The Level 10 Tradition, Plus Learning Resource Sharing

Well I reached level 10 about a week ago and I suppose I should follow tradition and share some thoughts. It’s a long one, so buckle up!

I believe I reached it in 89 days, which it certainly felt much longer. I definitely intend to slow down, and maybe aim for 14-15 days per level instead of the 9 I was averaging. My review log was getting very tall very quickly each day, so I’ve opted to only do new lessons once my Apprentice pile dips below 100. This decision definitely helped my retention of newer items. As it’s always stated, it’s a marathon, not a sprint. :slight_smile:

I’ve been slowly branching out and finding additional resources to help expand and brush up on other aspects of my learning. Most of these I have the wonderful community here to thank! I thought it might be nice to share ones that have stood out for me. With any hope, someone else may find something handy!

KaniWani

and

KameSame
Both probably need no introduction. They’re like WaniKani, but in the other direction, where you are given the english and need to recall the Kanji or vocab in Japanese. I, personally, started with KaniWani and switched to KameSame, but there is no wrong choice. Both let you sync and use your WaniKani progress via API key.

Bunpro
Kind of like WaniKani, but for grammar. Super handy and categorized by JLPT level, learn grammar points through SRS. Much more self-moderating needed, Bunpro will not tell you to slow down or stop, so don’t go too crazy!

Bilingual Manga
A personal must-have for reading practice. Free manga, ready for reading that you can toggle between Japanese and English (or your chosen languages) with a button on the side. Even better, the text is all HTML, so you can highlight and copy text from speech bubbles. What’s more, it means Rikaikun (listed later) even works on it, so you can use it to spot-check new kanji and vocab.
Yotsubato! has been a great first reading material so far for me (https://bilingualmanga.com/manga/yotsubato)

Speechling
Listening comprehension practice. IMO, not as geared towards beginners as it may think, but still nice enough to share. Individual audio clips from categorized phrase modules. Listen, repeat and/or interpret for yourself, see/hear sentence with translation, repeat. Uses multiple people, so voices constantly change; some speak very slow and clear, some speak conversationally.

Self-testing
A large collection of self-testing material. Mostly categorized by JLPT level, listening, grammar, reading, etc., plus miscellaneous categories like Death Note and Dragon Ball phrases.

Cure Dolly
A controversial share, apparently. She uses a 3D avatar and voice filter, which understandably bugs a lot of people. She also tends to use click-baity titles. But, having said that, her explanations are fantastic. I am currently going through her grammar videos, but beyond those, she has a ridiculous amount of content. Each video is usually around 10 minutes long.

Japanese Ammo
Misa’s videos very thoroughly explain Japanese in general. Focus is definitely aimed more at the listening and speaking aspects, so she’s great for understanding everyday conversational skills. Her videos describe things wonderfully, and she gives a lot of real sentence examples along the way. Each video is usually around 30 minutes long.

Tofugu Grammar
I believe this is where I spent most of my grammar-learning at first. Individual grammar points are nicely explained in their own articles. Great for focusing on a single item, as many resources tend to explain multiple related ones simultaneously.

Jisho
I assume pretty much everyone knows and uses Jisho, but including just in case. Jisho, being “dictionary” is just that – a very accessible Japanese dictionary.

Rikaikun Chrome Extension
A must-have extension for Chrome users. When toggled on, mousing over any kanji/kana will pop up a box showing possible pronunciation, translations, and more. Extremely handy as a beginner for double-checking your understanding or when bumping into new kanji.

Feel free to share more for me or anyone else! I didn’t list Tae-Kim, Anki, or some other frequent mentions. Those just didn’t click well enough with me to give a fair overview of, but I am not at all offended to see those or anything else shared!

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Thank you! You listed a number of resources I wasn’t familiar with and which look very interesting. I’m going to bookmark and check them out further. This was really helpful. :+1:

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I haven’t seen these three before! The rest of the list is very similar for me (and, presumably, for many other learners, since they are great resources), and I’m at approximately the same level, so I think these will be useful too. Thank you!

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These are some amazing grammar resources I have not quite seen yet. I need to check them out to help supplement the LingoDeer stuff I am doing. I’m finding Lingo is great for reinforcing but not so great at actually teaching the content.

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Congrats on reaching level 10!
I think that I don’t know one or two resources in your list :thinking:
Would you mind adding new ones to the ultimate resource list on the forum?

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Bilingual Manga is… not entirely kosher.

And not an awesome translation either.

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Congratulations on reaching level 10!

And thanks for links - haven’t seen all of these. And will check them out now.

I have not seen that post before, thank you! I fear for my free time with all those resources, haha. I can certainly pitch in with any I don’t see in it.

Bilingual Manga is… not entirely kosher.

And not an awesome translation either.

Can you perhaps recommend something to replace it with? I was looking for things to start reading in Japanese, hopefully somewhat fun and with an easy way to check the translation of individual phrases (so bilingual books/manga sound like an interesting idea). I’ve started reading free articles on Satori reader, and they are fine, but I would certainly appreciate other resources - the articles on Satori are somewhat dull (which is probably to be expected of beginner level texts with easy vocabulary, but still).

Awesome sources. I’m more or less where you are on WK, closing in on lvl10 soon…

I like to add two more resources that I use in addition to the most you listed:

Human Japanese apps are pretty good for studying grammar. Too soon to tell how good they are but so far I like it. The only thing that ruffles me about the app the wrong way is their separate pricing tiers for iPhone, iPad and Mac OSX.

They also made the Satori Reader app which I’m not using, yet. It is amazing app for reading, compatible with WK API v2 keys to hide furigana for kanji you already know. It is more for intermediate levels, there is a lot of free stuff to read but to unlock everything it’s paid. IIRC, ~$75 per year.

For now, for reading, I prefer TODAI Reader, aka Easy Japanese News app. Pretty good deal, $26 forever, and the iPhone/iPad app works on M1 MacBooks also. No WK API keys though to automatically hide furigana based on your progress.

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Cure Dolly videos are also often wrong unfortunately. For example, her saying が is used only for subjects and calling things like すげえ a Kansai dialect thing (it is pretty universal, but more of a Tokyo dialect thing if you want to choose one).

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Just started reading しろくまカフェ (Polar Bear Cafe), great resource for testing my reading in a setting that is entertaining for me.

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