Recommended learning resources

Japanese
#54

This has gone from ‘of the day’, to ‘of the every now and then’. But quality beats quantity right?

I have just recently found arguably the best resource I have ever come across. A book called
初級を教える人のための日本語文法ハンドブック

This book fills the wide wide hole which is in the Japanese learning journey for most people. Explanations of simple grammar points, actually in Japanese. The explanations in this book are second to none and although it is aimed at beginners, it covers most grammar points up to about the N3 level. Not only that, it explains in depth how the Japanese language actually works.

There is a part 2 of this book that covers more advanced grammar, but I would say for anyone that has at least an N4 level of vocabulary, you could probably gain an enormous amount from this book. I don’t often get behind something unless I think it is amazing, and this book is amazing. A few different sites sell it as an e-book, from where you can download a free sample. So feel free to check for yourself the quality before you buy it.

3 Likes
#55

I think this might be an instant purchase for me. Just checking out the sample, and it feels like something I’d gain a lot from - I’m forever searching for the same kinds of definitions online, so would be wonderful to just have a physical resource for them. Amazing find, and thank you for sharing it!

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#56

No worries mate. BP could definitely use this as a resource to slightly rewrite some of the explanations to use on the website. For people that prefer to learn completely in Japanese. The comparisons between similar grammar points are amazing in that book too

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#57

I found this course which seems very comprehensive, unfortunately I found it too late, https://elon.io/learn-japanese/lessons . Would be good for the people starting out I think.

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#58

Speaking of books - I can recommend this one.

It is a grammar dictionary.
It’s a bit expensive, though. I wouldn’t buy it myself, but the book is definitely good :slight_smile:

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#59

Updating with another really good resource. This is one that I have never seen suggested anywhere, and it is a pretty new concept in Japan. It is slowly becoming very popular though.

It is a type of video called 映画紹介 (eigashoukai). Basically, they take a whole movie, shorten it to about 10 to 15 minutes maximum and ‘summarise’ the movie. It isn’t a review or anything like that, it is simply telling the story of the movie as if it were a short book. These videos are usually packeddddd with really easy to understand Japanese, especially if you have already seen the movie. On top of that, the language is not too formal or stiff, so it is easily transferable into the real world. Lastly… It’s just surprisingly really entertaining, imagine watching your favorite movie without all the boring bits.

There are many channels for this, so I will only list a few here. If you search 映画紹介 plus the name of the movie you want, there is a fair chance you may find it.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCemGznroOY1q5g3J1UAFKAA

Secondly. Another major recommendation, get yourself a program called Youtubesoft (free on the internet). It allows you to download single videos or whole playlists from youtube. I have used this to download (probably over a thousand) videos which I watch whenever I want without using data or being in bad reception areas. You can choose what quality you want to download the videos at, so if you only care about the audio, download the lowest video quality, that way you can fit 10x more on your phone :+1:

Well, that concludes my secret study techniques for today. Have a good one!

(edit) - By the way, I purposely didn’t provide a link to Youtubesoft because I don’t want to be responsible for the things you download. It isn’t hard to find on a legitimate freeware sharing site though. Happy hunting

6 Likes
#60

Bringing this thread back to life for a great channel that I have been watching a lot recently.

This guy has videos about computing things (everything from windows, to excel, to hardware, and even internet usage). He records the screen as he speaks, and very clearly points to everything with the cursor as he is speaking.

Great little resource if you want to learn a lot of vocabulary associated with computer software/hardware. His speaking is a little bit on the quick side, so it makes great practice if you’re trying to be able to process information quicker.

5 Likes
Default to Male Voice?
#61

Never saw this thread before, what a treasure trove of useful YouTube videos and information!

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#62

Now’s my chance to finally recommend some books I’ve absolutely fallen in love with!

I’ve been having such a hard time finding reading content for my level (a little bit above N3). A lot of manga has started to become too easy and reading the news is still too hard. At the bookstore I discovered the 鬼遊び series which is a series of short ghost stories geared toward a junior-high school level. There’s a lot of grammar I’m now seeing used in real context, a perfect amount of furigana, and a perfect amount of vocabulary to where I can really get a word’s meaning via context and not my dictionary. The stories themselves are decent; nothing too exciting but enough to keep me wanting to read more. It’s been my first “real” Japanese books and I absolutely cannot recommend them enough if you’re at my level and are looking for some good reading practice.

