Fettyman Scans
- Thread starter MangaDex
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Depends on your level and goals. Are you purely looking to read? Or speak too?
I took Japanese classes in college, which I found unhelpful (having a teacher to correct your work was helpful though). The explanations weren't great and the practice didn't fit how I learned.
I have studied (somewhat passively recently) for about 6-7 years. My speaking isn't great, but that's mostly cause I don't practice much. My reading is better, but nowhere close to completely fluent. I think in 3-4 more years it might be. I understand about 90% of what I read. 5% I can figure out with context and 5% I'm completely lost, which ends up allowing me to read almost anything.
Resources:
The Genki books, and later Tobira books, were helpful. Genki 1-2 is a good starting place. The Genki practice books will be helpful, you will just need to look at the answers online.
The book, "Remembering the Kanji," specifically the first book was super helpful for me. This book should not serve as a bible, it is a way to get a feel for memorization. You can stop when you are 60-70% through or whenever you get a feel for the methodology. It doesn't actually teach you to read in Japanese, just what they mean in English.
Anki is a flashcard deck that I have been using for 4+ years. I spent money to get it on Android. It was worth every penny. I think this has been far and away the most helpful thing I have used. The two decks I used were "Core 2k/6k Optimized Vocabulary" and "All in One Kanji". These were invaluable. You need to use Anki every day or you will get so far behind that it will become useless. Set the rate of new cards to something manageable at first, even too easy, like 2 new cards a day. Scale up from there. Do not swamp yourself or you will not build a habit.
Takoboto is an app on Android (don't know if it is on Apple), that I started using recently, but I wish I had found it years ago. It lets you save a list of words for later, but it also lets you add those words directly to your Anki deck. Every time I find a new words that I don't know, all I have to do is click, "add to anki deck," and it automatically adds it to my deck. I wanted to create my own deck a while back, but it's miserable to do it manually. This makes it take less than a second.
A few websites that were helpful for learning grammar:
https://imabi.org/table-of-contents-目次/ (great for general grammar, use after Genki 1)
https://maggiesensei.com/ (really helpful for slang and general grammar)
Insights:
For reading, you need to have a good Kanji and vocabulary basis.
Start from Hiragana and Katakana. It should only take a day to learn if you muscle through it. These can be done on Quizlet.
Kanji is tricky, but once you get a hang of it, it's pretty simple. Kanji, at least the most used ones, have three ways of reading. One is a verb, where the kanji character usually stands alone with the conjugating hiragana. The other is what I will call word-forming, where the kanji is read a specific way when two Kanji are put together. Typically, the word forming type are 1-2 syllables, like "ka" or "dai". The last is when they are by themselves with no other characters. Sometimes they sound like the word-forming type, but usually, they have their own unique standalone sound. Try to find patterns when learning Kanji, because it is important to understand how they function if you want to memorize them. Brute memorization DOES NOT WORK for Kanji.
As for general grammar, this one is just a slog. The most important stuff is at the beginning. A lot of the later stuff is a mix. Some of it is super helpful, and some I have never heard since reading them in Genki. Trust your instinct, practical conversation analysis is better for figuring out what people actually say.
As for vocab, the most helpful advice I can give is to really understand what the words mean. DO NOT assume that words translate from Japanese to English. They may mean one thing English, but may also have a completely different alternative meaning. For example, "tooru" is a verb that means "to pass". This can mean to walk by someone or drive by somewhere. It can also mean "to pass through", like a tunnel. The problem begins when you assume that it only means pass. It also means "to be understandable" or "to pierce" in some contexts. You need to create a word that helps you remember both, as there is no good English word that functions the exact same way. I remember it as pass/across. "I passed him," "I got it (the idea) across", "it passed through my skin". This will drastically speed up the memorization process as well, as it forces you to really think about what the word means in Japanese, rather than what it means in English. Practice by looking up vocab in Genki in a Japanese to English dictionary and reading all the uses. You don't need to memorize them all, just get a feel for what it means in Japanese. As a side note, some of the unique verb meanings only occur when a specific noun is before it. Typically, the stuff at the top of the dictionary is most used and the stuff at the bottom is the super specific stuff.
Sorry to info dump. Long story short, Hiragana/Katakana. Then Genki 1 , start "Core 2k/6k" and "Remembering the Kanji". Then, Genki 2 and "All in One Kanji" (learn both kun/on yomi).
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Dex-chan lover
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- Jan 11, 2023
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If you’re interested (which I selfishly hope you are), it looks like the author has started another short series on Twitter/fanbox called “Nina.” If you happen to be looking for a new series, I’d love to read another series from this author.
Not sure yet. I'm planning to take a bit of a break, but I will be back in the near future. Follow my group on Mangadex if you want to keep up with it.
Thanks. I really appreciate all the kind words.
I've got someone to potentially help me out with the redrawing, but I need a bit of a break. Once I get a job and get a bit more secure, I'll start translating again. Not sure when that will be or if it will be the same author. I like "Nina," but there's a lot of antiquated Japanese, which scares me. We will have to see.
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