I’m especially curious about your experience with this (not Tae Kim specifically, but just casual-before-polite), because I’m currently arranging some curriculum. If you can think how to put this in words, what is more intuitive about doing polite speech first?
(I’m planning to mix the two together, since it helps understand how they relate).
I can’t really think of anything, except for the fact that polite speech would be used more often than casual speech in RL and Media (but that would depend on the media/people, obviously). So it seems more intuitive/efficient to me to start with the form that’s used the most often and will get the most mileage.
It’s probably not very helpful, but that’s pretty much it.
I think mixing them together is good though, I just feel better about having a base in the polite form first.
Thanks for the input 
Learning casual after polite is a matter of just dropping things, other way around is more additive. Think it might depend on the person which is easier. Personally going from です to だ feels easier than other way around. Starting with casual, the verb conjugation is probably easier when all the verbs in a dictionary are already in their う-form.
In the end, the best argument for starting with polite is that it’s by far the more commonly used, your average Japanese person speaks way more polite Japanese a day than casual Japanese.
Japanesepod? I used to use it back in the day when they didn’t even have the seasons system and I remember it being pretty bad, what would you say of it now?
PS: I did reset my wanikani account a few weeks ago
*My first participation in the forums since I started using WaniKani
Depending on your definition of studying I could say I’ve been doing it for 21 months or 1.4 years,however I’ve only been properly studying japanese for only about a year.(check materials to see what I mean)
The reason for it was probably because I always liked asian culture,history and media (movies,dramas) etc. (especially korean and japanese) and after a long time I tried out anime,from which branched off an interest into manga,music,LNs,VNs,etc… which kicked off an interest for the language because it just sounded nice.
I started with hiragana and katakana,took 6 months total (I know,who takes that long to learn it ?),proceeded with Kanji but kinda started panicking after not being able to choose the right materials,panic from which WaniKani saved me .
After that I found the motivation of turning it into a degree at a modern language uni (I was going to one either way,and tbh I don’t like my native language much).I have about 2.6 years to get better or get lost.(gotta love my odds)
Materials I used ~
Anime - HOLY,I can’t even begin to tell you how much this helped me.This is indirect studying incarnated,and what I meant by “unproper” studying.
I can see why people say you shouldn’t learn japanese from anime and I understand that,but its really more like you shouldn’t use japanese like in anime.This and that are different things,I don’t even read the translation for say, 8/10 vocab here just because I know the meaning after 100 realtime days of watching anime. - Also helps when forgetting a word and the mnemonic,you can just think of a character saying it, a scene will pop up and after that its history.
FreeJapaneseLessons.com - Best title choice ever;
Memrise - did the japanese course but slowly dropped out afterwards.Might pick up later.
Tofugu - Nice for learning stuff about Japan and more niche words like tsujigiri;
Remembering the Kanji - Didn’t work out because of no pronunciation/vocabulary;
Nihongoshark - Read some articles but haven’t been on since;
KanjiDamage - An anternative WaniKani,didn’t work for me because of corny jokes;
Some book in my language I can’t complete because I accidentally got the second volume;
Songs/osu! - same story as with anime,I can sometimes extract vocab from the context in a song I listened to.Not as reliable tough since it usually has a different meaning in songs;
Native language - Even tough I don’t like it that much,it did help me because it has no accent,really to japanese.Helps with and talking;
Anki - tried it out when I started learning Kanji on my own but didn’t work,picked it up again after WaniKani so I could pre-study before reviews;
KaniWani - Use it every now and then but the lack of distinction between most vocab (ex. round and round,丸い and 円い) keeps me from using it more often.
Very rarely JP Twitter - Trying to understand game/anime announcements but fail horribly at it.
In what context. Obviously they’ll speak mostly polite at work, and then just casually at home… And if they have friends at work they’ll speak casually to them. I guess the balance depends on how much speaking you do at work, but to me casual has the edge.
A cashier will lean heavily toward polite. A student will lean heavily toward casual. At least if the students I see everyday are any indication.
In the context that when your average productive member of the Japanese society meets a stranger they’re going to speak politely until you get to know them better. I’m only talking about standard Japanese with です/ます nothing higher on the politeness spectrum.
Yeah, I’m just wondering if that accounts for more of their talk time in an average day. My experience is they use more casual, but as I said, it depends.
Right right, I get your point. I was just thinking of an employed adult who works 8-10 hours a day and then probably has at best 4 hours of free time before going to bed. Not a high school student who hangs around with their friends for 19 hours a day.
I still think that they’re more likely to speak politely than casually to any stranger they happen to meet, including a dirty gaijin like me.
Hi Guys,
Is no one using Textfugu from こういちさん?
For me it is as great for grammar as Wanikani for kanji.
Happy studying!
I started studying Japanese as a teenager back around 2001, when the internet was still a toddler. So many more resources are around these days. Needless to say, I didn’t get much done and pretty soon I started dating a Peruvian girl and Spanish became more of an interest. I guess it paid off because now we are married with 5 kids! 
Well, back around 3 months ago I decided I should pick Japanese back up. I had always been fascinated and I’m surprised it took me this long to get back around to it. I am fortunate to have a job that allows me to sit on a computer all day and have a LARGE amount of down time. This has been especially helpful with getting through WaniKani.
