Optimizing my process

Japanese Language
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Asking the old heads here: am I on the right track?
This is currently the plan:
-Finish WaniKani before I do anything else (VocabMaxx)
-Finish Genki 1 and 2
-Maybe take an online course at some point, one of those fast track ones.
-Get on some app that lets me communicate with some folks from across the pond
-Go kick it over there for a period of time.
-Get a job either over there or back in the states using what I’ve learned (not likely, I’ll probably just keep welding. But a man can dream, and all that.)

Is this optimal? Should I be working through Genki right now as well? I’ve got two jobs and am taking classes at my community college so my schedule’s already really packed, but I just want to make sure this happens. Am I overthinking it? If I keep putting my time in, will I get better eventually, and I’m just worrying over nothing? Any reply would be helpful.

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Wanikani suggests starting grammar at level 10, and it’s generally agreed that’s too late. By the time you finish wanikani, if you haven’t been using the information, it’s highly likely you’ll have forgotten a large amount of what you’ve burned. It should really be more of an alongside other stuff resource.

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I think you absolutely should start some other activities prior to finishing wanikani. There’s a lot of low hanging fruit to come from grammar study as there’s a lot of meaning conveyed by how verbs are conjugated (*technically not conjugation, but I don’t have time to explain it right now) etc. so I would start some grammar study even if your schedule requires that that means reducing your wanikani time.

The vocab in wanikani also has diminishing returns as you go further along, and if you get into native media or conversing with natives in any fashion, that will eventually help cement your vocab too.

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I started with WaniKani and Grammar at the Same time.

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@araigoshi @CherryApple @RebBlue Thanks for taking the time to reply. I’m glad that there’s unanimous consensus, even if it’s not what I’d like to hear. What would any of you recommend for grammar, or supplementary studies in general? I’m more prone to Digital media than textbooks, because my dopamine addled brain is addicted to flashing colors (WaniKani is useful to me because it feels like a game). But if I should just crack open Genki One and burn through it, how would you recommend going about it? How much time should I spend every day, sort of thing? I know that sounds stupid, and I should have figured out how to self study by now, but I do really care about this and don’t want to let time pass me by and end up thinking “if only I tried harder, if only I did instead.” Again, thank you all for being helpful.

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I might recommend Cure Dolly’s videos as well for grammar, while initially hard to approach with her voice and avatar, her approach to grammar works well for really internalizing grammar and understanding it (mostly) agnostic from any language as a base. Along with this, you mentioned you have two jobs and classes, once WK starts to ramp up you might find a lot of difficulty finding more time for other aspects of Japanese.

You don’t mention anything about immersion so I’d also like to add that above anything immersion is probably the most important thing to do if you wanna get good at Japanese.

I like to think of grammar, vocab, and immersion as the three pillars of learning languages.

Vocab helps with your grammar (and immersion); you can plug words you know to explore the grammar point.

Grammar helps you with comprehension when immersing; you get to see the real world use of the grammar points and their possible nuances.

Immersion serves as the place to see all your learning in action and see how it gets applied in the real world. This also serves as a mirror to let you see what you don’t know. Thus letting you focus in on immediately relevant grammar points or words to focus on for your next study.

This then enables you to immerse more which enables you to study more. It creates a nice positive feedback loop of progress.

I recognize however that this method is rather non-linear compared to a structured system like classes or Genki, so if this style seems very foreign to you, structured learning might be a better fit.

All of this is hindsight however, as I did what you plan to do, I only did WK til pretty much 60 before I started my grammar and immersion. I would have done it like the way I outlined here if I could start again. I’m now currently working my way through Bunpro and Cure Dolly’s videos while immersing and working on burning everything left in WK.

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Don’t worry too much about the “how”. There are several parts of Japanese to learn.

Grammar
Vocabulary
Kanji
Hiragana, Katakana
Reading
Listening

Do 1, 2 or 3 of them at the Same time, but concentrate on one Thing and do the other a bit on the Side. At one Point you will feel stuck. That’s the time to Change the Part you do mainly.

