What japanese learning resources should I be using besides wanikani?

WaniKani
#1

As the topic states. Is Tae Kim’s grammar guide the best thing? What other good resources are there? Preferably something interactive like wanikani because if not regularly tested my brain will space out and pretend it learned something while learning nothing.

And on a slightly similar note am I supposed to actually be able to understand the context sentences for the vocabulary? They’re way too dense in words and grammar I don’t know. Am I sabotaging myself by not taking 5 minutes for every vocab to try and translate and grok the context? Or is it fine to mostly skim them to see how the current vocab is used and not understand the whole sentence?

Sorry if this is a commonly asked question.

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#2

This is the hard part of your question. Bunpro and Lingodeer are pretty much all that come to mind.

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#3

Not necessarily.

Yes.

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#4

I stumbled on renshuu.org today

is it a good methodology to study grammar using the free content ?

Otherwise I am thinking to start bunpro as soon as I hit wk level 17 (finishing covering all n5 kanji)

#5

I’ve heard good things about renshuu but have not used it myself. I also don’t think many on here use it.

Don’t wait till level 17. Really no point. The vast majority of the Kanji you are aiming to know are covered well before level 17. Level 8 is already good enough.

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#6

There are a couple of apps that can help you find speakers in your area to learn from. HelloTalk and iTalki are the two I can think of.

A few youtube channels I can think of are Japanese Ammo with Misa, Miku Real Japanese, and That Japanese Man Yuta. They have great videos with lots of notes and Misa especially color codes each part of the sentence. The content they cover is fun too; they specifically all cater to natural Japanese and often describe how this is different from text books.

I know you are looking for interactive but for me I take a book into the bathroom instead of my phone… Either All About Particles by Naoko Chino or Basic Japanese Grammar by Everett Bleiler.

I have tried DuoLingo just because and its meh, I am going to look at Renshuu and see how that is. I have Genki 1 3rd Ed and its pretty nice but its helpful to review the youtube channels i mentioned earlier, as Yuta especially points out where Genki gets a bit robotic.

These are just a few of the things I am doing.

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#7

I can’t believe someone hasn’t linked this yet, but here:

The Ultimate Japanese Resources List

I’d recommend picking a resource from each of those sections, e.g. kanji, grammar, speaking, writing, etc.

As long as you cover all bases, you’re sorted. I could recommend some grammar resources that have worked for myself personally, but I think it’s really much more beneficial to find what works for you.

Something it took me a while to realise is that if a resource is not working for you, find another one. Do not stick with something that isn’t letting you progress. (This is not to say just give up on something two minutes in. Nothing will make it ‘easy’ per se, but you will certainly know when you find something that is working :wink:).

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#8

Ooh I know. There is an app called Human Japanese. There is trial version, and full app costs $10. But it is very good. It kindof throws a bunch of vocab at you so you should use something else like wanikani to learn those, but it explains grammar and japanese culture and stuff very well. It is very human and its like a story being read to you. I enjoy it.

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#9

Besides Wanikani, I use Bunpro and sometimes Lingodeer. There’s also an app called Todai, which can be used to read news in Japanese, so you can learn vocabulary in context. You can create your flashcards from words used in the news. If you upgrade to a premium account, you can download audios of each article.

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#10

Not really. it’s free and available, that’s mostly it. There’s been plenty of discussions on here about its issues. You can search the forums for more info about this critique.

Most people use Genki, BunPro, and Anki decks to further their Japanese studies outside of WK.

Personally, I’m using Michiel Kamermans “An introduction to Japanese - Syntax, Grammar & Language” and I think it’s a good place to start if you want to work on your grammar. BunPro can provide you with grammar exercises as it’s similar to WK and relying on SRS.

Then there is also:

https://japanesetest4you.com/

You’ll find free tests on vocab, grammar, kanji, reading, listening at the various JLPT levels.

Hope you find something that works for you. Good luck!

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#11

BunPro is really nice! It gives you the grammar points in nice bite-sized pieces and I love all the example sentences.

I personally got my basic Japanese instruction in by going through the JALUP Beginner Anki deck (japaneselevelup.com has lots of fun resources on their blog, too) but it did cost money. Very worth it to me, though. It teaches Japanese through sentences and introduces one new grammar point or vocabulary word with each sentence and you gotta keep putting everything you learned together in order to understand what you’re reading. Like a puzzle. :smiley:

Nowadays I just use WaniKani, BunPro, and some pre-made subs2srs Anki decks (and that’s a lot of fun).

Here’s a nice list of different Japanese resources.

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#12

Thanks for the input everyone. Definately going to check out bunpro, and some of the other suggestions seem good as well.

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