Best ways to learn?

Japanese
#1

Hi there, Im currently using bunpro as my main source of studying and was wondering if anyone had any tips or things I could do to enhnace my study as Im trying to make my daily Japanese as good as possible before I go at the start of next year.

Thank you!

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#2

Honestly, don’t try to rush it. Take time with each grammar point and ensure you understand it while reading and listening. It’s also important (and will help with general recall) to be able to use it in both speaking and writing.

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#3

thank you for the advice, do you think I should be doing anything else for study? or do you think bunpro would be enough

#4

Personally I don’t use bunpro solely. It’s a nice compliment to my regular routine of full immersion reading and watching, while mining vocab and sometimes phrases for anki. Usually 1-2 hours in the evening and I do 10-30 mins of anki as soon as I can in the day.

I probably do about 10 bunpro reviews a day and a few grammar points a week. Usually I just add them as I encounter them in the wild.

It took a while to get to this point where I can confidently consume Japanese media regularly for hours on end but the sooner you start, the better.

I’d say if you’re lvl 30-50 in bunpro you could easily transition to immersion and quickly acquire Japanese. After a certain level straight up studying has diminishing returns. You have to start using the language for something or it will just get more and more difficult to stay motivated.

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#5

Like Beiri said, Bunpro + immersion is a great combination. That being said, since you’re still at the beginning of your journey, you’d probably benefit more from beginner-focused content as opposed to straight-up immersion. When I started, I watched a lot of Youtube videos. I recommend Misa (Japanese Ammo). After that, I’d recommend doing conjugation drills until it starts feeling natural. You’ll pick up the beginner content very quickly using this method. If you’re set on jumping into immersion early, search for comprehensible input for beginners. Good luck!

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#6

The other replies have lots of useful information, so I’ll just throw in that I think talking to yourself is great practice! It helps to have a decent resource for comparison so you don’t get into the habit of producing incorrect/unnatural forms, but using things you’ve recently studied to narrate your actions or things you observe/thing is a great way to speak and challenge yourself to connect Japanese language study to more aspects of your life, which is invaluable for long-term recall.

Even nowadays I often have conversations with myself in Japanese as I commute to and from work, trying to figure out what I would say in X situation or how I would communicate Y information.

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#7

Might want to download yomitan extension to aid you in reading. You can use it on your bunpro reviews to help you read sentences. Might pick up some things passively if you use it frequently enough.

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#8

There have been some great responses here but I’ll just add what works for me, this may not work for you so play around with things till you find a fit :slight_smile:

  • Textbook studies - I personally like Genki as a lot of tutors and other students use it so if I get stuck I feel like I have a good support structure. I also watch the Tokini Andy video on the lesson to get an extra lesson in.
  • I then add the newly learnt grammar and vocabulary to my Bunpro - there are pre-built decks for Genki here so that’s another plus.
  • Write my own sentences using the new grammar rules, trying to incorporate as many other grammar points that I have previously learnt.
  • I post these sentence on Hello Talk to ask for corrections and points on how to make my sentence sound more natural. There are various other platforms but Hello Talk has been one I have stuck with.
  • I use Wanikani for kanji studies. You have to pay for it and others may recommend remembering the kanji, kanji garden etc etc but Wanikani has been the only one where I have been able to see kanji in the wild and understand it. My hot take is, kanji is important. So may people will tell you that you don’t need to learn it, but without it I would have struggled so much and given up. I don’ think you need to learn how to write kanji, but if stroke order helps you with remembering the kanji then try Ringotan which is a free app.
  • For verb and adjective conjugation drills, I use Japanese Conjugation city, which costs £1 but amazing for practicing your conjugation drills. I recommend drilling as soon as you learn a new conjugation form.
  • It is never too early to immerse or output! You don’t need to wait until you have learnt a certain number of grammar points or 2k vocab. Sure, you are not going to understand much or anything but do a bit of studying then pop on a beginner level youtube video and see if you can pick out the grammar etc. The sooner that you try speaking, the better. This is my one regret, I am terrified of speaking and I wish I had pushed myself out of my comfort zone sooner.
  • One of my main pieces of advice is, ensure your review queues are at zero each day. Its very tempting to add hundreds of cards a day because it feels low level/easy at the time. But those cards will come back up in 4 hours, 8 hours, 4 days, 8 days etc. Its very easy for beginners to SRS to bottleneck their reviews. If you need to take a day off or more, pop yourself on vacation mode so your review queue is paused.
    *Final point, be kind to yourself. I met someone last week IRL that was half my age and spoke like a native speaker, body language and all. My instant reaction was to internally berate myself for not being good enough, for wasting time etc. But after a few minutes I reminded myself that everyone’s language journey is different and its ok to take as long as you need.

Im sorry this is so long, but I hope it helps :tiger:

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