i want to study japanese on my idle time at work, but there’s way too much idle time (4h a day) and way too little reviews available. i’m only at level 2, but do you have any recommendations on what to do in between reviews that would be beneficial for my learning? my current go to is staring at a wall, so doesn’t necessarily have to be very study-y, i just don’t want to be bored out of my mind. only limitations are that i can’t install anything on my work computer and can’t watch youtube on it either
There’s browser scripts or apps that let you do custom study
If you can listen to stuff, pick up Nihongo con Teppei podcast. It’s a “comprehensible input” podcast, meant to be accessible to beginners
Hello! Honestly for more Japanese, there’s a million apps or online resources. Bunpro, MaruMori, youtube video series, etc etc. Look into those resources and see what interests you. You’ll want to find one that does some basic grammar.
Also WaniKani only feels slow at the beginning, but I think starting a few other resources in the meantime will help you round out what you’re learning. Also if you don’t have hiragana/katakana down yet, I feel like the early levels are a good spot to really drill those down.
Also also, I had a similar job back in the day and I think what helped me was to break up the idle time with like, studying for a few hours, reading books on my computer, doing online volunteer work, taking online classes in other subjects of interest etc etc. Having a whole list of idle work tasks can really help with the boredom.
I’d recommend studying grammar in parallel to doing WaniKani.
Then somewhere around level 20 or even sooner you’d be able to read simple Japanese texts.
If you already have some grammar knowledge and want to start reading something right away, I’d recommend
and
In any case, best of luck with your studies! ![]()
I found this channel to be amazing for listening comprehension.
it’s more for intermediate students than beginners, but - maybe you’ll find it useful:
UPDATE: oops, sorry - only now noticed you said no youtube ![]()
You need grammar more than you need kanji, you can easily fill those 4 hours studying grammar alone
Another one for team grammar here
Textbooks can easily fill plenty time. Bonuspoints for handwriting everything.
I also highly recommend some light immersion, like the free tadoko graded readers.
Between reviews I post at the doggo thread
I quite like doing Japanese crosswords on the J-Crosswords app, a nice way to drill vocab recognition without flashcards. If you can’t use phone apps there are free crosswords on This website too
Enjoy these halcyon days of waiting to do reviews. ![]()
Trunklayer, I’m currently on Level 20 in WaniKani and your advice has helped me so much already. If you have the time, I’d be incredibly grateful for your recommended Satori Reader settings! At this point my kanji are leveled up, but my reading skills are still saying ちょっと待って!![]()
Thank you in advance!
I’m very glad to be of help! ![]()
Unfortunately, I’ve never really tried to find optimal settings; the only thing I did – was to use my WK public key to make Satori Reader know which items I’m supposed to know and which I’m not – and show furigana for those that I don’t… ![]()
Back then I would just choose a series and start reading it – I would read each sentence, look at the underlined notes, listen to the sentence and then listen to the whole article while reading it at the same time.
Anyway, sorry for not being able to give you much advice on settings and best of luck with your studies! ![]()
Thanks a lot for your help!
I must have been completely blind. I didn’t even notice that you can sync with WaniKani.
Thank you! I like Shinobi ! You can get 2 stories per day!
