There are different ways to learning grammar, it will depend on your learning ways.
I have books, to teach me the basics, it’s visual and so on. But I also need to practice, there was a study group (and usually others get made too), but I crashed.
I think WK says to start with grammar around level 10, but even level 1 is good enough.
Most books use hiragana in the beginning, and don’t expect you to know a lot of kanji.
1 Like
I would also say it’s more of a personal preference. Cure Dolly’s videos are decent, because they explain grammar structures in a very succinct way, yet not making them overly confusing. Tae Kim’s guide to Japanese is good, too, but more on the technical side.
Regarding textbooks, I enjoyed Genki and am now working my way through Tobira. Together they can get you quite far. Genki has decent kanji pages with example vocab which nicely complement WaniKani and a ton of exercises for practicing grammar structures. Tobira is more of a reading comprehension textbook. It does cover grammar, but at that level it starts getting nuanced and some explanations are a little confusing, but thankfully the example sentences make the grammar structures clear.
3 Likes
If you’re someone who works well with textbooks, Tofugu has a list of a bunch of beginner textbooks that you can browse through and see if any of them sound like good options. I’m currently using Minna no Nihongo right now, and am really enjoying it. Genki is another popular choice if MNN sounds too intimidating.
And yeah, Tofugu’s recommendation is to start with grammar around level 10, but you can absolutely start earlier than that. I think I started MNN after level 5. Any sort of grammar study will be difficult at the beginning because you have to learn a completely different sentence structure. If you’re completely new, this is a really useful place to start. It’s a guide that explains the basics of Japanese sentence structure. I read this very early on, and it helped me immensely when I was just starting to learn grammar.
As for youtube channels, Cure Dolly and Japanese Ammo with Misa are both pretty popular recommendations. Misa has a series called grammar lessons for absolute beginners that’s fantastic, though if you struggle with learning from videos, some sort of textbook might be better than trying to learn from youtube.
There are also SRS programs for grammar, though I don’t personally use them so I can’t advise you there. Bunpro is a popular one here. Renshuu also has a grammar SRS. And Lindodeer isn’t a SRS, but it’s another program that teaches grammar (it’s similar to Duolingo, but better designed for Asian languages).
Some people recommend just jumping straight into trying to read native materials and looking up grammar points as you go. If this sounds appealing to you, the WaniKani forums has an absolute beginners book club that reads books together. If you try out one of the book club books, you can post grammar questions in the thread, and other users can help you out.
4 Likes
I see, that’s one way of learning it. Books and study groups are efficient if implement correctly. I used to have a book comprised of kanas that explains the grammar and vocab technically but man I’m suck at studying.
Wow, that’s a detailed and insightful review, Thank you, I really appreciate the time spent in replying to my concern 
1 Like
Before i started with WK, i discovered “japanese from zero” on youtube. Its a teacher who is working on 5 books for like 25 years now based on students feedback. The best thing is, that he explains everything on his youtube channel in his guide “japanese from zero book 1 - 5”. And i mean litterally everything. The books are mainly for practice. So you get everything for free until you really want to work with the books too. Currently im at the end of book 2. It helps alot to get into the basics and its also well explained. Well there are many ways to learn out there. Just give it a try and see if you like it.
Basic grammar is super important for WK too because its convenient to know how verbs are formed, how you recognise a noun or diffrent kind of adjectives. Also the example sentences will make a lot more sense to you^^
I would also recomment the blog “Tofugu” made by the creators of WK.
And you should definitely check out the ultimate Wanikani Guide from “jprspereira”.
Have fun 
3 Likes
You can and you should study grammar from day 1.
Since I’ve done textbooks and apps like iKnow.jp well before WaniKani, most of the vocab here has just been for practice / retention.
2 Likes
I want to add to the grammar discussion that Cure Dolly is the only place I’ve found with a coherent model of the grammar. To me, that’s very important. Literally everyone else (including the JLPT) treats grammar like a series of unconnected and increasingly less useful facts to memorize.
1 Like
I think Tobira often refers to past grammar structures (even beyond, assuming N4 grammar is known), but sometimes these comparisons aren’t entirely useful. For instance, when contrasting ように with ために, but then in the example sentences it seems like there is a very clear overlap between the two structures and the nuance is subtle.
When it comes to explaining grammar I would say Tobira takes some getting used to. But the rest is great .
I second learning grammar from JFZ. In my opinion, George Trombley explains it in a fun and super easy to understand manner. I like the pace at which he teaches grammar points, but it’s definitely more effective if you learn alongside with the books or the website. They compliment the material you learn from his YouTube videos, which (as has been said) are all completely free. Otherwise you won’t get the full benefits, IMO. All of Book 1 is free, including the website material. You just need to create an account. Then you can decide to pay for a membership, or buy his books, if you find that his method of teaching is right for you.
Another great source for learning grammar is Human Japanese and Human Japanese Intermediate. They’re apps that you can buy in the App Store (and I believe Android too). I like the pacing and introduction of new grammar points in these apps, since it is done in a logical manner (like JFZ). Each level quizzes you on the material learned, so you get to practice it as much as you want. There are also chapters that teach you about the Japanese culture, which are fun and very informative.
Japanese Ammo with Misa is great once you have at least some basic grammar knowledge. Otherwise it’s too much info thrown at you at once, I feel. But if you want to learn grammar to the nth degree, then she’s a good source for that.
As for Cure Dolly, I don’t even know what to say about learning from a doll. I guess use whatever works for you. Personally I find her kinda creepy.
