Advice for Starting My Japanese Journey

Japanese
#1

Hey, guys! Nice to meet you all. My name is Seven (yes, that’s my real name) and I’ve been learning Japanese with Bunpro for about 2 weeks now. I’ve tried to properly study Japanese on and off a couple of times for the last 2 years, but after beginning to use Bunpro I’ve found it a lot easier to be consistent about it.

What I wanted to ask is: What resources have people been using to supplement their learning? I’m planning on at least taking the N5 in Chicago this December (maybe the N4 if I’m feeling confident). I’ll list the resources I’m using right now in case they’re helpful to anybody else:

  • Bunpro’s JLPT Reading Practice
  • WaniKani for kanji and additional vocab practice
  • https://www.youtube.com/@FujiのJapanesePodcast/featured - This YouTube series for listening comprehension
  • The Japanese from Zero! textbook series
  • A tutor for me and my friend so we can practice speaking and learn at a similar level together

I’m already starting to think about the best ways to gain confidence in my speaking and reading, so if anybody has any advice on a studying structure, please share! I like what I’m doing right now but am open to changing things up to perhaps move a little faster. Also, please reply with any suggestions/link any resources you personally like! I’d be happy to discuss. :grin:

ALTERNATIVELY: If anybody has any advice for how best to use Bunpro/how to explore some of the features, I’d be happy to discuss that too! I just read the articles about Cram, Reading Practice, etc., so any advice with regards to that would be appreciated too.

3 Likes
#2

Those sound good, from your profile picture I’ll say throw in your favorite anime too somewhere in the mix (Without english subs). You won’t understand much but it’ll probably be still enjoyable

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#3

I was thinking about doing that, but I wasn’t sure if it would be too helpful since I really wouldn’t understand too much - just picking out words here and there when I’d like to be able to pick out grammar structure. I was looking for a place to watch children’s shows… or read children’s books since that’s the level I’m at.

#4

I would recommend Free Tadoku Books - にほんごたどく for reading, at pre-N5 level nothing native is really going to be understandable but I found these graded readers a really accessible entry point

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#5

As someone nearing 25 years in my learning journey, my advice would be to set realistic expectations as you progress. Always revisit your motivations as well to avoid burnout. It is also important to make your learning experience fun. The topic of additional resourced comes up quite often, so search through the threads to get additional ideas.

Here are some options for shows/books with respect to your ask:
Tadoku: Free Tadoku Books - にほんごたどく
Chiikawa: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPSMqoEaMk8&list=PLHIKP_Dyl1zwJy0JjSvVV5l8Kyg-8sjdv&index=1
Pororo: https://www.youtube.com/@ポンポンポロロ/videos
Bosanimal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79L1QVHwDI0&list=PLdqogoZbDJdhcwM3ydTvUkuuGV8MW89wy

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#6

Welcome Seven!

Sounds like you already have a pretty solid study plan.
I will shill my usual free reading ressources :smiley:
Tadoku graded reader have free books for kids and beginners up to low intermediate with a lot of images to help you along the stories.
Then by the same people you have JRPG sakura which will give you longer text with less images (you need to create an account to access all the free text), their level A text are already more difficult than level s or 0 from Tadoku so you need a bit of vocabalary to tackle those.
Finaly satori reader has a lot of stories and detail grammar points in them, all stories are free up to the second chapter so you can try a few easy ones to see if you like it. They are very responsive in the comments if you have any questions about the grammar or wordings of stories and they don’t use any AI (tried a bit of generation for images but stopped quickly).

Sounds like you already have some listening on there but just in case I highly recommend comprehensible japanase. They have a few hundred of free video to try out and lately Yuki,one of the founder ,left with all her catalogue that she is slowly reuploading for free.
Her new website Nihongo jikan already has 800 video for all level, check it out!

Hope some of those sites are useful for your learning journey.

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#7

I’m ~4 months into the study and I was lucky to meet people that recommended me some useful resources to play with. Some of those were already mentioned, but maybe you’ll find those interesting:

I would recommend to get at least some N5 grammar and vocab before visiting second item and further. Nothing is stopping you if you want to tho. You can always look up words you encounter and add those to the reviews (I do it for N5 words mostly or the words I encounter often than ~2-3 times).

Good luck on your path! :v:

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#8

Tadoku fanclub let’s go :clap:

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#9

A podcast called “Nihongo Con Teppei For Beginners” has been great for me to get some passive/ active listening in while doing chores and what not. There are over 1200 episodes, and they’re fairly short, so they are easy to just jump into and listen.

Wanikani is amazing, great choice for Kanji SRS.

#10

You guys are gonna have me hooked on this, I’ve been looking for a good graded reader source!