I bought Genki I and Genki II including workbooks but I have a hard time using it. Do you think its enough if I use Bunpro as my main grammar source? I may use Genki to check stuff I dont understand with Bunpro. Or maybe I will use it later on to “repeat” the grammar with it. I also bought the app Human Japanese which I may check from time to time too.
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The only thing I’d worry about with your plan is you’re not learning enough kanji to go up with the pace of 10 vocab each day. I’d actually focus on having a decent kanji foundation (kanji+vocab with kanji, as Wanikani teaches) before adding too much vocab, which you won’t be able to read unless it has furigana.
Another unwanted effect of learning vocab without enough kanji is that you’ll confuse a lot of kanji because they’re very similar, and this can get tricky when you’re trying to remember which pair of kanji composes a word or recognizing single kanji words.
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Hmm I thought about that problem too. How do people learn vocab with anki usually? Its impossible to know all the kanji before the vocab. What I do right now I just try to remember the reading and meaning of a new vocab in my anki deck. If I know the kanji already from WaniKani thats much easier of course. But I’m just level 4 so I don’t know many.
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Here’s an idea. If you like BP most, then instead of using BP to supplement Genki, maybe you could use Genki to supplement BP?
So, try out the Genki I deck. Use the one that includes both grammar and vocab. Also, use the same edition as your actual Genki edition. Make it as your primary deck. Or, if you prefer, make it secondary and use something else as primary, maybe N5 grammar (or else make N5 grammar secondary and Genki primary).
Then, study some of the items from the Genki deck using Bunpro. Say, for instance, study all the items from the first chapter. Once you get them to a familiar/comfortable level, say just beyond the Beginner SRS levels, then try studying the Genki chapter again. It should be much easier to study by that point, since you’ll already be familiar with the material.
This could get you a head-start on studying the Genki book!
I would caution, however, that it’s possible that doing things in this order might make the Genki book ‘boring’ to read, like, “Eh. I’ve already covered this stuff in Bunpro. Do I really need to do the exercises?”
When I studied Genki I, I actually did find doing the exercises worthwhile because it exercised my language muscles in ways that SRS alone (even the great Bunpro) didn’t really exercise. Then, I used Bunpro’s Genki path to reinforce those exercises by keeping them on a constant SRS ‘loop’, until I became fully proficient with them, and they advanced ahead as things do in SRS.
I believe that if I had done Bunpro first, it probably would have taken me longer, overall, to learn the same amount of grammar, and I probably would not have appreciated the exercises as much – and thus, I feel, I wouldn’t have actually learned as much from them. But that’s just my personal belief based on my own experience and my own personality. Maybe things work different for other folks.
So, I’ll just say that since you already have Genki I, then might as well try to put it to use, right? If it takes using Bunpro first, to do that, or maybe just to get you started on Genki, then I don’t think there’d be any harm in that.
My main point, though, is that using Bunpro and a textbook at the same time is a pretty darn good way of progressing, IMHO. Better, IMO, than using one or the other separately. Might be worth trying out for yourself. (Indeed, originally, that was one of the main selling points of Bunpro when they first started, was this integration with existing grammar resources/textbooks.)
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I agree with @wct in that it’s better to use BunPro alongside a textbook in the beginning, until about reaching N4 level. After that, you can simply stick with BunPro (or keep using it alongside a textbook, of course). The point is, it’s much more important to use a textbook with BunPro when you’re starting out. Otherwise you’ll end up with a bunch of gaps in your grammar knowledge.
N5 and N4 are just the fundamentals of Japanese grammar. Not having a good grasp of the concepts taught in those levels will definitely cripple your learning ability moving forward.
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To me, that problem is easily solved by studying in JLPT order (first you learn all the kanji for one JLPT level, then focus on vocab for the same level). However, this is hard to do when using tools as the Core2k/6k deck and Wanikani, which are both great tools but they have this “setback”. We could also discuss if learning the core 2K/6K is actually better than learning vocab in JLPT order.
I’d honestly recommend you to learn at least all the N5 kanji (as most of these kanjis are actually radicals too) and most of N4 kanji before jumping into learning so much vocab. Maybe for the first months or so, focus on leveling up on Wanikani, and then you can add as much vocab as you want.
To me, the problem with your plan is not the method but the rhythm. With so many new words each day, I don’t think you can learn enough kanji to support that amount of vocab.
This is kind of a hot take in this community but I would just drop WK and anki and just do jpdb for kanji + vocab. Its simply more efficient than both WK and anki and its something you can quickly use without much hassle from the very start to the very end.
You can just copy paste and then scan all the example sentences from bunpo for n5 and n4 into 2 decks. I would just do the n5 deck alongside bunpro n5 in chronological order and then some maybe subtitles of a few easy videos before doing bunpro n4 vocab and moving on to vocab from things you want to read/watch.
Knowing all the words makes learning grammar much more efficient. And with jpdb you can do way more new cards per day than with wk and/or anki.
