Immensely helpful, thank you!!
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I don’t think hard-core immersion is efficient. I prefer what I call lazy immersion like watching lots of your favorite anime with English (or your mother tongue language) subtitles. As I learnt more grammar, my ear started to pick up some grammatical constructs. Also, as I learnt more vocabulary at WK, I started to recognize more words. And so on… These days, I watch US content (Netflix’s Wednesday, Disney’s Andor, etc…) with Japanese dubbed. Two years ago it was a pain when I changed my computer settings to Japanese- I reversed back to English in one day. But now when I am on vacation, I change the settings to Japanese. With reading: I can’t bring myself to read ahead if I do not get 90% of the meaning nailed down so I read Japanese books only in PDF since I use the Mac Dictionary App (even the English-Japanese dictionary in the Mac has lots of Japanese terms) or other Japanese-Japanese Dictionary Apps. Even if I understand the general idea, I stop a lot because I copy and paste the dictionary definition as a comment to the PDF. Now that my grammar is past N3, I also noticed that has been easier to recognize new grammatical structures when reading. Other day I was reading a text that had "とはいえ” and went to check on a grammar dictionary and found it to be a complete structure as I suspected. But looking back, it was super frustrating when I had finished Genki 1 and reached level WK level 60 but could not read any of the content in which I was interested. Probably it would be more efficient if I could just read ahead without being afraid of missing important details but that’s just not me…
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I think the great thing about immersion is that it doesn’t have to (fully) compete with active study time. You can listen with half an ear to some podcast while you’re grocery shopping, cleaning, doing the dishes, exercising, …, or you can watch some easy show when you don’t feel like studying anymore. It’s basically free study time.
In that regard I think it’s never too early to start.
One thing to be said about listening in specific, in the beginning one likely has the requisites to understand way more than they currently do, but a lack of practice holds them back.
I used to watch anime, record the audio and listen to it again as my immersion while I was a beginner (N4’ish) and what surprised me every time is how much more I understood on the second time, and even the third time.
As for when to start replacing more of your active study time, how much grammar you are able to recognize and how many high frequency words you’ve studied is a much better indicator than WK levels. WaniKani isn’t exactly the fastest way to make immersion comprehensible.
Personally I couldn’t stand graded readers, am not a big fan of manga and didn’t really enjoy reading books while having to look up a word every sentence, so I didn’t get serious about reading until I was at an N3’ish level. While my understanding of Japanese wasn’t bad because I had been listening a lot from the start, it improved drastically once I had read a couple novels. One might conclude from that that I should have started earlier, but I’m not sure I’d change that part if I could do it over. Immersion needs to be engaging and enjoyable, if you’re just pushing through pain without any enjoyment at all there’s no point. Both in terms of study and life quality. Japanese is a hobby for most of us, enjoying the long long climb to the peak is the best way to make sure you get there.
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I know that everyone* likes to shit on textbooks, but what they give you is consistent n+1 practice that matches the things you’ve currently studied. I really think e.g. Genki has really good reading sections and having (well, almost) completed both of its volumes, as well as being fairly advanced on WK and having studied some vocab decks, I feel much more confident reading some easy material. I just started playing Link’s Awakening in Japanese (a game that I practically know by heart) and I still need to look up things or am puzzled by e.g. colloquial phrases, but I definitely have quite a different starting point than if I knew only very basic grammar.
I personally hate struggling through content that is far beyond my ability level and to have to somehow piece things together by spending 1h on every sentence. Others find it more enjoyable, so YMMV.
There’s of course also reading materials targeted especially at beginners. Satori Reader is quite good in that respect.
* slight exaggeration
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My learning was completely backwards from most here. I was able to converse at a modest level, long, LONG before I was able to read much.
So I’m unsure if my views are terribly relevant.
That said, I think a big part of “immersion” is letting your subconscious work and getting your ego out of the way (learning like a child and not trying to understand everything). There is nothing efficient about immersion to my way of thinking.
Efficiency is a reasonable goal for logical, front-brain studying of grammar and building vocabulary, but immersion is all about MASSIVE amounts of constant input, much more than you can possibly understand in the beginning. It’s about quantity, not efficiency.
