I recently reached level 8 (lets goo) and have got myself about half way through the N5 grammar on BunPro, so I feel now is a good time to add in a vocab resource to my learning! This is mostly because I have found not being able to put together sentences (even just showman ones to show off a bit when my parents ask how my japanese is going lmao), has been impacting my desire to learn. Idk if anyone else finds this, but knowing x amount of kanji doesn’t really make people asking believe you work hard.
Anyway! I want to start understanding more of what I hear, and just start chipping away at vocab! so any great resources you guys loved? or heard of? any tips for that first few words etc!
anything at all you found helpful! fire away at me <3
I definitely feel you, I can’t truly impress anyone just yet, though my dad seems to recognize my progress despite barely knowing what kanji is.
So most people recommend podcasts and JDrama’s, try to use Japanese subtitles, that way you will see the kanji associated with the words they say and you might be able to figure out the meaning of what they just said. It’s a lot of consuming.
And of course Anki decks. Which I don’t use, but if so many people use it, might as well try it yourself.
I always did mirroring while watching J-Dramas, eventhough at that time I didn’t know what mirroring was and I just started to talk to myself in japanese (which is weird I know, but I talk to my self even in german )
somehow sentence structure just stuck as well as some vocab though it might not have been the most advanced or useful vocab… I mean when will I ever need to talk about murder or affairs and stuff in real life
I’m working on grammar through Genki and it has A LOT OF Vocabulary, very useful for the everyday life.
Otherwise, yeah try novels for children, animes you’ve already watched with Japanese subtitles, easy Japanese (todai app), etc.
You have plenty of resources on the Japanese Language category on this forum as well.
Japanese ammo with Misa, Miku real Japanese and Japanese from zero are some of the best youtube grammar channels in my opinion! Try not to rush the grammar I’d say
I think what helped me a lot was this gaming YT channel 兄者弟者. I find a let’s play of a game I like and watch it like a show.
Or they also have 2broRadio, just kind of a gaming podcast which I’ll listen to when doing something manual maybe. There’s nothing more satisfying than hearing that new word that you just learned in WK everywhere.
But most importantly, these guys are a lot of fun to me, so I have no problem consuming them nonstop, and that’s the most important thing when learning Japanese - consume, consume, consume. So find something youlove consuming, consume it a lot, and be curious while doing it!
If I hear some vocab I’m interested in I plop it into jisho, maybe I’ll remember it, probably not. Next time I might look it up again, and it gets a bit more solid in my brain (it’s kind of a real life SRS!)
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