Japanese Learning Plan — Listening First

Before you start · one-time

Setup checklist.

Knock these out in one sitting. Tap to tick them off.

Get the stack running ▾

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Download OTO Navi (free) and load the Genki 3rd-ed. audioiOS / Android — gives you all the textbook listening on your phone. Install Anki and add a sentence deck with audio (Tango N5)Set "new cards per day" to ~5 so daily reviews stay under 5 minutes. Start free trials of 2 AI conversation apps (Langua + one other)Judge them on voice naturalness and how much you'd actually talk to them daily — not feature lists. Create an italki account and filter for Japanese tutorsSort by reviews; shortlist 2–3 "community tutors" for cheaper conversation practice. Book one italki trial lesson and state your goal up front"Listening & speaking focused, casual + polite register, prepping for a language course in Japan next year." Aim to start regular sessions around week 3–4. Skim Genki Lessons 1–3 and mark your first genuinely-new grammar pointYou likely half-know L1–2 from anime — confirm, don't re-study. Pick fixed slots: your Saturday tutor time + an anime you watch at 80%+A protected weekly slot is what keeps the tutor habit alive; the comfy anime is your active-scene source.

Every week · recurring · resets automatically

This week's loop.

Four light touches. Tick as you go — it clears itself each week. Miss some? No guilt; this is the optional one.

This week

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Grammar — a Genki point (aim 2–3 times this week)The learn step. Mon/Wed/Fri-ish, whenever you sit down. Speak — at least one AI conversation sessionSay this week's grammar out loud. Hands-free, fits dead time. Tutor — the Saturday italki sessionThe weekly anchor. The one to protect if everything else slips. One active scene — 30–60s subs-off → check → shadowYour only "study" use of anime. The rest stays pure leisure.

The weekly rhythm

Same shape every week. Only the content escalates.

About 2.5 focused hours across the week — sustainable for all 8 months.

Mon

Genki grammar + Anki

~20 min

Tue

AI speaking session

15–20 min

Wed

Genki grammar + Anki

~20 min

Thu

AI speaking session

15–20 min

Fri

Genki grammar + Anki

~20 min

Sat

italki tutor + active anime scene

~30 min

Sun

Rest / catch-up

Every day, separately: 1–2 anime episodes for pure enjoyment — subs on, no studying required.

The 8-month arc

Genki I through early Genki II — same rhythm, rising content.

One grammar point per grammar-day puts a Genki lesson at roughly two weeks. Expect a real "I can hear the structure now" jump around months 2–3.

01Months 1–2

Foundation

Particles (は・が・を・に・で・へ・と・の), the three verb types (る／う／する・くる) and the ます-form, negative & past, basic sentence order, the copula. Most of your "can't follow it live" feeling lives right here — this is the highest-leverage stretch.

Genki Lessons 1–4

02Months 3–4

Conjugation & parsing

te-form and what it unlocks, potential, volitional, conditional, plain/casual forms, and recognising passive & causative. Start the active-anime listening loop and your first AI conversations here.

Genki Lessons 5–9

Week 5–6 — te-form (Lesson 6). The big mechanical unlock: requests, "-ing", permission, connecting clauses. Week 8–9 — casual/plain form (Lesson 8). This is when a lot of your anime suddenly clicks, because anime runs almost entirely on casual speech.

03Months 5–6

Output

Regular shadowing, light sentence-mining from anime (only lines with a single unknown word), and your tutor sessions ramp up into real back-and-forth conversation.

Genki Lessons 10–12 · finish Genki I

04Months 7–8

Consolidation & Japan prep

Conversation practice, patch the weak grammar points, and arrive at your course well ahead of a true beginner — with months of real speaking reps behind you.

Genki II · Lessons 13–14

First month, concretely

Weeks 1–4: exactly what to study.

Weeks 1–2 are mostly Genki, to build material before the AI & tutor sessions kick in from week 3.