Immersion is easiest if you live in Japan. You can’t help but be surrounded by the language at all times - it’s effortless.
Outside of Japan you need to make the effort to surround yourself with it.
Either way, as long as you study in parallel, you’ll notice yourself slowly understanding more and more.
It’s possible my idea of immersion is different than others, but I see it as a necessary adjunct to your studies. It’s something you should strive to do forever, not some special technique you only do at some point in your learning.
P.s.
Forgot to mention that to me immersion is mostly about listening and less about reading in the beginning. The ideal case is listening to stuff with transcripts you lazily watch, not trying to catch every word.
Japanese TV is great for this: they constantly throw up subtitles whenever someone says something funny or interesting. Over time, you start hearing, reading, and understanding more and more.
Immersion via reading books/manga/whatever necessarily has to wait until you’ve built up a reasonable vocabulary, but listening can start immediately.
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I also tried that at some point and somehow didn’t like it at all. I’m not sure if it’s his voice or manner of speaking but it greatly annoys me and I can’t really understand much.
I prefer this podcast, personally: Japanese with Shun | RedCircle
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I am not dead on listening, but I feel that textbook listening is a basis for reading as well.
I think grammar should be learned beforehand, although not necessarily perfectly. Vocabularies perhaps can be forced through, and learned along the way.
When you are ready, listening with JP sub can help a lot.
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I went through the same as you, threw myself eagerly into “easy” material at around level 6 WK and was shocked as how little I could understand.
I’m also looking for efficiency, so I agree that it is not worth using 2 hours breaking down and translating two sentences when I could have been going through one Genki lesson instead.
So the strategy I’ve been using is to focus a lot on Wanikani until around level 17, by then you have all the N5 and almost all the N4 kanjis which is pretty useful.
In parallel, doing Genki to learn grammar. Getting some listening and reading exposure over there.
Not yet at an advanced level but now reading things on Satori Reader, the looking ups are not painful, basically just learning new expressions and seeing grammar in action and context, and there is audio too 
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If you want my 2 cents as well: I started immersing at around WK lv 10 with knowing about half the N5 grammar. Looking back, I think it was too early for me. I had high motivation and at the time I didn’t mind spending a couple of hours on a few manga pages, but as time went on, it felt less and less rewarding. In the beginning it felt like a game, where I decipher text to go to the next level, but soon it felt like a huge drag. Fortunately, I stayed consitent with WK and once I reached lv 20 I felt much better about immersion. I still needed to look up quite a few words and grammar constructs, but most of the time I could guess what was being said with the help of pictures. I also noticed that since then, I actually started to pick up some grammar points here and there or repetative vocabs from texts I was reading. At WK 10, the sheer amount of new information was just so overwhelming that nothing stuck.
I am aware that a lot of people think highly of immersion and that it is never too early. I happen to disagree. I want to enjoy my studies and constantly being confronted with how little I know was not fun at all. I am also not one of the people who just pick up a language while watching subbed anime. I’ve been doing that off and on for over a decade before I actually started to learn japanese and I still had zero knowledge. Even now I don’t consider watching anime as learning bc I know that I am just not like the Otaku gods, who rewatch their favorite series and pick up all relevant vocabs. That’s just not how my brain works. I need to actively tell my brain: “We will now try to remember this, so make some space and put that information in.”
I agree with @ChristopherFritz that the bookclub is a wonderful place! It helped me so much to get started bc you can ask even the most basic grammar and vocab questions or ask for translations of passages. There often is a detailed vocab-sheet, which features words, phrases and highlights contractions or other noteworthy things. Through this bookclub I also found great online ressources that I still use, mainly ichi.moe, which parses the sentence you give and thus makes it easier to decipher. I never got into graded readers bc I did not enjoy deciphering by myself. The bookclub gave me a great sense of community and prooved that I was not alone in my struggles.
Regarding listening, I don’t have a strong opinion. I’ve been listening to japanese music on and off for a long time, but like with anime I just don’t pick up stuff. Lately I truly enjoyed japanesepod101.com. They usually present a dialogue and then work on specific target phrases or grammar points. Explanations are usually done in english and/or japanese, depending on the level you choose. When someone points out specific things to me, I can remember them a lot better. This is a paid service though and I highly recommend searching the internet for heavy discount coupons. I found a 60% discount code for the 2year plan and I think it’s worth the money I paid. I have tried Nihongo con Teppei, but like @Fryie I just never liked him/his content.
