So at level 22 I’m really starting to feel the constant treadmill groundhog day of reviews. I know I’m progressing but it just feels slow. My goal of reading manga without looking up everything still feels distant, but I’m happy that my eyes dart around the page now and pull the meaning of kanji I recognize. I work full time so I’d say I only clear a level a month. I’m comfortable with that but I also know I’ll need to add in more.
I tried Genki back at the beginning and was beyond frustrated, absolutely hated trying to learn grammar without knowing some vocab. Also as someone with an bachelor’s in English I can say learning grammar rules has never been very helpful for me.
With that in mind I figured, get farther in wanikani then do the same as English, bash my face into sentences until I absorb the needed grammar.
Now feels like the right time but I’m just not finding it as easy to incorporate something new. Wanikani is super easy, it’s a straight up habit at this point, I can’t even comprehend what a day of not clearing my reviews would look like. Would love any suggestions, especially if any of you felt similarly during your journey.
Book clubs here on Wanikani? Join the Absolute Beginner Book Club and you will have a lot of companionship plus experienced readers to help with questions. Might be hard at the beginning with zero grammar but might also help you seeing how learning grammar can help you.
As long you use pc or android it’s free, only Ios takes money for the mobile app.
It’s the deck I am using myself.
As for grammar:
There are multiple ways:
Use a study book and work your way through it.
Benefit clear vocab list to study and start end points. And as grammar wise, finish the book and you have n5 grammar under your belt.
Read graded readers, and look up grammar points as you encounter them.
Use a non style text book grammar resource as human Japanese. (It’s very good)
Use satori reader and learn grammar while reading. You have the appropriate level for most if not all stuff kanji wise. Also from the same dev from Human Japanese.
If you questions please ask.
Context: I am using them all.
PS: Deliberate vocab study will definitely help you, and WaniKani is vocab is just the beginning. Tbf that Anki deck is also the beginning.
Don’t want to do SRS for vocab, than read and lockups is the way.
I think the most important thing is to find something that you engage with on a personal level.
In terms of learning grammar, I went through the Genki 1 textbook way back when and hated it, simply because I found the tone/example sentences to be so incredibly boring. Then I tried Bunpro for a while, and it was a bit better, but still quite dry, so I ended up not sticking with it. This past year, I’ve been using Marumori (see the linked thread below for details) and I’ve been enjoying it a lot more, simply because the tone of the lessons is more entertaining. It does also have additional vocab to study beyond what Wanikani offers.
I’ll echo the other recommendations - book clubs, looking at the reading resources trunklayer posted, studying vocab outside of Wanikani, etc. Whatever you choose, though, my recommendation is that it ought to be something you find genuinely interesting or fun. For example, if you’re like me, and find your eyes glazing over reading news articles in your native language, trying to
by trying to read something like NHK News Easy is going to be intolerably dull, and (probably) impossible to stick to long enough to actually do the absorbing. Whereas choosing something you find interesting, even if it’s technically quite a ways beyond your current level, might give you additional motivation to stick with it longer. Finding something that’s both at the right level AND interesting would be ideal, of course.
Ironically, I think one of the things I’ve found most helpful for me for getting used to reading has actually been listening to as much Japanese as possible, and then doing my reading out loud. I’ve been watching anime and dramas, with and without subtitles, and listening to music in Japanese for years - I’ll regularly now read something silently and feel totally lost…then read it out loud and realize that I’ve heard such and such character using that word, or that that grammar point is in a particular song lyric. I might not know yet exactly what it means, but if I look it up at that point, having that association makes it stick in my memory better.
I have no idea if that specific idea would be helpful for you, but making the connection between something dry (grammar/vocab study) and something you’re interested in seems to me to be the key to making progress. Best of luck with your studies!
I’m a firm believer that a beginner with a dictionary can read anything. What do you like to read in your native language? Books? Manga? Games? News? Facebook posts? Continue to read that, but in Japanese instead. It really is that easy. Find something you want to read and look up just enough to understand what’s going on. You don’t need to look up every word. Or read one sentence, look up until you think you know what’ going on, and then paste the sentence into Google translate or similar to check.
I don’t like to read manga (I have tried!), Easy news is too easy, real news for adults is too hard, bla bla bla. What I found that I really like to read is visual novels. I can read a visual novels for hours, but I can’t stay engaged with a book for more than a few minutes.
Just find something you like to read, something you want to read, something that you read because you want to, not because you feel like you “should” to study. And join the Read every day challenge. A little reading every day goes a long way!