In my opinion, those two (JFZ and Human Japanese) are the most engaging and easy to follow methods to learning Japanese grammar (at least up to N4 level) out there. I’ve tried pretty much everything (apps, subscription based sites, YouTube channels, books), including all the ones mentioned thus far and I still feel that way. Then again everyone learns differently, so you may not agree with me and that’s OK.
2 Likes
as others have already said it’s not always an easy road. Whatever you do, try to be consistent and as one my dear friend once told me in this very message board:
3 Likes
Here’s a litmus test I quite like:
Take these sentences:
私はウナギです。 (said to a waiter at a restaurant)
私はウナギがすきだ。
その部屋は綺麗で大きい。
If the source can easily explain why the first two mean what they mean (without treating it as an “abnormal exception”), then that’s a good start. The third one is more of a private yet pervasive pet peeve. The myth of the ‘na adjective’. The confusion about what they are means that I think a ton of people legitimately think that the で particle just shows up for no apparent reason in the third sentence.
I don’t think the context dependent first sentence ever comes up even in Genki, which is probably a shame, because the “meta” aspect of that is extremely useful to understanding Japanese.
It hurt my eyes a little when you wrote 綺麗 
. But I agree, the thing with “na adjectives” being called adjectives is fairly misleading. The second similar thing I notice often is する compounds - sources (Genki mainly) selectively add する to some nouns and not to others. Tobira is very consistent with this and adds する to all such compounds, explaining the nuance and which particles are used when coupling with the object of the する compound. WaniKani seems to struggle with grammar and comes up with weird verb/non-verb meanings like “enlist” for 入隊 (it should be “enlistment”).
I read this at work and giggled out loud. Think I scared my coworker.
2 Likes
At some point the local takeout place really stopped trying
1 Like
well he does look nicely dressed with herbs???
I really do hope that kitty is just really stoned on catnip…
2 Likes
the IME does as it wills xD
1 Like
Out of curiosity, what’s confusing about「な」adjectives? The only thing I can think of that might be confusing about them are words like 綺麗 looking like an「い」adjective. Other than that, the rule concerning stringing together「な」adjectives with「で」seems pretty straightforward. Unless I’m missing something. I’m sincerely curious.
If the following is TLDR or just confusing, watch Cure Dolly’s videos about it, they are color coded and neater than anything I could write here.
Take a look at my example sentence.
その部屋は綺麗で大きい。
Under the model that 綺麗 is an adjective, what exactly is it modifying? It’s certainly not modifying 大きい, and in Japanese the modifier ALWAYS comes before what it is modifying, so it cannot be modifying 部屋. Also, why are な and で used? What does the で particle which signifies limitation within have to do with this grammatical function? Why is the “past form” of きれいな部屋 きれいだった部屋?
The answer is that the fundamental premise is wrong. きれい and every other so-called na-adjective is a noun. You could, in theory, call the unit きれいな a na-adjective to help parse sentences, but きれい in isolation is most definitely a noun.
To really understand what’s going on with ‘na adjectives’ we need to understand how modifying nouns works. One of the ways to modify a noun in Japanese (not the only way, but one of them) is to stick a sentence in front of it. Japanese Sentence + Noun is roughly equivalent to English Noun + optional “that” + Sentence. Be aware that in both languages the redundant element is omitted. The bag was stolen → the bag that was stolen. バッグが盗まれた → 盗まれたバッグ. If you want multiple sentences to modify the same noun, all but the last need to be in some sort of connective form, usually the -て form. The bag that was stolen and can’t be found → 盗まれて見つからないバッグ
For sentences ending in verbs and i-adjectives (the real adjectives), this is extremely simple. Either you just stick them right before raw or you switch to て form which is also simple.
ウナギが美味しくてうまい。(the unagi is delicious and yummy)→ 美味しくてうまいウナギ (unagi that is delicious and yummy)
Now the third type of sentence has a tiny wrinkle that apparently was confusing enough to invent a whole new part of speech. That being the XがYだ sentence (where Y is of course a noun). Side note - I am intentionally ignoring desu/masu for now but I’ll address it at the end. The copula だ has the same 4 basic inflections as every verb and adjective, those being だ ではない/じゃない, だった, ではなかった/じゃなかった. The negative forms are themselves i-adjectives so they behave just like all the rest of them - あの部屋がきれいじゃない。(the room isn’t clean, literally the room isn’t cleanliness) → きれいじゃない部屋 (the room that isn’t clean/cleanliness). だった behaves like a verb. That leaves our little friend だ.
For whatever reason, だ had a sound change to な (notice how the tongue touches the same place it’s just nasalized) when it’s used in a modifying sentence. For that reason Cure Dolly calls it the “soft copula.” Aside from that sound change it works exactly how you would expect. あの部屋がきれいだ。 → きれいな部屋. So what is で here? It is the て form of だ. It is an entirely separate thing from the particle で, similar to how there are 2 different がs, the subject particle and the conjunction that connects sentences. あの女が残酷できれいだ。(that woman is cruel yet/and pretty) → 残酷できれいな女。
That’s pretty much it. When sentences ending in noun + copula modify other nouns, it works just like it does in every other case with one minor irregularity. It’s true that some ‘na adjectives’ are pretty much only used in this kind of construction and rarely serve any other purpose, so if dictionaries want to mark that as a way of helping people know about the common usage of a word, that’s fine. However, grammatically and structurally, there is no denying that they are simply nouns.
Quick side note about desu/masu: these 2 verbs are basically zombies that maintain classical grammar long dead in the rest of japanese, so it’s a bit of a pain to go into, but they can only be used at the real end of a sentence anyway, so don’t worry about it. Just switch to the plain forms if you want to make a modifying clause.
The other quick sidetone is about 大きな and 小さな but even dictionaries recognize that these are weird and i’m out of energy to go into them
5 Likes