(Especially in the beginning it should be better to rush things a bit more for grammar and then solidify, afterwards you can go at a slower pace. That way you will quickly gain a base understanding and things will make more sense.) [<-Tricky topic]
Edit: as mentioned by wct I would also suggest using a textbook alongside bunpro. Imo you dont need to fully do it, its enough if you skip the exercises and just read through the grammar and dialoges to get a basic understanding of the grammar and master it through bunpro
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hey man. Do more than 1 grammar per day. Then once you finish n4 + a lot of the way (or perhaps some of the way) through n3 start reading straight away. I reccomend around 15-20 words on anki a day on the core 2.3k or 2k/6k then just immerse in anime or eroge with yomichan + textractor or just yomichanning anime subs and adding new words to anki.
If you reach n4 in a year you will be dissapointed, as reading at n4 is still very hard and hundreds more grammar to learn whilst you try to read.
Best of luck!
BTW wanikani is good but dont feel compelled to do it as you dont even need to learn kanji invidually if you don’t want to-I learnt it through vocab recognisation
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Oh yeah, this is a very hot topic. As a clarifier, there’s no global consensus on memorizing kanji at a early stage on the community. A big group believes it’s necessary, and the other thinks it’s optional or useless (more here). Unless you want to actually write them from a early stage, the only recommendation I give is don’t obsess too much over kanji.
I also only use jpdb for learning vocab, and I even disabled the kanji cards, since I can recognize a bunch of kanji just by the sheer repetition. If you want to learn a bit more about jpdb you can read this post of mine:
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The best plan is the one you like.
I didn’t like WK, but I know a lot of people do.
The one thing you need, that you don’t have is reading practice
I recommend kanji/vocab then reading then grammar.
You want to already know most of the words in the example sentences in bunpro.
Your goal is to be able to read, how you learn to read is by practicing reading.
I add bunpro grammar to reviews when I come across grammar in example sentences in the core deck.
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You can try the Migaku Kanji God add-on for Anki. It generates kanji cards automatically based on your progress through any Anki deck, so you can learn the kanji and their keywords before seeing it in your vocabulary or sentence deck. I use it with the Tango N5 deck (i+1 sentences) to learn the kanji 25 cards ahead. Here are some videos to check out about Migaku Kanji God:
- Migaku Kanji God Methodology (Part 1): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APMYK1Aa69k
- Migaku Kanji God Methodology (Part 2): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_PDFGOgJSI
- Release Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXXjqNEYseY
- User Guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9bmWLvUBQo
Edit: wording & added a sentence
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Hey there! I don’t really have much to add in terms of specifics, but I wanted to chime in with something that’s probably obvious: no matter how well-laid your plans, they probably won’t go just how you thought. It’s great to have a roadmap, but at the end of the day you’re learning a language and there’s no perfect way to do that. As a new learner, you don’t have all the knowledge to make the perfect plan for yourself, and nobody can do it for you either. So, in my opinion, it’s more important to jump in and then be open to course correction as you learn more about the language and your own learning style, than it is to know exactly what you’ll be studying two years from now. It’ll also help you keep your passion and avoid burning out. The Japanese ocean is deep and wide and lots of fun. Make sure to keep an open mind, don’t get too obsessed and overwhelmed by all the resources and rules Internet strangers will throw at you. Just keep moving forward at your own pace and be open to changing strategies if you need to. Try not to get stuck in “I need a perfect plan before I can start” Hell.
Good luck! It’s awesome that you’re learning a language in the first place.
(Also, consider doing grammar points in batches of two. You’ll double your speed, and 2 per day is really not that much harder than 1 per day.)
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idk how much time you have, but in terms of wanting to improve reading, i would recommend to priotise wanikani until lvl 20, take a slowdown until lvl 30, and then halt, there and reinforce along with grammar and vocabulary. Ofcourse you want also to get the very basic grammar along with the start and very common words. i personally would recommend in terms of timespent like 50 % wanikani(until lvl 20), 30 % grammar, and 20 % very basic vocabulary which isnt included in wanikani. After you reached 20 on wanikani i would cut the time spend in half. My personal strongpoints are actually reading aswell, and the problem is that after wanikani lvl 30, the nuances of more rare and difficult kanji words getting more complicated, which i really recommend at this point to polish and practice vocabular.Plus more complicated sentence which use those kanji also often have advanced grammar, so you would want to have a good balance at this point.
merry christmas.
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It depends, he wants to read mainly. For speaking and listening you dont need kanji at all. I personally would say in his case that learning 500 kanji in the first year wouldnt be a mistake, since those kanji are really basic and often occure. There are books with furigana so you could argue that even basic kanji are not necessary in the early level, which would be true if thats what hes going to use for the beginning.Grammar until n3 is really a musthave so until then, its hard to judge how important kanjis are if you don t have those grammar points. But i surely wouldnt recommend too many kanjis tough, vocabulary becomes just much more important after a certain threshhold.
