I would suggest starting with grammar immediately. Why? Because the books teaching you early grammar (for example Genki or Minna no Nihongo) will only have very very few and simple kanji and trust me, as soon as you’re past the N5 and N4 kanji you will struggle reading texts for beginners because of the lack of kanji. More often than not am I wondering if they mean THIS word of THAT word. This problem comes from the fact that many words have the same reading but different kanji. It is particularly difficult in the beginning of your language journey because you won’t be able to tell naturally “is this a particle or is it part of a word?”
Also as a level 20-something user who tried the as-fast-as-possible approach to level 60: Don’t do it (you mentioned something about needing 300-something days until level 50-60). Few manage, whereas most (me) will be overwhelmed after 20ish levels and end up accumulating so many reviews that it is discouraging. I managed up to level 15, and got worse since…
…at that point, why don’t you just write “Japanese” (8 keystrokes) rather than “nihongo” (7 keystrokes for writing it out, 1 keystroke for conversion, and 2 for switching into IME and back)?
Reminds me of something I saw earlier today on the BunPro forums. Somebody said they spent one year doing WaniKani and no grammar studies, but they were happy since there are statistics that people with prior knowledge of Chinese characters need to spend less time studying Japanese to get to a certain level
Seriously though, if I were in your position, I would start as soon as possible. I personally did it the other way around, learning tons of grammar and not much vocabulary or kanji. It was really annoying because I couldn’t read for ages even though I could recognise the vast majority of grammar pattern. TD;DR: You need grammar, vocabulary and kanji in order to be able to read properly, so don’t leave one out; learn them in unison.
I don’t know of a resource (currently) that teaches ‘all’ grammar, however if you were to read through the entirety of Tae Kim’s Grammar Guide you would certainly be at decent level that would let you read a lot of Japanese. I would say that going through the whole thing would probably take you a week if you spent two hour a day reading it.
Hope this helped; if you don’t like Tae Kim’s Guide, I would check out Imabi and/or Maggie Sensei.
I have tried Tae Kim’s Grammar Guide but it is extremely dense, more of a reference than a textbook. I really don’t think it’s a good first step for learning grammar. Something more interactive is also probably better unless you have a tutor / teacher.
It’s dense, true. Nevertheless I don’t think you can class it as a ‘reference’. Instead, I class books like Genki and Toriba as ‘convoluted’. I struggled with them for ages, but because they didn’t have concise explanation with clear examples (as Tae Kim’s guide does), I simply couldn’t make progress.
Since I started using it, my grammar has sky rocketed!
You really shouldn’t use that abbreviation for “Japanese”, it is generally considered a racial slur and has been used in some absolutely horrible, dehumanizing propaganda.
ooh, ごめんなさい - very very sorry, I didn’t know that, I will keep it in mind… thank you!
i don’t see any reason not to start grammar now. personally i started studying grammar and vocabulary long before putting any serious work into kanji. the lack of kanji is catching up with me now, which is why i’m doing wanikani. but i’m still pushing forward with grammar and such.
as for learning “all” the grammar, that’s not really a thing. languages are such beautifully fluid constructs that there will always be more and finer details of grammar to discover. to get an overview of just how much grammar there is for japanese, have a look at imabi.net.
however, your 1 1/2 years sounds just about achievable, if you can commit as much time as you would for a full-time job. numbers i’ve seen around talk about approximately 2500 hours of intensive study to achieve fluency. a full-time job is 2000 hours a year. i’m not saying it’s realistic for the vast majority of learners, but if you have as much time and language skills as you say, then go for it.
Amazing, thank you so much guys, I feel confident with my Japanese learning… sure, my aim is not perfect fluency, but being able to go to Japan and survive!!
Tell you what, I moved to the UK with the 3-school-years of English I had (yea, it was very basic), and I managed to find work, a house, make friends etc, and I reached fluency in around 2 years… that’s pretty much the same thing I’d like to do with Japanese: to move to Japan with a basic knowledge of the language and achieve fluency on the place…
Assuming that time is not an issue for you, I’d recommend starting now. Optimally you’ll be done with WK and have JLPT N3 or even N2 Grammar under your belt. Otherwise you’ll have to start with Grammar after you are done with WK. By the time your grammar has caught up to your then lvl. 60 Kanji knowledge, you’ll have forgotten some kanji already.
Also that is how native speakers learn Japanese. They learn to speak first and then Kanji, not the other way around.
Yes, I guess you’re right!!.. I was misleaded by Tofugu’s suggestion: when learning something new you should know at least 80% of it… but when I started learning English in school, we started with the grammar, and I knew 0% of the language!
Maybe consult a more technical resource on Japanese morphology (word formation)
In fact, there is. It’s called Japanese: A Comprehensive Grammar. I bought it with the intention of reading it cover to cover, and quickly discovered that that is impossible. I now use it for reference and when I really need something to put me to sleep.
As for actually learning grammar, Bunpro and a textbook, and possibly an online language partner (so you can develop the ability to talk), are the way to go.
