I been seeing that n2 and n1 grammer are not very common; should i bother as i can focus on other stuff instead, like immersion or kanji?
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Yeah, I recommend immersion and Kanji before learning n1 and n2 grammar.
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It depends on what your purpose for learning is. If you are not planning on being in Japan for a meaningful amount of time, then it might be ok to stop at N2 or N3, but if you are going to be here for 3 months or more then it might be useful to learn some of the higher levels. I hear 尚 just about every day for example and it is in N2 grammar on BunPro. Just because its not common in casual settings, doesn’t mean you won’t encounter them at some point. Also, you’re more likely to hear these higher level points when encountering store staff for example. I think its better to learn all of them at least once, even if you don’t do a lot of reviews for them. Then at least you’ll have an idea of what it may be or if it is grammar or vocab when you encounter it in the wild.
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It’s common enough that I see/hear and use it on a daily basis. It’s not as common as N5-N3 though however that is the bread and butter so appears in basically every sentence. N1 is less useful if you don’t plan on reading much or don’t live in Japan, admittedly. If you get good at Japanese you’ll have to pick it up one way or another though.
It isn’t an either/or thing. If you’re at the appropriate level then you should be in contact with the language anyway.
If you’re around N2 then you probably know your own study preferences better than anyone else so at the end of the day you can do whatever you think is best (and change your mind later, if need be). Good luck!
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N2 grammar, at minimum (I haven’t studied N1 yet), is used often when I read Japanese books or pamphlets or emails. I think it’s worth it to study it. That said, I wouldn’t spend all my time on studying just grammar. Reading, listening, and kanji are important aspects of learning Japanese. Depending on your goal, so is shadowing and speaking practice.
I even do writing practice, but I admit I’m a rare case, at least among non-Japanese around me, and it does slow me down somewhat … but I also live in Japan and I think knowing as many aspects of Japanese language and culture is a nice thing.
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I am probably not going to live there but i want to become fluent
Lets say i have 20-30k words on my anki Should i move to the n2 and n1 grammer,
You can be considered fluent with just up to N3 and some N2 grammar and the core vocabulary, but you will still be likely to run into constructions you don’t understand in media or literature. If you don’t mind pausing your consumption of the media to research the construction you don’t understand then it may be better to put N2 and N1 on the backburner while you focus on some other things for a while, but in my opinion it would be best if you do decide to someday revisit them.
I don’t know how far along in your Japanese learning journey you are, but if your current level is an indication I’d guess that you are quite new. One piece of advice I’d give you is to not intentionally place limits on your own learning because of what you currently view as being important. When I first started learning Japanese I was under the impression that kanji is too difficult and I would never be able to learn it, so I just focused on learning words’ pronunciations and how they sounded. Then I finally decided to take the plunge and realized that being able to read them was a lot easier than I initially believed. However, I still thought that writing them would be too difficult and unnecessary since at that point I hadn’t decided that I wanted to live in Japan, so I only focused on reading and learned more than 1000 by the time I started living in Japan. By then I realized that writing would actually help, so I started learning how to do it. However, I then had to go through things that I had already learned and focus on a different aspect of it. It would have been a lot more efficient to learn how to write each one at the same time as I was learning to read them and it likely would have formed deeper connections in my mind. I guess my point is that none of the stuff is entirely unnecessary and allocating your time efficiently to tackle a little bit of each aspect of the language as you go along your journey will actually be a lot more beneficial in the long run. Check out this post to see what some people wish they had done differently and see if it can help you avoid similar pitfalls.
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well, I have 13,000 cards in Anki, about 7,000 words and am currently studying N3.
So tripple. Definatly study kanji and immersion before that.
Like Drunk Gnome said, do both eventually
something like:
n00b 1k words
beginner 1k kanji, 2k words, 10 hours immersed N5 grammar
medium 2k kanji 5k words, 100 hours immersed, N 4 grammar
intermediate 2k kanji, 8k words, 1000 hours immersed, N3 grammar
(I’m here!)
advanced 2k kanji, 12k words, 2500 hours immersed, N2 grammar
Most Advanced 2.5k kanji, 16k words, 5000 hours immersed
i am using Kaishi 1.5k deck; where would that get me, and do i need to know more than 2k kanji?
I don’t know about Kaishi 1.5k. On the kanji side, I don’t know what’s your goal (I don’t think you’ve mentioned it in this thread), so it’s hard to say if 2k kanji is sufficient.
I’m at 1.8k kanji per wanikani count right now and I still encounter some kanji I haven’t learned on my day-to-day reading. That said, it no longer bothers me now that I learn to not need to understand every words in every sentences … I can generally guess the meaning of the sentence even while not knowing a word or two (or sometime able to guess the meaning/reading of the kanji just from context).
On the other hand, if you don’t plan to read a lot, or primarily reading materials with furigana attached (e.g., many shonen/shojo manga), you don’t really even need to know 2k kanji. Knowing words are more important for those contexts.
All in all, I would start kanji sooner rather than later, but how intense you learn them depends on your goal. It’s also important that you learn kanji together with words that they are being used in, rather than focusing on kanji in isolation. After all, the words are what help you understand/product Japanese. (:
I play all my games in Japanese and watch anime with Japanese subtitles, and come across N2 and even N1 grammar points surprisingly often. Maybe I just watch and play weird stuff, but personally I find it essential to learn everything that is being taught here.
Some time ago I purchased some mangas in Japan and the seller used a Japanese newspaper as packaging material, trying to decipher that felt like fighting a Dark Souls boss, I wasn’t prepared for that. 
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Found Kaishi 1.5k. It looks great! for how far it gets you depends on how you use it.
For me I put the sentence of the front, word furigana and meaning on the back. This doen’t help listening, but it does help my reading (I have to read a sentence) and vocab
It’s the equivalent of the bunpro N5 vocab deck
“2k kanji” is based on the 2,136 joyo kanji. If there is a non-joyo kanji you like, you can learn it too.
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should i look at the sentences because i dont know if that is helpful to my vocab or not
yes you should read the sentence. It is helpful to your vocab by:
- It helps you understand the word in context
- practice the other words in the sentence
- practice reading
- practice reading kanji- knowing kanji will improve your vocab.
4.5) practice reading grammar. half because not vocab but still helpful for Japanese