New Japanese Learner here, question about progress route

Japanese Language
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Hi,

i just hit level 4, so i am basically a newbie when learning japanese. I managed to include the new lessons and reviews into my daily routine and i am comfortable with it. I spend around 30 to 60 minutes with WaniKani and at the moment i am rather not be able to take more time out of my day for learning japanese (but in the future i could, at least i hope that). I know that vocabulary and kanji are not everything, so id like to ask for advice - kind of a progress map. Ive seen some answers in threads that suggest doing WaniKani until level 20 and then starting getting into grammar and reading native media. So id like to ask for opinions and ressources on that - and how to invest a maximum of 1,5 - 2h daily into that (e.g. like 1 hours grammar, 0,5 hours reading, 0,5 hours Kanji study/vocabulary?)

Thanks in advance everyone!

Edit: Thanks everyone for your answers! I will try to orientate on Akashelia’s Roadmap and begin studying grammar asap and reading native stuff (guess my japanese pokemon games finally get some usage after just laying around) :slight_smile: Really thanks everyone! Topic solved

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Hello!

I say the opposite. You want to learn kanji as early as possible, but it’s most beneficial to prioritize learning grammar and sentence structure first. I say use a textbook + workbook like Genki or Tobira for about an hour a day to get you started.

This will help you establish the basics so you can actually utilize the Kanji+vocab you learn! Then you have between 30 mins - 1hr to immerse yourself with native content like anime, listening practice or podcasts, and reading materials.

Satori Reader is very popular for reading practice, and you can turn words you find into flashcards. These will go into a spaced repetition system like Wanikani that you can study!

Some youtube channels I like for listening practice are Speak Japanese Naturally and Japparot. Speak Japanese Naturally is a little more challenging, while Japparot is good for beginners and would likely be a better fit for now since it’s slower and easier to understand.

Best of luck Baracchi! Welcome to WK too, there’s lots of fun clubs n stuff to join that can help you learn as well. :smiling_face:

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I think you’ve reached the point you should start metering your lessons on wani kani. If you just keep going at full speed your reviews will start to pile up quicker than you can get them out.

I absolutely think you should start looking for more and other resources to learn japanese. Wani Kani will ONLY teach you kanji and vocabulary, which is very important, but what is arguably more important is grammar. Japanese sentence structure and word order are different from english and it will take time to get used to them. There is so much more to reading japanese than just knowing kanji. Kanji is a big part, but its just a part.

Also when you start burning items in wani kani they’ll stop showing up in reviews. Eventually you will forget them if you’re not using the information (ie. reading/listening/writing/speaking). I’m only level 9 and have already started burning most of levels 1 and 2. Personally if I didn’t read anything until level 20 I would have forgotten most of it by then. (I think I’m going slower than average through wani kani but its really hard to tell)

I have been using Genki for grammar and trying to play video games/watch anime in japanese/ listen to podcasts in japanese to keep my listening and reading going. There are many youtube channels where people try to explain japanese language concepts. I must recommend a textbook over youtube, but youtube is a good supplement after you’ve already learned the material once. Cure Dolly and Tokini Andy are both good.

I think your time breakdown should have more reading/listening in it. Look for graded readers, I like tadoku, they have free stuff.

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Hello :wave:

For a general guide and progress map, I’ll point you in this direction:

For how to divide your time: it’s recommended that srs take up no more than 25% of your study time. If I were in your shoes, with one hour a day, I would do 30 minutes of grammar study, 15 minutes of Wanikani, and split the remaining 15 minutes between reading and listening. The reason there’s so little time for reading and listening is because without grammar knowledge, you won’t understand much. This is why it’s important to start grammar asap! Then as your grammar knowledge increases, you can start shifting time from grammar study to reading and listening.

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To be clear, it’s best to think of WK as it is today as a primarily kanji resource. It teaches the vocab to reinforce the kanji, but there’s still a lot of very common vocab that isn’t on wanikani, even with kana vocab, because it uses kanji that WK decided they have enough examples of

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To share my experience.
I first learned the basics of grammar and conjugation, and kana of course.
Then, I mainly learned by talking, listening to songs, movies.
I only started wanikani to fill my huge gaps in reading.
The most important thing is to communicate (not easy if you’re not in Japan), but I promise you that without that, even if you’ve learned a lot of vocabulary, you’ll have a hard time being able to speak.
Accents, expressions, word contractions, etc. And why doesn’t he use the word I learned to say that??? I’m kidding, but a French proverb says that it’s by forging that you become a blacksmith, not just theory, PRACTICE.
がんばって

In addition if you are not in Japan, with the internet I think you can find some kind of exchange with Japanese people who are also looking to learn your language. :wink:

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Hi,

As you can probably tell from all answers, each person will find a way that better suits them to learn a new language. I think laguages like japanese (as in, with ideograms) do complicate things further, since learning grammar and vocab does not necessarily means learning how to read…

I am a relative beginner in kanji as well, but I did japanese classes for about one year in college and we were already studying some intermediate grammar points, which means that grammar is not something I have a lot of problems with. As long as I know the vocab and the kanji, I can comfortably understand the meaning of a sentence.

What this means is that, in my current point, focusing my time on kanji and vocab acquisition seems like a good idea, specially since it frustrates me a lot when I have to stop immersion time to consult dictionnaries. So ideally I would separate my study time into WaniKani, immersion through reading and texting with japanese speaking friends and vocab mining. In reality I do not have the time to do all of these so I just do whatever and try to keep up with my WK reviews since I feel like WK does pay off in the long term.

If you are just starting, it depends on how you want to tackle things, I do not think there is a necessarily correct way to do it. If you prefer to spend your first year mastering kanji, some vocab and not be able to actually use it, then just speed through WK and then tackle grammar, reading/immersion etc. This is probably not the most efficient way nor the fastest way to actually use the langugage, but it might be comfortable or less frustrating for you.

If you want to be able to read ASAP, then it’s probably better to focus solely on grammar through a textbook and just jump directly into reading, creating kanji and vocab flashcards as you go. I wouldn’t even use WK if this was my goal honestly.

Or maybe you can do a mix of both, just keep up with WK in a moderate pace and dip your feet into native material as you go. Search stuff up as they come and maybe do 1 to 2 hours of textbook lessons per week.

The most important thing I learned is that this is not a race. Pace yourself in a smart way and eventually you will arrive at your goal, even if it takes time :slight_smile:

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