Najimi is the true main character though
I am not sure if we talk about the same thing. In one of his introduction videos he talks about having seen a movie on repeat (also during sleep) for several times until he could memorize everything what has been said to get a feeling for pitch accent.
He is recommendation this to everyone starting to study pitch and recommends three movies for that purpose, one being âTokyo Sonataâ.
I tried that but didnât like the atmosphere of it and it only contains direct speech.
So I choose an audio guide where a narrator explains everything that happens to blind people. It contains a lot of descriptive phrases which is something I like.
I watched most of Dogens videos and think highly of him but for me rewatching his explanations donât add a lot to memorising what he said. I am still struggling to find a method to study pitch and to memorize his rules.
If you have an idea I would love to hear it. The only thing that works is making anki decks with the words he explains in his videos and repeat them often with a microphone but I havenât really started that yet.
Itâs been a long time since I watched his videos, so I might have misremembered too. I remember he recommended Orange Days for this as well. I think what Iâm going to use is Kotaro Lives Alone or The Hero Yoshihiko. Both are live-action. I think Iâll get more information by watching live actorsâ mouth movements.
Have you tried OJAD? I use it every day! It helps if you set the âAccent phrase boundaryâ to Bunsetsu. Then you can see the four groups of pitch accents (heiban, atamadaka, nakadaka, odaka) in each word + particle phrase. You can also look them up in japanese.io, although that site has a lot of gaps.
Iâve been making a deck of collocations. I use OJAD to make pitch accent diagrams and audio, then I embed them in the cards. That seems to help!
1 Like
Thatâs a good idea, looks very nice. I was worried that it is not always correct but probably short sentences are ok. In any case it is better to have one mistaken pitch accent learned out of hundred than making 70 out of 100 wrong because of not studying it.
2 Likes
This was a really useful tip, thank you!
I always had problems with Anki because I didnât have a strategy on what to put on the card.
With the audio and pitch accent diagram of a phrase rather than just one word suddenly the whole thing starts to make a lot more sense. 
And personally the tip from the Animecard page, to only put one word at the front to make reviews easier is also quite important. I used to have long sentences on the front and it looks very confusing.
At some point I would like to level up to also using a microphone with attached headphones to train the accent while doing the reviews.
How do you make the diagrams in OJAD btw? Yours look betterâŠ
I used to do the same thing! I used to hit Print Screen, crop the image, and paste the image in, along with the sound file. But it felt prohibitively time-consuming (especially since Iâll eventually have over 3000 of these!), so I use HTML and CSS to the same effect now!
For this cardâŠ
Hereâs the code for that fieldâŠ
<b>ă<span style="background-color: rgb(195, 195, 195); text-decoration:overline">ăč</span><span style="text-decoration:overline">ă«ă©ă</span>ă«<span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0); text-decoration:overline">ă</span>ă</b>
So for emphasized (falling-tone) morae, I use this tag:
<span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0); text-decoration:overline">ă</span>
For the high-tone overline in general, I just use a text decoration:
<span style="text-decoration:overline">ă</span>
For devoiced morae, I use this to gray it out. Fortunately, Anki has a button on the text toolbar for this one!
<span style="background-color: rgb(195, 195, 195)">ă</span>
Then at the end, I make the whole thing bold just because I think it looks cooler!
Iâd like to eventually put the little serifs/brackets on the overline like OJAD displays, but Iâm not sure if CSS can do that. I tried viewing source on OJAD but it references external JavaScript documents that I donât know how to open. Iâm still pretty happy with this, though!
One thing I recommend is to set âaccent phrase boundaryâ to âbunsetsuâïŒæçŻ. I personally found it way more intuitive to learn pitch accent that way!
1 Like
Thank you, I donât really understand what it isâŠ
æçŻćąçăć©çšïŒ
I donât see a difference in the image if I set it to this.
Wow! Thank you! 
I will take my time and try to do it as well.
When I started âprogrammingâ this, I didnât even know it is html, lol.
There is a much easier way to insert images.
I just use the âSnipping Toolâ and once the window with the cut out image opens I right click on it and press âCopy imageâ and the I paste it into Anki.
It also works very well for images from the google search page because they have a good size for the usage in Anki:
This is a low tech approach but it is really fast.
1 Like
Oh, right, thank you for reminding me. I always forget about the darn snipping tool!
I didnât at first either! The differences arenât always present or obvious. A bunsetsu is a combination of a word and anything it needs to function in a sentence. I donât like the term âbuilding blocksâ but they really are those parts that we stitch together to make sentences. Hereâs a sentence I just found in goo dot ne dot jp⊠ăæéăăźç©ăźèȘ€ăŻæ» ć€ă«ăŻăȘăăă
This sentenceâs bunsetsu areâŠ
æé
ăăź
ç©ăź
èȘ€ăŻ
æ»
ć€ă«ăŻ
ăȘă
In bunsetsu mode, this is easier to see because each bunsetsu gets its own tone pattern, which makes it easier to learn them.
