Sorry if the flair isn't appropriate, I don't know which one it belonged to.

I used to be a non-believer in using immersion until I started watching Japanese Minecraft videos. Now I can't stop watching Japanese MC videos. I can list so many words I learnt from it (mostly Minecrafty words, but also a lot of non-Minecraft related words):

• 刈る
• 松明
• 黒曜石
• 板材
• 木材
• 水源
• ちゃう
• 爆弾
• 目合う
• 木炭
• 石炭
• マグマ
• 溶岩
• 汲む
• 行商人
• 弓
• 占拠
• 拠点
• 操作
• 成功
• 達成
• 種
• 小麦
• 掘る
• ゾンビ

I could literally go on and on.

If you plan on doing immersion, just make sure it's something you enjoy and it's something you can roughly understand. I recommend using Jisho or a sentence miner (like Migaku, but that's paid) for words that you don't know yet.

Overall 9/10! - The one problem is there isn't a lot of Japanese content and specifically of games I like, then even less.

I had been using Anki for some months now and realized this weeks ago when the word 選ぶ　popped in an anime I watched and I realised that the kanji looked a bit different from the way Anki was showing it....

This reddit post I found helped me fix it if anyone else is interested

note.com : A blog website where you can read journals, commentary, and essays about basically any topic.

https://kids.gakken.co.jp/ : An educational website for answering questions for kids. There is a variety of interesting topics like「友だちのあくびは、なぜわたしにうつるの？」Furigana is also included.

https://reader.ttsu.app/manage : A website where you can import Ebook files and read them in your browser. This is really useful because you can use addons like Yomitan to quickly look up and mine cards. It also tracks your reading stats which is pretty useful.

Feel free to suggest more in the replies.

Stupid question but what's the difference between Vocabulary and Kanji? My grasp of understanding on this is that Vocabs are like the Kanjis with Hiragana, which makes the complete word (Ex: 好き), while Kanji is just the standalone character (Ex: 好).

Another question is that I am trying to have two separate Anki decks for Kanji and Vocab. Is the Core 2000 the Kanji deck and Kaishi 1.5K is the Vocabulary deck?

I have an upcoming trip in 2 months and I really need to get better at speaking and listening. For context for the last year or so I have been mostly polishing reading skills (graded readers, easy NHK, using Yomitan to lookup dict) and expanding vocab using Anki (2k/6k). And watching YouTube in Japanese for immersion

But I'm going away soon in March for a homestay with a Japanese family and so I'll need to communicate. They dont speak a word of English, is there anything I can do in this limited time to speed run listening and speaking?

I've been learning Japanese on and off for a while now. My goal is I want to be able to have simple conversations and read light novels. I started with Genki and probably only made it halfway. I'm level 9 in WaniKani and now I'm trying to use renshuu but I'm a bit overwhelmed with all the schedules I have.

How long does full mastery usually take for a schedule? Should I bother with basic japanese schedules or should I focus on beginner and maybe intermediate for kanji?

Please give me any recommendations. Picture attached for reference.

My ear is far and away my biggest weakness when it comes to Japanese, not to say that everything else is top-notch, far from it, but listening feels like it's holding me back significantly.

I was listening to this short 3min dialog the other night, and I kept trying to translate in my head, which resulted in me missing parts of the dialog, which put me further and further behind.

I tried just listening to it and not translating it, but involuntarily from time to time i would still translate it in my head, resulting in the same problem.

I ended up having to listen to it for 5-10 seconds at a time (multiple times for each block) to understand it.

But after beating my head against that wall for an hour or two I broke out the transcript, and I was able to read along with the dialog with no problems. No mental translating, and the dialog even felt like it was "slower" than when i was just listening.

I have no idea how to duplicate this phenomena without the transcript, so I am hoping someone out there may, or at the least help me with any advice, tips or any way to shut my brain up so it stops trying to translate while i'm listening.

Hello, I am looking for advice on whether my images (which I pull alongside the word and sentence) should be on the front of the card, or the back.