I First learned Hiragana and Had No Problem with it. Katakana was more difficult because so many of them are very similar to each other. At that time I started to learn Grammar and Kanji. I looked Up Katakana when I needed them. I still have some Problems with some Katakana but I don’t worry too much because they are Not used as often as Hiragana. I also heard Japanesepod 101.

But: Grammar and listening got very exhausting because I Fell behind with vocabulary. So for 1 or 2 month I stopped with Grammar, completely stopped with listening, and spend my time mainly with vocabulary and Kanji.

Now (6 month into learning Japanese; 8 If I would count Hiragana/Katakana) I’m Reading (= Translating) since 7 weeks my First book. I learn a Lot less Kanji and No vacobulary outside of WaniKani and Translating the book. But I started with Grammar again around 2? Weeks ago.

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I tried that Nihongo Con Teppei podcast while I’m at work at the factory, and my mind just drifts off all the time. I thought, “Oh, I can put immersion off till after I get enough vocab to understand it” but I suppose that you’re right. I do occasionally put the Japanese radio on and listen to music for a bit, but I don’t know if that’s entirely optimal either. Should I go back to Teppei and just make a more concerted effort?

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You might want to have a look at https://bunpro.jp/ , it uses similar mechanics to WaniKani. Maybe your brain will like it as well :blush:

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If you don’t understand anything at all, I would instead recommend japanesepod101 pathway 1.1 and 1. I tried pathway 2 too, but it was too exhausting and I always Fall asleep. They explain some Grammar and you will learn how Japanese should Sound. But you should concentrate on it. Don’t do it when you need your concentration for Something Else.

When people with english as their native language say “anime” they often pronounce it Like änimay.

The Japanese pronunciation is very similar to the German pronunciation. At least it feels Like that to me.

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You don’t have to go all out with the active listening at this point, since you say you don’t have grammar yet, and you’re only level 8 with WK. It’s fine that you just listen to it as you work passively, your brain will kind of “highlight” the words you know anyway. As you do more WK and grammar study, you will naturally come to comprehend more.

What you can do right now is just get your brain used to the pace and cadence of Japanese. This just happens unconsciously while you listen. At the same time you build familiarity with actual spoken Japanese at native speed.

The long and short of it really is, how much immersion time you put in dictates how “easy” Japanese feels to comprehend, whether it’s passive or active isn’t super important, because as you get better, you will do both more and more.

I’d also like to recommend YUYUの日本語Podcast, he’s got subtitles for his podcasts so when you have some time to just sit and watch the videos while listening, you’ll get some reading in as well. Variety from different speakers and how they sound helps a lot for overall comprehension.

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I agree wholeheartedly with the other users here, no outside engagement with things like grammar will make even the process of WK itself incredibly difficult and confusing. WK is great, but its exploration of conjugation, particles, structure, kana-only vocab, etc. is (by design) not its focus to the point of being nonexistent here. Everything in linguistic study supplements each other, so it’s best to vary the scope as you go through it.

As with any art form- language included- there is immense value to learning from varied resources, so I wouldn’t recommend all eggs in one basket. However, for something more gamified I’ve gotten a lot out of Busuu.com - it’s similar to Duolingo but with much better guidance and explanation of the concepts being explored, along with containing much better listening and writing practice, longer form reading, content variety, and even interaction with native speakers. It also has tests based on CEFR language levels that can help gauge progress.

I also think Tofugu has tons of valuable content, JLPT study guides can help see progress levels and standards to aim for, and Jisho.org is richly detailed for vocabulary and contextual assistance.

Beyond that though, I say explore any and all corners you can. Websites, forums, youtube videos, books (I know not keen on, but more manageable when one gear in a larger system rather than sole focus), etc. I’m sure people more equipped than I will give some specific suggestions, but widening your net in general will let you see all sorts of new perspectives and compare/contrast to emphasize key elements and those more expressive of individual voice- all which are useful. Any effort to diversify your experience will only serve to help you practice and grow, in my opinion.

