Good places to start studying grammar

What’s up everyone. Today I hit level 20, and I’m quite excited about that (I’m already a third of my way there~!). Though there’s something that has been bothering me, mainly that I’ve been focusing on studying kanji so much that I still haven’t really started with studying grammar. I have dipped my toes into Genki 1, but so far my grammar skills are close to none.

I’ve started reading some untranslated manga, and it’s quite motivating to see yourself being able to read full sentences and all that, but understanding them (and their grammatical structure) is something entirely different. I’d like to know if you guys got any good sources on Japanese grammar for beginners like me, besides the obvious Genki 1/2 (though I will be getting back into those soon). Your help is much appreciated :sweat_smile:

Genki is a great place to start many people start there and have had success with it. The only challenge is that it is designed more for a classroom setting so it is a bit difficult to do all of it alone.

I know a lot of people who have also used Tae Kim, for help with grammar. It is a book for just grammar and you cant find a good chunk of it online too.

other than that everyone has their own places to start, if you want to stay with the online approach, Bunpro is a nice website for reviewing and practicing grammar. The examples were a bit too clunky when I used it but i hear it’s getting better.

My personal advice, no matter where you decide to start begin with particles (は、が、を、に、で、の)and sentence enders. this will help you to start building the structure of any sentence you read.

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If you can find yourself a local Japanese study course at a college or university, that’s a great way to get into grammar, and using spoken Japanese. Studying by yourself really works for some people, but for me everything is much clearer when there is an actual person explaining things to me.

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I you can afford it, I would go with Jalup. It’s a very powerful app that will take you to n2+. Each sentence card only introduces 1 unknown vocab or 1 unknown grammar. after the first 1000 cards, you then start learning Japanese through Japanese. I highly recommend this method in terms of long term efficiency.

Now if you can’t afford it, I would go with BunPro ( the website), BunPo (the app) btw these are two different companies. They both have srs grammar. I would also pair that with Tae kim/ a dictionary of Japanese basic grammar. The Genki series is also a great intro.

What do I use? Jalup, and my grammatical knowledge far exceeds my vocab and kanji knowledge. This may sound like an advertisement, but it worked so well for me.

Also use this free website to drill the conjugations

In the end, we will all have to use immersion to learn the rest, so instead of min-maxing which method, I would just pick one and go gun-ho. Good luck!

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I use the Youtube channel Japanese Ammo to introduce me to a grammar topic . Misa does a great job of explaining grammar topics.

After I understand the grammar topic I add it to BunPro for reviewing it. This part is important for getting the topic into your long term memory.

After you understand the topic use it! Do plenty of reading and practice writing your own sentences!
Manga is a good resource. I’d also recommend finding news stories on either Japanese.IO or the TangoRisto app as they include some great translation tools for words you don’t understand yet.

Good Luck!

Consider the grammar paths in BunPro, many seem to benefit from it. Free first month and the content is extensive and they are actively improving (plus they have their own app)
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For more in-depth explanations, DBJG is great book to start with. My cover fell off I’ve used it so often :laughing:

If verbs are tricky, this site may be helpful to start with. http://www.japaneseverbconjugator.com/

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