What should I do outside of WaniKani while I try to get to level 20?

Japanese Language
1

I’m a beginner, and I’m using the method outlined in the article: Learn Japanese: A Ridiculously Detailed Guide by Tofugu.

This article suggests that I should reach level 10-20 on WaniKani first, THEN start learning grammar.
I want to dedicate at least 2 hrs every single day to active Japanese learning, but the rate of progress WaniKani provides is too slow for me. I want to do more than just do reviews and lessons for like 20 mins a day on WaniKanki (I say 20 mins a day because I’m just on level 1 at the moment. This time will probably increase as I progress to higher levels).

I wanna do more.

Should I start learning grammar now or should I wait till I hit level 10-20 ?
Should I use another app that will allow me to “grind” Kanji as well as using WaniKani ?
Im lost.

does anyone have any suggestions?

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

4 Likes
2

I personally feel that there are no/ too few disadvantages at starting grammar early. Do you have any text books? If not, I highly recommend tokini andys genki series on YouTube or cure dolly!

6 Likes
3

Well, I personally started learning grammar in parallel pretty much as soon as I joined WK.
It’s important to remember that such articles are just general recommendations.
Everyone is different and advices that work well for some – might be not as effective for others…

So, my advice would be to try various approaches and see what works best for you…

In any case, best of luck with your studies! wricat

3 Likes
4

Here are some alternatives to starting a textbook or another srs program:

5 Likes
5

The “wait for grammar” thing is something I definitely disagree with. The idea behind it is that the example sentences might have words you don’t know but

  1. There are many grammar resources and some of them do try to stick to very basic words that you’ll encounter over and over again
  2. There are many grammar resources that use furigana
  3. If you don’t know a word, dictionaries exist

So it’s kind of a BS reason.

Go ahead and learn some grammar.
And then go ahead and add some listening resources for beginners. And don’t be afraid to use a dictionary. Even if you forget the word 10 seconds later, it still gives you a chance to practice the grammar around the words. Retaining the words you look up is not the goal at this stage (though if you do, great, that’s a nice bonus). Practicing the grammar is the goal, the lookups are just to help you make that happen.

7 Likes
6

Well, that’s a tofugu article, they made wanikani, so obviously they promote themselves.

Personally, I’m 2 years in and havent started with kanji yet, just vocab and grammar and I do fine reading native materials with furigana. In my opinion, kanji are the least important aspect of japanese and I cannot get my head around people suggesting to start with kanji directly after kana :sweat_smile:

4 Likes
7

That second video is quite interesting (and useful) - some drama (!) along with a grammar lesson.

Evidently I had previously viewed (and subscribed to) at least one of his videos, but I don’t remember that - I will have to pay more attention and watch some more of them, because that video was excellent.

4 Likes
8

I wouldn’t wait until lvl 10 or 20. You don’t need to know so many Kanji in the beginning. Even if you can read Kanji, you won’t understand anything If you don’t know how Japanese Grammar Work.

If you want to learn Kanji at the Same time I would learn easy Kanji of words that I / the textbook uses often because this would give you a lot of repetition.

I mean words like いく 行く, Numbers, etc.

2 Likes
9

i think it’s a lot better to be ahead on grammar compared to kanji/vocab than the other way around

1 Like
11

I just bought the Genki textbook. volume 1

1 Like
12

Nice!! I still reccomend watching Tokini Andy Genki 1 videos on youtube, they are very well done and I know loads of people who watched them and enjoyed them

1 Like
13

Honestly, unless you have a timeframe that you need to meet, my preferred method is really minimalist: hit the vocab reviews hard and read basic grammar (which for Japanese I recommend Tae Kim). Try to get 1500-2000 vocab ASAP. Then start super simple immersion, which you can get for free on YouTube (Comprehensible Japanese would be my recommendation). At that point, keep up the reviews while immersing whenever you can stand it. If you want to watch something too advanced, watch it anyway and try to pick out what you can, and notice things that come up frequently. Be very comfortable with the ambiguity. And just keep powering through learning thousands of words via reviews and immersion for awhile as your brain adjusts to the new structure of comprehension.

2 Likes