Keep on studying both grammar and kanji/vocab and then actually use it. And don’t be afraid to fall flat on your face. Like, several times. Or even most every time, as is the case at the moment. But: I’m still having fun. And I’m convinced that in time, enough will stick and I’ll be having even more fun.
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hmm I wouldn’t change much in the way I progressed (only started around September last year)
I guess i started ignorant like most thinking you could just “learn” a language.
But then I found Wanikani within a few weeks after starting.
And from Wanikani I found the Mass Immersion Approach site/youtube channel.
Then also from Wanikani I found CureDolly’s videos.
I guess I would have liked to have know about the MIA Japanese Anki add-on in November. lol
I would have saved quite a few hours if I used it to auto-generate furigana without manually typing it in when I turned a JLPT N5 sentence book into cards… 
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Rather than trudging through difficult content, sometimes the simpler the content you try to consume the more you actually end up studying.
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I would tell myself that slow listening material is really only for developing good pronunciation habits (not for actual listening practice) so leave it behind much earlier. After a while, it just creates frustration when native material shows little resemblance to study materials.
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Good advice. I am currently watching kingdom and understanding about 70%. Lots of unknown archaic words and non-joyou kanji, like 冑.
But it is still super enjoyable and I’m learning a lot.
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Hm, why not 兜? I never saw 冑 used anywhere 
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Good question, I am not actually sure. It seems to be from an older word for armor 甲冑。Actually… maybe it is not all that uncommon?, it was the first suggestion from google IME when I typed かっちゅう。
My only other guess is maybe it has a more traditional chinese feel to it, or perhaps even a direct link to the type of armor the chinese used in that era… These are all just guesses.
I just found this interesting article. So maybe it is directly related to that specific type of armor.
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Make note of the pitch accent in each word before you learn them incorrectly.
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@ myself: For the love of god, just use it. Stop thinking that mistakes are the worst things in the world, and that anybody at all cares nearly as much as you do. Nobody cares! They will not think less of you for not knowing how to use a difficult language correctly.
I spent so long procrastinating for the fear of making mistakes and sounding silly in front of friends/native speakers that I just didn’t do anything, but since I’ve actually gone and done small things like make a Japanese Twitter, and started commenting on my fave singer’s Instagrams and stuff, I’ve been able to make a small network of Japanese friends who are kind, patient and try their best to help me out. That wouldn’t be the case if I just stubbornly refused to even give it a shot.
It still stings a little when I make a mistake, especially when I feel like I should have known better, but at least I’m learning and giving it a bit of welly. Slow progress doesn’t mean no progress (and it’s probably not as slow as I think).
Also, for me right now - speaking. Speak it. Say words. Do it! Say things that aren’t greetings and pleasantries! Make actual sentences! Stop being a coward! 
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Finding good resources was a big endeavor that definitely took some time. So I would probably almost be giving myself this sales pitch:
"Hey past me, listen, I have some Japanese From Zero books here. It’s basically what it says on the title, read this and save yourself a ton of pain and effort searching for adequate study materials for starting to learn Japanese.
Other than that, check out Tae Kim’s grammar guide after you’ve read those books and consult it whenever you get confused. Also, just go and listen to Japanese, even if you can understand little it will still prime your brain for recognizing patterns in Japanese speech. Oh and btw, use Heisig’s RTK for kanji mnemonics, but do not forget to practice actually writing them. You can use the ‘Kanji Study’ app for that."
And after the sales pitch:
"Look, it’s great that you’re going out of your comfort zone by trying to speak to Japanese people in Japanese. If you notice your ability is barely improving, don’t just stick to your guns and think ‘speaking and outputting is the only way to get better’, listen to your gut and actively look to improve your ways.
You’ll discover that after you read, watch and listen to more and more Japanese content, speaking will become easier. Just be patient and be kind to yourself. Some days it will seem like you regressed, but that is not the case, some days are just tougher than others."
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I would say: “Don’t pay for or use Rosetta Stone. Use that time on WaniKani and Bunpro and Tae Kim instead.”
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I’d probably say that you can study the different parts of the language in whatever order interests you. You’ll have to learn it all eventually, so find something you can stick to and spend time memorizing/learning.
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目的を注意深く考え毎日それを思い出して。そしてなによりも一番大切なことは、楽しむことだ。モチベーションは下がりやすいから。でもやめてしまったら、少しも進歩しない。
(Hopefully not too many mistakes - feel free to correct!)
