Learning Japanese • 日本語の勉強 |これはOTです| ゆっくりしていいぞ！

Leo-Tyrant · Jul 17, 2019

Dear friends. I need your help-suggestions.

Context: I recently traveled to Japan, last April. I decided I wanted to learn how to read and speak it, so I found this thread (among other online sources) and for the past month or so, have self-learned:

Hiragana: using mnemonics
Katakana: using mnemonics
Numbers
Grammar
Some vocabulary

This has been quite effective as I am now able to read some manga, subtitles, as well as most menus in games, and signs and stuff written in Hiragana-Katakana (as long as there isnt a Kanji i use). I can make out all of the words, even when sometimes I don't know the meaning.

The problem:

I decided this week to start learning Kanji. And...

It has been a disaster. I am able to figure out all of hiragana rules, as well as how to use them in combination, but as soon as I see the Kanji by itself or in another context, I forget what the heck its supposed to mean. I have tried to associate the symbol with a thought or using math-like reasoning (breakfast, lunch, dinner seemed like a good example: 朝食, 昼食,夕食) but any rule will break in the next Kanji I try.

Is this really all just memorization? If so:

Mnemonics were quite effective in making me memorize all of the Hiragana and Katakana characters very quickly. Is there a similar way to proceed with Kanji?
Should I just book an online teacher here (this seems like a nice place) and ask for a customized Kanji-learning method aligned with my learning process? https://www.italki.com/teachers/japanese
Any other suggestions?

L Thammy · Jul 17, 2019

To a certain extent, yeah, you can't learn hundreds or thousands of characters without heavy memorization. But there are a few things that might be able to help.

1. Start with the radicals. It will train you to visually break down characters more easily, so they seem much less daunting. It will also help you to look up characters you don't know.

2. You could try to keep your approach close to how you'd see the language in practice. Since kunyomi and onyomi follow certain patterns in their usage, you don't really need to memorize them separately, you can just learn the pattern and then try to learn words that use that character.

3. Reading a lot helps, of course. It helps to memorize kanji when you keep seeing the words that use them.

Nakho · Jul 17, 2019

The OP has a nice segment on Kanji. I recommend reading it thoroughly, even though it still misses on a few relatively recent methods to learning it. I personally had a good experience with the Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course, but YMMV.
Also, after a few months you'll love having Kanji in your reading materials and start hating kana's ambiguity.

Jintor · Jul 17, 2019

I agree with Thammy.

1. start with radicals

2. learn kanji depending on actual usage (the first kanji I really learned were sign kanji because that was what I would see all the time - so stuff like 止まれ or 出口 or 急行 (or even 曜日 etc). Context is way easier to help remember stuff.

3. After actual usage, frequency is another good way of learning kanji, though I don't personally think much of memorising the frequency lists and so on.

Leo-Tyrant · Jul 17, 2019

First: Thank you all for your detailed responses. I usually try to learn and get over things myself, but in this particular goal, I really dont know what would be the best road to follow, considering my learning habits. The OP is fantastic, and I have been following the reference Word document, but there are also several paths and recomendations, and I dont know which one would be a better fit for me. Specific answers below:

L Thammy said:
To a certain extent, yeah, you can't learn hundreds or thousands of characters without heavy memorization. But there are a few things that might be able to help.

1. Start with the radicals. It will train you to visually break down characters more easily, so they seem much less daunting. It will also help you to look up characters you don't know.

2. You could try to keep your approach close to how you'd see the language in practice. Since kunyomi and onyomi follow certain patterns in their usage, you don't really need to memorize them separately, you can just learn the pattern and then try to learn words that use that character.

3. Reading a lot helps, of course. It helps to memorize kanji when you keep seeing the words that use them.

Thank you.

A bit more context from my side:

I work from 8 am till 5pm, then gym, then house stuff so I only have 5-10 minutes at random hours during the day, and a couple of hours at night to study. I can also make time during the weekends.

Would you recommend to start with actual literature like "Remembering the Kanji" ? Since mnemonics "clicked" with me, would these 3 books match my learning habits?

Where can I start with the radicals? Whats the best approach?

Would you recommend something like Anki (I don't know how it works, you see flashcards and you either get a correct or incorrect answer?).

Nakho said:
The OP has a nice segment on Kanji. I recommend reading it thoroughly, even though it still misses on a few relatively recent methods to learning it. I personally had a good experience with the Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course, but YMMV.
Also, after a few months you'll love having Kanji in your reading materials and start hating kana's ambiguity.

Thanks! Thats quite a expensive book. Is it self-taught or would you still need a tutor with it?

Jintor said:
I agree with Thammy.

1. start with radicals

2. learn kanji depending on actual usage (the first kanji I really learned were sign kanji because that was what I would see all the time - so stuff like 止まれ or 出口 or 急行 (or even 曜日 etc). Context is way easier to help remember stuff.

3. After actual usage, frequency is another good way of learning kanji, though I don't personally think much of memorising the frequency lists and so on.

