Ask HN: Best Resources to Learn Japanese? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Best Resources to Learn Japanese?

I have decided to learn some basic Japanese, but I am a bit frustrated by the material you can find online; most things leave room for interpretation (e.g. Hiragana, one textbook starts with 46 characters, then add others; another mentions 62, and I'm not sure where the 16 left come from.).

I guess, being an engineer, I prefer a specific approach to learning a language.

I also tend to hate the stupid online apps that pretend you are as smart as a snail and take forever to teach you anything, plus their freemium model means you are constantly spammed to sign up for the paid version.

Have you been successful at learning Japanese? If so, any good suggestion?

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I studied Japanese for around two years independently before visiting Japan (for only a few months).

During that preparation I had no conversation partners, and focused on vocabulary, reading and listening. Like many, I had difficulty learning to read. It was a slog. Additionally, I found that my low reading level was a barrier to finding Japanese content I could read for fun (as opposed to boring textbook dialogue).

Actually having real conversations in Japan, even with my incredibly-broken Japanese, was far more effective and far more enjoyable than any of the learning methods I had used prior. Not surprising, is it? That is how humans learn language naturally, after all. Japanese people are friendly in general, and quite willing to engage foreigners in conversation, even if your speaking ability is very low. Even my reading ability grew as well by simple immersion.

If I were to return to Japanese study:

1. I would make an effort to be in Japan. There is no substitute for being in the land where the language is used. If that is not possible, I would attempt to find a conversation partner in my country or online.

2. I would skip the difficult and less-rewarding reading and writing initially, and focus exclusively on conversation until I achieved a decent level of speaking and listening. To me, it would not be so bad to be illiterate-but-conversational. Later on, I could attempt literacy.

I never achieve fluency, so maybe my advice is not worth taking. I gave up on Japanese because, given my other choices and obligations, I cannot live in Japan, and I do not live where there are many Japanese speakers. It would not be a useful language for me to learn.

If I could do it all again, I'd use Anki right from the beginning. Once you do SRS, you won't go back to reviewing things linearly. Other apps like Duolingo, Memrise, etc are just neutered versions of this algorithm that make their money wasting your time.

I'd probably work through the Genki textbook series until it introduces kana. Then download an Anki deck for those and memorize them. Then keep working through Genki alongside a basic (N5 level) vocab deck. If you want to read something other than a textbook, White Rabbit Press has a great series of graded readers. Those are specifically targeted at adult learners of Japanese—way saner than reading actual Japanese kids' books.

After getting a solid grammar/vocab foundation through that combo, I'd recommend working through Heisig's "Remembering the Kanji." It's a controversial allocation of resources, but probably the single most useful "hack" I used when studying Japanese. Completing that (and grinding more advanced vocab decks) will leave you in a good place to read normal media and learn naturally.

I suggest cramming the Shin Kanzen Master series for all grammar/exercises after that (N3-N1).

> Have you been successful at learning Japanese?

So far I got good at kanji, and I know about 2000 words. It's enough to enjoy reading stuff like "Welcome to the NHK".

> If so, any good suggestion?

You might want to start with learning about Spaced Repetition:

1. https://ncase.me/remember/

2. https://www.gwern.net/Spaced-repetition

For further reading see links provided by Gwern. Then, specific to Anki:

1. https://apps.ankiweb.net/docs/manual.html

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lz60qTP2Gx0

Those tools will help to retain what you memorize. Further, see https://massimmersionapproach.com/ for guidance on language learning. It focuses on immersion, that's, reading books, listening to stuff, etc. I got good at English by means of immersion, reading The Way Of Kings and other awesome books like that, and now with the systematic approach from Mass Immersion Approach it goes even better than before.

There are 46 basic Hiragana characters. No idea where 62 would come from.

I found one-to-one lessons quite useful after I’d reached a certain stage. I have found that I don’t retain information learned from study apps. In particular, writing out Kanji seems to help me memorize them better than flashcard apps. Watching TV shows in Japanese, looking up words has been helpful. But I’m far from fluent.

Background: I've been studying Japanese for about 20 years, starting in grade school. Self-studied through high school, took Japanese in college and spent a semester in Tokyo at a Japanese language school.

What worked for me was grabbing raw (physical) manga (something from Shonen Jump, they have furigana over the kanji), a English-Japanese dictionary, a print out of hiragana/katakana, and a notebook. I then started to slowly and painstakingly translate the manga, first getting the hiragana sounded out; memorizing hiragana/katakana as I went. I wrote down characters I didn't know. I looked them up. I would translate a volume of manga in about a week.

