Very first manga I’m reading in Japanese HAD TO be on my shelf! Got plenty to read
You’ve got volume 31 of とばつよ sneaking in there.
I am so far ahead that when I turn around I see the future
I wouldn’t have been able to sit still, knowing I’d done that, until I corrected it! 
I see why it happened though - missing small outer sleeve!
You also seem to be missing parts 41, 51 and 61. I’m missing 61 as well. I still need to fix that. But I guess it will be a while before I need it yet.
The original plan was to buy the first 5 volumes, but then I randomly found a bundle on Amazon.jp including volumes up to the 13th. I will likely buy the 3 missing volumes during my next trip in japan (should be end of november this year)
Nice. Yeah, I bought mine in one collection on eBay.
I’m yet to visit unfortunately. Hopefully soon. I’m worried about the amounts of money I’ll spend though in Bookoff and Hardoff! 
. I’ll need to take a few spare suitcases with me!
Hello, this is my first time really digging into the community here at WaniKani. I’ve stayed away simply because I’m kinda like that, but I’ve realized that there’s more to learning Kanji than just going through the memorizations and thinking that just because I’ve memorized the Kanji, I’ve learned it.
Some back story, and sorry if this gets long, but I had put my account on Vacation Mode July 25th or so, because I started taking lessons on iTalki and it just started to become too much for me to handle. I wanted to focus on my speaking because I had a trip to Japan coming up. So I shelved Kanji.
While in Japan, I realized just how quickly I memory dumped everything I learned because I hadn’t put it into useful practice. While my speaking ability has gone up since my first visit last year, I had a lot of trouble reading signs and boards at the stations and terminals, as well as menus and storefronts.
So my goal is to start putting some useful practice in to apply what I’ve learned and restart my Kanji practice, probably at a slower rate so that I don’t get overwhelmed with the reviews and lessons, which has picked up pace over the past few levels (any recommendations on how to set the rate of reviews/lessons?).
I was thinking about resetting back to level 15 and trying my first Book Club. Should I wait until next beginner book, or just jump right in? I still need to acquire the volumes, so I’ll be quite a bit behind.
What do you guys recommend? Thanks in advance and thank you for everything you people do. After perusing the threads, I’m quite mind-blown at how dedicated all of you are in keeping the learning spark alive for people like me.
Note: I do have Haikyuu, as that is so far my favorite anime, but I feel like maybe I should start with something more “beginner?”
This is common, and it’s one of the main reasons people will say to start reading sooner rather than later. (Or even listening or speaking, depending on one’s interests and situation.)
The best way to keep from being overwhelmed by reviews is to slow down on the lessons. That does mean you’ll take longer on a subscription-based service, but taking on too much can be detrimental to your progress.
The first two chapters are available online:
We don’t reach chapter 3 until September 12th (three weeks from now).
So if you were to order at least the first volume soon, there’s a good chance you’d have it in hand by the time we reach chapter 3.
At the very least, you can give it a try (from the link above) for a week before committing to an order.
Just make certain you have the right expectations when you start reading. Since you have speaking experience, if that includes even just basic conversation with another person, you probably won’t encounter the same issues that most first-time readers contend with. But it’s always good to be prepared.
That one was read in the beginner book club a while back. If you pick up reading through it in Japanese sometime, you can refer to the threads and even ask questions there.
Sometimes, the only difference between a manga being read as part the Absolute Beginner Book Club versus the Beginner Book Club is the number of pages read per week (and the ensuing discussion).
I appreciate your reply 
I had planned on toning down the lessons, as I honestly don’t mind taking a slower approach to Kanji. I want to make sure I absorb as much as possible, as this seems like amazing practice for not only Kanji recognition, but reading and grammar comprehension as well. I can see this helping my iTalki lessons as well, as I know I frequently frustrate my Sensei 
Thank you so much for the link, I will check it out! With Haikyuu, I had downloaded the Excel file, but found little time to spend reading, as I was too engrossed with my trip to spend any time in it. I’m still very much new to this format and I will take it as I go, I just hope that things stick a bit more permanently than just basic memorization.
