Hi All,
I have long since passed the time when I was getting started on the japanese language, and my brother recently started his journey from zero (he is currently learning his kanas).
In my days, I did Minna no Nihongo (with a class) and now rely on Bunpro & “Dictionary of Basic/Intermediate/Advanced Grammar”.
But for someone learning from scratch - what are the best resources (without teacher) to get started on Japanese (primarily focused on grammar / making sentences)?
Thanks in advance,
I used Bunpro when I started, and I started from zero as well. I’ve heard from a few people, though, that it isn’t something you should use when just starting out. I did it anyways and it worked quite well for me, but I don’t know how this would work for others. I think the main problem why people don’t recommend doing this is that Bunpro lacks some details in their explanations (from what I’ve heard, I might have heard trash as well though lol).
I used to recommend Tae Kim’s grammar guide because it was online and free and moderately more interesting than Genki. I don’t know if it’s still in vogue these days.
It depends on what kind of method he prefers and how much he is willing to pay for it.
If he wants something like Genki and Minna no Nihongo but free then irodori is an option but it’s not just grammar and it’s aimed for speaking.
One time pay option are Human Japanese beginner and intermediate that really ease you in into grammar with long explanations, example sentences and dialogues which eventually leads you to satori reader, that has some free material but is mostly subscription based.
And if he prefers something extremly interactive there’s lingodeer, you learn and practice words and sentences and it has short and concise explanations.
Been a couple years since I started but I remember liking Tae Kim and Genki at the start. Generally I think mixing and matching resources can be a helpful thing — any single explanation can often make grammar points sound a little too analogous to some English counterpart for the sake of simplicity, especially at the elementary level where translations to English are used heavily. I think it kind of has to be that way; it wouldn’t be practical to constantly disclaim that every particle and structure is its own unique shape and is to some degree untranslatable to English. But reading differing explanations across multiple resources, coming at it from multiple different angles, can help actually grasp how these structures are used in Japanese, rather than just how an English sentence can be reworded with Japanese words and crammed into a Japanese sentence structure, if that makes sense.
Once you can easily read hiragana and katakana (i.e. week 2):
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