I’m using both Genki I text & workbook and the Genki I deck in BunPro, but with a side-order of native reading material in the Absolute Beginners’ Book Club.
I get a lot of concentrated practice of a few new points using the text & workbook; I get to wander ahead and become increasingly familiar with new points in BunPro with regular review of the older points (I’m being sensible and only doing one new point a day right now); but seeing the grammar at work in the story I’m reading is what gives me the drive to understand how Japanese works.
You might want to check out Human Japanese for grammar. It’s not perfect, but it explains grammar points in simple conversational language rather than technical linguistic jargon. There are also interesting cultural notes than give you some language context. All Japanese is clickable for excellent audio and meaning breakdown. It starts out with romaji, but quickly switches to kana and later adds in some kanji in the “Advanced” program (really more intermediate). The main weak point are the quizzes at the end of each chapter which are way too short and easy. Bonus - it’s relatively cheap and available on macOS, iOS, Android, and Windows.
I found it helpful to study the vocabulary from the course separately with an SRS like Memrise or Anki (you can find user created decks for both). That way to can concentrate on understanding the grammar without stumbling over every word.
I think there is way worse grammar out there… like with languages with gendered declensions where often times, it’s acceptable for teachers to answer their student’s questions about them with phrases like, “I can’t teach this to you, you’ll just have to learn it.”
As you know, I’m exactly the same! I can’t abide textbooks, really loathe them, and though I tried Bunpro for a year, and can see how it could be useful, it was still just too dry and too confusing for me.
So, like you, I learn all my grammar from reading, which is much more interesting! And, being the lucky chap that I am, I work through a lot of the grammar in the bookclubs with the help of you and Kazzeon and Belthazar and loads of other really kind and talented people! Thank you!
Plus, these days, I’ve started watching a lot more Missa and other great teachers on Youtube, and that also helps a lot!
I love learning grammar and phrases, but part of that is likely because I’ve constantly found myself wanting to know how to say things correctly while living in Japan. If you give yourself a reason/opportunities to run up against the “How do I actually say that?” wall, you might find yourself more motivated here.
For similar reasons, also try to increase your native reading/listening load. You might start to feel the immense satisfaction of learning constructions and then soon after hitting material where they’re used and help you parse real-world meaning.
I didn’t come here for you to attack my spanish lol
No, but really… It sounds awful having to actively learn the gender of every dang word, even if there’s probably a rule of thumb (Like if it ends in O or A in spanish)
You know, I started doing classess with Japanese tutors abou a year ago. I was doing WK in parallel.
And for the longest time it really bothered my that I could not express what I really wanted to say. The more vocab I learned the more topics I could discuss but I was extremely limited in what I could say. It was extremely frustrating.
Then just a few months ago I put WK on pause and started learning N4 and N3 grammar to prep for JLPT. And I noticed that the more grammar I learned the more natural my speach became. I could express the nuance much better. And because of that I started enjoying Japanese so mjch more
You need grammar, otherwise you’ll never progress beyond the beginner level.
I used Shin Kanzen Master workbooks to study grammar. It succinctly lays out the grammar points with relavant example sentences and then lets you do some practice exercises.
I didn’t like Bunpro either when I checked it out a while ago. But I think I may use it now as a review tool, not a learning tool.
I get tired of textbooks pretty quickly. Like… too much information and explanations. I feel like I drown in all that stuff, trying to compehend everything.
So when I stumbled across LingoDeer app it was like wow that’s for me!
Why I like it?
In one lesson they give you only one tiny bit of information.
Usually it’s one grammar point and ~4 words (most of them I already know through WK).
And then there are interactive tasks plus listening. And the best part is that all sentences are voiced by real people and not some artificial thing (which I hated in BunPro, I just couldn’t listen to their sentences).
Also, although there is a subsription plan, nobody ask you to actually pay to study. At least for beginner level, which is ~60 lessons. Even with 1 lesson a day it’s two whole months of sdudies, but I do only 2 per week in oerder not to drown.