And finally some encouragement: It will get easier! The more you know the easier it will become! Do what you enjoy and don’t forget that everyone is on their unique learning journey! 
Tldr: I recommend immersing with bookclubs at around WK lv 20 for an enjoyable experience and listen to some curated content, if you want.
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So for reference, here’s my journey with Japanese.
First Year:
Independently went through Genki 1 and struggled to get myself on any real routine that would get me anywhere. Sometimes I would read one chapter for the week, then drop it. Basically I finished Genki 1 after a year, but my mastery of the material was iffy at best.
Year 2:
I started going to a class for Japanese but did so almost entirely in English, but went through the materials of Genki 2 on a weekly basis. At this time I had also begun WaniKani, and got consumed with speedrunning it and it became my entire focus until the January the following year.
Year 3: I got burned out on WK, got to level 30 or something around there, and just couldn’t keep the routine up. It was also affecting my marriage in negative ways and just thought I should stop and find a new routine entirely. I then got into the JLPT grind and became obsessed with passing. Since I had finished Genki 2 by this point I got N4 prep books and buckled down with those and started trying to read manga. I tried to read about a chapter a day, but I took it really slow some days.
This was also around the time Corona became a thing and so the N4 test was cancelled. I then did Tobira, then jumped to N3 prep materials, as I had pretty much mastered the N4 materials to the point I was positive I would have passed given the opportunity. Around the fall I began reading One Piece, Rent-A-Girlfriend, and started reading a volume a day and started to snowball into an insane amount of reading. Did I actually comprehend what I was reading 100%, no. Was I having fun doing it? Yes.
Also around that time I got Dragon Quest XI S and started to use that for immersion since it had furigana.
I also started a calligraphy class to force myself into a situation where I needed to use Japanese.
Year 4:
I had passed the N3 and naturally began the grind of trying to pass the N2. I took my N4 and N3 prep plans and just upped them a level and failed both times that year. I still kept reading, but I began losing my confidence in my abilities. I basically swore that I wouldn’t take the JLPT again unless I felt like I could pass it without studying.
Year 5 (now):
I have gotten into the routine of reading so much or listening to so much every day that I don’t stress about it anymore because I genuinely look forward to it. Classes now I do completely in Japanese, but as I have posted before, my speaking is terrible and the worst part of my skills.
TL;DR It took me about 2 years to get into reading native stuff and about 4/5 years to start reading things where I don’t think about it too hard even if there is stuff I don’t understand. Some material is just really hard, but you will get there eventually.
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There’s no point in immersion when you don’t even have the basics. You can s tare at a Japanese book all you want, it won’t help you unless you have a foundation. The point of the post is how to maximize the utility of immersion, not whether immersion is useful or not.
“The pain is the way” is bullshit as you can have pain without progress.
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I never said any of that. Who are you arguing with?
In theory you can start reading as soon as you know Hiragana and Katakana using my website. That might save you some tears 
.
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Not to encourage any arguments, but rather with the hope of curbing them, I’d just like to say that whether you spend 1 week studying Japanese before picking up your first native reading material, or 1 year, it’s going to be a struggle.
There are going to be entire sentences that are just gobbledygook. Your eyes will feel strained and tired. Your mind will go numb. You’ll be skipping nearly entire paragraphs, even if your original intent was to understand every word as you go, because the lookups will become exhausting.
It is true that the more you study, the more efficient your ability to read will be, but you may be overestimating exactly how much easier it will be. That year you spent studying as preparation for reading will make you angry at yourself, for not just reading alongside your study.
Every aspect of language learning is a skill, and like any skill, you have to work at it to improve its proficiency.
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(psst. Did you know, if you go to a member’s profile, you can change them from ‘normal’ to ‘muted’. perfect peace ensues)
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The worst advice I ever received wrt learning Japanese was exactly this:
And I have seen a lot of bad advice (especially on Reddit) including “romaji is good enough”. And yet, this was the worst. Nothing stunted my progress more than the time wasted trying to immerse without enough of a foundation.
