I am part Japanese that sadly never learned Japanese natively. I only know some words, phrases, and a song. Other than that, I didn’t learn that much from home. I also took a few classes in college but now I have forgotten a lot. I was wondering if there was any tips or resources where to begin to if you are relearning Japanese. I keep starting from the beginning but I feel bored and stop. This keeps happening again and again. I really want to get back on track to learning so I can speak to my grandma.
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hey dude. that sounds really sweet, that you want to talk to your grandma. I suggest lingodeer (app), which has its content divided into little units that you can test out of. that way you can place yourself exactly in the area you need to work on.
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Wanikani for reading kanji.
Tae Kim/Imabi/Wasabi for free resources to learn grammar. Bunpro if you want an SRS for the recall practice.
italki if you want tutors for practicing speaking or just general lessons. You can also get free credits to try out tutors before you dive in to pay.
SuperNative for testing your listening comprehension.
Then just read books/manga/news/etc. when you feel confident enough with your grammar and kanji skills (there’s also apps like Manabi Reader, etc. that will help you with news sites, blogs, etc. to read). Try to watch Japanese shows/anime/movies with Japanese subtitles to try to help your listening comprehension more. And then if possible, find a Japanese speaking/learning group or an informal class in your area to get practice in immersing yourself with other learners and speakers.
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You could try something like Rosetta Stone, there are a lot of lessons, and you can choose where to start.
But perhaps something simpler like an app or some grammar books may be more useful.
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Are you feeling bored because you already know some stuff? Then maybe a good approach is to use one of the aforementioned grammar sources and try to skip points that you feel you know already. Just quickly assess and move on, don’t try to study what you already know. Same with vocab. There are many 10k core decks and the like available on Anki and similar programs. Again, just remove words that you already know from your list as you go along. And, of course, if you’re practicing reading or listening, you can add vocab from those sources to your study deck as well. Reading and listening may actually be one of the better things you can do to maintain interest during this process. It puts a little fun in your routine and is a good way to show yourself your progress as you go along.
As for WaniKani, it’s a great start if you don’t already have a large store of kanji knowledge. It might be a little boring for the first few levels, especially if you learned some kanji in your college classes, but I promise it’s worth it to push through and go beyond to the higher levels.
Good luck!
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The last I looked, Rosetta Stone didn’t have Japanese, but RocketLanguages.com is fantastic! They cover nearly everything, but only a few kanji. Rocket has speaking, reading, writing, vocabulary, culture, grammar. Best of all, it is fun and has lots of reinforcement activities. It does cost, but I think it is well worth it. I’ve been using it for a year.
Definitely important to have clear goals and feel like you’re moving toward them. Using the language is good. Maybe an app like HelloTalk might be good to practice communicating with people and working on your skills in between getting to talk to your grandma.
It does have Japanese, and it also has talking, reading, vocabulary, culture, grammar, etc.
It’s also really modular, and I usually prefer apps to websites, feels more like a class, idk.
They’ve had a Japanese course for just over 2 decades.
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I second Lingodeer - it was super helpful in getting me back on track after the 10+ years since I took Japanese in college. Duolingo too.
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Thanks! I thought they should have, but when I was looking for it, it wasn’t there. I’m glad to know they DO have Japanese.
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