I’ve been trying to learn some Japanese since last august. I started with Duolingo (I know it’s not very popular here, but that’s not the point), and quickly realized that I’d need other materials.
I’m currently level 7 on Wanikani. The way it teaches radicals, onyomi and kunyomi readings is awesome.
However, this organization means it’s not really teaching the words in “usage frequency” order. Also, it only does Japanese > english. So I also started using an Anki Deck exported from tokoboto to go through all of N5 vocabulary. I’m also using bunpro for grammar.
I’m using these four apps daily, none of them is perfect or complete, but he combination of all four is good enough.
I’m still using Duolingo because it’s the only “daily” app where I get to read actual sentences. Thing is, they aren’t getting harder quickly enough, and I feel I’d be able to practice reading more complicated stuff.
So I’m looking for a website or app where I could practice grammar, reading and basic vocabulary in a more consistent way. I got some level 0 graded reader and it’s nice, but it’s a bit different since I’m not evaluated on my reading. Maybe Renshuu ?
I’d recommend Renshuu if you just want single sentences to practice. It’s free so it’s not like you have to commit with your wallet.
I’d advise against Lingodeer, it’s not worth the price imo. The beginner stuff is mostly fine, but then intermediate has some errors, and the upper levels are riddled with errors.
@DIO-Berry, I’d be curious to know how you set up your Renshuu. What made me never use it was the lack of guidance in set-up. If you have the time perhaps we can chat on Discord?
I still haven’t, but that’s mostly because I’ve pivoted to trying to study more through immersion. I noticed recently though that Renshuu has made a fantastic change to become more beginner friendly through a page on the fundamentals
It seems like the husband/wife team plan to make more of these guided instructions with the easy “add to dashboard” button that seems to really be “add to your srs”
I forget, but are you planning on taking the jlpt or are you learning for a different goal?
I’m just learning for fun. If I do take the JLPT, I doubt it’ll be starting with N5. It seems so much more efficient to skip N5 and, either N4 or N3 before doing N2 and N1.
In that case, I’d recommend going through the fundamentals and adding anything from them that you want to practice to your dashboard. After that, I recommend looking at
and picking sets from a textbook or jlpt level to add to your dashboard. From there, it should show up at various timings on your dashboard for you to practice
Thank you all for the replies !
I am planning to take the N5 at some point, we’ll see how things go.
I wasn’t aware that renshuu was so complicated. I was considering using it for vocabulary and grammar (not kanjis), and paying to have sentence-questions and jlpt style questions.
That’s the Todai app, isn’t it ?
I’ve been using it a bit, and it’s quite well made indeed. It’s just not a very fun read :(. Eventually I want to read stories, mangas and children books. Not news of war and earthquakes (I know, there are other topics, but still the overall mood is not very high).
I agree with you on the vocabulary. Everything is much simpler when I can just recognize all the words and then focus on the grammar. WaniKani is awesome for that, but it takes time. I wonder which WK level is needed to have a good amount of N5 vocabulary (not kanjis) ?
Hey, I remember some times ago finding a website that gave sentences according to the level you chose.
I wanted to raise my WK level first before using it so I don’t know what it’s worth. Hope it might be useful to anyone.
Though I think it only gives sentences, you guess, then click to display the correction. Nothing more.
I am not sure if its the Todai app. I just access it on the computer. But you are right, it’s all news and serious stuff. Definitely not a fun thing to read.
Finding stuff to read at the right level is definitely the hardest part of learning Japanese, especially early on.
Currently I am enjoying this book 小川未明童話集（１） - 文芸・小説 小川未明（講談社文庫）：電子書籍試し読み無料 - BOOK☆WALKER - and its well worth it. Its not too hard, the author uses the same words and grammar often in each story to reinforce new learning, and the stories are quite okay (sometimes a bit strange)
Interesting book ! Not sure I’m quite ready to read that (plus it doesn’t have any picture which makes it much harder), but I’ll keep it on my list. I took a look at the preview on amazon and it seems within reach. Too bad it doesn’t have furigana.
It does have furigana, but only for harder words, and only the first time. However, the best part is, you can click on words and search in dictionary (or search on web). But yeah, definitely level up a bit more before jumping into this.
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