I know the official Tofugu site recommends picking up a grammar book at around level 10 or 20, but at the rate I’m progressing, that should be around March 2020. Do you think it’s alright for me to start learning grammar now (a tentative level 6), or should I wait? And if it’s alright for me to start learning, which book should I pick up?
I, and plenty of other users here, don’t agree with the Tofugu position on grammar. I don’t see any reason to wait intentionally.
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As soon as you have time to dedicate.
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The best moment to start grammar is yesterday, I honestly find it mind boggling that anyone would recommend level 10 or 20…
Knowing kanji doesn’t help to know grammar, it just makes reading a bit easier, but that’s besides the point, specially at a beginner grammar level
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I’m using Minna no Nihongo, which I started about a month before WaniKani.
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I sort of get where they are coming from with the recommendation, but yeah, starting ASAP is best. You won’t do yourself any favors by artificially waiting to start.
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The earlier you start, the easier time you’ll have. Take it from me. I waited too long and now I’m playing catch-up.
I started with Tae Kim and GENKI right away… so thereafter I heard about BunPro and I started to make some real progress with grammar.
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I agree with others that it’s best to start right away if you have the time.
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As soon as you can, you’re only delaying the learning process.
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If EtoEto ever actually comes out, I wonder if they’ll change their position then.
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I’m guessing they say that because grammar is much harder to learn if you’re not seeing the grammar pattern through all the word-deciphering-and-looking-up. You can’t really focus on the one thing. I think it helped that I didn’t start N5 grammar until I had most of the N5 vocabulary and some WaniKani levels put away. Since the N5 grammar only had a few simple words in the examples anyway, that usually meant I could read every word in the sentence and just pay attention to how they were put together.
But I don’t see any reason not to go ahead with N5-type grammar while simultaneously moving ahead with more vocab and kanji. And some people might not have a problem doing both things from scratch at once. Tae Kim seems to believe the opposite of Tofugu: start with grammar even if you only know the 5 words I’m giving you, then we’ll start adding words as we go. 
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There might be some more validity to that if WaniKani was set up for learning vocabulary in the typical beginner > intermediate > advanced order. But it’s all over the place because the order priority is mostly based on kanji stroke complexity. Which is fine. It’s its own thing. But if you aren’t structuring the program for beginner vocab, then when someone starts grammar isn’t really going to be closely related to a particular level.
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I could say it helped that I already knew basic grammar and some vocabulary before I started learning kanji on WaniKani. I personally think it’s more important to learn basic grammar than a few hundred of kanji. Reason being that grammar lets you learn kanji and words in context more easily.
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Right, I actually started WaniKani and a N5 vocabulary list on memrise at the same time, then when I finished the memrise, started grammar. I don’t know if that’s best, but it seemed fine to me.
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Learn grammar starting yesterday. That is my advice. If you were asking about learning kanji while learning grammar I would say to learn kanji starting yesterday.
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And you didn’t ask, but the best time to start listening and making sounds come out of your mouth-hole is ten years ago. The second-best time is yesterday. Don’t just read and write.
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This is key. For those of us with full time jobs… Level 10 was when my burns started hitting ( I have tried to mostly keep my apprentice items <90 to be able to complete them at least daily)… I’ve worked a little through Japanese from Zero, and Genki1, and bought a lifetime membership at bunpro one week when I was on vacation and flush with cash… (have rarely been able to catch up on that)
I mostly just do 50+ exp on duolingo, and my WK reviews once per day, and stare lustily at my stacks of grammar books (and my Makoto e-zines).
When I started WK, I had 5+ hrs to devote to studying a day, and by the time I got my Genki and JFZ books, I had ~15min to 45 min a day due to work schedule changes… so my current plan is to work thru duo and WK, do bunpro when I can on weekends, and then reset WK and start over casually as I work thru grammar books as work allows.
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Tofugu does say that a big reason why they suggest you wait till level 10 and above to start grammar is to avoid burning out. For a new learner, being tasked with learning grammar and sentence structures on top of not knowing any vocab/kanji might be overwhelming enough to make them want to quit/put off studying. I think that as long as you’re committed and have a long term goal, and can manage wanikani and grammar study together simultaneously, any time would be a good time to start.
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I just got to Level 7 and picked up Genki at the same time. My reasoning for the delay was mostly due to a personal reason.
At level 7, I sort of wish I had started a little earlier, but I feel fine about it. I am more confident with reading hiragana now, and the first unit was mostly a breeze because I’d already slowly acquired some grammar via Tae Kim, Duolingo, Cure Dolly, Japanese Amma Misa, etc., and my knowledge of Korean, which is a little similar to Japanese grammatically.
WK has been driving me a little nuts occasionally with the fact that it’s just always isolated words and compound words and phrases, but I am much more confident with the vocabulary recognition now, and WK has definitely helped me begin to understand/recognize how words are formed (phonology-> morphology).
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