Stats for nerds
5recommend
7mentions
6people
2017–2026years
71% recommend14% neutral14% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I was in your shoes a year ago! I'm reading at about an N4 level now, and have some very basic speaking ability.
It's daunting, but many people have done it. The key for me was having lots of different resources to learn from. I've found that everything teaches things a little bit differently, and everything skips something that another resource doesn't. Some explanations make more sense than others for certain facets. And of course, the repetition is good (and required).
I'd recommend:
- Write down your goals for what you want to do. Do you want to converse with other Japanese speakers? Write the language? Do you want to read Japanese? Be able to visit the country and communicate? Watch anime without subs/dubs? How you answer these questions will shape the resources you focus your time on. To build a regular habit of studying, you want to feel you're making steady progress towards a goal that you're passionate about.
- Learn hiragana/katakana. You'll not be able to make progress without this. I used a combination of this YouTube video [1] along with the "Japanese!" hiragana/katakana iOS app.
- If you want to read the language, start studying a Kanji deck.
- If you want to speak/listen in JP, start an audio course such an Pimsleur.
- Make your way through Minna no nihongo and/or Genki I.
- Google around for Japanese graded readers for beginners, to practice reading "real" content that has been synthetically simplified.
- Start reading community posts in Japanese language learning communities, and see what resources are being shared around and how people are studying. You'll naturally find a good fit, eventually.
- Japanese. After several failed tries, I got the Genki I book and improved a lot. Also pimsleur audios we good. Also have a teacher I Skype to when I need help.
- Sure. And sorry if I sounded rough in my comment... if you're happy with Duolingo it's fine. I put in an hour every day towards Japanese (with a full time job + life on top) so I know I'm in a privileged position when it comes to language learning.
I used the following:
- Genki I, II
The classic Japanese textbooks. They're pretty good and have tons of exercises. Do the exercises!
- Tae Kim's Guide
http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar
Alternative guide written by one guy. Very good as reference or quick learning. Used it to review Genki material.
- Japanese: The Manga Way
I thought this would be stupid but in some ways I liked it more than the other resources. Every chapter goes through grammar/expressions and it uses real manga examples. Vocab is translated for you. Not necessary with the other two resources but if you like manga or want something different, it's fun.
- Japanese Ammo with Misa
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBSyd8tXJoEJKIXfrwkPdbA
Long (20+ mins) lectures on grammar with a lot of examples. Goes on tangents often and some videos are too long but a great source of vocab, native expressions, etc.
- Anki
You've probably heard of this. I currently use it for kanji but you can use it for whatever I prefer making my own flashcards but there's pre-made decks for vocab from Genki, Tae Kim, grammar etc. I'd link to some but they also include links to pirated PDFs so don't want to get the mods mad at me.
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With all of that said, the most helpful thing for me has been reading native content in Chrome with this extension -> https://foosoft.net/projects/yomichan/ if you don't read, write, etc. you will not retain stuff. You will start out not understanding anything but slowly you will start reading without even translating to English.
You will hit a wall with vocab without kanji study but you should be good to go for some time with this.
- I started learning Japanese around 8 years ago, and I've never been a fan of saying it's "the most difficult language to learn." It's like learning anything else, if you enjoy learning it and are motivated enough, you'll get better. Also I'm surprised when people assume the grammar is difficult - to me, the "flexible grammatical structures" as mentioned in the article are a good thing because it gives you more leeway to make "mistakes."
If you're learning Japanese in school, or even if you're learning it on your own, I recommend the Genki I and Genki II books, and the corresponding workbooks. If you really enjoy it and want to come to Japan to use your newly acquired language skills, I'm confident that after getting through those 2 books you'll have enough Japanese to get by and you can have fun wandering around, reading signs, chatting with strangers, etc. Don't be discouraged by people saying that Japanese is so difficult to learn.
Edit: also, I hope this comment didn't come off as too negative. I think it's great that Duolingo is doing this, and if it gets more people to enjoy learning Japanese then that's fantastic.
- We used Genki I back in high school, and recently I picked it up again. Now I'm through Genki II and can definitely recommend them. They were both updated a few years ago with more contemporary examples and really useful culture notes for each section. Working through the listening comprehension exercises was particularly fulfilling.
The one downside is that they are still meant to be used in a classroom, so there are a lot of exercises that expect you to work in groups or pairs. Of course there are plenty of ways to find a study group online these days.
- Agree with others that grouping verbs into -ru and -u verbs is a weird choice that only kicks the can down the road. I get why a textbook like Genki does this, i.e., not wanting to throw terms like 「一段」and 「五段」at people literally a few chapters into their Japanese language learning journey, but it just muddies the waters.
Like so much pedagogy, this feels like a good example of "hey, here's a quick-and-dirty heuristic for how this thing works, but just keep in mind that we'll explain how it really works later on". Except Genki I+II never mentions the terms 「一段」or「五段」at all. (it's similarly criminal that they never introduce pitch accent either, but that's another story).
My advice to anyone getting started with Japanese would be to get out of the introductory textbook stage as quickly as possible. Supplement with grammar explanations from other resources early on. Cure Dolly, Imabi.net, Tofugu, YouTubers, LLMs--whatever clicks with you.
I'm just glad that early in my learning journey, I heard a YouTuber describe Japanese as "agglutinative" (with a comparison to German)--a term I'd never encountered before. A light bulb went off for me and things started to click.
In any event, glad to see this kind of article kick off discussion/debate :D. 皆さんは、頑張りましょう！