In regard to speaking, I had what I consider 4 truly good conversations where I was able to go back and forth for about 5 minutes before I had to give them the, あ。。。すみませんが、もういちどおねがいします。
I’m currently almost done with Volume I of Genki with my 先生, so that should give you a decent idea of where I’m at. While I’m much older now (MUCH older), I did take 2 years of Japanese in High School (required language in Hawaii) and 101 & 102 in College. But for some reason, I developed terrible habits that I’m trying to break in my iTalki sessions, lol.
If you’d like to frontload your vocabulary, I have a frequency list for the first volume. I’m a big proponent of learning the words with furigana first if that helps (since you won’t have kanji when listening/speaking), then become better acquainted with the kanji as you get to it in WaniKani.
There’s a lot to be said for rote memorization and spaced repetition, but one thing those both lack is pattern recognition. There’s only so many times you can encounter the same grammar or vocabulary word in different sentences before it becomes deeply engrained. (Although some will take longer than others. I was through most of Sailormoon before I finally could recognize 現れる without having to look it up every time the word came up.)
Out of curiosity, was it required that you take Japanese, or just that you take a “second language” class and you picked Japanese?
I learned some bad habits from my high school Japanese class textbook. Thankfully I eventually broke the habits. All I had to do was let enough decades go by that I forgot them.
I’ve never seen the value of resetting to a lower level. Rather I have paused WK in order to re-study and help solidify the kanji that I have learned already.
Lately I have been using the Kakehashi app (available for both iOS and Android) to do reviews of WK, but outside of the WK SRS and its structure.
The Kakehashi developer is active on the WK forum, and is very responsive to feedback. The app is capable of doing much more than what I’m currently using it for, and over time I expect that I will try out some of the other features.
I’m visiting Japan right now, and I have been encouraged by how much kanji I’ve seen in the wild and have been able to understand.
What I remember was that it was the only language offered, but considering that was almost 30 years ago (yeah, I’m dating myself) I can 100% admit my memory is probably wrong. I just have no recollection of anyone else taking any other language.
I’ll take this into consideration. The only script I’ve added is Self-Study Quiz, as that allows me to curate Burned Item reviews as a Review Quiz. I’ll have to look into Kakehashi as an additional study tool. Thanks for introducing it to me!
Sorry to derail this thread, I know it’s specifically for the Book Club. But at the same time, thank you for your replies and patience dealing with unrelated material
Hi, it sounds like you are trying quite a few different angles in you Japanese learning. Could I ask how you found the italki lessons? Were they useful and did they complement all the other learning? I find the speaking in real time bit is one of things missing when self learning.
I found iTalki while searching for an online tutor. It was just by chance and it was mentioned as one of the better online tutoring sites in a Reddit thread. I even think Tofugu has an article about tutoring that’s a good read.
I would say that it has helped immensely. While self study can go a long way, there’s value in paying for something that really helps you stay on track.
My tutor uses the Genki series to teach his lessons, and I’ve found them to be very good. What I like about paid instruction on iTalki is that you get to choose how often you meet. Once a week, twice, or three times, or even just once a month, it’s all about your personal budget and goals.
The site has tons of both teachers and tutors. The teachers have some sort of teaching qualifications and tutors don’t. Often, teachers are more expensive, but have much more structured lessons, while tutors tend to be cheaper and mainly offer conversational experience.
Some teachers are very popular and it’s hard to find a slot. You get to have an introductionary lesson to see if you like them, or if they are compatible with your goals. Prices can vary from $10-$75 per hour depending on if they are a tutor or teacher and their popularity as well. Some teachers have thousands of lessons under their belt, with hundreds of students taught.
I would totally recommend giving it a try if you are serious about learning Japanese or are currently stuck in the beginner’s rut and need a push to move forward. As many people mention, speaking Japanese is a completely different skill. Just because you can read it doesn’t mean you can speak it. You need the practice to improve and grammar can be difficult for English speakers, such as myself. It’s been very valuable for me personally and I’m going on 6 months of study, one lesson a week. There are other online tutoring sites available, so you may want to check those out as well.