I reached a similar conclusion to that voiced by a lot of people on here: build sturdy, even if basic, foundation before you dive in. Consider it the water in the pool. Without it, you go face first into the pool and land on your nose. Yes, like in the cartoons. It is very demotivating.
Every time I restarted WK, it was primarily because I was frustrated with not getting the foundations right and trying to dive in. It led to me walking away and then coming back after too long a gap and deciing to reset.
I have also picked up a bunch of advice from this thread, so although I’m not OP, thanks y’all!
I think the advice to get at least N5 done first and then starting slowly alongside N4 is solid.
About listening, I wouldn’t know. It doesn’t interest me too much (nor does speaking), so it’s on the backburner for me.
For the low N levels, Bunpro does seem to be a good choice. I’m doing it alongside 80/20 Japanese (I love this book because of how straight forward it is with no BS group activities) and the beginner Tobira book (I use this because I’m very excited to go thorugh the intermediate OG Tobira book).
The only “immersing” I do currently, is through Jalup. I like the slow burn and can feel the difference as it solidifies my understanding of the grammar and I pick up vocab along the way.
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We should be the ones asking this. None of your posts in this thread addressed OP’s question.
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While I don’t use them anymore, I think textbooks are super effective when starting out. They’re structured in a way that introduces the fundamentals in a cohesive way with all the grammar and vocabulary you need to know for the moment, and builds up that knowledge progressively from the bottom to the top. It lets you build a solid foundation that you can expand comfortably later on. I think they’re great because you get to practise all the grammar and vocabulary they teach both through reading and listening, and since it builds on what you already know it doesn’t feel overwhelming at all.
I personally started podcasts and other things once I had Minna no Nihongo 1 and 2 completed, which should address around N5 and N4 respectively. Before that all the listening I did was from those books, some audio that our teachers brought to class and speaking between students. If I had started before that I would have felt super overwhelmed, because as you say I wouldn’t have understood barely anything, but with the foundation I already had I was able to start listening to things on my own and feel relatively fine-ish.
My recommendation is to build that foundation first and then expand with graded readers or podcasts or any other resource aimed at beginners or lower intermediate learners that you like. Anything that has grammar, vocabulary, reading sections and audio should work for now, anything that lets you apply what you’re learning in different ways. I used Minna no NIhongo in a classroom setting, which is probably an advantage already, but it has a separate book with grammar notes and translations that I got anyways that is extremely helpful. I think it also has a separate reading book with texts and another one with more listening if you want. There’s Genki too, which people also like, and also a new Tobira one for beginners I think? I’d use those over things like Tae Kim or the like just for the benefit of having listening exercises and early exposure. I didn’t start WK until much much later, we used a separate book to learn kanji but since you’re doing WK you should be perfectly good to read any vocab with kanji in those books.
After that I started Tobira and it has reading sections that are a significant step above Minna no Nihongo, but still they didn’t feel super overwhelming, just something to work on patiently. Listening to those sections started feeling more like the intermediate podcasts like Nihongo con Teppei (the regular one, not the beginner one) and so on. Which is to say, they were hard at first, and they will be until you get used to it, but the more you do it the more you can get out of it.
Some people really hate textbooks, but since you mentioned efficiency I think it’s definitely something worth mentioning. I personally think the most efficient way to learn from different angles at the beginner level is a textbook. Then after beginner level, immersion starts being accessible and lets you learn from it instead if you want, as long as the level is not too high. I never finished Tobira (intermediate level), I did like half of it and then I started immersing on my own until now.
I’d pick one of the beginner textbooks and go with it, then occasionally if you want you can dip your toes into different types and levels of immersion and see how well you do, and if it’s still too hard just keep doing the books. I’d personally complete the beginner ones until the end regardless, but you can decide that yourself when you feel prepared .
While WK is great to learn kanji, it doesn’t prepare you for reading (not even Lv60 will make you a proficient reader; reading will, and the same goes for listening or speaking). If you really don’t like the textbook route, I’d suggest picking up one Anki deck for vocabulary instead, though perhaps another SRS on top of WK SRS might get overwhelming really quick. It’s not a great replacement, because you’d be missing listening exercises and so on, but it would still prepare you a little bit more than jumping straight to immersion right now in my opinion.