I agree with you. I think my main concern at this point is that I dont have a "plan" or stablished guidelines on how to proceed on my day to day. There is a lot of uncertainty on what process, what book, what approach, what app to follow.

sackboy97 · Jul 18, 2019

Leo-Tyrant said:
I work from 8 am till 5pm, then gym, then house stuff so I only have 5-10 minutes at random hours during the day, and a couple of hours at night to study. I can also make time during the weekends.

Would you recommend to start with actual literature like "Remembering the Kanji" ? Since mnemonics "clicked" with me, would these 3 books match my learning habits?

Where can I start with the radicals? Whats the best approach?

Would you recommend something like Anki (I don't know how it works, you see flashcards and you either get a correct or incorrect answer?).

Anki is great (and yeah, that is in the simplest terms how it works, though it's highly customisable) but generally needs some time to set it up beforehand (and then to create the cards, unless you use pre-made decks). RTK is pretty good, though it's not going to teach you the readings (or rather, there's a book about the readings but it's not as useful as the other two books).

You should give WaniKani a shot, I feel like; the first three levels are free and you can see for yourself if it works. It has radicals, kanji and vocab. I believe it could be a nice fit both for the mnemonics (though they are a bit weird, you can add different ones if you like) and for the random 5-10 minutes you can dedicate to it during the day.

Leo-Tyrant · Jul 18, 2019

sackboy97 said:
Anki is great (and yeah, that is in the simplest terms how it works, though it's highly customisable) but generally needs some time to set it up beforehand (and then to create the cards, unless you use pre-made decks). RTK is pretty good, though it's not going to teach you the readings (or rather, there's a book about the readings but it's not as useful as the other two books).

You should give WaniKani a shot, I feel like; the first three levels are free and you can see for yourself if it works. It has radicals, kanji and vocab. I believe it could be a nice fit both for the mnemonics (though they are a bit weird, you can add different ones if you like) and for the random 5-10 minutes you can dedicate to it during the day.

Thank you so much for your suggestion. I started an account in WaniKani, I will report back in some days.

I also started reading Remember the Kanji, and it all makes sense so far, but if I skip some pages the Kanjis start making less and less sense so I will go one step at the time.

sackboy97 · Jul 18, 2019

Leo-Tyrant said:
Thank you so much for your suggestion. I started an account in WaniKani, I will report back in some days.

I also started reading Remember the Kanji, and it all makes sense so far, but if I skip some pages the Kanjis start making less and less sense so I will go one step at the time.

RTK is made with the idea of going in order; if you don't skip around, you'll only find radicals/kanji you have already know or be introduced to new ones. If you like RTK you could use a pre-made Anki deck to review as you progress through the book; like I said, the second book (which is about readings) is not recommended (from my experience and from what I have read), since it's a lot better (and easier) to learn the readings in context.

Deleted member 48991 · Jul 18, 2019

Leo-Tyrant said:
First: Thank you all for your detailed responses. I usually try to learn and get over things myself, but in this particular goal, I really dont know what would be the best road to follow, considering my learning habits. The OP is fantastic, and I have been following the reference Word document, but there are also several paths and recomendations, and I dont know which one would be a better fit for me. Specific answers below:

Thank you.

A bit more context from my side:

I work from 8 am till 5pm, then gym, then house stuff so I only have 5-10 minutes at random hours during the day, and a couple of hours at night to study. I can also make time during the weekends.

Would you recommend to start with actual literature like "Remembering the Kanji" ? Since mnemonics "clicked" with me, would these 3 books match my learning habits?

Where can I start with the radicals? Whats the best approach?

Would you recommend something like Anki (I don't know how it works, you see flashcards and you either get a correct or incorrect answer?).

Thanks! Thats quite a expensive book. Is it self-taught or would you still need a tutor with it?

I agree with you. I think my main concern at this point is that I dont have a "plan" or stablished guidelines on how to proceed on my day to day. There is a lot of uncertainty on what process, what book, what approach, what app to follow.

A few years ago, after taking some introductory level Japanese and kanji courses I wanted to study kanji using RTK. I spend about a year studying using RTK and covered most of the book, but in hindsight I'm not sure it was the most effective use of my time. My biggest mistake was tunnel vision by studying only RTK. Even if you finish the book, which could take months to years, you have not learned how to say a single word in Japanese. Heisig's stories are also a bit dated. I gave up on this method at some point due to the amount of reviews on Anki growing too large.

Last winter I switched to studying kanji through key vocabulary (using the text book Kanji in Context) and it feel like - even though I can only study about 5-10 new kanji a day - I'm making much more progress in actually reading Japanese. I still use the key word from RTK for recalling kanji though - it acts like a unique identifier which is useful for flash cards (e.g. Anki). I basically have two kind of flash cards, one for kanji and one for vocabulary. The kanji flash card is bidirectional with on one side the kanji and on the other side the keyword from RTK (and the stroke order of the kanji). The vocabulary flash cards are unidirectional, from the word written using kanji to reading/meaning. By having a good set of key vocabulary you can cover the most common readings of each kanji without having to explicitly study the readings.

If you do use RTK using Anki, be sure to check that you also cover Heisig's "primitive elements that are not themselves kanji but only used to construct other kanji" (from Lesson 3 onward). The deck I was using did not cover these, making it easy to get confused. Actually, in general Anki should be used for reviewing, not learning new content, so you should use the book.