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this isnt a very good idea. you should start reading as soon as possible even though its slow but the value you get out of a coherent text and the word clusters within are A LOT bigger than flashcards.
especially since you said reading in japanese is your ultimate goal so the motivation is high.
you should spend the most of your time with the activity you want to achieve while bunpro, wanikani and anki are just support. all three are silver platters and gamified with levels and badges and streaks. its easy to get your dopamine hits there while neglecting your true goal that requires alot more frustration tolerance - reading.
if i would start all over again i would split my japanese time in 50% reading/listening 50% tools (bunpro, wanikani, anki)
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even if one just understands 30 % of the story, thats still a huge a profit, even if you feel dumber in this moment. I would know a very good fairy tale book which is made for japanese learners (not japanese children) which has over 20 japanese short fairy tales(3-4 pages per story) where on the left side the english version is written down and on the right side the japanese version, so you could doublecheck if you get the meaning roughly. After the story there is a small word translation section for concerning tale. They have on alot of kanji furiganas, but stop after 2-3 uses on the same words, so youre forced to read it more naturally after the start for the more common words. There are some cultural explanation after the each story. That book is by far the best non frustrating, easy to doublecheck book ive encountered sofar. The best thing is that they are quite short so it feels more rewarding and not so sluggish to continue, still, i would recommend atleast completion of N5.
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I think this is also very important. If something isn’t right, find the problem and do your best to solve it. My daily schedule changed multiple times already, whenever I notice a gap in my knowledge. I might use other tools or books to solve other problems as well.
If you want a more passive learning style, changes like this will probably be more sparse, but don’t be afraid to change your course.
I also think it’s not really a mistake, but it’s not really necessary as well. My basic goal is only to read as well, and so far I have been doing great without RTK/WK types of studies. The 500 more common kanji are seen a lot so remembering them isn’t that much of a issue anyway.
Regardless, OP can learn with or without, so doing or not is basically preference. Whatever works for him it’s the best at the end of the day.
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Rest in piece to the one who actually made this language starting making sense.
Cure Dolly is the only solution
Her books are…not good though.
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You are definatly doing enough.
I think Bunpro, WankiKani and Anki are too many SRS. I was doing all of my reivews in Anki, and reciently tried spreading them out 150 anki, 10 JPDB and 30 bunpro.
I would prefer 200 cards a day in just one than juggling all these different platforms.
I recommend picking a fav of those three, and using that one for your flash card needs.
I recommend doing vocabulary first(1000 words), and then starting grammar (bunpro).
I wish I did more immersion. Meanwhile- come join me in “Let’s immerse 5 minutes a day!” watch those silly japanese commercials, or a video of cats knocking things over in Japanese. 50/50 is recommended, but 5 minutes I can do.
JPDB, anki and bunpro all let you put in custom sentences and add vocab which I would recomend over wanikani which you have to learn their vocab list in their order. (wanna learn 失礼します so you can knock on your boss’s door, not until level 7 you don’t).
I did the kanji damage deck. Kanji damage is an RTK style anki deck where you only do the kanji and radical cards, not the vocabulary. Instead you get your vocab from the core deck. This is the “easiest 20%” according to wanikani- which I say is a plus. you learn just enough kanji that words written in kanji are just as easy to learn as words written in hiragana.
For my vocab cards I do basicly what you do. I use sentence cards and listen to the sentince audio which I find helpful. if kanji is preventing you from learning vocabulary you can try this method
In Bunpro of JPDB turn on furigana on hover
- Guess the furigana
- Read the furigana
- Guess the english meaning
- Reveal the english meaning
- answer the actual question bunpro is asking
- add any words/grammar that you didn’t know the english meaning of in part 4 to vocab reviews.
- listen to the sentence audio
- read the sentence out loud
You won’t do all 8 steps every time.
If your bunpro is set to flash card, or you are using a flashcard app (JPDB or anki) you will skip step 5.
There is an add-on for anki called “learn now” which allows you to add cards to review like bunpro (instead of doing them in order, like wanikani) for step 6.
because you attempt to read all of the kanji, and then read the answer you are doing a kanji SRS with your sentence SRS.
In anki add {{#Reading}}{{hint:Reading}}{{/Reading}} to the front side. (if furigana in the Reading feild)
and on click:
My card template
(card is from Jalup)
This means that not knowing kanji won’t hold you back.
Hope this helps anyone else doesn’t want to study kanji separatly/ first.
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and now to pare down the number of apps- I moved all my jpdb vocab back to anki.
and now to switch anki to bunpro:
If I get a card right I pass as usual. If I get it wrong I press hard. (which in the settings I have set so the level doesnt change if I use hard. If it was a beginer, it stays beginer, if it was seasoned it says seasoned- no affect up or down.) I then add the vocab word to bunpro.
I hope this means I keep a similar number of reviews and mastery across platforms.
Not always, I came across this in reviews: ～だもん（～ですもん）：不平・不満・恨む気持ちを込めながら、相手の自分に対する非難に対し、根拠や理由を示す- which in Bunpro is N1 grammer- so I’m not adding it bunpro just yet.
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