Having looked around and by lurking on these forums, I have experimented with a few resources and I am sure I will try more. A thread like this is great for me because I love to hear what works for people and how they feel about their experiences. For me, besides WK, I picked up the first Genki book and it seems decent enough. I also worked through Human Japanese (Beginner) and about half way through the Intermediate. I will watch some anime (at work) when I need a break from study and I find myself understanding more and more. I don’t plan on this being my primary learning source but I think it can be beneficial (not to mention entertaining).
One thing I just picked up yesterday and was curious if anyone has tried is the “Let’s Speak Japanese: Shadowing” series? It seems like it has a lot of great dialogue and I have a hard time keeping up past the first few lessons (but my knowledge is still very basic at this point). It seems like it would really help with speaking and listening which from what I can tell, seems to be most people on here’s biggest problem.
I’ve been studying on and off since 2010. How much of that I’ve been seriously and/or consistently studying would be difficult to add up. Plus breaks = forgotten things.
My studies initially focused on books (Henshall’s A Guide to Remembering the Kanji - where I learned 300 Kanji) + Anki, Human Japanese 1 (there was only 1 at the time anyway), a pocket grammar handbook, a few phrasebooks, some random Japanese forums/sites… it wasn’t all that effective.
It started being more effective in 2014 when around the same time/season I discovered the TK Guide to Grammar app and a local group that was split into beginner and intermediate, had a JLPT 1 JET alumni teacher, native speakers, translations of things like Momotaro in groups, questions about Japanese answered in English or Japanese, short grammar and vocab lessons, some culture/art/games stuff (like origami and calligraphy), etc. That super increased my motivation, as well as leading me to new resources.
Shortly after that I discovered WaniKani (January 2015), and from there things like Lang-8, Yotsuba&, looking for children’s books in Japanese. Also as the years progressed, the amount of anime I watched per day/week increased drastically, and when watching a series, I’d pick up their patterns of speech, show-specific vocab and phrases, even a tiny bit of grammar (usually requiring look up) and that with manga reading very much helped and also increased motivation. Fell in love with Jisho and Rikaikun. Eventually came across Hi Native.
Recently have been trying out random Google Play apps, some more effective than others. Oh and Memrise! I started using that a buttload in 2015, finishing several courses in a short time alongside WaniKani. I found Memrise really effective at the time but have kinda dropped it since resubscribing to WK after a year-long break, this March.
I bought Shin Kanzen Master Grammar N4, but still feel that my kanji and vocabulary is a little below where it needs to be for me to go through it. I’d like to not have to spend a large amount of time looking up words, as I feel that would impede my progress.
What I’ve had near zero experience with is speaking, but at the same time it’s currently not a high priority for me. My highest priority is reading, with listening being second, and writing and translation? being a third.
I’m definitely behind where I feel I ought to be, but nevertheless I intend to take the N3 this year, barring another transportation disaster like December 2015… that left me depressed and demotivated, finding out the day before that I couldn’t go (and then in the following days that there were in fact ways for me to go, thanks a lot, y’all… sigh).
I’ve heard good things, so I’ve started experimenting with it, but it’s still too early for me to say. Let us know what you think!
Are they hiring?
lol. They actually probably will be hiring soon… That flexibility can also come with a lot of boredom as well!
I started Japanese by formally taking classes at a university with a very strong Japanese program. They made the beginning classes very hard in order to weed out any casual learners. I took three years/6 semesters of classes (JAPN 101-102 used Genki I, JAPN 201-202 used Genki II, and JAPN 301-302 used Tobira) and also took a semester of Bungo translation, which was fun and quite challenging. My last class was in 2012, though.
Here’s what I use to maintain my Japanese level (I’d say I’m N2-N3-ish):
Note: I use these to maintain my level. If I wanted to really push to increase my level, I’d add 15-20 minutes a day of reading books from the Shin Kanzen Master series
I bought both books and have been working from the first book for the past 5 months or so. It has been amazing with how my speaking and listening skills have improved. If you’re faithful at doing it every day, you’ll probably start seeing results as well. Provided that you’re keeping up with your grammar and vocabulary studies.
Yes, that’s the feeling I get too. I haven’t really gotten started yet because I feel I need to improve my grammar and vocab just a little bit first but I am planning on starting soon. I am excited to see how these will improve my ability and I am glad to hear that it is working good for you.
If you have spare time, you should still start anyway. The book recommends that you spend no more than ten minutes a day shadowing and at least three months of practicing a unit before moving on. If you have time to spare, it will surely make a difference. Since every conversation is translated, you’ll know exactly what you’re saying even though don’t understand the grammar or vocabulary associated with what you’re saying. Just internalizing these patterns will help your studies overall because what you learn that already corresponds to what you’ve practiced will already feel familiar to you. In essence, it makes the entire process of studying less taxing on your brain in general, even though shadowing itself is pretty tough.
Hey that is actually great advice. Thank you! I guess I will start incorporating it into my daily routine. Like you said, just 10 minutes a day should greatly help. Thanks for the encouragement.