Curious, what level you feel you need to be to participate meaningfully on iTalki. I’ve heard good things, but still feel like such an imposter in learning.
anki, yomitan, asbplayer
I hallucinate it.
But seriously, I use Kanji Study to force myself to remember kanji, Anki for vocabulary, Bunpro for grammar. I do like having some sort of structured learning to make sure I’m not learning something wrong only to have to correct a bad habit somewhere down the line. But mostly I just watch people do everyday stuff on YouTube (cooking in particular) and read random articles here and there. Overall, it’s been nice to see that I am more and more able to read and understand Japanese without using the Kanji Study dictionary or 10ten.
I started with Genki 1 and 2 while also grinding vocabulary with Anki and reading through other books for more in-depth grammar lessons.
After that, I had a period of time where I didn’t learn any grammar and just did anki vocabulary.
Then I just read a lot using yomitan and looking everything up I didn’t know. This helped me the most by far.
I’m now at around 25 books read, and I can read really comfortably if the genre is something I’m familiar with. I average around 1 book a week if I don’t push myself, and I read fully for enjoyment nowadays.
I guess Anki is the only app I used.
JAV
All hail the Crabigator
Took 3 semesters in college… Professors were Japanese and spoke in Japanese only 99% of the time from the start. Though I never became anything close to fluent (and proficiency has waned), it gave me an incredible foundation.
ASMR
Anki, Jisho, VNs and anime
Nice of you to think I did.
College. If you can afford it, a classroom is much more structured and better for long term learning.
not me tho, i learned most of my japanese at uni because my teacher was the best. shout out to おぎうち先生 and the Tobira textbook.
College. Ends up my professor is well known in the college circuit for being an incredible Japanese teacher. Rest is reading, watching Japanese YouTubers. About to dive into more reading with Yomitan.
My goal is to read Sōseki in Japanese, and a bunch of other books I have in my bookshelf, so makes sense to kick up the reading.
500hours of yakuza games
A little bit of Hiragana forbidden speech (never finished it though), Watching JJBA for 12 hours and calling immersion learning, and 5% actual classes, lessons, and book learning.
I didn’t yet
I dream of it
I wished I could finally bring the courage up to use apps like Italki and practice speaking. But I’m afraid I might become too scared to open my mouth or that I sound really horrible..
So far my “learning” consists of reading, lots of reading. Blog Posts, Easier News articles, just finished my first small Novel （おおかみこどもの雨と雪）; listening, podcasts, YouTube Videos, Variety shows, etc.. etc..video games too of course… Often just random shit I see in Japanese and find interesting at that moment..ofc. always with my dictionary open on my phone ready lol..
So yeah but speaking loudly is definitely what “scares” me the most.
Conversations with Japanese people. Studying kanji and vocab. Nothing was better for me than real conversations through speaking and texts.
For me going to a language school was by far the thing that improved my japanese the most. Still very much in the beginning of the journey but school (together with everything in the left pile) did wonders for me. If it only watched anime/studied grammar on my own my japanese, especially the spoken japanese, would suck.
It came to me in a dream
Have studied it in uni but unfortunately got stuck on intermediate lvl (around n3). Now trying to learn it again by reading my favorite books/manga/games in Japanese with a dictionary, listening to Japanese podcasts and doing exercises from Nihongo Sou Matome, Shin Kanzen Masuta and so on.
Would be nice to reach n2 at least
textbooks and wanikani
Japanese boyfriend and having lived in Japan for five years. But now, decades later, studying with LingoDeer and by watching Jdoramas and anime to clean up my missing spots.
I am using Genki Books.
So I’m old so books and school were the only resources available.
I lived in Japan and took the JET correspondence course 😅
The thing about school is that you don’t realize how slow it is until you leave it and study by yourself for a while. I had Japanese classes for a year and I had the best teacher I’ve ever had for any subject ever, and my classmates were still way behind me after the same amount of years studying Japanese.
Pimsleur 90 day series. Did it over a 90 stay in Japan. Worked a treat.
note: Before my time in Japan, I also took Japanese 101 and 102 while in college; so hiragana, katakana, a number of kanji, plus a decent chunk of **extremely useful** grammar rules were also gained to me that way.
A lot of anki, and…. Random crap I found on internet from sources unknown =)
Steam, anki and openoffice spreadsheet are my methods right now lmao.
Japanese club -> self-taught (hiragana and katana) -> private tutor -> apps. For kanji practice I’ve been doing Kanji Quizzer, vocabulary either Quizlet or Anki and how to identify kanji Shirabe Jisho
School!
College as a non-traditional student. I like the structure and the “panic” of being forced to study because there’s a quiz or a test coming. Really helped me set a schedule versus trying to teach myself when there is no “deadline.”