Think carefully about your purpose and remind yourself of it every day. Moreover, the most important thing is to have fun with it. That’s because it’s easy for motivation to decrease. But if you stop, you won’t even improve a little.
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There are things you can learn in isolation (like たほうがいい) and there is stuff you cannot and perhaps even should not learn in isolation because it will only further confuse you.
Don´t understand the difference btween は and が? The worst thing you can do is try to look up every explanation available on this subject.
Best case scenario: You still don´t understand it or may be able to figure out that one example sentence you´ll be presented with.
Worst case scenario: you understand it even less and question why you are even taking on this seemingly impossible task of learning japanese.
Your goal is to be able to speak, understand, read or write in japanese - not to major in linguistics.
This is excatly what happened to me in my first few months. I read every single article ever on the difference between those two pesky little particles yet i only made steps backwards. Then i just started reading a lot, naturally picking up when to use which, and now i can safely say that i get it. Could i explain it to you? Heck no! And that´s a good thing! That´s what natives do after all. They just “know” it without being able to accurately explain it to others. That´s the goal imho!
And i´m still using this tactic to this day. Just recently i put ほど and くらい in the SRS. However, i didn´t even read one article on it, just a few very meager explanations to get things going - i picked up the rest by reading books or searching for this particular grammar point on twitter for context.
Here, too, i “get” it, but the more i think about “why” and “how” it is used the more blurred it becomes.
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I also would tell myself you are in it for the long haul.
You need to get wanikani- and keep up with it. You are going to forget stuff- wanikani knows that. Work though the Genki books- 3 work sheets a week. I’d tell myself to join “Japanese tea circle”, or another club to practice speaking Japanese- put I still haven’t done that 
I am, unfortunately in the “eternal beginner” category. I signed up for my first Japanese class 8 years ago.
I took 10 beginner classes at various institutions, and a crammed for the JLPT N5 a year and a half ago.
And now I am re-reading chapter two of genki cause I forgot kore/kono/koko 
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I feel this on a spiritual level lol. I’ve been studying for the GMAT (test to get into an MBA/business grad program) and there’s an entire section on grammar, sentence corrections, and idioms. Every text book ever says “if it sounds right to you as a native English speaker, DON’T QUESTION IT”
Lots of people end up making mistakes by overanalyzing sentences and trying to figure out what each particle does or means. But hey, if it flows, it flows ¯_(ツ)_/¯
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This 100%.
Spent a year learning what I thought was regulaur Japanese (~masu/~desu).
I’ve lived in Japan for about three years and 95% of my conversation is in casual japanese. SMH.
There is a time and a place for polite japanese as i does have it’s benefits… but you won’t make a lot of friends with it.
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I’d tell myself:
Do some research before you get serious about studying, in order to find the most beneficial way of doing it and avoid misinformation. Don’t believe the first explanation you see; look around and search for alternative points of view.
I decided I wanted to learn Japanese over 10 years ago. I learned the kana in a couple of days, found some beginner resources, studied for around a month and then stopped. It was all too confusing and I felt clueless and powerless. I kind of accepted that “Japanese is just a confusing language with a ton of exceptions and makes no sense without context”, which was (and still it!) a popular misconception.
Back then, I read somewhere something along the lines of “は is the subject marker and が is the object marker most of the time, but sometimes it’s also a subject marker and it’s crazy hard to know when to use which.” I didn’t question it. Big mistake because it turned out to be BS (but sadly still often taught that way!)
In reality, は always marks the topic (which is not necessarily the subject) and が always marks the subject. That’s it. Plain and simple.
All in all, I’d say I got overly confused by reading material that tried to make the Japanese language seem much more similar to Western languages than it is. To make things worse, I didn’t question that back then. With hindsight, I should have.
At the time I was ~11 and could already speak 3 languages but, because all 3 are European languages and thus pretty similar grammar-wise, I was under the mistaken impression that the ALL languages in the world work the same way. Little did I know, that’s far from the truth.
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Advice to my first-year self:
How do you get by without a subject …without getting confused? Japanese people usually say “it’s obvious“, but nobody talks about why. It’s partly from how Japanese tell stories. Usually when you make a statement, you’re talking about yourself. Usually when you ask a question, you’re asking about someone else.
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