完了! Burned 100% of WaniKani and advise for others (plus new year wishes)

おめでとう御座います! So now can you read a novel, newspaper or magazine without too much of a problem? That is my primary goal, to read Japanese so I have high hopes for this system. Any tips?

I know the ‘example sentences’ don’t fall into the conversation category really, but they at least give you some context for the words usage, however formal they might really be. I’m curious what other resources you’d recommend for learning how to use words in context specifically, other than I guess speaking to Japanese people which I am certainly nowhere near capable of doing effectively yet?

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There are usage focused books, like this, like this, or like in the Shin Kanzen Master series, though that is JLPT-focused, not specifically for your own usage. Better than nothing though. I have a thesaurus and it has little icons for literary words, conversational words, classical Japanese, etc.

Of course it also has example sentences for everything.

I’m not sure if there are any beginners resources other than just the typical textbook series. They usually give you usage pointers when they teach vocab.

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I use Japanese: The Spoken Language. It certainly errs on the overly formal side, but the sentences/words themselves are perfectly natural, if a bit stiff. Conjugate to direct/dictionary style as needed and you’ve got yourself a working base for speaking Japanese.

As an example, in one of the first lessons of the book, it goes over the difference between sentence ending particle よ when used with a flat intonation, and sentence ending particle よ when used with a rising intonation. The difference in feeling you convey to the person you’re speaking to is immense!

Cheers for the recommendations; that first book seems to be more at my level, the second I will make note of for future consideration.

I looked into this book (or series of books) and whilst they use romaji, I really like the sound of the learning philosophy that the author professes to follow - that of learning how to speak before how to read. Whilst it might be a bit extreme not to learn any kana at all when you’re just starting out, this focus on learning to speak first, read second makes a lot of sense to me after my own experiences studying the language.

Despite being able to read and understand a fair amount of beginner-intermediate grammar at this point, that elusive quality of being able to ‘think’ in Japanese has eluded me for years, and I think it might have a lot to do with not fully understanding, on a very intuitive level, the structures underpinning the language but instead only understanding their results as it where, though I admit this seems like a vague distinction. It’s a shame the audio materials that go along with these books are hard to get ahold of/very expensive. Do you have those yourself and if not, is it still worthwhile getting?

Yep, I have the audio materials. I make drills for Anki with them. It’s taxing work but drilling the essential conjugations for verbals and adjectivals has made a distinct impact on my ability to do it on the fly. All the audio materials are available on several universities websites online, but I have cleaned up the audio a bit and arranged the files. If you want to, I can send you my materials (as said, these are freely available on the internet ie on CAS – Central Authentication Service)

For books 2 and 3 the audio is of a very poor quality, so I’m contemplating buying the DVD when I get there. It’s not terrifyingly expensive.

This sounds like really useful information. The whole よ particle thing is never described particularly well on the internet, to my taste.

You may have mentioned before, or I may have asked you before about the your thesaurus, but what audience is it written for?

* adds a couple new items to wanikani just so you don’t have 100% burned *

Also, nice job, and congrats!! That’s no small feat.

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Congratulations and thank you for the tips, they are very much appreciated especially as someone who’s still quite early in the levels currently. Also, 100th like yay :stuck_out_tongue:

It’s a thesaurus intended for native speaking adults. I bought it at a regular bookstore here in Japan. When I get home I can check the name.

Congrats! Do you feel like if you looked back at all/any of the vocab you would know it? or like some kind of percentage is like “I burned it at the time, but haven’t seen it once since”?

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Congratulations and thank you for your advice!

Congratulations! Realizing I’ve got a long way to go, would have hoped to know much more prior to my first stay in Japan this March, but maybe next trip :o)

I’d never say no to being offered free learning materials! I know they’re free online thanks to that link you provided, but downloading them all would take a while, and if you’ve cleaned them up as well that’s a great bonus.

Oh, well, if it’s for native speaking adults, then it’s probably over my head right now. And I don’t write in Japanese enough to make it worth trying to figure out how to use it until I get more advanced.

Alrighty. If anyone was interested in the name, I forgot before, but it’s 新明解類語辞典 (Shinmeikai Thesaurus of the Japanese Language)

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Heh, I completely forgot this place has been a thing. (;^ω^)

To answer some questions:
@Buddycat2, there are still moments I have to look up Kanji, either because I forgot or because I didn’t see it before (or because it’s part of some slang).
There’s nothing wrong with that, even native Japanese speakers have such moments.

@AidenMcKee, depends.
Vocabulary used while doing business with Nintendo or Sony is entirely different from vocabulary used while chatting on Discord.
Would you be able to guess the meaning of these for example, if I wouldn’t explain you beforehand?
マイクラ垢を持ってる?
マリカしましょ!
鯖を参加しなさい!

Answers

Do you have a Minecraft account?
Let’s play some Mario Kart!
Join (this) server!

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Congrats. I am also a long-time speaker (but very little reading), so I’m hoping to get through this quickly as well. Seeing your progress is motivating. Thanks!

Well done!!