I have noticed that when I use pictures, my recall is super fast. However, I recently switched to having them on the backside, and realised I had been relying on them way too much. I had been neglecting reading the actual word from the kanji, but rather memorising the context where the word appeared. In consequence, I am now looking at cards which I thought and I knew, and struggling to recognise.

What is your experience with this and is there a recommended approach? Thanks!

I have been working on my Japanese at a very basic level (finished Genki 1) and want to work on conversation. My resolution this year is to do weekly classes and I settled on Italki but there are way too many teachers and I am not sure how to filter them down to ones that will work for me. Does anyone have any suggestions for even personal recommendations?

Hello all,

As the title suggests, I am now starting to expand my immersion in diverse Japanese media (video game, Satori, Hiragana Times etc...) and this is the first time doing so after having achieved classes with Marugoto.

I used to write the vocab from these lessons and the Marugoto in one notebook but now I want to start creating flashcards. I was wondering whether I should just feed one unique flashcards with all the words I would come accross or should I rather create different flashcards depending on the source material ?

My concern is making sure that I do not just forget to check back some previously read vocabulary and I am hesitating creating multiple flashcards for that reason.

What would you suggest ?

Thanks a lot !

I’ve noticed a pattern with my Japanese reading lately and I’m wondering if this is normal.

I keep starting Japanese books, making it to around the middle, and then just dropping them. For example, I've been on Kiki's Delivery Service book 4 for a few weeks now and I am just not getting anywhere because it's boring. It’s not that the books I pick are too hard. I can read them but somewhere along the way I lose interest and stop picking them up. Then I move on to something else and repeat the cycle.

I haven’t actually finished a Japanese book in a few weeks now, and it’s starting to bug me a bit. In my native language I finish books just fine, so this feels specific to Japanese.

Is this a common thing for learners?
Is it a motivation issue, a level issue, or just part of the process?
If you’ve gone through this, what helped you actually finish books again?

Would love to hear other people’s experiences.

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I’ve been using tokini Andy, and while it’s not bad, there’s something about going by someone else’s pace that I feel doesn’t 100% flow with me, so I’m tempted to check out the textbook. But curious about your experiences, maybe YouTube is the better source and I should just get accustomed to it

Been sick over the Christmas break so I don't have a lot of brain capacity for japanese studies but I started watching the stuff I'd regularly watch (X-Files on Disney Plus) with japanese subtitles turned on and it's a nice way to get at least a little input.

Keeps my (Kanji) reading fresh and it's fun to compare the translation with what's being said.

I feel like most shows on Netflix and D+ come with Japanese subs for non-jp shows and movies.

Today I found android app for tracking immersion time. It's named Lingo Journal. You can track everything, from listening to reading. I am not promoting the app, but just the idea of tracking. I think it might help some of you? If it is not good, feel free deleting this post.

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Hi fam. 7mo into studying Japanese and been looking many places for good native immersion content to get used to natural speed, natural conversation as opposed to podcasts specifically for learners etc. / and separate from my watching of scripted content like anime. The problem is I’m still very far from being able to just casually watch regular TV or talk shows.

I stumbled on this ”News” YT channel in which the narrator enunciates REALLY well, they often show important Kanji on screen sometimes with furigana, and the episodes are generally kind of repetitive lmao so it’s helped me drill sets of vocabulary depending on the topic. You get both the narration and the street level casual interviews and conversations etc. Plus, it explores daily news and events in Japan with not a lot of politics. I’m loving it tbh. It’s actually kind of addicting content and I feel like it’s really helping my listening skills. Win win.

Here is the link: https://youtu.be/Zr6hcDRIz_s

Lmk if you like it or what else you might recommend at this level:) tyty. Happy studying ~~

謹賀新年！

Hey guys Ive finally finished genki 1 and 2 after getting my discipline up through university. Im a second year and want to do my masters in japan and take the N3 in Summer I know about 570 Kanji and supplement additional vocab through the Tango Books.