The hardest part of learning a language, especially one as complex and nuanced as Japanese, is that it is a long process- and one with inevitable roadblocks. Even goals like “complete a course” are so large it can be overwhelming quickly no matter the intention and determination going in. Above all else, don’t strain yourself and find peace in a slow-burn. Bite-sized and very intentional goals make it much easier to stay committed, see tangible progress, and fit into schedules in a way that works for oneself. It’s a big undertaking, but one you should feel very proud for taking on at all. You’re doing great and will continue to do so as long as you stay determined and mindful.

Looking forward to seeing you grow, you got this !

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I actually think that focusing on vocab over everything else makes sense, especially if your short term objective is to be able to understand Japanese and not necessarily to speak it, but you still need to study some basic grammar on the side (the stuff that’s usually labeled N5/N4 must be known as early as possible).

On top of that, WaniKani teaches kanji, not vocab. It sometimes picks uncommon vocab just to reinforce a kanji. It also sometimes skips common words that either don’t have a kanji reading or are using kanji that are already heavily represented in the course.

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So I have four recommendations, but you can use one, four or none of them, they’re just ones that worked for me:

  1. Bunpro is a SRS site for grammar and vocab. It was originally just grammar, and you can still use it as just a grammar site and it syncs with Wanikani to do things like omit furigana on words that you’ve gurued on Wanikani. It also has a vocab SRS which the WK sync will automatically mark vocab from WK as cleared so as to reduce duplicate effort.
  2. Cure Dolly - She’s a YouTuber that’s not for everyone (because of her vtuber avatar and distorted voice for privacy reasons), but her basic model of the language is very helpful for understanding as a beginner. You don’t need to finish the playlist, but the first 15 are so are a very good foundation for starting grammar. I will say that she does over-simplify a little bit, which is fine, all educational material does, but it’s worth calling out as she repeatedly insists that it’s actually other resources that over-complicate and I disagree.
  3. Game Gengo He’ll go through grammar points individually with clips of actual usage from video games and has generally pretty good explanations for N5, N4 and N3 grammar. He has his complete N5, N4, N3 videos which are good for revision and after a bit, but if you’'re starting at the very beginning I recommend his Genki playlist. It has a few videos produced especially for the playlist, but mostly it’s re-ordering his existing videos to fit with the lesson order in the genki textbook rather than his own alphabetical order of his jumbo videos. Even if you’re not using the Genki textbook, I’d still recommend this playlist.
  4. Genki I. Yup, it’s a textbook, but it is actually a pretty approachable one I found and some things are just easier in a textbook environment. Good to pair with Bunpro for testing yourself (they have a deck to go along with the textbook), or Game Gengo for a more visual explanation and in-context examples.

As others have mentioned, immersion is also pretty good, but it’s also very hard to jump into. Now, even if you finish all 60 levels of Wanikani before reading your first children’s manga, or listening to your first podcast for beginners, it’s still going to be hard the first time. With that said, I think a basic foundation (N5 grammar and/or dolly’s first 15 videos, 100 or so of the most frequent vocab) will make that less painful that it’s worth doing that first, but it is true that at some point you’ll need to try out your learnings in immersion to really cement and test them.

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I forgot to mention that I’m using the textbooks Japanese from Zero and the YouTube Videos.

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If you wait to finish WK, which will take 1-3 years at a decent speed, you’ll have forgotten most of the early stuff you “burned” because it’s too easy to not practice them.

Besides, you would miss out on the great joy of reading something and going “hey, I just studied that on WK!” Happens to me all the time and it’s great.

Start on grammar ASAP to learn at least N5 and N4 grammar. You’d be surprised how much you can understand from just some basic grammar and context.