Anki, Minna no nihongo. Very beginner btw
Spawning in your head is the most badass way to do it.
You left out people who mastered Japanese just by watching anime or hanging out with their Japanese friends. There seem to be a lot of them on the internet.
self taught at first, now taking lessons in college
I went to University, got a degree in the language, studied extensively and intensively (there were 4 of us in the course, we were grilled every day XD). Went to study in Japan a decade later, had fun. Got a job where I use Japanese everyday. Unfortunately i rarely ever get to speak it or write in it, but what can you do. Maybe one day…
There was that one guy who passed the N1 through the power of nukige
It has an SRS (like Anki), but with a built-in dictionary, ready-made lists, a great community, grammar lessons (with video recordings from Discord sessions), small games and a bunch of other useful tools and features.
Amazing little app that is free in many American / Australian public libraries: Mango (mobile app and website). Focuses on speaking and while it’s not perfect, it helped me go from 0% Greek, to very respectable beginner levels.
It also has Japanese but since my spoken Japanese was already fluent, I used it cursorily and was impressed, but too basic for me. There is however still some vocab there that I might need to review though. Make sure to go to your local public library to their e-learning page and look for Mango. It’s a paid app otherwise, but I think they’ve learned to create revenue via libraries, so they should be around for a while.
To get a deep understanding of Japanese (I started freshman year in high school) my teachers used the Learn Japanese series from Hawaii University Press.
The best exercises were the substitution drills (to practice switching nouns, verbs, etc. in sentences) and the conjugation drills (to help learn verb conjugation).
I’m going to go back to the books and use the technique and put the exercises in an AI bot to help me study Korean in this way, because while Korean and Japanese have some vocabulary and grammar similarities, Korean verb conjugation is mental.
The hardest verb conjugation in Japanese was the 〜て form (was really tough to learn), but once you master that, it becomes easier. Korean conjugation is, “Yeah you might have learned this one thing, but let me confuse you further with these 20 other things!” It’s still a fun language to learn.
Where is anki and yomitan
It spawning in my head feels so relatable
Music, and Kanji Tree, with a couple of books for reference I bought from my trips to Japan. Also, Tae Kim for grammar
Anki, anime, and this book I bought online for like 2 euros that helps me practice my handwriting.
48 comments
Curious, what level you feel you need to be to participate meaningfully on iTalki. I’ve heard good things, but still feel like such an imposter in learning.
anki, yomitan, asbplayer
I hallucinate it.
But seriously, I use Kanji Study to force myself to remember kanji, Anki for vocabulary, Bunpro for grammar. I do like having some sort of structured learning to make sure I’m not learning something wrong only to have to correct a bad habit somewhere down the line. But mostly I just watch people do everyday stuff on YouTube (cooking in particular) and read random articles here and there. Overall, it’s been nice to see that I am more and more able to read and understand Japanese without using the Kanji Study dictionary or 10ten.
I started with Genki 1 and 2 while also grinding vocabulary with Anki and reading through other books for more in-depth grammar lessons.
After that, I had a period of time where I didn’t learn any grammar and just did anki vocabulary.
Then I just read a lot using yomitan and looking everything up I didn’t know. This helped me the most by far.
I’m now at around 25 books read, and I can read really comfortably if the genre is something I’m familiar with. I average around 1 book a week if I don’t push myself, and I read fully for enjoyment nowadays.
I guess Anki is the only app I used.
JAV
All hail the Crabigator
Took 3 semesters in college… Professors were Japanese and spoke in Japanese only 99% of the time from the start. Though I never became anything close to fluent (and proficiency has waned), it gave me an incredible foundation.
ASMR
Anki, Jisho, VNs and anime
Nice of you to think I did.
College. If you can afford it, a classroom is much more structured and better for long term learning.
not me tho, i learned most of my japanese at uni because my teacher was the best. shout out to おぎうち先生 and the Tobira textbook.
College. Ends up my professor is well known in the college circuit for being an incredible Japanese teacher. Rest is reading, watching Japanese YouTubers. About to dive into more reading with Yomitan.
My goal is to read Sōseki in Japanese, and a bunch of other books I have in my bookshelf, so makes sense to kick up the reading.
500hours of yakuza games
A little bit of Hiragana forbidden speech (never finished it though), Watching JJBA for 12 hours and calling immersion learning, and 5% actual classes, lessons, and book learning.
I didn’t yet
I dream of it
I wished I could finally bring the courage up to use apps like Italki and practice speaking. But I’m afraid I might become too scared to open my mouth or that I sound really horrible..