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Despite everyone telling me to jump in even if I know nothing, I have held off. It felt like such a waste of time.
I would watch a video or read a news article and couldn’t understand anything. It seemed like a waste of study time to look up everything.
So I kept pushing through with WaniKani, BunPro, and other study materials.
After about a month or two, I went back to a news article. I could see the progress. I could understand a lot more words, and there were more sentences that I could read that gave me context as to what is being discussed.
But I’m still not at the level I want to be to start immersion. So for me personally, I will continue my study until my foundation is good enough to begin immersion into reading materials.
From there, after 6 months to a year of comfortably working on reading immersion and continuing my study programs, I will then begin my focus on listening immersion.
Obviously everyone is different. But I need a base of knowledge, I can’t just jump in. And for me it’s been working.
It’s probably the slower route, but I feel like I’m really giving enough time for everything I learn to absorb before moving deeper into study.
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If this is what you’re experiencing with your immersion material, then unless you’re motivated enough to look every single thing up (probably not worth it because it’ll be hard to remember), you need to use something else. By the way, graded readers are meant for consumption; they’re not there to teach, so not being able to read something at ‘Level 0’ doesn’t mean you’re incapable of learning Japanese. You just don’t know whatever you need for ‘Level 0’ in that series. You don’t know all that yet, but you can learn it.
Also, I was about to say something myself, but…
I’m pleased to see I’m not the only one who considered this. I’ve had plenty of textbooks across various languages that I didn’t like. However, I can’t deny that the basic idea behind a textbook (gradual progress that builds on what the learner already knows) is helpful, even if the details (e.g. how much is explained in English, how many examples there are, how interesting the material is) may not be up to scratch. In particular, when you’re starting out, there are way too many things you don’t know for jumping into the language unguided to be efficient. (Anyone need proof? Look how long it takes us to learn our native languages. I took 5-6 years to pass for native in French. It took me 14-16 years to stop making ‘mistakes’ – the non-standard usages that were common around me – when using standard English. English is one of my native languages. Go figure.)
You can try Genki. It looks pretty good from what I’ve seen. My personal preference? This book from Assimil:
It’s only available as a paid download at the moment though. The good news? Very easy to carry around that way. You can learn while commuting if you do that a lot. The bad news? If you like printed books, you probably won’t like this. (I personally like the paper French edition better.) Still, I think it’s a really high-quality course that goes about as far as Genki and Minna no Nihongo (another famous mainstream Japanese textbook series), and it costs less than half of what either series does (you need two volumes from each series to reach N4; this is one course that takes you to roughly N4-low N3). If you want, you can download the app for free and try out sample lessons to see if their style suits you.
Why I like Assimil? Because the entire course is essentially ‘guided immersion’: you don’t waste (at least, I feel it’s a waste) time on tons of explanations and mini-examples that leave you wondering how this stuff looks in a real conversation or book. Instead, you get (slightly level-adjusted) simulated conversations and texts that are relatively natural with everything translated (no more wondering what Word A that’s not in the vocab list means!), and even literal block-by-block translations for most of the book (so you can compare the word order and structure in Japanese with what you’ve got in English). This is essentially the only sort of ‘intensive immersion’ (i.e. immersion where you try to learn what everything means) you can do as a beginner. It’s not possible otherwise. The only other resource that regularly does stuff like this is probably LingQ? But I don’t like their style, and you’re better off (in my opinion) using Yomi-chan, Rikai-kun, Japanese.io or some other (free!) sentence parser than paying for LingQ. Because LingQ is basically a sentence parser + curated content. Why pay for that when you could buy a more guided book with full translations and parsing? I have no clue…
The main thing that will look scary inside the Assimil course is the fact that they use kanji immediately: the first two sentences of Lesson 1 – which is a short conversation – literally look like this:
早く。
行きましょう。
But don’t worry: there’s also full romaji for quite a bit, and furigana hangs around for a long time too. (If you hate romaji because kana is ‘the right way’ and what we all need to know eventually, just remember this: this book was designed to teach people with zero Japanese knowledge. There are even kana lessons.) The main issue is that you might not feel that’s enough to remember all the kanji in there. What to do? Well, you’re already on WK, so that’s one thing. You can also buy this writing companion volume, which is on paper:
It’s basically a list of the kanji that appear in the textbook in order of appearance, along with where they appear, what words they appear in, and how to write them (stroke order). Do you need this book? No. But I figured I should mention it.
