I highly recommend Tofogu's Hiragana/Katakana guides. They're great!Hey guys! My first time posting in this thread, I'm really interested in giving a genuine effort into learning this language and wanna just post my understanding and making sure I have a solid foundation for the start of this journey after reading the OP and guide.
First, just wanna say thank you to Alanae and Resilence for the amazing write up and guide.
Second, I guess to answer why I wanna learn Japanese, truth be told, I took my first trip to Japan at the start of the year, and it was my first time visiting a country where I couldn't speak the language or communicate with the people, and I also just, loved Japan. I don't necessarily have any ambitions to move to Japan, or work a job / career in Japan, but I do wanna go there again. Multiple times a year to be honest. Currently I'm planning to return to Japan for at least 2 weeks in January 2025, and from there, make it an annual thing where I visit Japan twice a year, specifically during Golden Week and Early January.
I just wanna be able to communicate, understand, and talk to people. Plus, I'm 27 and I heard that one of the hardest things to do as you get older is learn a new language. I've honestly never had to "learn" a language. I mean, I guess I "learned English", but that just came naturally through the education system. I also speak fluent Spanish but it just came naturally from having immigrant parents. It seems like a fun challenge to really put in the time and effort to learn a language, and I wanna do it now before it really really gets harder!
So my general understanding, and the questions I have, is I have a solid amount of free time every day, but so far I'm only willing to commit one hour a day to learning this, because I wanna make sure I can do it every day without missing. Committing 2 hours a day might lead to insane burn out and something I might be discouraged if I fail to do or put off. Is 1 hour a day enough to make a solid effort on this or am I already setting myself for failure at the start by only investing an hour?
So this is the process I'm looking at, prioritizing Speaking and Reading! Please let me know if I'm missing something or can add something and or there's a better way to optimize the learning!
I'm starting off with purchasing these books and going through them, this teaching me the fundamentals and basics and helping me learn the language both written and spoken.
Genki Volume 1, Genki Volume 2, and also A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar .
These three books, will take me some time to get through, and once I feel comfortable and understand them, I move onto the consuming phase, where I'm capable of listening to Japanese and understanding some of it, I understand Kanji and have practiced it and can read it? So I start watching a few Drama Shows with the intent of learning, and go through the process of writing down anything I don't understand, working through what is escaping me, figuring it out to my best, repeating it and replaying it until I get it. I also should be watching the news, and various other forms of media like Podcasts and Content I'd be interested in (one I just saw that I'm excited to learn using, as a Smash Bros competitive player, is all of Sakurai's Creating Games videos). Change my Twitter feed to Japanese, follow Japanese people and read them to my best, reading Japanese articles and new sites.
I also want to learn how to speak with Pitch Accents, and Dogen's videos and guides are a good way to learn that as I get more comfortable and have an understanding with the language.
Is this a good understanding of the process, and a solid route to go with for my self studying?
Thanks again in advance for reading and any input or help you provide. Also so very open for any other tools and recommendations people have for this journey!
EDIT :
Side note, some of my friends are also attempting to learn Japanese and one of them mentioned Duolingo as a good starter tool, but I always assumed it was just a kind of, not great tool. Should I also attempt to use that to learn words and consume the language at the start?
EDIT 2 :
The links given for learning and memorizing hiragana and katakana are broken! Are there any updated links on good ways to get started with learning and memorizing them?
Hopefully you like it. I go looking every now and then and it's also been hard for me to find things that are actually entertaining, but I genuinely like that one. I'd say it's a bit more difficult than ゲームなんとか because the topics are more varied and come out of left field sometimes, but not by that much.Thanks for the rec. I admittedly haven't been looking very intently, but it does seem really difficult to find new podcasts that are entertaining and level appropriate lol. I've mostly been listening to ゲームなんとか, which isn't a super stimulating show, but it's about games and the conversations aren't very involved so it's easier to follow along haha
i need to figure out a good way to up my listening practice (or find stuff more level-appropriate). I think one of my issues is that I don't really like stopping flow to look up unfamiliar vocab/grammar in a listening (or watching) situation, where it's easier during reading.
Maybe audiobooks of stuff I've already read or something idk
i need to figure out a good way to up my listening practice (or find stuff more level-appropriate). I think one of my issues is that I don't really like stopping flow to look up unfamiliar vocab/grammar in a listening (or watching) situation, where it's easier during reading.
