Hello everyone!
I am not really getting anywhere with using multiple kanji, vocab, and grammar sites or books to help me understand Japanese, which makes sense mostly because of the lack of immersion. I hear some people do immersion-based learning by simply listening to as much Japanese content as possible and not so much typical studying.
Is the best way to do this listening to basic content or more natural, typical Japanese conversation-- and how should you study alongside it for the best results? For example, do you specifically study primarily words you pick up in the podcast, video, etc., like mining, and focus on that? Or would it be good to study Japanese as normal while just taking in as much input as possible?
I think I struggle harder because I am someone who gets easily overwhelmed and frustrated while trying to actively listen. It’s fast, I have to go back over sentences several times to understand them, I get frustrated, and I end up with dozens of new words that I don’t even really know what to do with (other than sentence mining which is hard for me to stick with when I get so many new words each day).
Thank you so much for reading! I appreciate any tips and help here so much. I definitely want to try immersion again, but I want to do it in a correct way that might hopefully be less overwhelming and confusing. Thanks!!
For immersion, I highly recommend
I recommend just listening and trying to understand what you can. Don’t be frustrated if you don’t understand something. If you manage to at least understand the general meaning of the video – it’s already very good, even if there are words you didn’t understand. You can always re-listen again. The important thing is to just relax and keep listening.
I also recommend doing various approaches – WaniKani for kanji, podcasts for immersion, whatever resource you are using for grammar, something easy like
or
or
https://drdru.github.io/twc.html
for reading…
In any case, best of luck with your studies! 
Seems like you’ve gotten overwhelmed trying to figure out the ‘correct’ way to study, which can happen pretty easily with Japanese I find.
Japanese is a difficult language so yes, I would continue studying grammar like normal. Choose a grammar resource to study and stick with it, don’t jump around between resources.
Choose one resource to learn kanji, and continue to use it. If you’re getting overwhelmed mining vocab, make a daily limit (like 10) and do not add words after you’ve hit the limit.
It would also help if you know what you would like to accomplish with the language. Is being able to read the language your goal? Then focus on reading more. Is listening your goal? Then do listening. Is conversation your goal? Sign up for tutoring/get on a language exchange site.
Personally, I don’t believe as a beginner that it’s necessary to do many hours of listening a day. If you don’t understand that much, you’ll just tune everything out. I recommend setting an easy daily limit (10mins a day) and listening to an easy beginner podcast like Teppei. Once you have done this for a while alongside your other studies, you’ll naturally understand more, and you can move onto a more difficult podcast and increase the amount spent daily. There’s no reason to overwhelm yourself!
Thank you so much for the advice and resources! I did listen to Nihongo Con Teppei a little, but I studied kanji far more than anything else. Since listening doesn’t use kanji I got very discouraged at how little I understood. But I will definitely try again and try to place a little more emphasis on vocabulary as I study, hopefully that will make it a little easier. Thank you for the help!! Good luck with your studies as well! ^v^
Yeahh definitely. It always feels like I’m doing it wrong, but I’m relieved to hear that’s not just me! I currently use Bunpro, Marumori, and Tae Kim’s Grammar, but I have studied grammar far less than kanji and don’t know either resource too well yet since I use them less frequently. I like all of those formats for different reasons so it’s a little hard to choose, but I’ll try to look more into which is better overall. Thanks so much for the help!!
I have been stressed and so far unsuccessful with mining because of how much of it you have to do. I’ve also been juggling that and learning vocab from “Core Japanese Vocabulary Extended” deck on Anki. Is mining generally more efficient than the large vocab deck type?
And the overall listening thing makes tons of sense, it is definitely overwhelming at times so I will try to just keep it in small amounts at a time. Thank you so much for the advice and support!! I wish you the best in your studies ^v^
Yes, I would say 3 different grammar resources is too many. Definitely narrow that down and try your best to keep progressing through beginner grammar.
If you are going to choose one, yes, I would say mining is much more efficient. Especially since you’re on WK too, you don’t need to be juggling 3 different methods of acquiring vocab.
My advice: Narrow down your resources, put a cap on the amount of time you’re doing SRS reviews, and spend the rest of your time learning to read. You can use the Absolute Beginner’s Book Club here on the forums to learn to read manga with lots of support for grammar questions.
And I wouldn’t add every single unknown word to your mining deck, like I said earlier. Add as many as you think will keep the SRS review time at a manageable level. The thing about those common words in the core decks is that they are so common, you will just learn them anyways by repeated exposure while reading.
Say you have an hour to study a day. You could do something like:
-20min SRS
-5-10min listening with easy podcasts
-20-30min learning to read
Then, some days, you can do extra grammar study as well. But this way a majority of time will be spent interacting with the language. Once you’re more familiar with the language, it will be a lot easier to identify yourself which areas you need to focus on differently.
