I have just recently started WaniKani and thought 'what other resources would be good with WaniKani?
So, please give recommendations!
p.s. Prior to WaniKani I have been studying for 10 months!
I have just recently started WaniKani and thought 'what other resources would be good with WaniKani?
So, please give recommendations!
p.s. Prior to WaniKani I have been studying for 10 months!
80/20 Japanese, starting with the free intro [Japanese Sentence Structure: The Ultimate Beginnerās Guide]
Why did you study for 10 months without learning any kanji? Or did you decide to do wanikani even though you already know a few? Sorry, just curious
Anyway, to answer your question: I would personally recommend using Tae Kimās Guide for Japanese (Learn Japanese ā Tae Kim's Guide to Learning Japanese) or Bunpro (https://bunpro.jp/) for grammar, and then you can move on to Tobira once youāve covered basic grammar. You can also download Anki and use it to study vocab because wanikani doesnāt teach a lot of basic and important vocab!
I used Tae Kimās Grammar guide to learn all of the main grammar points.
Before that I was learning with the Genki 1 and Genki 2 textbooks, but I stopped in the middle of Genki 2 because I realized that textbooks were not for me and made it hard for me to hold interest.
After completing Tae Kimās guide, I believe the best material you can use to learn is by reading/watching native content. Start with content aimed towards children and then slowly work your way up to more difficult content.
It will be a STRUGGLE at first. I continued to use Tae Kimās guide as a reference and constantly looked up grammar points that I had forgotten. But if you keep up it, I can guarantee your comprehension will level up immensely.
ahh ok thanks btw how would i effectively use tae kims?
Thanks so much i will put all of this into use!!
BTW do you recommend the Genki books?
Hmm honestly, I would have to agree with nikujaja, though Iām only on Genki l textbook so you would have to ask them instead for a more accurate review. It seems to me like it is a pretty good starting base to introduce you to Japanese grammar but I definitely agree that itās not particularly interesting studying by yourself and you get kinda bored, likely because itās geared more towards studying in groups, in classrooms with others.
sorry for late reply,
i have been studied multiple different ways and settled on a specific way around 9 months ago and studied grammar kanji etc using anki but i hit a roadblock because i realized that it hasnāt been working for me so i gave wanikani a go and i love it!
BTW what is Tobira do you mean the textbook and what does it teach?
also do you have any free/unpaid services because there are so many other paid stuff i wanna get (like bunpro, Kitsun.io and a couple of expensive stuff like a water cooler and 16gb of ram for my pc so i am a bit short on money) and it is really tempting
well if you donāt wanna pay for kitsun.io you can just use anki, itās less fancy but honeslty works really well. there are tons of shared decks if you donāt want to create your own, the most popular being the 2k/6k for vocab
For the grammar i do recommend bunpro since itās cheap and efficient, if youāre more into textbooks then go for genki/Tea kim
And also donāt forget that you can immerse yourself into the japanese language to pick up grammar points and vocabulary naturally, if you have time to spend, i would recommand to spend it immersing !
just done the maths (im British) so the total comes to Ā£11.76/month and i get Ā£10/week so i could just use them
Yeah Tobira is a textbook! It doesnāt exactly āteachā because itās not really set up as a series of lessons. Itās more like a lot of reading and listening practice with explanations and very useful grammar points to learn. I really recommend it because it helped improve my reading and listening skills a ton but itās an intermediate book so youād want to know basic grammar and maybe around 700-1000 kanji before starting it (thereās very little furigana).
Also, Tae Kim and Anki are both free. What I do is make custom Anki cards for new grammar points that I learn and then revise them every day. Make sure you donāt use too many programs at the same time though, because WaniKani alone can give you hundreds of reviews per day and it can get really exhausting and lead to burnout.
If you get into Genki I & II, I would suggest watching Tokini Andyās videos. They are free on YouTube. His videos make the Genki experience MUCH better:
However, if you subscribe to his website, he has custom made exams for each chapter, as well as shadowing and extra grammar videos. Honestly, you donāt even need the books unless you want to do the extra curriculum activities that are also found on his site.
As someone mentioned, BunPro is also great for grammar, but only as a reference to it. In my opinion, BunPro is more effective once youāve learned the grammar and then you just need to either practice it or reference it quickly. Itās actually GREAT for that. By itself though, not so much. YMMV.
After Genki I & II, Tokini Andy goes into Quartet I & II, which is an Intermediate Japanese method comparable to JLPT N3 & N2 respectively. This is what Iāll start doing next year once Iām done reviewing Genki I & II in about a month.
For what itās worth, Iām pairing Wanikani with Kaniwani. Kaniwani tests the āother wayā (it gives you English, you type the Japanese). Iām finding that it is GREATLY improving my retention, and others in the forums say it helps with recollection once you start speaking.
Actually, i just remembered i have minna no nihongo 1 do you recommend me using this instead?
however i have no idea how to use it
i have been using that just not 100% sure on it yet
This was brought up in another thread.
I felt the same way as you about using both until I started to get into the higher levels in WaniKani. Doing both, plus all the other stuff I was doing, was overwhelming (especially given that Iām doing WaniKani at the fastest speed). If you have the time though, I think itās great!!
I havenāt used Minna no Nihongo, so I canāt comment on it. However, BunPro has pathways for it. Give it a try since you already have the books. Thereās nothing to lose, right? ^_^.
Iām not sure if itās the most effective way but what Iāve done is first read through the entire grammar guide once. The guide is pretty huge so I broke it up and made it a habit to read at least one page of the guide a day. At that pace I think you can finish it in 2-3 months.
But reading it one time wonāt make you a master of grammar. Iām especially forgetful so there have been a lot of times where Iām like, āoh hey I remember reading about this grammar in the guide but I forgot what it meansā. I had to reread a bunch of sections many times before I fully retained them.
ok iāll start doing that!