Where to start? Roadblocks? Bad studying habits? (A noobs plea)

Japanese Language Questions
21

Holla.

Can’t say that i’m any good in jap yet, but gonna give my 2 yens in any case.

There’s this guide, i personally found it quite useful, and it’s is up to date (also there’s WaniKani route! =).

As a general rule, an efficient way would be to get around reading kana fast, then practice actually reading it, well, faster than a turtle.

Then go to Tae Kim.

The next steps can differ according to your goals. If you want to read VNs and understand anime + manga fast, probably the best thing would be to go and read (well, try to) them. Just keep in mind that your experience would be somewhat ruined since reading a 10-hour VN for a few months or so isn’t the best way to get a good read. But the experience you would get… It’s worth it.

I actually really got around English only when I started to actually read it, w/out textbooks or such. It was OreGairu LN.

It’s the same with every other language. You won’t be any good with it if you stick to textbooks. The sooner you will dive into ‘real’ language - the better.

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22

After about 1 year of heavy studying, these are my thoughts. I should also point out that I’m hoping to take/pass the JLPT N3 exam at the end of the year. I am also interested in being proficient in all aspects (reading, writing, speaking, listening) so my experience is related to that.

As others have said, don’t neglect grammar. You can learn kanji/vocab all day long, but without understanding the rules, you’re going to have a rough go.

When I use WaniKani, I’m also using KaniWani.com (free) to learn the WK vocab in reverse (ENG>JP). It works a completely different brain muscle in my opinion. If I could start all over, I would do both websites in tandom. Instead I’ve been spending the last couple months catching up my KaniWani levels to my WK level (just reached 28 today) and it’s been pretty brutal, but it’ll pay off. Doing both sites at the same pace from Level 1 would’ve been much more tolerable, I think.

I’ve been self-studying using the Genki I texbook and also getting close to finishing a second semester of JP01 at the local community college. College class was an interesting experience, but for me, I think I’ve got enough drive/motivation that I probably could’ve used the time more effectively without the class.

I actively try to find new friends to write to or speak to in Japanese using resources like the HelloTalk phone app or lang-8.com.

I routinely listen to the Genki I audio lessons in the car to/from work and when getting ready for work. This helps with listening and also going over grammar already learned and a heads up for grammar I haven’t gotten to yet. Sometimes it’s interesting to hear the new grammar examples being spoken and deconstructing how they work without even having an explanation yet.

Depending on your overall goals and how quickly you want to accomplish them determines quite a few things about your study schedule and materials. Hopefully something I said is helpful. It can get rough sometimes and I’ve known people who have just given up. I go through rough patches, but NEVER stop or give up. I know my goal and I’m trying really hard to reach it… even on the days it hurts.

頑張って下さい。

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23

You guys had a prison wall over in Pleasant? O.o

There’s no such thing in Painful…

24

Yeah… we leave a message before we leave. Kind of Koichi’s suggestion. Or Viet… I can’t remember…

25

I would say, the most important thing is to build and maintain momentum. Make Japanese a part of your daily life, so that it’s an ingrained habit. Don’t overload yourself, the burn-out risk is real - a sustainable, steady pace is what’s working best (at least for me).

Fortunately, Wanikani helps a lot with that. I’ve been trying to learn the language for half my life now, and sadly it’s a history of aborted attempts, where I would intensively start studying some resource and at some point just distractedly taper off and stop. You can’t stop WK - it’ll punish you :japanese_goblin:, and it’s gamified just enough that it’s the first thing and the last thing I do in a day, every day.

One thing where I disagree with コウイチ先生 is about writing. For me, actually writing down the kanji strengthens the memory by a huge degree, and improves the precision of the memory. It’s the difference between recognizing the general shape and the actual stroke pattern, and I find it makes differentiating between visually similar kanji easier. But it does take more time, and I guess I wouldn’t do it if I weren’t actually enjoying writing kanji so much.

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26

I find writing down the kanji helps me remember it much better as well! Sometimes I think it helps getting a little physical with certain kanji that I struggle with, and that’s by writing it. I find I can recall some kanji almost effortlessly because by writing it, it’s more ingrained in my memory.

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27

Hi,

I’ve been studying the damn language for more than 10 years. Curiously the beginning is quiet easy. You start with hirgana, katakana, easy grammar and day-to-day vocabulary. Then your first kanji start to show up. Piece of cake. But at some point there’s a road-block that comes in the way. That’s where things get more difficult … Bunch of words sound the same, kanji looks the same but they have a slight difference, and some grammar starts to make no sense to foreigners.
I live in Japan for 10 years so of course it help learning but still … you discover some new things every day.
The most annoying is when the locals cannot explain you some grammar points, or when they cannot read kanji (names are a pain in the お尻). So 2 advices : never give up, study everyday, don’t be afraid to ask questions.
My 2 yen,.

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28

tl;dr: Take night school classes for grammar, speech and listening. Use wanikani to “bootstrap” vocab and kanji to accelerate fluency.

I’ve been studying at a relaxed pace for a bit over a year (I could easily pass the JLPT L5, but probably not quite L4). Unlike other posters here, I actually got started by diving into a Japanese 1 night class at a nearby college (two hour class, once a week for 10 weeks), knowing absolutely nothing about the language except “Hai!” I highly recommend this option, if you can find and afford it.

I was quite lucky to get a great instructor. A native speaker of both Japanese (1st) and English (2nd, but no accent!), she would always be happy to diverge for a bit to explain things a step or two past what the textbook explained if she thought it would help students to understand the basics. If you find your teacher doesn’t do this, Google is your friend for finding extra material on a random topic.