Maybe audiobooks of stuff I've already read or something idk
Haha I love it.![]()
please enjoy my recent extremely dumb little project. wanted to test the absolute limits of my new vinyl cutting machine (and also my patience apparently god that took forever) so i did some NGE typography nonsense for my water bottle, complete with intentionally very dumb and bad translation. i hope anyway, that was the plan at least. did most of it manually with absolutely no regard for making sense at all, often swapping out kanji based entirely on how it would affect the alignment lmao. going to etch it on there when the acid i ordered arrives.
my favourite bit is [秘伝汁]
Good tip. I'll be traveling for work for a few weeks, and I was hoping to get some listening practice in on the flights and drives. Thanks!Just a heads up for everyone ITT that Satori Reader is having a Spring sale for new subscribers right now. Sales are very rare, and this is IMO the best Japanese learning app on the market and has been for a while.
I like daily Japanese with Naoko.Since Era started pinging me about this thread again, can I ask if there are any good YouTube channels or the like around for listening practice? I've been slacking for a while, my reading is way better than my ability to parse the spoken language (and even my reading could be better but that's another story)
These three post short videos pretty often (though I'm not as good as I should on actually listening to them):Since Era started pinging me about this thread again, can I ask if there are any good YouTube channels or the like around for listening practice? I've been slacking for a while, my reading is way better than my ability to parse the spoken language (and even my reading could be better but that's another story)
I have been using Amazon.co.jp for some time now and it works pretty well. You can't use a foreign card directly to pay, but you can use it to charge your account (and you can charge it by any arbitrary amount).Feel like a smooth brain having to ask this, but are there any straight forward ways to read Manga in Japanese digitally? Seems like every app is 100% translated and region locking languages for reasons, and every link I find Googling is referencing some old service that doesn't exist like Crunchyroll Manga or involves sketchy raw dump websites that I swear existed back in 2005.
I just wanna read some dumb Shonen manga for children to improve my reading skill and enjoy those lovely in place kanji translations because I have baby reading skills, is that too much to ask?
I have been using Amazon.co.jp for some time now and it works pretty well. You can't use a foreign card directly to pay, but you can use it to charge your account (and you can charge it by any arbitrary amount).
If you have a kindle you could then download the file and convert it and what not (so you could use with Mokuro and similar stuff for example); otherwise you could just read it through their app I believe.
Feel like a smooth brain having to ask this, but are there any straight forward ways to read Manga in Japanese digitally? Seems like every app is 100% translated and region locking languages for reasons, and every link I find Googling is referencing some old service that doesn't exist like Crunchyroll Manga or involves sketchy raw dump websites that I swear existed back in 2005.
I just wanna read some dumb Shonen manga for children to improve my reading skill and enjoy those lovely in place kanji translations because I have baby reading skills, is that too much to ask?
in my experience, its weirdly backwards. the US specially is spoiled with digital formats to read, while in jp i think they really want to focus on traditional paperFeel like a smooth brain having to ask this, but are there any straight forward ways to read Manga in Japanese digitally? Seems like every app is 100% translated and region locking languages for reasons, and every link I find Googling is referencing some old service that doesn't exist like Crunchyroll Manga or involves sketchy raw dump websites that I swear existed back in 2005.
I just wanna read some dumb Shonen manga for children to improve my reading skill and enjoy those lovely in place kanji translations because I have baby reading skills, is that too much to ask?
I buy my digital Japanese manga on Booklive. No regionblocking.Feel like a smooth brain having to ask this, but are there any straight forward ways to read Manga in Japanese digitally? Seems like every app is 100% translated and region locking languages for reasons, and every link I find Googling is referencing some old service that doesn't exist like Crunchyroll Manga or involves sketchy raw dump websites that I swear existed back in 2005.
I just wanna read some dumb Shonen manga for children to improve my reading skill and enjoy those lovely in place kanji translations because I have baby reading skills, is that too much to ask?
Ideally you should learn basic vocabulary (colors, numbers, food, directions, animals…) and sentences that use said hiragana.So question I've started the journey to start learning some hiragana to start out.
How do I eventually start understanding the words that I'm putting together as I'm learning more things?
