforementioned guide and so my grammar knowledge is very poor. I've tried to immerse myself in Japanese content but I can't even read the titles or understand anything of what they're saying. I might catch a word I know but that's pretty much it.
I guess I have no other option than to lock in for the rest of summer break and speedrun Tae Kim's guide in order to start immersing when school starts.