Machine learning mode often runs high-tone morae together if nothing gets stressedâŠ
Here, the only difference is that ă has the overline in machine learning mode. But even that picayune change makes it slightly easier for me to mentally transfer pitch accent patterns to other sentences! By reading a lot of these, itâs easier for me to remember to accent ăź in ăăź and accent ăš in ăăš. I used to mess that up all the time!
Absolutely! I learned a lot the hard way; itâs my pleasure to make things easier for someone else so they donât have to do the same!
2 Likes
Fyi that graph is wrong and the second ăź doesnât have a drop
2 Likes
Ah, thatâs really a small difference!
Now I can see (and hear) it.
But isnât it more ânaturalâ to have the second option?
To be honest, I shouldnât even discuss these things with you because my level is like ânaive beginnerâ and I start to understand I am talking to a pro here 
I just wildly copied your code into the HTML of the card and realized this is not the same level as inserting a copied image 
1 Like
Oh, crap, thatâs what I was afraid of. I got different results with the two settings when I wrote ăăź in kana, so I changed it to kanji to see if that would help. I changed it back and set that setting to bunsetsu. Is this more accurate?
Youâre too kind! I wish I was that good, but Iâm still stumbling around trying to figure things out myself. But if enough of us stumble around for a while, Iâm hoping weâll all come out better!
2 Likes
Thank you for sharing!
Studying Japanese is still a bit of a trial and error experience in my impression.
But, I have already one (small) success in pitch accent training.
In the beginning I thought this will be completely hopeless, but I realized that I now safely always say äžç in atamadaka
And I was able to make a habit out of reviewing Anki decks. For the coding it would be better to check out some explanatory videos first
2 Likes
Iâm a beginner to learning Japanese so I would appreciate some advice, in regards to âheavy study is a necessary evil when starting outâ I have been considering whether Iâve been mistaken in that belief lately. I feel like my level of Japanese isnât really increasing despite my studying (I currently only do wanikani, is that the problem?) and I realized that when watching Japanese youtube (mainly for some games that arenât English translated rather than a deliberate attempt at immersion) I realized that I only caught some words and could sometimes figure out what they were saying based on the context but only very rarely. I thought âMaybe I should look up the words this person is saying and actually translate it as I watch it and then I get to learn vocab whilst also being able to comprehend the video!â but really didnât want to, probably because I have no idea how to study Japanese in the wild as I would with new English words that I encounter in the wild, I donât know how to keep track of the new words and other issues/excuses. Was that idea a good idea or was it the right move to stick to studying wanikani and ignoring trying to learn from the wild/random things I encounter for the time being? What level should I wait until before doing that?
I was also wondering, is it good practise to try to figure out grammar by comparing a translated sentence to the original and working out the rules for yourself? Or does that not have a substantial enough improvement on how well you remember the grammar rules to be worth it?
Would love to hear your advice! 
Plateaus, and the sensation of plateaus, are extremely normal. I feel them a lot and Iâve been studying every day for over two years! Plus, for reasons mentioned upthread, the sensation of learning doesnât always match the moments when the brain really is acquiring new information.
When Iâm teaching math, I get flaky students like youâd think, but more often, my students are doing better than their brains tell them theyâre doing. I think thatâs the same with any discipline.
This is also extremely normal. I listened to NHK every day for several months (until those jerks region-locked it 
) and I went a long time without catching a thing. But even getting used to the cadence and the up-and-down of the tones and the raining down of syllables is a legitimate part of your practice. Listening is the hardest sub-skill to fake. I donât know of any shortcuts or âhacksâ; you just have to listen to a whole lot of native speech until your brain starts to organize it.
Iâd recommend checking out Japanese-learning podcasts or YouTubers. The Bunpro forums has a really good, new-ish thread about this; I threw in some of my own recommendations too!
I really enjoy Japanese With Noriko. She knows acutely what language acquisition is like and she teaches accordingly. In one episode, she gives two great pieces of advice: work on media that you enjoy, and never compare yourself to others.
My biggest regret of the 25+ years that Iâve studied Japanese is that I didnât start immersion practice a lot sooner. Itâs that frustrating for everyone for the first few dozen hours!
Iâd recommend that you not only start immersion practice again but that you build your practice around consuming native content, even if you suck at it. In my opinion, you can start again today! Find something you really enjoy and watch it without English.
I play a lot of untranslated video games too. It took me years to realize that thereâs nothing stopping me! Youâll probably still use your dictionary a lot for the first few months, but that really will lessen as the weeks go by. In fact, your success rates in WaniKani will rise noticeably. Seeing a word âin the wildâ will make it a lot stronger in your brain and much easier to remember when youâre doing your WaniKani practice!
There are different schools of thought as to whether to rely on Google Translate/DeepL while youâre learning. I personally donât see anything wrong with it early on, as long as you learn from whatever you type in. I only use it in three cases:
- When I know all the words but canât piece together the sentence.
- When I think I understand a sentence but I want to double-super-confirm that my understanding is correct.
