How can I utilize/manage my JP Learning resources effectively?

Hi,
it depends what exactly you want to achieve. As someone who has lived in Japan for 28 years I can attest to the importance of this. I have always loved kanji so I completed all three Heisig books and am doing wanikani for fun. I can read Japanese novels and write essays in Japanese. However, in basic conversation, until recently, Japanese people tended to look at me like I was in special ed…
I started wanikani for fun but I find it very effective for me. It is important to understand that Heisig was the fundamental originator of an integrated mnemonic approach as opposed to regular Japanese people study which is mostly a waste of time for foreigners. The point about not having stories after the first five hundred suggests you may, possibly, not fully understand what he is getting at. In order to master the meaning and writing of a kanji, the initial goal, one ha to create ones own stories and this takes a vast amount of mental energy. It is not an easy thing to do but it is really powerful and effective. The difference between this and Wanikini is that the latter is somewhat passive in that one is not required to recall from memory and write the kanji out on a regular basis. This makes it, with all due respect, a slightly more passive system than Wanikani. If you opt for Wanikani then you will need to figure out how to do writing practice too. My personal recommendation is the Heisig but both are excellent in their own way.
I think Bunpro is good but too haphazard for a beginner. Perhaps the best way to use it is to plug in any grammar points that you come across rather than slogging through the points in order which is a very unnatural process.
I can’t stand anki personally because. am technologically challenged. Better perhaps is apples oranges.? card system but actually I always recommend Serpenti A modern Japanese dictionary , which automatically creates excellent flash cards for yu when you plug in text or check words. This application is one of the best I know for study at any level. It is a more efficeint version of Imiwa.
genki is good if you want to use a textbook.
Tae Kim’s book is better than his site for me. He is something of a genius but his approach is a little unorthodox and may clash with what you are studying just a little. Well worth lesson ok’ing at on a regular basis.
You need to begin speaking straight away even if it’s real simple words. Use Italki and start with one of two half hour lessons a week. Use community teachers to save money unless you want to work on genki with a qualified teacher.
Get a superb application called 'speater, which allows you to repeat downloads material in words, phrases or sentences until your neighbors want to kill you.
IKnow is a slightly dull but very worthwhile application for daily practice of sentences. It uses the most common words and the pronunciation quality is superb. This last quality alone makes it well with ruth th money. I know polyglots who really like this particular application.
Best of luck,
Buri

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my bad,
‘a slightly more passive system than Heisig.’
The advice about not using too many resources is important.
Cheers,
Buri

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I second @Raionus on picking a primary and secondary resource (and maybe third in your case, since you have a lot of free time). This helps maintain focus and motivation since you won’t be spread too thin.

WaniKani starts off pretty breezy, but as you pile on new things and get your burn reviews, you can easily find yourself spending several hours a day just to keep pace. Then you throw KaniWani into the mix and that’s already a pretty healthy course of Japanese for the day. :hamburger::fries:

I’ve looked at Anki and Memrise myself and decided I’ll save those for after I’ve completed WK. Getting tied up in too many SRS systems at once can easily become overwhelming.

I agree with others that it’s never too early to start grammar. I like Bunpro, Genki, and Tae Kim. I like that Tae Kim starts off with more conversational Japanese, but he uses a lot of Kanji early on, which is more challenging to remember if you’ve never encountered them before. Genki, as a textbook, has a more gentle introduction to Kanji and relies more on Hiragana/Katakana in the early chapters, so it can be more approachable in that sense.

I really enjoy Bunpro as well, but if you’re fairly fresh to Japanese grammar I agree it’s easy to get a bit lost with it if it’s your sole resource. However, it does link to some wonderful sites that go in-depth into the grammar points, so if you’re still confused after Tae Kim or Genki you can get some alternate explanations from the linked sites. The bite-sized, context-reliant lessons are quite nice if you’re strapped for time and still want to get some learning in. I’ll usually do a little three-pack of lessons every few days.

Personally, I devote most of my time to WaniKani, half as much of that to KaniWani, and then about 25% of my time to either Bunpro or another resource (I’ve been reading chapters of Human Japanese on and off to refresh my basic grammar). I’ve read that for language learning, vocab will actually take you further than just grammar, and in the months I’ve been using WaniKani I’ve found that my overall comprehension has just been soaring with every level.

One last thing: If you’re still a bit sketchy on your Hiragana or Katakana, definitely brush up on those, as it’ll make all the rest of your learning much easier.

Good luck on your studies! :hatching_chick:

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I’d say cut it back to two main resources, a course and a kanji learning system. I like Assimil and Japanese For Everyone (depending on what style of course you prefer) and Wanikani, but there are plenty of good options, including Genki.

Then add something for practice: watanoc is useful and satori reader seems really nice, too, although I haven’t used the latter (anyone who has, have some comments?) A lot of people like the Japanese Graded Reader series, although it’s a bit pricey. Once you make some progress (during Genki II, maybe), you can start using Tangoristo to read NHK News Easy. It’s difficult at first, but you’ll have to go through that phase at some point. There are also a lot of parallel texts available on Amazon, but I’d save most of those for a bit later.

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Here is a possible strategy:

Its gonna take you about a year of WK (if you are diligent about it) to get to where you are recognizing a majority of the kanji you see in any given text. So WK will take care of itself if you just let it, so you have a year to do other stuff.

I would suggest as a way to spend that year is to do (and I mean really do, do the exercises, write them out, don’t skip anything) genki 1 & 2 at a pace of one chapter a week. I would also put all the vocab and useful sentences you run across in genki into an anki deck and do that everyday.

If you do these two things you are already at 2-4 hrs a day of japanese study. If you have more time and energy, I would listen to and watch as much native content as you can. Without subtitles. It takes alot of time and exposure to get to where you can hear japanese at natural spoken speed.

When you are through genki 1 (or whenever, you will have a feel for this when the time comes) start adding native reading material to the mix.

If you have the discipline to do this, you will make alot of progress in a year.

(very few ppl have the self-discipline to do this…)

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Thank you all so very much for your responses and feedback, I really appreciate it!

Yesterday I hit level 2 on WaniKani, and suddenly had 82 new lessons to do. It took me a very long time to do the lessons, so sorry for the late response since I was really busy with that yesterday.

Hitting level 2 was an extremely eye-opening experience. It was really easy nod and agree that focusing on one or two things is probably good advice, but after the amount of time I had to put into my lessons yesterday, I now personally understand just how good of an idea it is. XD

So I’ve decided that I’m going to focus on a couple things; everyone’s feedback and my experience here has really helped me in figuring out how I think I should proceed and helped me learn what my priorities are and how I should pursue them ^.^

I think I’m going to focus on things in the following order:

  • WaniKani (Japanese → English understanding; good for reading, which is my first priority)
  • KaniWani (English → Japanese understanding; good for typing, which is my second priority)
  • Grammar (Though I still haven’t quite figured out my plan for this; still conflicted on Genki vs Tae Kim vs BunPro, especially since i may be taking classes using Genki in about a month)
  • Listening Comprehension (For anime/music/conversation!)
  • Conversation
  • Writing

But for now I’m just going to do WaniKani, KaniWani, and then at least some grammar as I’m able :3 (and maybe some listening comprehension since i listen to lots of Japanese music passively anyway)

Thank you so much everyone for your help! I really appreciate it!!! <3333 :carrot::rabbit2:

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