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#63

52$?! + 33$ shipping?! Ya bud that’s a bit much for me but I’m really glad you found something

1 Like
#64

I’m just giving the link to show you the book. Of course you can find it cheaper if you look around. I live in Japan so, yeah, I’m going to show books using Amazon Japan. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

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#65

Great resource! Apparently they updated the video, so the old one is unavailable. Here are the new ones (they split it into two):

1 Like
#66

Thanks for the update! Yeah they went from a free model (group of uni kids I think), to a full business and redid a lot of their videos.

#67

Wow, I thought they just hid the videos, but it looks like they really did delete most of them, that is such a shame, they were really good. Luckily I downloaded them all before they changed ownership :sweat_smile:

1 Like
#68

ARGH I’m probably missing quite a few videos from the last 2 years.

image

If you have it more updated, wouldn’t you happen to be able to upload it?
They really helped me pass N4 and N3, such a shame.

1 Like
#69

Sure, I’ll PM you to a temporary link of all their vids. (If anyone else needs a link, let me know, I won’t be adding these ones to my google drive, but can provide a link if necessary)

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#70

Thanks! Highly appreciated.

1 Like
#71

Opinions on koohi.cafe vs jpdb.io ?

Looking for a SRS website to complement, and at some point to replace, wanikani.

For what I have been trying, jpdb.io I like more how they manage the decks. You just add a volume you want to learn the vocab, and all the vocabulary and kanjis you didnt learn with them will actually be added to your lessons backlog.

Also really userfull how easy they make to see how many words do you know of a certain content

Also they teach like wanikani the kanjis in the sense of using radicals to build the kanji. And if you are going to learn a vocab, first they teach you the radical, then the kanji, and then the vocab. Also in a new deck if there is a word you have already learned, they will ignore it, so you just need to focus in keep learning new words

But their reviews and lesson sucks, since it dosn’t test you if you know it or not, and instead, just ask you if you remember it correctly.

Basically, I feel like they manage the content you want to learn really well, but the review process is a big negative point for me (creator says they will add also something similar to wanikani for reviews, but it could take a long time and we dont know how it will end up being)

For the other part, koohi.cafe I dislike the management system and the stat system compared to jpdb.io , its confusing, you need to go item by item to add them to lessons, it dosnt teach kanjis with radicals or may not teach you the kanji first than the vocab, and I dont know if they know to not show you vocab you have already learned. Its really confusing so maybe I have said something wrong.

But, koohi.cafe has the strong point that the reviews are actually really similar to wanikani, asking you to type the reading and meaning. I feel like while I like less the rest of the website compared to jpdb.io, the review system could make it worth it, but not sure.

I guess one option, but not the perfect one, is to find a way to import what i learn in koohi to jpdb.io to use their stats, and make it easy to move there if one day the add typing for reviews. Not sure if this is even possible.

Other option I guess it would to just wait for jpdb to add typing, but it could end up not being even this year, so I dont think I will do this

Other one, just use koohi.cafe, and accept their imperfections

And some other ones.

I want to do the correct decision, since there is a big chance I will be trapped with it forever. This will affect me for years, maybe decades

So, opinions on people that have used more this websites? I have mainly used each one 30m to figure what they have

2 Likes
#72

They are a very nice concept but what I don’t like about these services is that they try to tie you in.
I haven’t found a way to easily export the vocabulary to Anki or some other format, and they try to force using their own SRS.

Aside from that, you can pair such services nicely with learnnatively, which provides gradings for books with an estimated difficulty level, and it will also help you keep track of your own reads.

4 Likes
#73

koohi has a csv export feature, so if someone wants to, could do something with it, but yeah, I would not call it easy right now since the raw data is probably not compatible with most alternatives in a direct way. jpdb.io indeed does not seem to have any export feature yet

2 Likes