Anyway, so, enough about textbooks. What about immersion? I think enough has been said by everyone else, so I just want to keep this relatively short and introduce two concepts (I think Refold uses them too, and while I’m not a fan of Refold, I guess this much is accurate and useful):
- Extensive immersion is a possibility. That means that you just consume stuff without worrying about understanding everything. The vast majority of the immersion you’ll do is probably going to be extensive. What does it look like? Here you go:
(Thanks, @GrumpyPanda.) It can also be you sitting in front of a Japanese show you like with English subtitles on. No problem. Just vaguely look out for words you know, or words that sound interesting, and you’ll still get something out of it at the end of the day. Is this efficient in terms of ‘words learnt per unit time’ if you look almost nothing up? No, not really, unless you hear a word very clearly in the show/podcast and can match it with what’s in the subtitles/the context. But you might also be improving your listening skills, and getting a feel for how Japanese sounds and is structured.
- Intensive immersion is the other option. What’s it look like? You know the textbook I mentioned just now? Imagine doing all that parsing on your own. That’s intensive immersion: you try to understand everything you possibly can with the help of a dictionary and maybe even a friend. Is it efficient in terms of ‘words learnt per unit time’? Yes, quite possibly, but only if you can remember most of what you study during the session. What does that mean? It means that if you feel overloaded or see too many words you don’t know, intensive immersion is, conversely, not at all efficient. You’ll spend more time looking things up than understanding anything, and you’ll probably just end up frustrated at the end of the day. I passed the N1 in July, and intensive immersion has probably only been… 30% of my immersion time? I mean, sure, it increased over time, and I’m a weirdo who enjoys reading dictionary definitions, but point is, I didn’t do all that much. You don’t have to until you’re really aiming for native-level fluency (which is what I’m doing now).
Just for reference, most of my immersion time was spent watching anime with English subtitles. I’m still doing that. I only do no-sub practice for anime I like that I’ve already seen at least once. (One caveat: I also decided to start reading dictionary definitions in Japanese ASAP, but I still used English definitions to help me quite a lot. I only moved to ‘reading Japanese definitions in full by default’ around… 2.5 years in? It’s been 1.5 years since then, and sometimes it’s still hard 
Before that, it was ‘OK, I’ll try the Japanese definition first’, then I’d run back to the English definition. 
)
To sum up, you can and should start extensive immersion as soon as you can. The ideal would be to do it with something subtitled, and it should be something you enjoy. Look up anything that you remember from that immersion and which piques your curiosity, but don’t worry about understanding everything. Understand whatever you can. That’s all. (PS: I recommend subtitles especially because of this – you won’t enjoy yourself unless you know what’s going on. Therefore, psychologically, you’ll have a much better experience with subs than on media without them.) For intensive immersion, only do it with stuff that’s not too challenging and which you like. Also, I highly recommend only attempting intensive immersion after finishing a textbook. If you don’t like textbooks, go look for a course if you like, but the point is that you need a foundation. I tried learning Icelandic with a textbook written for beginners, but in Icelandic. Guess what? No surprise, it didn’t work out. Why? Because I needed explanations and translations, and it just took too much time to look up every single ‘hvæt heithir ðu?’ or ‘hlustad’ or whatever it was (excuse my Icelandic).
So don’t worry about it: not understanding is normal. I have a friend who told me one year into living in Japan that honestly, even though he had got his N1 before going to Japan, he still needed subtitles to understand everything in anime. The point is to keep increasing what you can understand until you can understand at least what interests you (e.g. anime, your favourite novel series, whatever you like), and then everything else, if you still feel like it. Immersion is just one part of it, and as long as you keep learning, you’ll eventually go from ‘extensive immersion is my limit’ to ‘even intensive immersion is easy’.
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