Recommended learning resources

Japanese
#41

After giving them a test run over the last few days I have to say that I really like them. Though I already knew all but a few of the words well, I feel that being able to link them to a Japanese explanation has expanded my vocabulary a bit. Of course in such a short span of time the effects won’t be extremely profound, but I think that making this switch will pay off dividends in a couple of months time.

In regards to actual lay-out and the like, I like the simplicity of the cards. Don’t know whether it’s everyone’s cup of tea, but I find them great! I had implemented the ‘hints’ I talked about in a previous post myself, but I see on the Anki page that you have updated the deck the 15th, I take it due to this? Or was there another change?

The only thing I would think would be a good addition would be an overview of the formatting, either on the decks Anki Page online, or if needed on a separate explanation card within the deck itself. Because I’ll regularly figure out the meaning off certain items but promptly forget them and have to figure them out all over again. This will fix itself over time as I become more familiar with the deck, but for new users I think this would be a definite boon.

Just my two cents, thank you for making these and looking forward to the other Decks!

2 Likes
#42

Thanks heaps for the detailed review mate! Yep I already updated the hint thing you suggested and and going to write a detailed usage guide. I am glad to hear that they were your only concerns!

I may add the usage guide as an additional field on the card in the same way that the ‘hint’ works. So people can just expand it on a card by card basis if they quickly want to take a look. As you probably figured out though, most of them aren’t too hard to figure out by yourself, but it would be nice for people to not waste their time having to figure out those things themselves.
I will do the usage guide tonight and try to finish N4 as well :muscle::+1:

2 Likes
#43

That’s a really great idea, hadn’t thought of that option!

Looking forward to it :smile: Thanks again for doing these!

1 Like
#44

https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1734960174

This is the next part in the monolingual decks. N4. Note that Anki had a major meltdown because I was changing tags and things so frequently that I had to make a new account. Thankfully my data was on a backup and I was able to transfer it to the new account. Both the N5 and N4 updated decks are on this page. The usage guide is still coming, as there are lots of symbols etc used on the cards. Here is what I have done so far on the usage guide if you get stuck on anything.

All cards usually contain the meaning on the same line as the list of folowing symbols. When you see a symbol on a line by itself, it means that this particular word class has several usages, you will almost also always see a list of numbers below this, meaning that all of the numbers are the same word class.

〈五〉 ごだん verb. Following line is the verb meaning.
〈下〉 いちだん verb. Specifically a しもいちだん verb. Following line is the verb meaning.
〈スル〉 する verb. Following line is the verb meaning.
(対) たい. Words following this marker are an antonym (or something similar) to the target word.
(派) は. Kana following this symbol indicate the various forms the word can be seen in, either as a noun or with helper verbs such as がる.
（補動） This is short for 補助動詞（ほじょどうし）. This is the japanese version of ‘helper verbs’. This means that the following meaning is used when the target word is appended to the end of another word. Examples include ていく、てもらう、てくろ、てしまう、and similar words.
(尾) お Indicates that the target word is sometimes used as a suffix, in this case the information on this line will indicate the suffix meaning.
(類)
（ア） （イ） Similar to the 1, 2, 3 meaning number system, but rarely used by modern dictionaries. Mark indicates a different but related meaning.
〈ダ〉 Indicates that the word is a noun
〔俗〕 Indicates that the following word or expression is a slang, casual, or otherwise idiomatic usage of the target word.
▼ Indicates that the following word or kana is often seen in conjunction with the target word to creat a new meaning.
▲ Indicates another kanji which shares the same reading, often with a similar meaning.
＊ Indicates that the following information is important and should be noted. Usually it directly relates to the previous line. This may indicate when you can or cannot use the target word, or any special meanings.
〈感〉
〈名・ダ〉
〈形〉 Indicates a けいようし a word that behaves like an adjective in English
〈副〉 Indicates a ふくし. A word that behaves like an adverb in English.
〈(と)副〉 Indicates a word that takes the 助師 と. Usually onomatopoeic words.

5 Likes
#45

Amazing! Can’t wait to give them a test run. As always, thank you so much for doing these, I have found them incredibly useful already, and I’m sure many more people will thank you upon stumbling upon them! They’re all absolutely fantastic and the time and effort you are willing to spend on these speak greatly about you as a person!

Take as long as you need! Everything is appreciated, but I can only imagine the amount of work it’s taking to make all this. The amount you have written is already a great start, and it’s not too difficult to figure out anything else on the cards.

Again, thank you so much for doing these! Absolutely love them!

1 Like
#46

Awesome, glad to hear you are getting good use out of them. I will try to make at oeast 100 new cards a day. So at that rate you can expect N3 in a week minimum 2 weeks maximum. From there roughly the same for N2 and N1.

I am actually learning a lot from them too. They are great for learning nuances or colloquialisms. Such as 殺す for 消す。Thats an easy example but it is good to have reinforcement for meanings like that, that those colloquialisms hold up in real Japanese.

1 Like
#47

Newest resource here is N3 part 1 of the monolingual transition decks. Please check out the link below and as always, if there are any errors feel free to let me know. Note that the reason I am releasing N3 to N1 in 2 parts each, is due to the fact that I generally don’t like decks with over 1500 cards in them. This is a personal taste thing as I think it more enticing to set reasonable goals (below 1500 words) per deck. If you prefer to have entire N levels in a single deck, please feel free to combine the decks once the second part of each deck is available.

https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1968837079

Once again I hope this is useful! There were lots of super common and super useful words in this deck. I had a lot of fun making it and think it will be really fun for people that want to get a better understanding of Japanese in Japanese!

2 Likes
#48

You guys weren’t posting any good videos recently, so here’s something from me instead.

Really good and easy to understand channel by a japanese teacher. Videos are purely in Japanese, which is great for practice. Highly recommended for anyone around N2.

2 Likes
#49

Thanks for the post Kuro, looks like a good resource!

#50

And here’s one more channel.

Youtube randomly recommended me this one out of the blue. But I guess it thought I must be japanese and interested in cooking, IDK :slight_smile:

But it turned out to be a surprisingly good channel with easy explanations and clear diction*. Though, you would have to learn quite a bit of cooking vocab in advance to be able to understand anything.

[*] also does anyone know what dialect is that? I’ve definitely heard this dialect before, but I can’t quite identify it

3 Likes
#51

This is actually a really good one for me. I was watching Terrace House just a few days ago thinking that I should study more Japanese food vocab. They talk about food quite a lot on that show hahah.

#52

Has anyone been following the 日本語の森 daily live streams (9pm Japan time)? I think they are great, mostly been ~N2 grammar lately however I don’t have a chance to follow the chats. We even get some spontaneous karaoke singing entertainment. I’ll sometimes add BunPro lessons as I listen along.

1 Like
#53

Ooh I didn’t know they were doing that. The team at 日本語の森 are brilliant I really like them.

1 Like
#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!

2 Likes
#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

3 Likes
#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.

3 Likes
#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:

4 Likes
#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
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