You’ll probably be looking up vocab all the time for the next few years if you keep studying Japanese, so getting used to that now is not a bad thing
Text books have vocabulary lists that you can refer to as you go along so you don’t feel stuck, and the most essential vocab is repeated often throughout the dialogs and example sentences, so you’ll get used to it over time. There is absolutely no harm to be done learning words in hiragana - beginner text books and books for native Japanese kids use a lot of hiragana for vocab anyway, because they assume you’ll learn kanji progressively.
“Blowing through” a text book in 7 days is one way to do it, but many people do one chapter over a week or more and finish in 3-6 months. If you can do both grammar and Wanikani at the same time, you could potentially be around level 10 or further by then, and reading authentic materials should become feasible - a little painful, but like @Rowena said, there are so many helpful people in the book clubs here that you’ll be fine!
But you’re still going to encounter vocab that you will not have learned by level 10. So you’re still going to have to worry about the vocab to some degree anyway. It’s really up to you, but I would highly recommend starting your grammar now. I started learning grammar by level 4 or so, and the issue about having to worry about vocab was almost entirely overblown in my experience.
Plus, learning grammar earlier on actually meant that I was able to more quickly dive into graded readers, etc. which helped me to reinforce what I had learned and learn new grammar and vocab as sort of a positive feedback loop. It’s also helped put me on far more advanced footing than most of the people in my Japanese class who have been studying for as long as I have.
If nothing else, just try it out. If you feel you are getting overwhelmed by the vocabulary, then you can simply pause and start again when you hit level 10. But I think you’ll find you won’t be as overwhelmed as you think. There’s no harm in at least dipping your toe a bit.
Nthing intense, like maybe Lingodeer( there’s a setting to keep sentences in hirigana but i have kanji n furigana…) n read the app info and some youtube channels. I only learned of Wanikani this year, n it’s year 1 n 4 months on learning Japanese. I had already started with grammar n basic introductions from the get go.
I also language exchange apps cus like, rl practice is needed.
I realize what I said came off wrong. Like I said earlier though, a lot of people suggest doing grammar right away. For me, personally, doing grammar right from the start just had me learning too much at once. I felt overwhelmed, and any of the grammar that I learned just flew over my head. Obviously, when you start out, everything is new. But how much you are learning doesn’t have to include more new material than old material. There are ways to learn with a good ratio of stuff you know to new material. I found it a lot easier to learn N5 grammar first, before diving into grammar study because once I did that I now was focusing only on grammar. Of course that doesn’t mean that I’m still not looking up new words, but it still is allowing me to focus primarly on grammar rather than learning the vocab for that section, getting it slightly down, and then diving into the chapter. When I tried doing that, I still had a lot of trouble recalling what words meant, and I ended up focusing more on the vocab rather than the grammar, which is pointless because I could be learning the vocab better if I just did vocab study. I was putting in a lot of work to not get much out of it. Also, when I said I blew through the book, obviously I didn’t retain all of that because I went through it really fast. I was simply pointing out that I was able to go through the chapters quickly because I understood everything in each chapter. Me going through it fast wasn’t a smart choice, but since I understood all the vocab, I was able to get an understanding of the grammar points really easily.
Anyways, it’s really up to you. Most people suggest studying grammar right away as you can tell, I just wanted to state another option and why I chose to do it. Also, keep in mind some people don’t even study grammar, they only learn it through immersion (AJATT, MIA, DJT – all methods that don’t suggest formal grammar study). Anyways, just wanted to restate that. Just know that there isn’t a best method for when it comes to learning a language, you have to figure out what works best for you and that comes with trial and error sometimes.
I started grammar on level 2; incidentally, I discovered Bunpro (my grammar source of choice) here in this community.
In my early Bunpro days, I was just typing the answer and seeing if I got it right or not. Today, I stop and read each sentence and try to figure out why the words are in that order. Sometimes I can’t figure it out, but I don’t sweat it; certain things are better learned subconsciously. The knowledge will coalesce naturally someday.
If your main goal is being able to read, the easiest thing for you to do right now (and has the highest effort to reward ratio) is to get really good at reading katakana. If you go to any Japanese website or get any newsletter emails from Japanese companies you’ll quickly notice how much katakana there is.
I did Pimsleur in tandem with my early WK levels. The course is entirely audio, so you won’t find any kanji you’re unfamiliar with.
Pimsleur is a tad pricey, but I think doing at least the first couple courses was worthwhile for me. It’ll help you develop pronunciation early on, which I think is good since even when you read silently, you don’t want to be reinforcing poor pronunciation in your head. And you’ll get some basic vocabulary and grammar out of it, so you won’t be bored while you wait for your kanji knowledge to get up to speed.