Those exercises helped cement foundational characters, vocabulary, and grammar without having to use a computer. I was able to go into college and skip the first 2 semesters of Japanese just by slowly translating my favorite manga. This might not work for you, but it certainly worked for me.

Two popular Japanese grammar books among beginner adult learners are Minna no Nihongo (popular within Japan) and Genki (popular outside Japan and among English speakers) series.

Pimsleur Japanese audio series is a good start if your interest is listening and speaking Japanese.

The writing and reading system is made up of Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji.

Why do you want to learn Japanese? Answer to this question will be the primary driver on deciding an appropriate learning strategy.

Review the starter guide in wiki and beginner sticky threads at https://www.reddit.com/r/learnjapanese

You can find inexpensive Online tutors on iTalk.

First, you should be clear what your goal is. "Learning Japanese" is ambiguous. For example, I know many people who passed the JLPT N1 exam, but cannot have a simple conversation with a native and have a horrible accent nobody can understand. It's clear they've just "hacked" the exam by memorizing stuff. And that's totally fine if that's the goal to e.g. get a job or a visa. And I know people who are absolutely fluent in conversation, but would never pass an N3 exam and cannot read simple articles. My point is that these are very different skills that need a different approach. What do you want? What is your end goal?

Then, everyone learns differently, so there are no generic "best resources". I don't know if this works for you, but I can tell you what worked for me. For each of the step below, use Anki [0] or any other SRS system to memorize things.

1. Start with a formal textbook like Elementary Japanese (that's what I used) or Genki. This will give you a curriculum for the basics and you don't need to worry about what to learn next. Simply following these textbooks will bring you to a lower intermediate level (JLPT N4 to N3).

2. Do something like "Remember the Kanji" [1] to memorize more characters and get a feeling for them. There are many variations on this you can Google. You can do this in parallel with step 1 too. Learning Kanji in isolation is IMO overrated and not super useful, but just having the familiarity will pay dividends later.

3. This IMO is the tough part. You are now ~lower-intermediate level. You are past beginner books, but probably not good enough to read real-world stuff. For me, it was a mix of resources here. Find people to practice with, listen to podcasts like JapanesePod, read more advanced textbooks, read some online websites you are interested in, etc. I don't have a good answer on how to get past this level. Also, if your goal is to speak conversational JP you really need to talk to people here because so far you've only read textbooks.

4. Once you get to something like ~N2 Level, just immerse yourself while you keep adding stuff to Anki. Do you like videogames (like me)? Just play them in Japanese. Like movies/anime? Watch in Japanese. Tech news? Read in Japanese with browser plugins. Really, just do whatever you enjoy, but do it in Japanese. It will be hard at first, but you'll get used to it.

5. If your goal is to pass an exam (like N1), get books specific to that exam.

[0] https://apps.ankiweb.net/

[1] https://kanji.koohii.com/

Personally, but I started studying it ~12 years ago (in 2008), I had to shell out for some courses, at least at the beginning, because the material is kind of fragmented.

As some other posters mentioned, you have to start consuming a bit of material in the language once you get acquainted enough.

I like the 24/7 Youtube Podcast to learn Japanese. They introduce the basics and even go through everyday activities in a video, such as ordering a bus ticket.

https://youtu.be/wU_OSPWe5sU

Seriously, unless you intend to spend several years in Japan, don't waste your time.

If you do plan on going native, find a girlfriend who likes you but has no desire to learn english. You will thank me later.

> Seriously, unless you intend to spend several years in Japan, don't waste your time.

Why not?

From my very long experience, it made the learning expeditious, natural and much more fun.

In the meantime, find a copy of Jack Seward's "Japanese in Action", and commit it to memory. It is the most honest book about learning the Japanese language that has ever been written. http://www.trussel.com/jap/jbooks01.htm#49

Seward died in 2010, but the man had extraordinary insight. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2010/11/19/national/jack-s...

I haven't learnt Japanese though I did start... But to get a grounding in Italian before moving there, I did use Michel Thomas CDs and would highly recommend giving them a go.

I am not succesful yet, but I am watching the Japanese From Zero series on youtube and for kanji I am using the Wani Kani website.

Japanese Pod 101, Remembering The Kanji and Genki

https://djtguide.neocities.org/guide.html

This may be of interest

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