Week 1

Confirm the base, then verbs

L1–2 fast review: X は Y です, question か, possessive の, これ／それ／あれ & この／その／あの — confirm you can produce it, don't dwell.
L3 verbs: the three verb types + ます-form (the single most important mechanic).
L3 particles: を, に, で, へ, plus ～ませんか／～ましょう.

Week 2

Existence & the past

L4: あります／います (there is/are), location words.
Past tense — ～ました／～ませんでした and past of です.
The particle も; describing where things are.

Week 3 · add AI + book tutor trial

Adjectives

L5: い-adjectives and な-adjectives, present & past.
すき／きらい (like/dislike) + が.
Start AI speaking sessions using everything from weeks 1–2.

Week 4

te-form — the hinge

L6: forming the te-form for all verb types.
～てください (requests), ～てもいいです (permission), ～てはいけません (prohibition).
Connecting actions with te-form.

Why this works for you

Don't relearn what you already have.

Beginners spend a year grinding for a trained ear and broad vocabulary — you've got both. So almost none of your time goes to flashcards-from-zero. It goes into closing the grammar gap and converting passive recognition into active comprehension and speech. The loop that does it: learn a grammar point, speak it the same week, get it corrected by a human on the weekend.

The stack · four pieces, no more

Each slot gets the best tool — not five competing ones.

More budget means a better tool per slot and a human in the loop, not more apps. Adding tools beyond these just fragments 20 minutes.

01 · GRAMMAR BACKBONE

Genki I & II (3rd ed.)

げんき · you already own it

The structure everything hangs on. AI is weakest exactly where Genki is strongest: explaining why a particle or conjugation behaves as it does. Pair it with the free OTO Navi app for all the textbook audio.

Mon · Wed · Fri

02 · DAILY SPEAKING REPS

An AI conversation app

かいわれんしゅう · zero scheduling friction

Your daily output, on demand. Langua is the most consistently top-ranked for Japanese (native-cloned voices, hands-free call mode). It's a crowded, heavily-marketed space, so trial 2 and keep the voice you can stand every day.

Tue · Thu

03 · WEEKLY HUMAN TUTOR

italki

せんせい · the thing self-study can't fake

Where the money does the most work and where Japan-prep needs it. A human catches keigo nuance, regional speech, and the casual/polite register split — plus real conversation pressure and accountability. One 30-min session a week is plenty.

Saturday

04 · RETENTION GLUE

Anki + native audio

たんご · a light role for you

Smaller than for most learners, since your vocab is broad. Use a sentence deck with audio (Tango N5 → N4) to lock in patterns and the few genuinely new words you mine from anime. Cap new cards so reviews stay under ~5 min.

5 min, paired with grammar days

+ THE FUEL · stays mostly fun

Your daily anime

Keep watching with subs — that protects your 80%+ enjoyment and keeps your ear fed. Once a week, take a single 30–60 second scene and run the loop: watch subs-off and catch every word, subs-on to check, then shadow the lines out loud. Anime is casual/stylized speech, so let Genki + your tutor own the polite ます／です register.

Daily fun · one active scene weekly

Guardrails

Five things that keep this working.

One scene, not one episode

Never "study" a whole episode — that's how you start resenting your hobby. 30–60 seconds is the whole job.

Anime ≠ polite Japanese

It's casual and stylized. Let Genki and your tutor own the ます／です register you'll need in Japan.

Cap the flashcards

~5 new Anki cards/day. Your time belongs to grammar and speaking, not vocab you mostly already recognise.

Speak before you're ready

AI & tutor start week 3–4, once ます-form gives you sentences to build. Don't wait to feel "good enough."

Protect the loop

Learn Mon/Wed → say it Tue/Thu → get it fixed Sat. That cycle is what turns 20 years of input into output.

Consistency beats intensity

20 minutes daily for 8 months beats a heroic weekend you won't repeat. Sunday is allowed to be empty.