So far my “learning” consists of reading, lots of reading. Blog Posts, Easier News articles, just finished my first small Novel （おおかみこどもの雨と雪）; listening, podcasts, YouTube Videos, Variety shows, etc.. etc..video games too of course… Often just random shit I see in Japanese and find interesting at that moment..ofc. always with my dictionary open on my phone ready lol..
So yeah but speaking loudly is definitely what “scares” me the most.
[https://syosetu.com/](https://syosetu.com/)
Conversations with Japanese people. Studying kanji and vocab. Nothing was better for me than real conversations through speaking and texts.
For me going to a language school was by far the thing that improved my japanese the most. Still very much in the beginning of the journey but school (together with everything in the left pile) did wonders for me. If it only watched anime/studied grammar on my own my japanese, especially the spoken japanese, would suck.
It came to me in a dream
Have studied it in uni but unfortunately got stuck on intermediate lvl (around n3). Now trying to learn it again by reading my favorite books/manga/games in Japanese with a dictionary, listening to Japanese podcasts and doing exercises from Nihongo Sou Matome, Shin Kanzen Masuta and so on.
Would be nice to reach n2 at least
textbooks and wanikani
Japanese boyfriend and having lived in Japan for five years. But now, decades later, studying with LingoDeer and by watching Jdoramas and anime to clean up my missing spots.
I am using Genki Books.
So I’m old so books and school were the only resources available.
I lived in Japan and took the JET correspondence course 😅
The thing about school is that you don’t realize how slow it is until you leave it and study by yourself for a while. I had Japanese classes for a year and I had the best teacher I’ve ever had for any subject ever, and my classmates were still way behind me after the same amount of years studying Japanese.
Pimsleur 90 day series. Did it over a 90 stay in Japan. Worked a treat.
note: Before my time in Japan, I also took Japanese 101 and 102 while in college; so hiragana, katakana, a number of kanji, plus a decent chunk of **extremely useful** grammar rules were also gained to me that way.
A lot of anki, and…. Random crap I found on internet from sources unknown =)
Steam, anki and openoffice spreadsheet are my methods right now lmao.
Japanese club -> self-taught (hiragana and katana) -> private tutor -> apps. For kanji practice I’ve been doing Kanji Quizzer, vocabulary either Quizlet or Anki and how to identify kanji Shirabe Jisho
School!
College as a non-traditional student. I like the structure and the “panic” of being forced to study because there’s a quiz or a test coming. Really helped me set a schedule versus trying to teach myself when there is no “deadline.”
Anki, Minna no nihongo. Very beginner btw
Spawning in your head is the most badass way to do it.
You left out people who mastered Japanese just by watching anime or hanging out with their Japanese friends. There seem to be a lot of them on the internet.
self taught at first, now taking lessons in college
I went to University, got a degree in the language, studied extensively and intensively (there were 4 of us in the course, we were grilled every day XD). Went to study in Japan a decade later, had fun. Got a job where I use Japanese everyday. Unfortunately i rarely ever get to speak it or write in it, but what can you do. Maybe one day…
There was that one guy who passed the N1 through the power of nukige
[Renshuu](https://renshuu.org).
It has an SRS (like Anki), but with a built-in dictionary, ready-made lists, a great community, grammar lessons (with video recordings from Discord sessions), small games and a bunch of other useful tools and features.
Amazing little app that is free in many American / Australian public libraries: Mango (mobile app and website). Focuses on speaking and while it’s not perfect, it helped me go from 0% Greek, to very respectable beginner levels.
It also has Japanese but since my spoken Japanese was already fluent, I used it cursorily and was impressed, but too basic for me. There is however still some vocab there that I might need to review though. Make sure to go to your local public library to their e-learning page and look for Mango. It’s a paid app otherwise, but I think they’ve learned to create revenue via libraries, so they should be around for a while.
To get a deep understanding of Japanese (I started freshman year in high school) my teachers used the Learn Japanese series from Hawaii University Press.
The best exercises were the substitution drills (to practice switching nouns, verbs, etc. in sentences) and the conjugation drills (to help learn verb conjugation).
I’m going to go back to the books and use the technique and put the exercises in an AI bot to help me study Korean in this way, because while Korean and Japanese have some vocabulary and grammar similarities, Korean verb conjugation is mental.
The hardest verb conjugation in Japanese was the 〜て form (was really tough to learn), but once you master that, it becomes easier. Korean conjugation is, “Yeah you might have learned this one thing, but let me confuse you further with these 20 other things!” It’s still a fun language to learn.
Where is anki and yomitan
It spawning in my head feels so relatable
Music, and Kanji Tree, with a couple of books for reference I bought from my trips to Japan. Also, Tae Kim for grammar
Anki, anime, and this book I bought online for like 2 euros that helps me practice my handwriting.
Language school, genki, online classes, quartet
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