Like I can know how to type and read something simple like ねこ but if I don't know that neko is cat im still not interpreting useful information.
This is an ongoing challenge for my reading as well. And how I've slowly approached it was doing grammar, listening and speaking study.So question I've started the journey to start learning some hiragana to start out.
How do I eventually start understanding the words that I'm putting together as I'm learning more things?
Like I can know how to type and read something simple like ねこ but if I don't know that neko is cat im still not interpreting useful information.
This is an ongoing challenge for my reading as well. And how I've slowly approached it was doing grammar, listening and speaking study.
You need to build a pool of vocabulary words, but in tandem have to build a working knowledge of the grammatic structure and rhythm of Japanese too. It's like a push-pull learning experience where you learn and internalize vocab words, and then know how to honorific them, use the right trailing particle, combining and abbreviating, etc.
You will want to study kanj like 猫 (ねこ) to compact and solidify vocabulary words since there are a ton of homonyms to run across. So for that you will need a range of easy readable content to ease into that long-term learning.
However, the listening portion will train your ear to internalize it far faster than reading, so I would suggest to prioritize that first. I started off with apps that did this space repitition practice early on and feel like a have a good base now. Now I'm connecting the intuitive feel of the sounds to the visual hiragana and their compact kanji forms.
For grammar I read and reread articles in Tofugu.com and Tae-Kim grammar guide as my free resources, but there are possibly better more focused ones. That's about when I found wanikani for kanji and was all-in before realizing I was becoming a dictionary. Wanikani is my long-term option and still very useful, but doesn't help at beginner levels, aside some basic kanji I guess.
For grammar I read and reread articles in Tofugu.com and Tae-Kim grammar guide as my free resources, but there are possibly better more focused ones. That's about when I found wanikani for kanji and was all-in before realizing I was becoming a dictionary. Wanikani is my long-term option and still very useful, but doesn't help at beginner levels, aside some basic kanji I guess.
For basic vocabulary I did build a lot of it from Duolingo, but the pitfall was that the fast matching structure doesn't settle the learning into my mind as personally writing things down did. It's has tons of practice though.
I then used Pimsleur, which is a paid service, but felt much more confidence in audibly parsing words afterward which led to tons of podcasts. I can't help you with those however since there are a glut of them with no set skill levels. It's probably best to get actual speaking lessons at that point.
Oh absolutely, and really take your time, it will not be fast unless you are living immersed in Japan directly.Cool thanks for the starting points. I've been using the Tofugu hiragana guide.
I've been learning stuff for sure. I think my main roadblock (in my mind) is just like its hard to parse a specific plan of attack when your trying to self learn.
Oh absolutely, and really take your time, it will not be fast unless you are living immersed in Japan directly.
Another thing, the Pimsleur course goes hard into polite speech, in contrast to casual speech, for the majority of its run. Something to keep in mind when you find it doesn't match casual Japanese on a stream or elsewhere. I think the design philosophy is to start off with harder stuff first so you can start running sooner.
Haha, you just reminded me of the underrated side-skill wanikani builds up after working on it. That site is built off of (on the English side of things anyway) typing hiragana based on a consistent romaji system. It's takes getting used to, but the added benefit is that if you get a keyboard add-on for Japanese this skill maps pretty well onto it.Yeah I've already resigned myself to the fact that this is going to be a long term project. But I've been having fun and it gives my ADD riddled brain something to focus on. Already being able to walk over to my shelf with my Japanese Saturn games and read simple game titles like わくわく7 is pretty neat and is motivating me to keep going. Although I will admit one other struggle is wrapping my brain around how to effectively use an English keyboard to type Japanese words lol. Its a little cumbersome I've found so far.
The beginning of learning any language is going to be the hardest part because you will understand close to zero of what's being said. Luckily we live in the greatest time to learn a new language due to technology and services like Youtube being free. Learning all comes down to repeated exposure and you have to keep watching, listening, and reading stuff in Japanese and it'll eventually make sense. If you're willing to put some time in to setting up a proper setup on your phone and your PC you can progress very quickly through beginner stuff and work towards upper beginner in a couple months.So question I've started the journey to start learning some hiragana to start out.
How do I eventually start understanding the words that I'm putting together as I'm learning more things?
Like I can know how to type and read something simple like ねこ but if I don't know that neko is cat im still not interpreting useful information.