- As a last resort after checking dictionaries and Googling.
One other tactic that helped me: youâll start to see words where youâre at at least Guru with the kanji, but the word isnât in WaniKani. Make your own Anki deck of the ones that you encounter. Thatâs what I did and it dramatically increased my confidence in my reading ability. I also studied additional kanji; in fact, I recently posted my Anki kanji deck, which you might find useful.
I know this is a lot! You may want to make gradual changes, and you certainly donât have to follow my advice. Iâm nobody special or famous. I minored in Japanese in college but I donât think that gives me any special credentials. As I said just a few posts up, Iâm learning by asking advice, trying new things, and seeing what works, same as you!
TL; DR: Whatever Japanese thing you want to play/read, start today, even if you suck at it.
6 Likes
Yeah the bottom part is. I feel like the graph still isnt great because thereâs not that big of a drop on the ă of kanmei but maa
2 Likes
I started in a very slow and overly laid back way and thought that was a bad thing to do but I think people who do the AJATT method can run into their own set of problems, ala getting too invested in the grind, etc. I think I have seen the most success with beginners who do the Core Anki series + Genki I and II. But this is more or less advice for someone who isnât on any particular study plan. If youâre doing something now I suggest adjusting and finding things that work for you along the way. A lot of language learning after the initial stage is just finding what you enjoy doing that isnât a burden and when it becomes a burden finding something else to do instead.
1 Like
(Disclaimer: Iâm still a beginner, so take what I say with a grain of salt)
I tend to agree with âheavy study is a necessary evil when starting outâ because I tried learning without much study for years and never got anywhere. You mentioned that you only do WaniKani, and I think thatâs a huge part of the issue. There is much more to the language than kanji, so just learning kanji doesnât really help you. Trying to learn Japanese with only WaniKani is like trying to make a pizza by just throwing a bunch of tomato sauce in the oven.
The grammar of Japanese is so different from English that I donât think this method would go over well. By doing this, someone could easily make too many incorrect assumptions and not truly understand what certain things mean.
3 Likes
Iâll be real with you, if you only do wanikani and are level 6, I feel like it would be weirder if you felt like you were improving a bunch after watching YouTube.
Youâre still extremely early on in your studies. Watching YouTube in japanese is hard for most people who have put in 10x the amount of time. Not to mention, your entire studies have been focused around reading if you only use wanikani.
Genuinely, your goal is just to learn stuff at the start really. If you want learn some grammar or words that a person in a video said, I say go for it. But you should understand youâre not going to be watching normal videos with ease anytime soon. The most important thing at the start is that you are learning as much fundamental grammar and vocab as possible.
So essentially, in my eyes youâre not stuck or plateauing in the slightest.
11 Likes
My take for now would be, study subtitle, and perhaps focus on Kanji and vocabularies first. An obvious broken down, is into Kanji of various readings, so realize that Kanji can be studied without WaniKani (although perhaps donât focus too much on them for now). There is another broken down â words into smaller words; perhaps JJ dictionaries would help with this more than JE ones, otherwise, Wiktionary.
Because Japanese has Kanji, it has one more layer than English.
About keeping track of new words, Anki would be a best and flexible choice. Yomichan is quite obvious, after some setup. On Android (mobile), Takoboto, and perhaps Akebi, can add vocabularies to AnkiDroid (Anki) with zero setup.
I would also try to understand what is spoken, regardless of the written transcript, to then notice I might not hear something. Sometimes I just have to let go. Nonetheless, I would say, study well from immersion.
Studying premade vocabulary decks can be useful as well, but I also add links on Anki cards to look up on the Internet. But perhaps, benefit would slow down after some point (rather than distinct plateaus).
I think realizing grammar in context is yet another skill. Perhaps somewhere between ichi.moe / Jisho parsing, and DeepL / Google Translate.
Nonetheless, grammar points must be somewhat known in advance.
I donât think that the use of any specific book increases success (the success is determined by drive more than anything). Lots of people have had success with Tae Kim, MNN, Japanese From Zero, Pimsleur, and whatever else is new that I havenât heard about.
I agree that Anki (or the SRS you are comfortable with) + a book + immersion + some other activity that the individual finds appealing is a pretty well-rounded combo.
Pretty much. You CANâT use only 1 resource, that only does 1 thing, and expect all other areas of Japanese to increase equally. Your kanji is progressing the most, and youâre getting some vocab, but grammar, reading and listening are close to nil for gains.
Iâll append my previous comment and say that âheavy, well-rounded study is a necessary evil to get over the beginner humpâ.
Immersion works best once you have a good 3K~ vocabulary (by frequency) and several dozen hours of at least skimming over a grammar resource. That isnât to say you canât start doing it now, and there are passive benefits to immersing even when you donât understand (subconscious memory of particle collocation is a benefit to my years of watching subtitled anime). It just means you are replacing X number of hours studying with X(Y) number of hours immersing. Immersing is much less effective when you lack the building blocks of basic sentence structure.
4 Likes