Anyway, before starting to study kanji specifically I would follow a text book like Genki or Minna no Nihongo (backed by Anki) and do the kanji exercises attached to each. That way you can study basic kanji while also learning useful grammar and listen to spoken Japanese using the included CD.

Jintor · Jul 18, 2019

I did Heisig. It works, but I don't think it's nearly as effective as context-based learning + spaced repetition. Simply focusing only on kanji without connecting it to both meaning and sound is simply too inefficient for me to recommend. The radical stories help, but I think there were better paths to travel than going with RTK.

I will note that I find that handwriting out a kanji is a great pathway to learning to better recognise the kanji in print etc, so in that sense I do recommend you do learn things like basic stroke order so that even when seeing unfamiliar kanji you have a pretty good idea of how to write it out.

Leo-Tyrant · Jul 18, 2019

sackboy97 said:
RTK is made with the idea of going in order; if you don't skip around, you'll only find radicals/kanji you have already know or be introduced to new ones. If you like RTK you could use a pre-made Anki deck to review as you progress through the book; like I said, the second book (which is about readings) is not recommended (from my experience and from what I have read), since it's a lot better (and easier) to learn the readings in context.

Thanks, yes I intent to proceed in order. I only purchased the first book. I also finished the first lessons in WaniKani and I'm loving the approach (very similar to the way I learned Hiragana and Katakana), thanks again for your suggestion.

sNtd said:
A few years ago, after taking some introductory level Japanese and kanji courses I wanted to study kanji using RTK. I spend about a year studying using RTK and covered most of the book, but in hindsight I'm not sure it was the most effective use of my time. My biggest mistake was tunnel vision by studying only RTK. Even if you finish the book, which could take months to years, you have not learned how to say a single word in Japanese. Heisig's stories are also a bit dated. I gave up on this method at some point due to the amount of reviews on Anki growing too large.

Last winter I switched to studying kanji through key vocabulary (using the text book Kanji in Context) and it feel like - even though I can only study about 5-10 new kanji a day - I'm making much more progress in actually reading Japanese. I still use the key word from RTK for recalling kanji though - it acts like a unique identifier which is useful for flash cards (e.g. Anki). I basically have two kind of flash cards, one for kanji and one for vocabulary. The kanji flash card is bidirectional with on one side the kanji and on the other side the keyword from RTK (and the stroke order of the kanji). The vocabulary flash cards are unidirectional, from the word written using kanji to reading/meaning. By having a good set of key vocabulary you can cover the most common readings of each kanji without having to explicitly study the readings.

If you do use RTK using Anki, be sure to check that you also cover Heisig's "primitive elements that are not themselves kanji but only used to construct other kanji" (from Lesson 3 onward). The deck I was using did not cover these, making it easy to get confused. Actually, in general Anki should be used for reviewing, not learning new content, so you should use the book.

Anyway, before starting to study kanji specifically I would follow a text book like Genki or Minna no Nihongo (backed by Anki) and do the kanji exercises attached to each. That way you can study basic kanji while also learning useful grammar and listen to spoken Japanese using the included CD.

I have some doubts, and a big ask for a recommendation moving forward, if I may:

I really have no idea what to do with the Anki-Flashcards concept. Seems like I have to create "decks" with them? Is there a list where I select according to difficulty or subject and "import full decks" into Anki? Are there pre-made decks I can just use? Apologies for the dumb question.
I like what I see from the Minna no Nihongo book you suggested and I plan to read it on commute and at nights, however, this makes me wonder if I'm actually covering all I should, from a comprehensive perspective:
- I already covered Hiragana = OK
- I already covered Katakana = OK
- Numbers, colors, very basic grammar like "me, you, hello, here, there, etc." = OK
- Kanji: WaniKani + Remember the Kanji + Minna no Nihongo = In Progress
- Basic grammar? Like saying "I really like this dish", "Why would you say that?", etc. Im reading Tae Kims lessons in my phone, but once he reached Kanji I came to Resetera for help= Pending - what would be the best recommendation?

Deleted member 48991 · Jul 18, 2019

Leo-Tyrant said:
I have some doubts, and a big ask for a recommendation moving forward, if I may:

I really have no idea what to do with the Anki-Flashcards concept. Seems like I have to create "decks" with them? Is there a list where I select according to difficulty or subject and "import full decks" into Anki? Are there pre-made decks I can just use? Apologies for the dumb question.

I like what I see from the Minna no Nihongo book you suggested and I plan to read it on commute and at nights, however, this makes me wonder if I'm actually covering all I should, from a comprehensive perspective:

I already covered Hiragana = OK

I already covered Katakana = OK

Numbers, colors, very basic grammar like "me, you, hello, here, there, etc." = OK

Kanji: WaniKani + Remember the Kanji + Minna no Nihongo = In Progress

Basic grammar? Like saying "I really like this dish", "Why would you say that?", etc. Im reading Tae Kims lessons in my phone, but once he reached Kanji I came to Resetera for help= Pending - what would be the best recommendation?

