Suggestions for grammar study?

Japanese Language Grammar
#1

Hello, Wonderful World of WaniKani!
I am here because the WaniKani guide says:

Levels 1-10
You should get through these levels before trying to read too much. But, by level 5 you’ll have completed most of the kanji you’ll find in most beginner Japanese textbooks. This is a good time for you to start grammar study.

I am clueless on what good grammar study resources there are available for me, so after asking multiple people outside of WaniKani, I’ve decided to turn to you guys! Please give me some suggestions of what grammar study I should use when I get to level 5. Much appreciated! Love you guys!

4 Likes
#2

Check this out

3 Likes
#3

Uncanny valley visuals and a grating voice filter, but as a non-native English speaker that knows no English grammar terms - KawaJapa CureDolly’s YT channel and books is what I gravitated to.

#4

Books, I can understand. Youtube channel, I have no idea how you gravitated towards it. I can feel my insides trying to promote themselves to outsides when I listen to one of those.

3 Likes
#5

I understand and even agree, but still. :woman_shrugging: I’m a very auditory person (aphantasia ftw) so I get a benefit from hearing someone say it out loud - even if it grates like a [bleep].

#6

Hey, aphantasia buddies! I rarely meet someone who knows the term, let alone has the condition.

I’m more of a tactile person than an auditory one. As odd as it sounds, I’ll often focus on the way a shape or image ‘feels’, since I can’t reproduce it in my head. That, or the sensation of the stroke order for kanji.

1 Like
#7

Hear, hear!

I can definitely relate to that. Certain things have a feeling. At times I explain some of those feelings as “data bursts” - associations/auditory things/tactile things/feelings/thoughts/reasoning/summations about something that occur all at once in a split second. Don’t know if that makes any sense. :sweat_smile: (Never met someone yet that seems to relate to that sentiment).

Edit: Oh, and I smile wryly every time a mnemonic mentions how effective it is if you really picture that situation they describe. Yeah~ I’ll get right on that. :wink:

#8

I would recommend you watch Japanese Ammo with Misa. Especially this playlist
I’m using a combination of watching her videos and making bullet points in Evernote. Personally this works out better than using a texbook.

2 Likes
#9

I use Nihongonomori for videos. Also the Udemy JLPT courses, but they’re not free (essentially eternally “on sale” for $10) and a little dry.

2 Likes
#10

That’s good man. You should use what works out best for you :slight_smile:
Btw would you recommended the Udemy courses?

#11

No, I actually do the same thing! So that’s at least one person.

And yeah. While I can’t picture the situation, strong emotional response works wonders. I once imagined smashing my own face in a little too vividly for 歩. On the downside, I felt genuinely ill and still don’t particularly like seeing the kanji. On the upside, I don’t think I’ve ever gotten it wrong.

#12

Although it’s not free, I’m getting really good results from http://bunpro.jp.
I find the fact that it’s SRS based and has a similar feel to Wanikani allows me to really get in the zone and work through all my daily Japanese study in one go.

2 Likes
#13

Alright, thanks to everybody who gave me suggestions for grammar study (and to The Ultimate Additional Japanese Resources List!) for the help. I am down to the following choices:

I think I’m gonna go with Bunpro, but just want to see if you guys think there is a better option. So just let me know!

  • 1 Youtube
  • 2 Youtube
  • 3 Bunpro
  • 4 Tae Kim’s Guide
  • 5 Japanese For The Western Brain
  • 6 An Introduction to Japanese
  • 7 Visualizing Japanese Grammar
  • 8 80/20 Japanese
  • 9 Japanese for Busy People

0 voters

2 Likes
#14

I like to get my grammar studying in in a variety of ways. My #1 favorite way is talking with people through Line, HelloTalk, Twitter, etc. If I see grammar I don’t know, I look it up and write it down for later, more in-depth study. Not only does this introduce me to new grammar, it shows me grammar people are using in conversation and I’ve already got context for it to start with.

Another way is books. Slice of life manga and 小説 are great for this. Fairly everyday grammar, and depending on the novel, you’ll get some more complicated grammar in there as well. Plus this is a great way to work on additional vocab, too.

YouTube comes third. I’m also a huge fan of Nihongo no Mori. I think they’re hilarious and the teachers explain things well, and since it’s explained in Japanese (I’ve only watched N3 and above videos so I’m not sure about the N5/N4 ones), you get familiar with the Japanese context in a way you don’t when learning Japanese in English. I know a lot of people recommended Japanese with Misa but I find her really boring. Her videos are too long and she’s a little…dry and emotionless? I can’t explain it, but I’d recommend reading her blog over watching her videos. I usually have to quit after 4-5 minutes into her videos.

Finally, I use a lot of online resources like Japanese Test 4 You and Maggie Sensei. Tae Kim’s Guide to Japanese is good too, but I don’t love it. I’d also really recommend imabi.net. It’s better than any textbook in my opinion.

Sorry that was so long, but I hope it provided a little insight!

2 Likes
#15

I really like the structure of Bunpro and think it’s a useful practice and organisation tool, but I don’t think it could work well as a primary source. You just won’t get enough exposure nor explanation (it does have links on every grammar point that you should follow and read if you’re not sure though) with just Bunpro to gain a cohesive understanding of how sentences work. Use it with a deeper source that will give you more in-depth explanations of things, and don’t forget to practise your reading so you can use them~

I only know half the options on your poll, sorry. >_<

I think sydneyny’s advice was good, too. :+1: I don’t think Nihongonomori has a lot of super beginner content, since I looked recently for someone else, but I might be just dopey and have not noticed it.

Good luck in your studies!

4 Likes
#16

No Genki ?! :frowning: I don’t know how you guys can learn Japanese without doing any exercices.

1 Like
#17

All right guys, thanks for all of the help.
I think I’m gonna be going with Tae Kim’s Guide to Learning Japanese for my grammar study. If I find it doesn’t suit me, I’ll go with Bunpro (文プロ). I really appreciate it guys!

#18

Always use multiple sources anyway. You never wanna learn from just one. A lot of them can be great or even fantastic, but no one resource is perfect. Using a few gives you a lot better results than just one. :slight_smile: Good luck!

3 Likes
#19

I’m really late to the party but I’m going to throw my hat in and give a vote for Japanese for Busy People. It was my first exposure to Japanese and while sure, some of the vocab is focused on business so maybe not super practical, the grammar explanations and exercises helped me a ton when I was a newbie. Helped give me a solid foundation for sure, and when I went to Tae Kim to focus on passing N3 the foundation I had from JFBP helped me jump right in.

shrug Just an option if you wanted something more traditional.

Also, I wanted to suggest something that I really wish I had understood EARLY on because it would have saved me a TON of tears: don’t learn verbs as primarily “~masu” (e.g. 食べます、行きます）. Try to grasp early on that ~masu is just one way of expressing a verb. If I had known that early on and if I had focused more on memorizing the stem form of verbs, I would have had WAY less problems later on when -te forms were introduced.

2 Likes
#20

This topic was automatically closed 365 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.