What's your best study trick that's improving your Japanese?

I (seriously) started learning Japanese 2 months ago. My time has been mainly distributed between the Tae Kim’s Grammar guide and the HelloTalk app on a daily basis. Right now, I’m trying to organize myself to be able to work with WaniKani + Memrise + Tae Kim’s + HelloTalk every day.

Therefore, I’m looking to increase my efficiency and just had the idea to create a topic where everyone could share their own small tricks that makes their Japanese learning moving a little bit faster.

I’ll give you an example: although I’m still a 7 days user, I found out that by actually reviewing everything in the Summary after a WK’s session, I get to greatly increase my success rate compared to a “no Summary review” approach. Sometimes, I’m not focused enough during lessons because keeping with the reviews + new lessons can be a little hard, especially when you have other stuff to worry about next.

So, I would looooooooooveee to hear your small strategies that are leading you to win the daily battles :slight_smile:

Thanks in advance!

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I use WaniKani and Genki.
WaniKani for the Kanji and vocabulary.
Genki for the grammar.
I personally don’t like Tae Kim’s guide because it’s way too cryptic, and doesn’t give you any way to practice what you’ve learned.
I also use Memrise to review the vocabulary that Genki teaches.
I did the entire Memrise Japanese course, and was really dissapointed because it doesn’t teach you any kanji nor grammar. So I wouldn’t use the official memrise japanese course.

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Memrise, Tae Kim’s, WK, and HelloTalk! You are killing it! That’s some serious devotion right there. My regimen is actually very similar to yours. :wink: Though in my case, I replace Memrise with gaming. What I mean is I play multiplayer games that allow me to chat with Japanese natives.

The main thing holding me back is my knowledge of kanji. I’m only on level 4 right now but it’s helped so much. I can guess the meanings of lots of words too. Seeing the kanji I’m learning on WK being used in real time is definitely a great way to improve familiarity. While also having fun!

HelloTalk is also a big one. As long as you find someone who will/can keep a conversation going. Lol

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what games?

For me, HelloTalk has been invaluable. I’d say 90% of my Japanese knowledge came from that app. I started it only knowing hiragana and a few basic phrases, and ~6 months later have reached conversational Japanese.

That being said, I also use Genki and a variety of other resources. There is so much on the Internet. Tae Kim, Maggie Sensei is great, too, and the Learn Japanese channel on YouTube is awesome.

Outside of textbooks, one of my best friends is Japanese and so is my boyfriend, so I have native speakers that can actively help me when I have questions. HelloTalk is great for meeting people that can help this way, so I can’t recommend it enough. Also, iTalki if you’re up for it. Lang-8 is good, too.

EDIT: I will say my #1 study trick is that I use Japanese everyday, as often as I possibly can. I try to think in Japanese when I’m driving, I talk to my friends in Japanese (they’re also studying), and whatever else. I watch variety shows to practice listening, listen to music… Just consuming it daily in some form can help a lot, and it can be fun, too.

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I know some great tricks to improve your Japanese!
And they can be yours for only 14 easy payments of $13.87 + shipping and handling :slight_smile:
Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up (Official Music Video) - YouTube

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hahahahaha good one!

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I just got RICKROLLED… waaaaaahhhh:dancer:

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Appreciate the great answer! ^^

Personally, I didn’t like the Genki at first. I understood the lessons but I felt that I wasn’t really progressing. With the Tae Kim’s guide, I feel that everything is more on point. I do agree with the practice part! That has been my only downside there! For my next grammar session (prob tomorrow), I’m going to make my own sentences with every single grammar rule that I’ve learnt there. I think that might solve the issue ^^

Memrise has Genkis, Tae Kims… Those are my 2 favourites there :slight_smile:

Haha appreciate it! ^^

I’ll be 2 and half months free from the University so I’ve got time. I’m not working either. Although I do have other projects, I’m in a phase of my life that I can manage my days the way I want.

I can’t play games D: Addiction problems. That’s probably why I’m addicted to WK though xD but I definitely agree that games help a lot. It helped me get my English in a intermediate level when I was a teen.

Kanji… that is my main problem too. I started with grammar, my vocab was from anime and I was practicing on HelloTalk. While writing, the keyboard would just give me the Kanjis (though I had to know which ones to use) and I thought that everything seemed working. The problem was when I received messages with a lot of kanjis… it was hell. Japanese Translator | RomajiDesu really helped me because it translates big texts into Hiragana/Katakana… but still 面倒くさい…

With HelloTalk, if you convince yourself that everyone is like a good friend, the conversations continue… I had the same problem but it seems that is solved. Sometimes some people will stop answering back but oh well…

Thanks again for the comment ^^

Loved your trick :smiley: I definitely enjoy doing that with English since I don’t have a lot of opportunities to use it in speaking (I’m Portuguese). Maybe it’s time to start doing it also with Japanese ^^

Thanks for the comment!

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You’re the guy from the “Don’t do all of your lessons at once, kids” topic haha xD

So that’s HOW you start your crazy reviews right in the morning, uh? :smirk: (笑)

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A little trick that’s helped me recently is switching from SRS courses made up of individual words to courses made with complete sentences. There’s one on Anki called Jtest4you that’s pretty good - it has thousands of sentences separated into JLPT levels. Good way to learn vocab and grammar in tandem.

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Feel proud. Very proud. This is the first time that I have ever been Rickrolled. I’d been so careful. You can put this on your résumé.

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I agree 100% with hellotalk! I met a friend on there and she recently came to visit me in Australia and I showed her around melbourne! I learnt a lot in a few days - especially what is commonly said and not said!

In addition, I use WK, memrise, Genki and satori reader :slight_smile:

I think shadowing has been really helpful in increasing my speaking ability and ability to more intuitavely make correct sentences. Also helps with pronounciation and intonation.

This series is pretty good. I am currently using the intermediate to advance book when I drive.

http://nihongo.9640.jp/english/books/books-shadowing.html

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