Minna no Nihongo is an all-round text book aimed at the general population. To be honest I prefer Genki which is a bit more fun, but MNN was used in the language course at the company I work for. There are many text books for learning elementary Japanese so you should pick one which best suits your needs.

Regarding kanji, I'm not sure if it's useful to study from both WaniKani and RTK at the same time as they might assign a different keyword/story/mnemonic to the kanji.

Regarding Anki, you can create your own decks or download pre-made decks (from https://ankiweb.net/shared/decks/japanese). What I would recommend you to do is to use a text book and get a matching deck for that, then first study a section (chapter or lesson) from the book, and after finishing that chapter/lesson you can use Anki for reviewing. Note that Anki decks are typically made by ordinary people like you and me, so there are often multiple versions available. You might have to experiment a bit to see which deck is best for you. Later on you might want to start creating your own decks.

Nakho · Jul 18, 2019

We were just talking how there's a myriad of methods to learning Japanese (and how they teach Kanji is definitely the biggest differentiator). I see how it can be overwhelming. I would recommend you to time-box this decision. Take one week or two weeks just to try different Kanji-learning methods, and at the end of this period just choose the one you connected with the most and go with it, all the way.

Leo-Tyrant said:
Thanks! Thats quite a expensive book. Is it self-taught or would you still need a tutor with it?

Self-taught. There are some pre-made Anki decks that make reviewing it a breeze, but basically all the information you'll need is in the book.. It's kinda expensive, yeah, but I feel it's worth it. It's like an updated Heisig in a few ways. Really opened my eyes to how Kanji are structured, how to predict the Chinese reading based on the radicals, differentiate them in subtle ways. Neat stuff.

Edit: just checked Amazon, and US$ 195,00 for the KKLC?! I paid like a fifth of this from Amazon last year. Some shortage shenanigans must'e happenend since then. Yeah, don't buy it at this price.

Jintor · Jul 18, 2019

My advice with SRS (spaced repetition software, which is what Anki is) is to make your own decks, but I am a context fiend and only remember things I myself encounter; I do very badly with preprepped lists.

mere_immortal · Jul 18, 2019

I've been using WaniKani for a few months, level 7 atm. It goes through the radicals, then the kanji itself then how it's used in vocab. I find it great as the setup is all done for me, I just have to make the time to login and do the reviews.

Some of the mnemonics are a bit hit and miss but you can type in your own, and it does cost money after the first few levels. Worth a try for free though to see if it works.

Deleted member 82 · Jul 18, 2019

The more I review my RTK cards while having lackluster (if not non-existent lately, to be honest) reading immersion, the more I realize that it really can't work well if you're not already very familiar with the kanji, especially RTK3 because it has so many rarer/more complicated kanji. In other words: reading a lot and regularly will be the best predictor of your ability to retain kanji knowledge. RTK is more for when you want to facilitate the writing.

Also, Leo-Tyrant , just a bit of emotional support (I guess?): it's normal to be completely overwhelmed after only a week of kanji. You're in this for the long haul, so things will will make more sense with time, don't worry.

Nakho · Jul 18, 2019

Kilrogg said:
The more I review my RTK cards while having lackluster (if not non-existent lately, to be honest) reading immersion, the more I realize that it really can't work well if you're not already very familiar with the kanji, especially RTK3 because it has so many rarer/more complicated kanji. In other words: reading a lot and regularly will be the best predictor of your ability to retain kanji knowledge. RTK is more for when you want to facilitate the writing.

IIRC, that's the reason MattvsJapan introduced the Lazy Kanji back into his approach on Japanese and now proposes postponing RTK until a lot further down the road. Lazy Kanji serves as just sort of a "priming" so you don't see the Kanji as squiggly lines, start understanding what radicals are and know the basic meaning of the most common ones.

Deleted member 82 · Jul 18, 2019

Nakho said:
IIRC, that's the reason MattvsJapan introduced the Lazy Kanji back into his approach on Japanese and now proposes postponing RTK until a lot further down the road. Lazy Kanji serves as just sort of a "priming" so you don't see the Kanji as squiggly lines, start understanding what radicals are and know the basic meaning of the most common ones.

Yup, he even made an apology video about it and everything. On that note, I should apologize too because I was very adamant and obnoxious about how RTK is the be-all end-all, back when I first found out about it and Matt made the RTK video. So yeah, sorry to those of you who had to suffer through that ^^'.

sackboy97 · Jul 18, 2019

Kilrogg said:
Yup, he even made an apology video about it and everything. On that note, I should apologize too because I was very adamant and obnoxious about how RTK is the be-all end-all, back when I first found out about it and Matt made the RTK video. So yeah, sorry to those of you who had to suffer through that ^^'.

I think that overall it's worth going through the first book. The third book on the other hand, way less so. Not only does it have less common kanji, I found the words/concept that it was trying to associate quite lackluster.

Deleted member 82 · Jul 18, 2019

sackboy97 said:
I think that overall it's worth going through the first book. The third book on the other hand, way less so. Not only does it have less common kanji, I found the words/concept that it was trying to associate quite lackluster.