Mining is a lot of work unless you do it very sparingly - if you see the word three times and still can’t remember it maybe add it to anki, sort of thing.
If you’re going to learn vocab from anki decks, I think it’s better to start with a 1000-1500 most common word deck (with sentences & audio) and then as you come to the end of that move on to your own decks. In general, when creating your own decks keep them small, 150 words maybe, and do maybe 5 words a day. This way they are ‘done’ in a month, and you can delete them in 2 months. The corollary of this is you can’t add more than five words a day…
Some years ago, I studied vocabularies I mined, but didn’t add anything to the SRS for a long while (a few months). Instead, I used Google Sheets to take notes. SRS isn’t the requirement for memorization or studying.
Recommendation for listening, and for some levels, reading – choose some materials that don’t require too many lookups, but rather, comprehension-focused. Still, such don’t need to be the only kind of immersion.
On the very low level, it may have to be graded readers. I’d say, find enjoyment in graded readers, and get into momentum and self-drive, rather than being too choosy.
Immersion is about doing everything in the language you’re trying to learn, which I think is a bit hard if you’re a total beginner, and seems to be often confused with normal studying or practicing.
- In terms of vocabulary you’re fine doing wanikani, IMO. Kanji are needed for reading, which is probably the most important bit in language learning.
- In terms of reading, you need to find material that is simple enough for you, so you don’t get demotivated. I would recommend Tadoku books. They’re free and sorted by level.
- And for listening, you also need simple stuff. Nihongo con Teppei can be a bit challenging sometimes. Repetition is the key for listening, so that your brain starts to get used to the structure of the new language. I would start with language book level stuff, maybe.
Yesterday I discovered this guy, I would recommend you to take a look at some of his videos.
For the record I haven’t used it myself so I can’t completely accurately say how useful it would be, but I randomly came across this website a while ago and it has a fair amount of videos at different difficulty levels. I figure that could maybe help with the part about getting frustrated
(For what it’s worth I have been using something similar for Spanish and found that rather useful)
Sentence mining is a waste of your time at your current level, based on your self-description, imo. One of the biggest proponents of mining on the internet spent several years of guided study before getting to a level where this was productive for him.
Do whatever is enjoyable. If you’re using a textbook, consider mining that first and replaying it. I could recommend some other resources too.
Some of the replies have told you to hold off/wait, and I think that’s fine, as by the time I learned about immersion and sentence mining, I was well into my beginner/intermediate-beginner stages, along with being in the lower death stages of Wanikani.
When you do decide to immerse/sentence mine, I’d recommend these resources for PC/Android Mining:
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Anki - A must have for reviewing things, although I don’t love it for learning things. Uses SRS like Wanikani. Can also use Add-ons to make your life even better.
- Free on PC/Mac and Android but $25 on IOS
- Free on PC/Mac and Android but $25 on IOS
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JP Mining Note by Arbyste - Speaking of Anki, this note type and Yomitan template can allow you to sentence mine from anything! Has a guide and videos
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Yomitan - Browser dictionary tool with the ability to sentence mine from anything, and make Anki flashcards! Replaced Yomichan, which is now defunct.
- Can be used on Chrome/Chromium and Firefox! For Android, works on Kiwi Browser & Firefox
- EDIT: Just a heads up, Kiwi browser is like semi-dead, and takes some time to get updates, which could be a security issue for some. It also redirects browser queries though it’s own page, then to your intented search engine. They say this is so search engines can give them credit for users searches so they can get paid. Use with caution!
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TheMoeWay - Lovely website with an overall guide to learning Japanese, resources, and more. Also includes a guide on how to setup Yomitan, Visual Novel Mining with Textractor, Manga OCR & Mining with Mokuro, and more. They have a discord too for forum questions (I used it frequently when setups went wrong!)
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Lazy Guide Setup by Xelieu - Another guide for some of the resources listed, that also uses JP Mining Note
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Jidoujisho - Literally has a native app reader for everything in one, for manga, videos, books, lyrics, ChatGPT, etc. Can also be used to sentence mine and make flashcards to Anki
- Only for Android
Other important resources
- Textractor - Mine from Visual Novels
- ShareX - Capture screenshots and audio for flashcards for anki
- Language Reactor - Has a chrome extension, can be used for a nicer pretty GUI for sentence mining from YT, Netflix, Books, and your own uploaded files. Can establish a known vocab level
- EDIT: Forgot about Immersion Kit by Game Gengo! - Look up any word in romaji, kana, or kanji and find a clip using said word for sentence mining. Can be sorted by JLPT or Wanikani, and allows you to find clips from Anime, Drama, Games, News, and Literature. You can pick the specific media source, such as Demon Slayer, Cyberpunk, etc.