So I’m using WK at L9, Bunpro and KW (which I didn’t know about until recently so I’m not quite caught up to WK levels) and I’m not sure where to go next. I feel like I know ‘a lot’ of Japanese but also none at all. I wouldn’t say I could converse with anyone (apart from the very basics of introductions) or be able to read a book or watch a show, so I’m not really sure where to go next. Is this just the intermediate wall that they speak about?
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I think the next step would be putting what you know to use! You could sign up for some italki lessons, or chat with some people on HelloTalk. The iTalki teachers will be able to help you improve your skills no matter what level you are.
You could also join a beginner/intermediate book club!
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Don’t just rely on Bunpro, get a textbook and go through it, or go through Tae Kim. Either will give you enough grounding to start engaging with manga or something, and then hit the ground running.
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How much grammar have you learned from Bunpro or elsewhere? I’d say the next step depends on your goals. Reading and listening for input, conversation for output. How much you do of each is up to you, but after you have a solid base in grammar and kanji (for the reading side), one or more of those are good next steps.
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many foreigners follow these steps
(its ok to do wanikani right now even if you do not, even if you do not know any grammar)
-
genki 1 & 2 AND/OR JAPANESE FROM ZERO BOOK SERIES 1-5
as you are learning from above, listen to nihongo no teppi podcast or any other beginner level to practice on your hearing abilities -
tobira AND/OR an approach to intermediate japanese book.
idk any advance level grammar but you can check out IMABI
they got all types of levels.
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I think the most important thing you can do is get listening practice. I recommend the Nihongo Con Teppei for Beginners podcast. It starts out really easy and slowly builds from there. Listening every day will help train your ear.
I also recommend using a textbook or Tae Kim and doing a grammar point a day. And if you’re up for it, getting some speaking practice is helpful from the start. iTalki for tutors or any of the online language exchange apps.
There’s also an absolute beginner book club here that you can check out.
Good luck!
I have Minna no Nihongo books (as I did the first year of university) but I do find them a bit difficult to go through on my own as they’re quite classroom based. Believe it or not, I’ve been studying on and off for nearly 10 years and I’m still stuck at this phase!
I often watch NHK World to have Japanese speakers in the background so I can get an ear for it. I think I need to get some penpals of some sort to be able to practice a bit more. I don’t know anyone studying it so I’ve never really used it!
A lot of people mention tae kim, but I could only find a couple of his videos. Is there actually enough material by him to give one a decent understanding of Japanese grammar? Could you please give a link?
Sure, the grammar starts here
It goes through a lot of stuff. It isn’t thorough, and a lot of people take issue with the way he explains things (I think its fine, no explanation for beginners is 100% true anyway) but it gets to stuff that you’d have to look in a non-existant Genki 3 for because textbooks are always kinda slow on grammar imo.
Thx for the link. I’ll be sure to check it out.
I just began doing this myself, but if your goal is to eventually be able to have conversations in japanese I highly recommend using vrchat. From what I’ve seen, the biggest public japanese world is JP Tutorial. There will be a native japanese person on at basically all times of day. If you arent confident enough in your speaking yet, you can just listen to other people have their conversation and butt in whenever you feel like it.
I suck at listening and speaking because the only japanese I’ve really been studying up to now is reading, and even I got to have a full on conversation with two guys in a couple days. (Although they were speaking to me with pretty basic words most of the time so that I could understand). Its basically the free italki except you wont necessarily have a teacher dedicated to helping you; though a lot of people on there are friendly and will try to cater to your level of japanese
Hello Taylalatbh - If you can speak to someone I’m sure that would be the ideal!
For me (a coward that doesn’t want to talk to anyone just yet) - this is what I’ve been doing as someone who knew zero a few months ago.
I have been enjoying these free books for Reading Free books – にほんごたどく
Watching ‘comprehensible’ channels on youtube like this https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXo8kuCtqLjL1EH6m4FJJNA
Going through the lessons of the ‘Irasshai’ series https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMniSm5GhmXadL_F7ncTnOS_uBZXdVgkH
which will give you some useful sentences (everyday stuff about home, family, objects etc plus some cultural background)
and
enjoying ‘Tokyo Stories’ on Netflix, with the english subtitles on, obvs (and rejoicing when I hear a word from wanikani). I expect listening to any series or film you’re interested in is good!
And I think Cure Dolly is useful for starting to learn about grammar as she explains things very clearly (that’s also on youtube). It’s more inspiring to me than a dry textbook…
(Regretfully I fear we are both are a long way from any intermediate wall 
but that’s not anything to worry about… just keep finding things that are interesting to you and work for you! I think that’s the most important thing to keep up motivation!
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