Oh, I 100% agree with you. In fact, the way I go about my RTK reviews right now is like this:
- if I fail an RTK1 card and it ends up becoming suspended, I unsuspend it, because it's most likely a jouyou kanji and I should know it.
- if it's an RTK3 card... I keep it suspended. Meaning I won't see it ever again unless I manually unsuspend it. Many of those kanji you're unlikely to write, and you will only truly remember them if you see them enough in the wild anyway, so there's no point in forcing them into your head through tenuous mnemonic stories.

Leo-Tyrant · Jul 18, 2019

Nakho said:
We were just talking how there's a myriad of methods to learning Japanese (and how they teach Kanji is definitely the biggest differentiator). I see how it can be overwhelming. I would recommend you to time-box this decision. Take one week or two weeks just to try different Kanji-learning methods, and at the end of this period just choose the one you connected with the most and go with it, all the way.

Self-taught. There are some pre-made Anki decks that make reviewing it a breeze, but basically all the information you'll need is in the book.. It's kinda expensive, yeah, but I feel it's worth it. It's like an updated Heisig in a few ways. Really opened my eyes to how Kanji are structured, how to predict the Chinese reading based on the radicals, differentiate them in subtle ways. Neat stuff.

Edit: just checked Amazon, and US$ 195,00 for the KKLC?! I paid like a fifth of this from Amazon last year. Some shortage shenanigans must'e happenend since then. Yeah, don't buy it at this price.

Thank you. Yes, I will focus on just WaniKani for the following week, will pause RTK. I saw the difference in the "story" and mnemonics behind each radical so I will stick with just one for now. I really want to try your book but , that price is making me consider other alternatives.

Jintor said:
My advice with SRS (spaced repetition software, which is what Anki is) is to make your own decks, but I am a context fiend and only remember things I myself encounter; I do very badly with preprepped lists.

I guess I need a quick Iphone-tutorial for Anki, and a sample deck to start. Will research this after the first week in WaniKani.

mere_immortal said:
I've been using WaniKani for a few months, level 7 atm. It goes through the radicals, then the kanji itself then how it's used in vocab. I find it great as the setup is all done for me, I just have to make the time to login and do the reviews.

Some of the mnemonics are a bit hit and miss but you can type in your own, and it does cost money after the first few levels. Worth a try for free though to see if it works.

Honestly? I think (at least the first lessons), hit the sweet spot. I am able to remember all the radicals I learned yesterday, and I can see them as part of bigger Kanjis. They "kinda make sense", unlike my first impression of them this week which was..."I cant remember this".

Kilrogg said:
The more I review my RTK cards while having lackluster (if not non-existent lately, to be honest) reading immersion, the more I realize that it really can't work well if you're not already very familiar with the kanji, especially RTK3 because it has so many rarer/more complicated kanji. In other words: reading a lot and regularly will be the best predictor of your ability to retain kanji knowledge. RTK is more for when you want to facilitate the writing.

Also, Leo-Tyrant , just a bit of emotional support (I guess?): it's normal to be completely overwhelmed after only a week of kanji. You're in this for the long haul, so things will will make more sense with time, don't worry.

Thank you for your support. I was pretty optimistic about the whole thing until I reached Kanji, then I couldn't see a way forward. All of the responses on this thread and WakiNaki made me excited again :). Im really in for the long haul: I like japanese media, games, culture. I enjoyed the country on my visit, and I plan to return (soon). I want this, and I need this.

Leo-Tyrant · Jul 19, 2019

Update: Minna no nihongo has been great in teaching me grammar.

Question: I learnt 26 radicals on Wanikani 2 days ago, but I keep seeing them on daily practices (no new radicals or Kanji are being introduced). Is this normal behavior or am I doing something wrong? Should I click on the "Radical", "Kanji" or "Vocabulary" tabs and mess with them, or will the system organically show me more stuff in the following days?

Itsuki · Jul 19, 2019

I don't know if this was mentioned here (if it was, sorry in advance!) but for those wanting to get used to read novels in Japanese, I recommend you the 角川つばさ文庫 label because novels edited here are aimed for children, so they have furigana.
It doesn't only have original novels and furigana versions from novels like Penguin Highway and Yoru wa Mijikashi, Aruke yo Otome and Toki wo Kakeru Shojo. But also novel versions of movies like Mirai no Mirai, Tenki no Ko and Summer Wars.

sackboy97 · Jul 19, 2019

Leo-Tyrant said:
Update: Minna no nihongo has been great in teaching me grammar.

Question: I learnt 26 radicals on Wanikani 2 days ago, but I keep seeing them on daily practices (no new radicals or Kanji are being introduced). Is this normal behavior or am I doing something wrong? Should I click on the "Radical", "Kanji" or "Vocabulary" tabs and mess with them, or will the system organically show me more stuff in the following days?

WaniKani is based on your progress; on your homepage you should see a list of radicals and kanji for your level. Once you get most of the radicals to a certain level (I believe it was a 4 day review maybe?), you'll unlock the lesson with the kanji of your level containing said radicals. Once you get the kanji to that same level, you'll unlock the related vocabs (and move to the next level, unlocking new radicals and starting the cycle anew).
So pretty much just review whenever you can, you'll soon get more lessons. Be aware that the amount of daily reviews increases quite significantly as you progress (though in the end it all depends on how fast you progress).

