LLearn Japanese

How to learn Japanese for FREE from Zero.

  • September 1, 2025

I've encountered a lot of people who ask about buying expensive textbooks, apps, or even attending classes that can be expensive. I managed to learn Japanese while spending virtually 0 money and I'd like to share what I did.

FYI, this covers input (understanding the language) and won't cover speaking or output. I can cover that in another post if needed.

This approach follows the immersion learning approach of building a basic foundation first and then learning via immersion. Let's start.

Beforehand, I'll leave a TL;DR for those not bothered, but if you can read the full post, I go into explaining why I am recommending certain practices over others:

TL;DR:
Foundations:

Learning Cycle:

The Foundations.

Let's start with the foundations. I'm going to start with the basics, going from the basics of the Alphabet to grammar to kanji to vocab. I'll explain why I'd recommend some resources over others.

Kana – Site: https://kana.pro/

Kana should be the easiest to learn. I don't think I need to spend much time on this, but if you're just starting out, I'd recommend learning to recognize/read everything and learn writing later. So really, just quiz yourself on 5 at a time, Learn あ、 い、 う、 え、 お then learn か、 き、 く、 け、 こ, etc. When you finish Hiragana, move onto Katakana and do the same.

Grammar – Site (YOU ONLY NEED ONE): https://yoku.bi/ , https://guidetojapanese.org/learn/ , https://imabi.org/

Now, you can use whatever you like. There are a lot out there but the ones linked above are just a few examples of what you can use. Now, what I'd suggest is just going through, reading each section and understanding them, then moving on.

I don't think grammar exercises are necessary because even though they can consolidate knowledge, you can also use comprehensible input to see the language and grammar being used in all sorts of contexts and then actively process the input until you acquire it. I'd argue that this is better because more time is being spent consuming natural input.

This won't cover every grammar point out there, but it'll give you a solid foundation upon which you can build the rest of your grammar knowledge through consuming input.

Vocab and Kanji – Anki: https://apps.ankiweb.net/ Kaishi 1.5k: https://github.com/donkuri/Kaishi

Yes, I am pairing these together. There are multiple ways to learn Kanji, but I think that learning kanji with vocab makes the process a lot easier to learn both. Here's a video explaining why: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exkXaVYvb68 and I think that learning them together simplifies stuff.

Now, you may see that I'm only linking a deck containing 1.5k words. How do I learn the other words? Input. Sentence Mining. I personally think that learning how to sentence mine after you finish your premade deck can help a lot more than using premade decks. Sentence Mining lets you learn words important to you. You learn words important to the content you wanna watch. Oh, and here's a tutorial about how to use Anki cuz it's not the most beginner friendly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcY2Svs3h8M

Comprehensible Input – Site: https://cijapanese.com/

Input is THE MOST important thing that you can use to learn a language. Why? Because let's look back at what I said in the grammar section earlier. I don't think grammar exercises help to learn how to use the grammar you encounter in all contexts, whereas Comprehensible Input can. The more you see grammar and vocab in comprehensible contexts, the more you learn and acquire over time.

Once you finish the Kaishi 1.5k, your grammar guide of choice, and have consumed enough input, you can move onto the proper input phase.

The Learning Cycle.

Now that you've built your foundation, I believe that doing a full input approach is the best way to approach learning Japanese. I believe that as you learn more, textbooks become less and less useful. I'm going to describe an input-centric approach. But first, some essential resources.

Yomitan – Site: https://lazyguidejp.github.io/jp-lazy-guide/setupYomitanOnPC/

Yomitan is a pop-up dictionary that lets you search words up from your browser on the fly. I believe that this is the single most important resource you can have. It's a modular dictionary that lets you install whatever dictionary you want.

ASBPlayer – Site: https://github.com/killergerbah/asbplayer

ASBPlayer is a browser extension that lets you add subtitles to media on streaming sites. If you watch anime, you can get subtitle files from sites like https://jimaku.cc/ and then attach them to anime to watch with Japanese subtitles. If you use ASBPlayer with Yomitan, you basically have a good immersion setup.

Here's a good place to learn how to use ASBPlayer: https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/1iotyp2/use_asbplayer_to_learn_through_anime/

Grammar Reference – Site: http://bunpro.jp/grammar_points/

Now, since you've learnt the basics from your grammar guide, you can learn the rest of your grammar from receiving input and then searching up unknown grammar points in a reference like the one above.

Now. For the most important bit.

I think you need to find input comprehensible to your level. Whether you watch proper Comprehensible Input videos or you decide to watch anime while searching everything up with a dictionary, You need to build your comprehension up by using input is comprehensible. The more comprehensible something is, the better.