Fantastically useful post, thank you!The beginning of learning any language is going to be the hardest part because you will understand close to zero of what's being said. Luckily we live in the greatest time to learn a new language due to technology and services like Youtube being free. Learning all comes down to repeated exposure and you have to keep watching, listening, and reading stuff in Japanese and it'll eventually make sense. If you're willing to put some time in to setting up a proper setup on your phone and your PC you can progress very quickly through beginner stuff and work towards upper beginner in a couple months.
For free materials : I would recommend Japanese Pod 101. They go over phrases and vocabulary in many of their videos that you can use for quickly learning a bunch of vocabulary. They offer a paid website where you can learn so much more than what they post on their channel. I've subbed to them before and the website is amazing at learning Japanese.
Super Native for listening and reading practice. It's a bunch of clips from movies and TV shows and you can click on words to get definitions. Sometimes they definitions do not make sense, but that's due to the parsing of the text and even professionally built websites are prone to small errors like that here and there.
For typing practice I use this because it keeps track of what I'm struggling with.
And the best tool I've ever found for Netflix is language reactor. It takes the Japanese subtitles of a show and give you both English and Japanese subtitles so you can see what some specific phrases mean. I use this in conjunction with Yomitan (a dictionary on your browers) and save words to my flash card deck without having to subscribe to language reactor.
The one paid product I use is Nihongo (a Japanese dictionary on iPhone) and I did it because I wanted to support the developer cause he helped me out with some stuff. It's got a neat feature where you can hook the dictionary to a page you're viewing on Safari and every word you can tap on to get definitions for. It also adds furigana to kanji (hiragana characters above kanji so you can read it). I think you can do that with other dictionaries that are free, but I like I said I'm supporting the developer cause I know them and it's cheap, so I don't mind.
I have many other resources I can share if you're interested. Just DM on here or on Discord (tenck). I'm always happy to help people out.
"つ is just the TS sound plus う, making a tsu sound. It's pronounced like tsu in "tsunami."
No you have to pronounce the "s" as well. If you can say "tsunami" you're good.So quick question. I know す is pronounced like you would say the name "Sue" in English correct? Is the correct pronunciation of つ like the English word "two" with the s in tsu "silent"?
Cause on the Togufu hiragana guide it says for this kana:
But the audio example for the pronunciation sounds more like as I said before sounds to me like the way you would make the sound for the English word two. Or am I missing something here?
No you have to pronounce the "s" as well. If you can say "tsunami" you're good.
That's a decent starting point, but there are subtleties to the pronunciation.So quick question. I know す is pronounced like you would say the name "Sue" in English correct? Is the correct pronunciation of つ like the English word "two" with the s in tsu "silent"?
Cause on the Togufu hiragana guide it says for this kana:
But the audio example for the pronunciation sounds more like as I said before sounds to me like the way you would make the sound for the English word two. Or am I missing something here?
That's a decent starting point, but there are subtleties to the pronunciation.
Mapping "Sue" to す is an ok starting point, but the す sound is a little shorter than the proper name Sue. But that's close enough.
For つ on the other hand it's better to look at the romaji "tsu" for a moment. The "t" is there to give a starting point for non-japanese learners, as if you are about to pronounce the "t" in two but flow into "soo" instead. (I'm trying to convey the oo quality of, for instance, boo or buu here)
Two also has a harder "t" that is almost "tuh" isolated and elongated. The kana つ has a light hissing quality that text simply can't capture. It isn't too hard to get it down, but the nuance is there.
The reasoning for the leading "t" I believe is because つ is in the same group of kana as た,ち,て and と on the hiragana chart. As they are just the vowel sounds given a consonant quality.
Yeah trying to get my western brain to figure these things out now so I don't have to unlearn the wrong pronunciation later.
When using the alphabet (romaji) keyboard, you have to type "x" before the sound.Ok, another question. I'm very curious... how do you type small characters on windows and android?
I can't figure it out. I was messing about trying to just see if I could recognize any of the characters on some of my Japanese PS1 cases.
I came across the word ちゅうい (copied and pasted this from google) and I'm like hey! I know those characters! Lets sound out this word and then translate it to see what it means!
And then I quickly realized that there are some big and small characters when I typed ちゆうい and google corrected me. So...how the heck do you type small characters?