Leo-Tyrant · Jul 19, 2019

sackboy97 said:
WaniKani is based on your progress; on your homepage you should see a list of radicals and kanji for your level. Once you get most of the radicals to a certain level (I believe it was a 4 day review maybe?), you'll unlock the lesson with the kanji of your level containing said radicals. Once you get the kanji to that same level, you'll unlock the related vocabs (and move to the next level, unlocking new radicals and starting the cycle anew).
So pretty much just review whenever you can, you'll soon get more lessons. Be aware that the amount of daily reviews increases quite significantly as you progress (though in the end it all depends on how fast you progress).

Thank you! I have been reviewing 2-3 times per day, but I reach a blocker when the "next review" is in 17 hours or something. Is there a way to speed it up? I'm still seeing the initial 26 radicals.

Also: Minna no nihongo has been fundamental in abstracting how the sentences are structured and how they sound. I really appreciate the push to try it. Years of anime and gaming with Japanese audio helped a little bit.

Edit: Support replied back that I only needed 1 day to reach "Guru" in the radicals, so I will probably see the Kanjis tomorrow. I may have been too impatient.

Jintor · Jul 19, 2019

Leo-Tyrant · Jul 19, 2019

Jintor said:
jpn*

Thank you, fixed.

sackboy97 · Jul 20, 2019

Leo-Tyrant said:
Thank you! I have been reviewing 2-3 times per day, but I reach a blocker when the "next review" is in 17 hours or something. Is there a way to speed it up? I'm still seeing the initial 26 radicals.

Also: Minna no nihongo has been fundamental in abstracting how the sentences are structured and how they sound. I really appreciate the push to try it. Years of anime and gaming with Japanese audio helped a little bit.

Edit: Support replied back that I only needed 1 day to reach "Guru" in the radicals, so I will probably see the Kanjis tomorrow. I may have been too impatient.

I think it might be 1 day for radicals and 3-4 days for kanji to reach Guru; it starts out a bit slow, but it ramps up quite quickly. I believe after a certain point I had way more than a hundred reviews a day.

meadowdrone · Jul 20, 2019

Leo-Tyrant said:
Thank you! I have been reviewing 2-3 times per day, but I reach a blocker when the "next review" is in 17 hours or something. Is there a way to speed it up? I'm still seeing the initial 26 radicals.

Also: Minna no nihongo has been fundamental in abstracting how the sentences are structured and how they sound. I really appreciate the push to try it. Years of anime and gaming with Japanese audio helped a little bit.

Edit: Support replied back that I only needed 1 day to reach "Guru" in the radicals, so I will probably see the Kanjis tomorrow. I may have been too impatient.

The start of wanikani is infamously slow to the point where they did speed up level 1 slightly, but believe me if you keep it up you'll be pining for the good old days when your review pile was so slow and easy before you know it. It gets intense pretty quickly, but you gotta let the spaced repetition system get going first. Good luck!

Jintor · Jul 20, 2019

i skipped my review cards yesterday because events overtook me and today i had to do 180 cards in one of my decks orz

Coverly · Jul 20, 2019

L Thammy said:
To a certain extent, yeah, you can't learn hundreds or thousands of characters without heavy memorization. But there are a few things that might be able to help.

1. Start with the radicals. It will train you to visually break down characters more easily, so they seem much less daunting. It will also help you to look up characters you don't know.

2. You could try to keep your approach close to how you'd see the language in practice. Since kunyomi and onyomi follow certain patterns in their usage, you don't really need to memorize them separately, you can just learn the pattern and then try to learn words that use that character.

3. Reading a lot helps, of course. It helps to memorize kanji when you keep seeing the words that use them.

Yup, WaniKani is a really good way to go. It basically organizes things for you to learn over time as if you had a personal assistant organizing your lessons. Personally I overdid it in the beginning and took too many notes that I was become overwhelmed so I stopped taking notes and just focused on remembering when new lessons came up. I found that at least for me, it works. No notes, just follow the srs properly and you should be able to retain stuff really well. In the beginning it might seem too slow, but it ramps up quickly. Their forums are excellent too with so many tips and advice.

Lvl 21 in wanikani at the moment, and just got marvel ultimate alliance 3. I was just not going to bother playing it in Japanese since it's a mindless beat-em up, but the game automatically uses the default language your switch is set to. Turns out I was worried for nothing. It's totally readable now even at just lvl 21. There were some kanji combinations I had to look up, but most of the stuff I already learned. This only applies to the menus though, the dialogue subtitles were a 50/50 at best. But still, the menus are a big deal to me. Baby steps.

I'm falling behind on my grammar studies though, I'll try to fix it this weekend.

MechaJackie · Jul 20, 2019

The links for the hiragana and katakana sheets in the OP are down.
Does anyone have them?

Leo-Tyrant · Jul 21, 2019

meadowdrone said:
The start of wanikani is infamously slow to the point where they did speed up level 1 slightly, but believe me if you keep it up you'll be pining for the good old days when your review pile was so slow and easy before you know it. It gets intense pretty quickly, but you gotta let the spaced repetition system get going first. Good luck!