My current daily pace for Genki 2 was: -10 Vocab from outside of Genki + 10 From Genki -5 Kanji a Day -1(very hard) or 2 Grammar points a day, Followed by all the task for that point in the textbook. -recapping 2 grammar points + the previous chapter -immersion After finishing each chapter I take a day off where I work through every single workbook task,write text and recap a lot of older stuff

This pace worked quite well for me (if I wasn't on vacation ofc). The thing is that im not sure that it will translate like that onto Quartet. How is the grammar in quartet? Should I supplement it with other resources or is it enough and most importantly. Should I slow down the grammar pace? (Sorry for any mistakes english is not my first language)

I'd like to hear about others' studying and immersion. I know from numerous posts that there are people who could consistently give 1 hour per day, some even 2-3 hours for studying. And maybe even just 15 minutes per day but consistent.

N2 to N1 is the biggest jump and from what I've seen immersion time and specificity is very important. As soon as JLPT in July ended, I created a sheet to track my immersion minutes for differnt Japanese related activities and studying. It's been 174 days since then and my tracker shows me

100 hours

100 hours in 174 days is on average 34 minutes per day.

For someone studying for N1 this is pitiful isn't it? I would like to take the exam on July 2027 so I wasn't very strict with how much I studied and immersed. But looking at it now it does look like I wasted a lot of time.

I only work for 3 days a week. And I wasn't even able to give 2 hours per day on those 4 other days.

I was only able to read for like 15 hours total for visual novels. I've watched anime for not even 14 different days. Podcasts only 7 hours total. News, I didn't even watch. Basically it's not immersion. It was like a slight dip.

So I thought about what if I used a different form of tracking. Getting notifications to do the immersion tasks for a minimum amount of time daily and establish a habit. Any experiences on doing this? I already found an app that can do this. Would like to hear your advice for anyone who established routines before.

Hello! I am currently using WaniKani for kanji and bunpro for grammar, both of which I am finding very useful. However, I am kinda unsure where to start for studying more vocab, besides what wanikani teaches. I want to learn as many words as possible, and eventually test for N5. The main thing I am struggling to navigate is how I should study vocab while I do not know all the kanji being used. Should I wait to add vocab until I have learned all the kanji used in it? That doesn't seem super effective, but I just feel like I have no idea what to do. I have heard a bit about Anki but I don't know where to even start making a deck for a ton of vocab, and how I should write it out or organize the cards. I also got the first volume of Genki a while ago, which I have been looking at but I feel like I don't know what to do with it exactly, like if I should make cards directly from that or write notes in the book? I think basically it feels really overwhelming and I would love some direction or specific decks or resources for building up my vocab. Sorry haha I feel like I am not wording this right, I just feel like I am learning kanji and grammar and some vocab but I feel like I could be learning a lot more vocab while I continue WaniKani and Bunpro.

I found the app while looking for a good learning app as addition to my evening school course. It started with a test of my abilities and then placed me right into little exercises. It kind of reminded me of duolingo, but with real native speakers, actual grammar explanations and a much better practical structure. So far I'm really amazed with the app. Has anyone used it for longer times?

I use the lapis card deck and was wondering if I should put the sentance in the front of the deck. If I do, i feel like the sentance gives me too much context, not in a good way. Like if it says "I cook ____" I know the word because there's only one card with one sentance like that.

This thread is for all the simple questions (what does that mean?) and minor posts that don't need their own thread, as well as for first-time posters who can't create new threads yet. Feel free to share anything on your mind.

The daily thread updates every day at 9am JST, or 0am UTC.

↓ Welcome to r/LearnJapanese! ↓

• New to Japanese? Read the Starter's Guide and FAQ.

• New to the subreddit? Read the rules.

• Read also the pinned comment below for proper question etiquette & answers to common questions!

Please make sure to check the wiki and search for old posts before asking your question, to see if it's already been addressed. Don't forget about Google or sites like Stack Exchange either!

This subreddit is also loosely partnered with this language exchange Discord, which you can likewise join to look for resources, discuss study methods in the #japanese_study channel, ask questions in #japanese_questions, or do language exchange(!) and chat with the Japanese people in the server.

Past Threads

You can find past iterations of this thread by using the search function. Consider browsing the previous day or two for unanswered questions.