Other students in the class varied in level A LOT. Some knew kanji, but not any Japanese. Two knew Korean fluently, but not any Japanese. And some were like me, only knowing western languages. So, with the mix of students, it really helped to observe how others developed ways of handling the grammar, soaked in the vocab, and tried to pronounce the words.

Advice: Learn hiragana and katakana ASAP, and switch to kana versions of your textbook as early as possible. I actually find now that I have difficulty recognizing familiar words when they’re in romaji, whereas I can read them at a reasonable speed in hiragana or katakana (and understand them).

So, I’ve stuck with the class and will be starting my 6th quarter next month. The main reason I came to wanikani is because I now know enough grammar, but am finding I don’t have the vocab to say all the things I want to say, or even to read simple text. This is important for gaining fluency in the language. And, for various reasons, the adult education environment can’t really do much to help you learn kanji or vocab: This is something that requires frequent periods of self-study, at your own pace, and not something you do once a week with a class. So, I will use wanikani to “bootstrap” as I continue studying the grammar in classes.

29

A while back, I wrote an article about my Japanese language journey (mostly covering the pitfalls):

As far as advice goes, I’d say to watch out for your weaknesses. Ideally, studying a language would mean equal attention to speaking, listening, reading, and writing. However, you may find you’re better at one aspect over another. Don’t neglect the things you aren’t good at; sometimes it’s frustrating and seems like a waste of time, but if you aren’t good at speaking, for example, and you let yourself get really far studying everything else, you’ll end up feeling worse. That’s kind of what happened to me, anyway.

Find a schedule that works for you and be as consistent as possible. My own study schedule has been all-over-the-place, and even if it’s just 30 minutes everyday, it’s better than 2 hours one day, an hour 3 days later, and 10 minutes the next day. Just don"t study the same thing every time for too many sessions in a row (i.e., only grammar, only Wanikani, etc.).

If you’re interested in a break-down of how I currently go about organizing my study time, I wrote an article about that, too. (The images aren’t very good, though…)

Best of luck, and thanks for posting this! It’s been interesting to read everyone’s advice.

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30

At least, I think good studying habit is 2x2 simultaneous approaches, to do alternately; denying none. (So, 4 approaches alternately.)

  1. Textbook sequences
  • Study: Kana → Genki → Tobira
  • Absorption: by textbook sequence; might be something like Japanese Graded Readers; group chatting / discussion in class (or on some specific threads)
  1. More-or-less random sequence
  • Study: WaniKani, RTK, core 10K vocab, JLPT vocab
  • Absorption: music, anime, manga, video clip, blog; lang-8, Skype, real life

I don’t know if this helps or not, but communicative level appears to be N3-N2 vocab plus intermediate Japanese grammar.

So, がんばってね～

31

Welcome to WaniKani!! Im happy to hear that you have begun what will be a difficult, but rewarding journey.

I myself am only a little over 3 months into learning. Went to Japan last December, loved it and started learning Hiragana/Katakana in the last 2 days I was there using an iphone app. Learnt both alphabets in a day (to the point where I could recognise, not recall - thats all I needed). Helped that I had no choice but to see that alphabet everywhere at the time!

Came back to Aus, started wanikani. 3 months later, I can hold a basic Japanese conversation with my japanese friends, I can read (VERY slowly and it completely limited by knowledge of grammar).

My personal difficulties:

  • Spent WAY too much time researching on what I should be studying/how to study rather than actually studying
  • Compared myself too many times to what other people could do at my level

Personal Tips:
I am medical student, so my way of learning is designed for mass information, not much memory work but more understanding. It works for me, it may/may not work for you.

  • SRS is a means to an end and it will not solve all your problems. Its amazing for learning Kanji and it will do exactly that - but it takes time. So start early, keep at it, and one day you will realise how much you actually know
  • dont get bogged down on trying to memorise literally everything. Not going to happen and it never will. If theres a word/kanji you cant seem to remember for whatever reason, dont stress over it because itll just make things worse. move on. you WILL eventually get it once you are exposed to it in the ‘real world’ or when you read something and it comes up unexpectedly. You will never forget it once that happens. Let it happen naturally. No point stressing yourself out over it.
  • read. at your level, it wont make sense. you wont recognise anything, and you certainly wont understand anything. Make every excuse you can about it, then just read. This serves many purposes. The first is that, if like me, you just learnt to recognise katakana/hiragana and the kanji that youve learned up until now, you will consolidate that when you come across it. The second is that reading is the single, best way to become better at a language - its the same reason why you are made to read throughout your entire school years. The third, and my favourite, is when you come back to read the same thing in a few months and you dont even realise you are reading it - it feels amazing!
  • You can ‘memorise’ Kanji, katakana and Hiragana and it will be beneficial, but you must ‘understand’ grammar. Start early, and keep at it.

Good luck!

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32

I think it was Koichi that told us to think of it as a prison, we’re only there for a short time so we should write things on the wall (the wiki) to help those that come after us, or something like that. After we had set up a decent wiki post and I was about to leave we added The Prison Wall where everyone who edits the wiki can leave a short comment =)

IIRC mine looked something like this
Mar 14 2017 | @kumirei: ‎(ﾉಥ益ಥ）ﾉ ┻━┻

This is a screenshot I took of @crunderwood’s

696×48 4.92 KB

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33

Oh crunderwood…

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What did you write, Alex?

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I haven’t yet. Still have about a week to go… Don’t know what to put.

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That was a beautiful thing I made

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>Beautiful

38

Well, what’s not to love about 高橋みなみ？

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Oh no he’s at it again!!

(It’s pretty good. Hope I can come up with something memorable.)

40

Oohh thanks for that.