Saturday

🔗 Subscribe on YouTube for livestreams & VODs

Saturday is the engine of the 9to5 Japanese routine.

This is the day you create next week’s cards. You sit down with one full episode, go through it line by line, and mine the sentences that matter.

In the beginning, you’ll pause constantly — sometimes pulling 100+ new cards in a single episode. But that number is front-loaded. It happens when almost everything is unknown. Over time, the number naturally tapers down. The more you learn, the fewer unknowns remain.

That’s not a bug — that’s the system working.

🌅 Morning (~30 min): Reviews Only

Clear your Anki reviews.

No new cards release on Saturdays — the morning session is deliberately light.

This leaves you fresh for the evening mining session.

🌙 Evening (~2 hrs): The Mining Session

Stick to one show at a time
Mine from one series until you finish the season. Same voices, same setting, same world — repetition strengthens memory when you rewatch on Sunday or listen to audio during the week.

Line by line, not by count

Open the episode with MPVacious.
Work through each subtitle line.
If you understand it, skip. That’s progress.
If you hit unknowns, pause and mine.

What to mine (T1/T2 rule)

T1: 1 unknown word → always mine.
T2: 2 unknowns → okay if simple.
Never T3+: skip if 3+ unknowns. Too dense.

Clean your cards before saving

One clear definition.
Fix readings.
Delete junk lines.
Save and move on.

📊 How Many Cards Should You Expect?

Early phase (800–2k words):
Nearly every line is unknown → ~100 cards/episode.
Middle phase (2k–6k words):
Recognition grows, you skip more → 40–70 cards/episode.
Late phase (6k–10k words):
Coverage is high, you pause rarely → 20–40 cards/episode.

This taper is good. It means your vocabulary is filling in. 100/week is only in the beginning — after that, it slows, but that’s because you’re already understanding more.

⏳ Why Not Chase a Quota?

Your weekly number isn’t the goal. The act of mining is.

If you get 100, great. If you only get 25, also great — because it means the show is becoming more comprehensible.

The point is to show up every Saturday, mine carefully, and let the numbers fall where they may.

📦 After Mining

Once imported, those cards sit in your deck.

Starting Monday, Anki releases ~20/day automatically. You don’t touch them until reviews appear.

⌨️ The Hotkeys I Use

l → Pause at the end of each dialog line.
hh → Repeat the last line.

At the start, you’ll pause almost every line. Later, you’ll let whole stretches play without stopping. That shift is itself proof of progress.

🎥 Streams & VODs

Every Saturday I livestream my mining session so you can see exactly how it works: the pauses, the lookups, the card cleanup.

All sessions are saved as VODs on my YouTube channel:
🔗 Watch on YouTube

Follow along live, or mine your own episode side by side with me.

🧠 Why Saturday Works

One session powers your Anki reviews for the whole week.
Quality control up front keeps your deck lean.
Numbers taper naturally as your vocabulary grows.
Streams and VODs show the real process in action.

Saturday is the engine. Put in the work once, and the rest of the week runs smoothly.

➡️ Next up: Monday–Friday: The Workweek Routine