Thank you! Yeah I finally got the kanji to show up today :)

I'm also experimenting with Anki on the computer. If it "clicks" with me, I will buy and install it on the iPhone as it will be far easier while I'm at work or traveling.

These are the premade decks I found relevant:

Core 2000
Core 2k/6k
Jtest4you N1-N5
Nihongo Shark Kanji

Coverly said:
Yup, WaniKani is a really good way to go. It basically organizes things for you to learn over time as if you had a personal assistant organizing your lessons. Personally I overdid it in the beginning and took too many notes that I was become overwhelmed so I stopped taking notes and just focused on remembering when new lessons came up. I found that at least for me, it works. No notes, just follow the srs properly and you should be able to retain stuff really well. In the beginning it might seem too slow, but it ramps up quickly. Their forums are excellent too with so many tips and advice.

Lvl 21 in wanikani at the moment, and just got marvel ultimate alliance 3. I was just not going to bother playing it in Japanese since it's a mindless beat-em up, but the game automatically uses the default language your switch is set to. Turns out I was worried for nothing. It's totally readable now even at just lvl 21. There were some kanji combinations I had to look up, but most of the stuff I already learned. This only applies to the menus though, the dialogue subtitles were a 50/50 at best. But still, the menus are a big deal to me. Baby steps.

I'm falling behind on my grammar studies though, I'll try to fix it this weekend.

Thank you for your personal experience, this motivates me!

sackboy97 · Jul 21, 2019

JKuch said:
The links for the hiragana and katakana sheets in the OP are down.
Does anyone have them?

https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-hiragana/ and https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-katakana/ should be good.

MechaJackie · Jul 21, 2019

sackboy97 said:
https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-hiragana/ and https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-katakana/ should be good.

Thanks!

Leo-Tyrant · Jul 22, 2019

Update:

WaniKani is speeding up. I'm averaging 75% in the first reviews and 96% in the second ones. I guess the SRS works?
Tae Kim app is making sense now (grammar), thanks to Minna no Nihongo.
I keep on practicing-studying every night 1-2 hours.

Reversed · Jul 22, 2019

Is there a tae kim article (or something that comes nearly) that thoroughly explains the use of 感じ? I've heard it plenty of times on streamings as そんな/こんな感じです and my understanding of it doesn't go past "like this/that".

Nakho · Jul 22, 2019

WaniKani is a pretty nice. I got to like level 17, even bought the Lifetime subscription. I can't really explain why I stopped using it, but I think having to learning the on'yomi of the radicals eventually broke me. It's the one part I don't like about WK's method.

RangerBAD · Jul 22, 2019

What do you guys think of posting manga pages to help answer questions of what's being said?

Jintor · Jul 22, 2019

Reversed said:
Is there a tae kim article (or something that comes nearly) that thoroughly explains the use of 感じ? I've heard it plenty of times on streamings as そんな/こんな感じです and my understanding of it doesn't go past "like this/that".

It's kind of broad but I just think of it as "This way", "this feeling", "this *general gesture that indicates totally of everything*"

for そんな感じ・こんな感じ that's basically all you need tbh

Coverly · Jul 22, 2019

Leo-Tyrant said:
Update:

WaniKani is speeding up. I'm averaging 75% in the first reviews and 96% in the second ones. I guess the SRS works?

Tae Kim app is making sense now (grammar), thanks to Minna no Nihongo.

I keep on practicing-studying every night 1-2 hours.

There is an app for Tae Kim? Nice, didn't know that.

Once you get a few weeks of grammar in, try DeerPlus. It's an offshoot of lingodeer that is only for practice. They make grammar drills into bite size games that are actually really good if you know enough material.

Can someone recommend a daily live japanese tv show that has lots of words to read, like where most of the words spoken are subtitled? Something like a variety slice of life where they cover different topics like food, places, events, etc..? I have access to japanese tv stations, but there are just too many stations and time slots to try to find some. I tried doing the morning news shows but keep getting bummed out by all the bad news like stabbings, tensions with korea, the fire. I get enough stress with this country as it is, I'm just looking for something more cultural.

Jintor · Jul 22, 2019

check out japanese style originator on netflix. me and my housemate watch it all the time (though I don't do it as study)

L Thammy · Jul 22, 2019

Coverly said:
There is an app for Tae Kim? Nice, didn't know that.

I have the Android version, but it was gone from Google Play the last time I checked.

Leo-Tyrant · Jul 22, 2019

Nakho said:
WaniKani is a pretty nice. I got to like level 17, even bought the Lifetime subscription. I can't really explain why I stopped using it, but I think having to learning the on'yomi of the radicals eventually broke me. It's the one part I don't like about WK's method.

I think its a clever approach. It really "clicked" with me. At least so far. I do agree that learning the following for every single character can be exhausting. but that's where SRS comes and helps, in theory:

Meaning
Reading
On'yomi
Kun'yomi
Overal shape of the character and the associated "mnemonic-story"

Coverly said:
There is an app for Tae Kim? Nice, didn't know that.

Once you get a few weeks of grammar in, try DeerPlus. It's an offshoot of lingodeer that is only for practice. They make grammar drills into bite size games that are actually really good if you know enough material.