I'll link some YouTube channels that you can use and some resources to use to learn.
Example YouTube Channels:

Onomappu: https://www.youtube.com/@Onomappu

Bitesize Japanese: https://www.youtube.com/@the_bitesize_japanese_podcast

Some things that you'll notice about these YouTube channels is that they have Closed Captions (Soft Subtitles). You can use these with ASBPlayer and Yomitan to turn YouTube and other videos into study tools.

If you're feeling brave enough to move to native content, here are some other channels:

Kohara Konomi: https://www.youtube.com/@koharakonomiyt

Fischer's: https://www.youtube.com/@Fischers

Here's another site you can use to find channels with subtitles: https://filmot.com/

Now, when it comes to things like anime, there are obviously the legitimate sites like Netflix, but then there are the third party sites that a majority of people probably use. While I can't name any third party sites, there are loads out there that you can use google to search for. (Just make sure that the ones that you do find do not have embedded English subs).

The whole setup with anime.

——

The whole setup with YouTube.

About sentence mining:

Because there are a lot of ways to sentence mine, I'll leave a good video that I think will be helpful:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAUYnp5wOE0

The Method:

Freeflow immersion:

  • Watch the content without pausing
  • See how much you can understand as it plays
  • Pause to search up words occasionally

Intensive immersion:

  • Each new sentence, pause and search up unknown words/grammar
  • Try to understand the sentence
  • Move on after a minute if you don't understand it

And that is all. Hope you enjoy.

by AlphaPastel

22 comments

  1. OP, I know this a tangent but how did you get over the hump that is Ichidan and Godan verb classification?
    If you know free resource that just gives a list of verbs and exceptions somewhere, please please add that as well.

  2. Than you, it’s great to have free resources which might not have been easy to find.

    Having ADHD I personally find apps easier to use (though I know I really need to start using other resources too), and I’d definitely say [Buusu](https://www.busuu.com) has been the best one as it actually explains stuff and you can *occasionally* get feedback from natives if you’re lucky.

    I’ve also been using [Lingo Legend](https://www.lingolegend.com) which received mixed opinions when I asked about it on this sub. It is fun & I am learning some things from it, but I’m definitely spending more time playing and less time learning (especially as its daily use is limited when not paying).

    Others had also recommended [Renshuu](https://www.renshuu.org), though admittedly I haven’t been using that as much yet.

    I also know that [Tae Kim’s Guide to Japanese](https://guidetojapanese.org) has been considered a great source by many, though the iOS app was removed from the store (not sure about Android though).

  3. I think everyone of us is different and that meaning, we need to find the way for studying that is good for us. Like, some refer textbook style, even if we do self-learning, others do like you wrote.

    Find something that you like and you see it works is my Final thought. Thanks for some new resources thought

  5. It is hard to call something “free” if it involves using copyrighted content without permission from owners. If you allow stealing anime, why not just use pirated genki book, or use Wanikani api to get all their contents while on trial period?

  7. > Yes, I am pairing these together. There are multiple ways to learn Kanji, but I think that learning kanji with vocab makes the process a lot easier to learn both. Here’s a video explaining why: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exkXaVYvb68 and I think that learning them together simplifies stuff.

    IMO it simplifies it too much. I mean, the Kaishi deck doesn’t actually teach you anything about kanji specifically.

    The video is a caricature of kanji study, of course memorizing a bunch of readings with no context is worthless (especially for one as loaded as 生, and especially the kun readings).

    But you can study kanji without doing that, (e.g. something as simple as just being aware of the components, and some basic phonetic-semantic information for the 形声文字) and boost your retention a lot which means less reviews and less time on Anki. And you can do this in the context of words rather than going through a list of 常用漢字 or whatever, with a relatively low time investment.

    You can brute force it too and eventually intuit the patterns so it’s not indispensable if you absolutely must keep it simple, but for no other part of the language is such a thing commonly recommended (e.g. intuiting grammar with no grammar guide).

  8. So I didn’t read everything so maybe I missed it but OP claims to have “learned” japanese yet we have no insight on his current proficiency

  9. How long did it take you to acquire conversational fluency, and what is the daily volume of exposure?

  10. I’m gonna be honest, there’s a lot more to a language than treating it as a complicated cypher.

  12. I am all for saving money, but for some who’s goal is reading Japanese and speaking with natives rather than watching anime, spending money on wanikani, bunpro, and some lessons on italki have had huge returns. I’ve been studying for 6 months but only doing lessons for a few weeks and my basic conversational survival Japanese has improved dramatically, which is great as I have two Trips to Japan in the next 5 months.

  13. Awesome recommendations!  Practically all the same as I would have recommended except I’d have linked to the Lazy Guide for Anki and Yomitan setup since it makes it so easy

  22. Not gonna lie this post is one of the most useful I’ve seen. Your point on comprehensive input is the most valuable.

    I’m still early days yet and have tried out anki, bunpro, wanikani and others but I have still issues with retaining information, especially in context.

    I’ll definitely try out CI Japanese

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