While I’m still fairly far away from my goals and seem to have hit a bit of a wall, it’s really nice to have someone who is a native speaker giving me lessons not only from the curriculum, but from real life experience. My conversational skills have definitely leveled up between my visit to Japan last year and the one I just came back from. Got me out of a few pickles and had a couple of nice conversations as well. Still very simple and beginner, but improvement was very much noticed by me.
I don’t regret spending the money at all.
I know you weren’t asking me, but I use italki too, so might as well add my experience.
For context - I’m on the autism spectrum, so 1 to 1 interraction like this is quite difficult and anxiety inducing for me, but I wanted to try it for speaking practice. I found 4 or 5 tutors I liked the look of and had a trial lesson with each of them (a cheap half hour lesson they do to try out see if a tutor is right for you). They were all decent. But the last one I tried I decided was great straight away. The first 4 conducted their lessons in English, which was fine, it was what I expected as a very recent beginner. One of them asked me if I wanted her to do it in English or Japanese, but I didn’t think it was possible for me to understand a lesson completely in Japanese yet, so I said English.
The final tutor didn’t even ask, she just went straight into doing the lesson completely in Japanese. Basic Japanese, spoken very slowly, and with on screen prompts focussed on pages from Genki, which I study from, so whilst I didn’t understand everything she said, I always got the main point of what she said, and she was always able to give me a definiting in english for any important word I didn’t understand. But right from the start it was great listening practise as well as speaking.
And I absolutely loved it. I’ve now been doing a weekly lesson with her for about 5 months, she is a superb teacher, very kind and patient when I’m struggling with something. I do still get stressed and anxious for the lessons, but that’s a ‘me’ thing with the autism, but it’s much less than it used to be.
It’s also good that she’s stopped me rushing ahead on anything. If I read a chapter, and do all the exercises without a tutor I would just think ‘yeah, that’s done’ and move on. But she dictates the pace, and won;t move on to the next chapter until it’s clear I’ve got eveything from one chapter.
She’s pure evil though. Always makes me think for myself by asking questions related to what I’ve been studying, but which require me to use my brain and come up with my own answer rather than the things I’ve memorised from the book. Just evil
Once a week is never going to be enough to achieve full fluency I wouldn’t think, but my speaking has come on leaps and bounds over the last 5 months. If / When I visit Japan, I think I’ll have the confidence to actually try speaking to pople in Japanese at least.
As you say speaking is the hardest thing to practise when studying alone. So I totally recommend trying it, if it’s within your budget. I’ve found it really good.
Do note that there are 2 kinds of tutors on there - qualified and not qualified ‘community tutors’ as they call them on there. the not qualified ones are cheaper but don’t have formal training in teaching Japanese as a 2nd language. I tried both types with the trial lessons, but honestly I thought they were all decent teachers, but I went with a formally qualified tutor.
I have a similar type of lesson, but through another platform. Any tutor that motivates you to come to class is going to help you with your learning journey.
Wow, thank you for your great replies regarding online tutors/italki! I came across italki not long ago and thought it seemed good but hadn’t given it a try yet. It is a bit overwhelming to narrow down some tutors as there are so many, but I guess you just go with a few trial lessons until one clicks.
I have just done self study via genki, wani kani etc. I found I could chip away at a conversation in Japan, but it was probably just a jumble of words and the locals pieced it together. My partner is Japanese, but learning a skill from a partner isn’t always smooth sailing haha.
With regards to Yotsuba, I have found it interesting that because there are characters of different ages and status, you get to see that there are lots of ways to say basically the same thing. This can be hard to listen out for in a real conversation!
So we are on week 8/26?
I’m not really sure what you mean by week 8/26. Currently week 7. Week 8 starts on Saturday - you can see the all the actual dates in the first post of this thread.