What else do I need?

hm… how or where would I find a helpful overview and explanation of the particles? So far I found it a bit confusing and I dont even know that many :roll_eyes:

get “a beginners/intermediate dictionary of japanese grammar”. you can do lessons anywhere, these books will then provide you with a great alternative that might answer any question your main textbook might have left.

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You can check Youtube for the starting basic particles.
‘Learn Japanese From Zero’ has some good easy to understand videos,
’ LearnJapanese123 Video’ another one for some basic info.
’ Tomokazu Morikawa’ not many videos but good, he is a Japanese Teacher.

Also ‘JapanesePod101’ has some basic video’s, however I don’t recommend their website as it is a mess of confusion, you can however find some information about basic particles, just dont pay for this site at all, it is full of confusion and far too many mistakes. However, someone did post on this site a listed order study plan that is useful with the site.

There are others, just start simple, don’t clog your mind with stuff it’s better to absorb the information.

I’m going to go against a few others who say not to do the exercises in Genki (or any textbook) - they may not be the most exciting or intellectually stimulating activities, but actively producing language (even if it’s snooze-worthy stuff like これは私のぺんです。) helps cement it in your mind and get your brain used to patterns. Plus, you already dropped the money on the textbook, why not use it to its fullest?

With that said, good luck! Remember, the road to proficiency and fluency is not a sprint, but a marathon, and it’s always okay to go slow. Glad to have you here!

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I agree with those that said get grammar and listening practice in early. My favorite newfound resource by far for both is Japanese Ammo with Misa - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLd5-Wp_4tLqYZxS5j3g6kbeOfVXlTkr3N

What I wish I started doing earlier:

  • Working on active listening. I use SuperNative for this now.

  • Writing kanji – around level 28 I realized I was having a lot of trouble differentiating visually similar kanji, and so I started learning to actively write all the new ones I was learning. This helped a lot, and I wish I’d been doing it from the start. (It’s also just kind of fun and satisfying to be able to write imo). I’m slowly working my way through learning to actively write all of the ones I didn’t learn to originally, and I’m at about Level 13 right now.

I have kind of a specific SRS-y technique for practicing writing that I'll describe here so this doesn't get too long.
  • I take a piece of paper and fold it into four. In each of those sections, on the left side I write the English words for the kanji I’m going to learn to write. (I usually do 10-11 at a time). I randomize the order of the English prompts in each of the sections.
  • I open all the WK pages for the kanji I’m learning to write in tabs.
  • I read through all the mnemonics again and write out the kanji in the first section.
  • I close all the tabs, fold the paper so I can only see the second section, and set a timer for 5 minutes. Then I fill out the kanji in the second section from memory. I unfold the paper, compare with the first section and see what I got wrong or right.
  • I fold the paper so I can only see the third section, wait 15 minutes, then fill that out.
  • I fold the paper so I can only see the third section, wait 30 minutes, then fill that out.
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Yeah, the videos got me hooked before I even knew about the series.

I’ve got the second book, it’s 350 pages with heaps of activities, but I haven’t started using it yet, as I’m doing uni studies at the moment.
It looks good though.

The only other Youtube one I use regularly is:

Her voice annoys the hell out of me, but there’s a lot of good info that she approaches in a way that is different than other resources.

slice of life stuff. the more boring the better (by that I mean the less specialized vocab. I want shows where people are talking about how they feel about things and what they are going to have for dinner…)
some that I have liked:

second to last love (two seasons / viki)
midnight diner (netflix)
koinaka (viki)
million yen women (netflix)
always the two of us (crunchyroll)
terrace house (lots of seasons/ netflix)

ones that I make, i think that is a much better strategy than using premade. When I first started I made a deck of the 500 most common japanese words with english gloss on the back. Now I have a deck and when I read everyday I try to add 5-10 new items. They are usually either simple words or phrases (either a set phrase that gets used, or one that illustrates a common prepositional construction or verb usage). Then I do that everyday

I have not.


People of course feel differently about this, but… I reallly feel like the biggest value I got from bunpro is in the early levels where it made me write out the conjugations over and over again. Making those conjugations second nature was really useful practice.

I have found that for more complicated stuff (figuring out usage / semantics), bunpro was not a great tool for me. but im also not specifically studying for a JLPT test either so…

I don’t know if you’re still interested in practicing verb conjugations, but my favorite site for straight up verb drills is this one. It’s free!

(Also great drama recommendations! Thanks!)

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