I am a total beginner and spent way more time to find out how to learn than actually learn, but now I really want to get into it. At least I can read kana with no trouble at all, so better than nothing. Anyways. I just started wk and so far I really like it and I feel like I can remember all the kanji and everything it teaches me, but I read a lot, that there are some basic very important vocabs wk doesn’t teach. So my question is where do I start and does anyone have a list with the most important vocabs I should know? I tried some Anki decks, but they often use kanji I don’t know yet and I kinda wanna use wk for my kanji learning. But there still should be lots of common and important vocab that is kana only, at least that’s what other people said. So I would be very grateful to anyone that can give me some advice where I can get my vocabs from.
My englisch is not perfect either, but I hope you get my question and what I mean exactly. Thanks for every help and I hope you have a wonderful day :).
Maybe i`m not the best person to answer that but i think if your first time learning kanji you don’t need a paralalel form to learn vocab right now. A lot of vocab you can infer by the kanji meanings and a list of vocab could vary a lot from what type of text you are reading.
It’s reaaly cool that you reading a lot right now, maybe the most important thing is learn to use a dictionary and learn vocabs that appear in the moment to keep reading. Jisho for example have the possibility todraw characthers, maybe the easy way to search a kanji without previous knowledge. That said i am just start to read recently.
ps. If you use your browse to read, something that help a lot is a dictionary extension like rikaitan
For now I want to learn Japanese to be able to consume Japanese media like anime, manga and light novels, but after my masters degree which will start at the end of the year I would like to a year of work and travel in Japan. So right now it’s fine if I can just understand Japanese, but long term I also want to be able to speak.
And thanks for your recommendation, I will look into it
Yeah, by deduplicate, I mean it will mark vocab that you’ve learned on Wanikani as “done” so you don’t have to do them again on Bunpro and just focus on the new ones.
This resonates so much with my experience; in my first two years I literally only learned how to NOT study Japanese. This is normal so don’t worry too much about it, just don’t lose hope and keep staying motivated, eventually you will find out what works best for you.
You just started Wanikani, so if you stick to it you will hopefully have the most complicated part of Japanese (the kanji) covered.
Regarding your specific question, I wouldn’t bother using an SRS to learn vocabulary. The most enjoyable and natural way to learn new words is through immersion, so I would suggest looking for YouTube channels of Japanese native speakers who speak slowly, directed to a foreign audience (there are tons of them - for example https://www.youtube.com/@kensanokaeri or https://www.youtube.com/@DailyJapanese), turn on the subs and just listen+read. Pause the video whenever you don’t know a new word and look for it in https://jisho.org/.
Please keep in mind that immersion, just like an SRS, works better if done every day.
You haven’t asked for a grammar resouce so I guess you already have your own.
Thanks, that helps a lot and I’m glad to hear that ist not just me ^^.
Before I deep dive into grammar I wanted to get some vocab and kanji in so I plan to not concern myself with grammar til I’m level 20-30 on wk. But like I said, I did more preparation than actual learning at this point so I already planned what I will use. I want to get the genki books and I saw that there are many videos on YouTube covering the genki books and grammar in general so I am not really worried about that yet. It seems like there are more than enough resources for grammar.
I would actually advise against waiting till level 20-30 before starting grammar. The earlier you start, the better. The grammar is what will help you get started with reading and also with listening, which in turn will help expand your vocabulary. Learning words from pre-made lists, with very little to no context will only take you so far. So I would say, once you have found your comfortable pace doing WK (should take only first few levels), just start with the grammar and gradually supplement it with reading and listening.
I agree on this.
You don’t actually need to study that much grammar to be able to comprehend basic Japanese, but at least understanding the basics will help your comprehension when reading / listening.
I recommend doing the absolute beginner, beginner, intermediate, and so on vocab schedules on renshuu. They also have kanji and vocab for free. If you do a lot of casual Japanese studies during your masters and then before and while in Japan, focus on more spoken language, I think that would be best. Renshuu also has schedules for various textbooks if you decide to do a textbook as well. I highly recommend reading manga, especially slice of life manga or ones like Polar Bear Cafe, in order to see dialogue in context and understand how people have conversations.
I started in Oktober 2024 with Grammar and a bit later with WaniKani. Learning Kanji is a Lot easier when you already know the words. And some words will be repeated in the textbooks so often that you don’t need to learn them with srs.
Since this month I am trying to learn some verbs with Anki and I have Problems remembering the words that haven’t been used in the textbooks yet.
Reaching Level 20-30 would Probably take one year. In this time you can learn a Lot of Grammar. Even If you take it slow. especially particles. Without knowing how they work it will be really difficult to understand sentences.
I don’t understand the example sentences of WaniKani either and I learn Grammar since Oktober 2024. I already finished chapter 3 of Japanese from Zero 3. Don’t let these example sentences discourage you.