Thank you! Is it sorta like Anki?

I admit that Anki is the only thing that has not worked for me so far. Minna, Tae Kim app, Wani, they are all providing context and knowledge. Anki is just frustrating as I clearly dont have the kanji or grammar knowledge yet. I tried some "easier" vocabulary decks but couldn't progress far either. Guess Anki is an option for a couple of months down the road after I have more grammar and vocabulary+kanji experience.

About Tae Kim app. Yes, and it works pretty well. Its basically a version of the site, but with added bookmark options.

Jintor · Jul 22, 2019

the trick to anki is that it is what you make of it. i'll expound on this later but because it's largely user created it's for me the most flexible and useful of all the solutions (apart from actually speaking, reading, talking etc)

L Thammy · Jul 23, 2019

Leo-Tyrant said:
Thank you! Is it sorta like Anki?

I admit that Anki is the only thing that has not worked for me so far. Minna, Tae Kim app, Wani, they are all providing context and knowledge. Anki is just frustrating as I clearly dont have the kanji or grammar knowledge yet. I tried some "easier" vocabulary decks but couldnt proceed far either. Guess Anki is an option for a couple of months down the road after I have more grammar and vocabulary+kanji experience.

About Tae Kim app. Yes, and it works pretty well. Its basically a version of the site, but with added bookmark options.

Maybe Anki is something you'll find the need for later, but I think it might be best suited for a different personality type. It's the only thing I'm using right now (well, I ended up putting it off for a couple months to be honest, but I've been reading quite a bit during that time), but I think I'm someone who gets a lot of use out of it. I had an idea of what I wanted to study beforehand, made all custom decks with variations of cards so I get tested on different things. I tend to find that things get easier if I make studying more intense and harder if I try to make it easy; I never really saw a need for mnemonics so I've never used them.

It seems like you learn very differently than I do, so I'm thinking that maybe you should leave it alone unless you find something that you really need Anki for.

Leo-Tyrant · Jul 23, 2019

L Thammy said:
Maybe Anki is something you'll find the need for later, but I think it might be best suited for a different personality type. It's the only thing I'm using right now (well, I ended up putting it off for a couple months to be honest, but I've been reading quite a bit during that time), but I think I'm someone who gets a lot of use out of it. I had an idea of what I wanted to study beforehand, made all custom decks with variations of cards so I get tested on different things. I tend to find that things get easier if I make studying more intense and harder if I try to make it easy; I never really saw a need for mnemonics so I've never used them.

It seems like you learn very differently than I do, so I'm thinking that maybe you should leave it alone unless you find something that you really need Anki for.

Thanks for your reply. I do see the value in mnemonics (at first). After a while the shape of the character becomes second nature and I can recall the sound-meaning without remembering the mnemonic.

Anki wise: I think my problem is that all available pre-made decks are in a different level than me. Either too easy (katakana, hiragana, basic radicals) or too hard (kanji with grammar).

I guess the best option right now for me would be to create my own custom decks with my current knowledge? But that would only give me 1 week at most of content to re-review...

I do see the value on it, but I think I need the fundamentals first. Every time I see a Kanji I want to know what it means, and it clashes with WaniKani approach of SRS (slow at first), so I'm able to, for example:

Understand what the grammar wants in the card, but I dont get one or more of the kanjis
I understand the hiragana-katakana and maybe the kanji, but I have not seen the grammar yet.

Edit: another thing that may be affecting me is that I need to select "Again" when I dont know, and that´s like...failing. So I back out of the entire deck. Maybe I just need to realize that failing is part of it...

L Thammy · Jul 23, 2019

Leo-Tyrant
Are you able to understand any of the sentences in the decks your using? One thing you can do is mark cards you don't understand, ignore them for the moment, then go through them with a dictionary later.

Leo-Tyrant · Jul 23, 2019

L Thammy said:
Leo-Tyrant
Are you able to understand any of the sentences in the decks your using? One thing you can do is mark cards you don't understand, ignore them for the moment, then go through them with a dictionary later.

Yes, I'm able to understand about 35% of the decks (but a 35% is a "fail" for me. I suspect this way of looking at it may be causing me problems...), mostly because I have seen the Kanji already, or because it has hiragana-katakana. I think you may have given me a big hint. How do I "ignore" for a while? So that I can focus on the ones I can actually read?.

Also. Any pre-made deck suggestions?

Sorry for the constant customized requests. This board has been great in guiding me, and I just keep asking and asking.

L Thammy · Jul 23, 2019

Leo-Tyrant said:
Yes, I'm able to understand about 35% of the decks (but a 35% is a "fail" for me. I suspect this way of looking at it may be causing me problems...), mostly because I have seen the Kanji already, or because it has hiragana-katakana. I think you may have given me a big hint. How do I "ignore" for a while? So that I can focus on the ones I can actually read?.

Personally I just keeping hitting "again" in that case, but you can find options for "bury card" (reschedules the card for later) or "suspend card" (stops showing you the card until you manually remove the suspended tag). I'm not sure how they affect your numbers; I don't think they'd affect your again count?

Learning Japanese • 日本語の勉強 |これはOTです| ゆっくりしていいぞ！

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