Here are my grammar resource recommendations:

  • NativeShark (unconventional non-JLPT order that focuses a lot on casual grammar)
  • JapanesePod101 (use VIP65) because it’s also good listening practice. Pathways tend to be JLPT-like
  • Renshuu (for free)

Then go consume some content. Don’t be discouraged if it’s hard at first. The more you read of a genre, the more you’ll see the same words.

Podcasts, vlogs, and comprehensible content can be good if they offer non-auto-generated subtitles. Recommendations:

  • Speak Japanese Naturally
  • Comprehensible Input Japanese

And don’t be afraid to try some books or (upper level) graded readers. If you’re using children’s books, aim for at least 4th grade or for “all ages” (with kanji). People often recommend manga, but manga tends to have a lot of casual grammar. JLPT grammar resources often skew polite, which you’ll see more in the narration of short stories and novels.

Some book recommendations:

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As everyone has already pointed out, don’t go vocabmaxx because learning a language with ONLY vocab does not make sense. Nobody needs to memorizes the dictionary before learning English grammar, the vocab should grow alongside your overall language capacity. Honestly if you have 0 Japanese outside of wanikani, I’d say take classes for grammar first and foremost. Classes and textbooks go hand in hand usually, but not always. After having a secure base and being able to understand some stuff, then you can try engaging in language exchange and also increase immersion.

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Would reading a book in Japanese that I’m familiar with in English help? I’ve been thinking of picking up the Japanese version of Mistborn, if I can find any second hand copies.

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Yes, but you’ll want a base foundation of common grammar and vocabulary before going in.

The advantage of reading something you know is you spend less time trying to understand what’s going on (context) and being said, and spend more time building up your brain’s pattern recognition for vocabulary and grammar (and kana/kanji).

The disadvantage is that it becomes easier to gloss over things you don’t understand that are better to learn, but I wouldn’t worry about this too early on. The less you know, the more you have available to learn, and the less it matters if you skip over things a bit. As long as you’re still learning something along the way.

I’m not familiar with the series, but I see it’s recommended for ages 13 and up. As such, a Japanese translation shouldn’t be “too difficult” as far as material in general goes, but do expect to go into it being completely unable to understand anything.

One method for learning is to look up all the words and grammar you don’t know as you go. This means each page can take hours to go through. But as you start to learn the common grammar and vocabulary, you’ll spend less time on look-ups.

Of course, even if you’re looking up grammar as you go, you’ll still want something like CureDolly’s subtitled “Japanese From Scratch” YouTube series that others have mentioned. It lets you know what grammar to focus on first and introduces it in a way that makes it easy to understand and digest, especially if the textbook format doesn’t work as well for you.

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Before I waste your time with my TedTalk, learning a language is a marathon, not a sprint. And completing something that teaches you Japanese doesn’t equal being done learning said aspect of Japanese. Now let’s start:

WK is a kanji supplement, but you will not learn Japanese only doing WK. Plus it’ll be 2 years before you “Finish”.

Genki 2 will get you to N4 which isn’t even conversational, and you should definitely do the Genki books alongside your WK studies.

You probably shouldn’t do any courses and just opt for a tutor on iTalki once or twice a week (assuming you have the funds).

Going back to iTalki, you should just interact with people who are there to help you learn the language. People (especially Japanese people) don’t want to be your tutor, much like how you wouldn’t want to just be their English tutor. iTalki at least sets the expectation you are there to learn and they are there to teach you Japanese, there is a shared goal/interest.

You can “kick it” over hear any time if you have a degree and a pulse, you could be a English teaching monkey as most English speakers are here.

If your schedule is so packed, it’s good to just evaluate what’s important to you. Japanese can be a small thing until you have the time to really dedicate time to it, but you won’t make much progress if it only takes up a small fraction of your daily life which is why you hear the term immersion used so much in the learning space.

Anyways, thats my lecture. Good luck and try to do a mix of everything and do what works for you.

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