I assume you have zero knowledge of the Japanese language and guide you through each step. It's time to take our philosophy and apply it to a beginner textbook. And a few here and there will be just right! If it's more than that, don't worry about it. Because WaniKani is a spaced repetition system there must be spaces between reviews. But you'll want to use something else for the vocabulary you find out in the wild. And with kanji and vocabulary already in your tool belt, learning grammar should be much more interesting. Some will be complicated with hard linguistic language while others will be overly simplified. Learning the Kana is a good way to start as they will be prominent in all textbooks. We have yet another mnemonic-based guide for you, and chances are you'll be able to read katakana within the next few days if you're willing to put in the work. You should know around 300 kanji and 1,000 Japanese vocabulary words, and your pronunciation should be getting better, or at least you're being conscious about improving it. You'll have more data to reference in your brain as more unknown ideas and concepts pop up. It will also help you get the foundation you need for a native-sounding accent. To continue using this typing knowledge, you'll need to know more kanji and vocabulary. Your failure rate increases dramatically if this foundation is weak! But maybe you like physical pocket-sized notebooks, to-do lists, your smartphone camera (with a special folder for future processing), or something else. I can actually follow this! Typing covers 99% of modern day writing so you will learn how to type hiragana (and katakana and kanji) instead. Go on, get to it, and come back here when you're done. Once all of the basic, foundational grammar is in place you'll be able to really accelerate and work toward fluency. If you are using WaniKani, you should be at level 10 or above. When I say "learn kanji" I mean learn the kanjis most important (English) meaning(s), and their most important (Japanese) reading(s). You won't be spending your grammar study time looking up every other word. It is important to keep your kanji-vocabulary knowledge ahead of your grammar knowledge at all times. You need to be able to record and store these words so that you can study them later. In fact, you can complete all of the steps up to "The Beginner of Japanese" while you work on this one! If you've ever tried learning something new, you know exactly what I'm talking about. You will also learn about pitch accent. In this case, go back to your kanji/vocabulary studies for a while and reconsider the level of the resource you're using. Most of the people who ultimately give up on learning do it here (assuming they made it past the first few weeks). Don't just trust any ol' thing you read on the internet. Kanji leads to vocabulary, vocabulary aids communication, and grammar is like the glue that holds vocabulary together. For the non-kanji vocabulary you want to learn this is a surprisingly simple (and effective) mnemonic method which will allow you to learn more vocabulary in one sitting, and be able to recall it for longer. All help is probably needed. But trying to save it or brush it off until later isn't going to help you learn Japanese. It hurts and it's because you are now consciously incompetent, which is no fun at all. A bit of housekeeping first: This is a living document, meaning it will be updated from time to time. What is an SRS? No matter what kind of question you're asking or answer you're searching for, we wrote up a guide that will tell you how to find anything Japanese language related: Read: How to Answer your Japanese Language Questions. Welcome to learning Japanese! Instead, it will positively affect all other aspects of your Japanese. At the very least, hiragana will get you 80% of the way there. And you should start now, because in six weeks you'll be needing to utilize this habit a lot more. Estimated Time: 1-2 days (or less) However, you will definitely need to learn all of the words that do not use kanji too. If you've been using WaniKani, you've been using a "Spaced Repetition System" (a.k.a. But by this point, you know more kanji and vocabulary than any intermediate level Japanese language student ought to. Try to progress through the entire thing from beginning to end. This may be the time to consider finding a Japanese language tutor, especially if you feel like you're not able to answer your questions about Japanese on your own. With this kanji knowledge (and good pronunciation, to boot! That being said, if you decide not to use a Japanese textbook as your main resource, there are some things you'll want to consider: This is a topic we'll be writing a big guide on. This looks pretty neat, and I will check it when I'm home for sure. "[vocabulary] + [particle] + [vocabulary]"), and you don't know one of them, you're going to be at 66%. As to why that probably happened, I am just going to shamelessly copy myself from another thread: when you want to write it's probably best to get into the habit of pressing n twice for it. With practice, you'll be able to type it as naturally as you type in your native language. The waiting time is critical to testing your ability to recall information. I think there's a section covering the Kana to some extent in genki, If you like memrise I can recommend using Nukemarines courses Remembering the Hiragana and Remembering the Katakana (make sure to work through the videos for each section first). Your learning quality of life will drop drastically if you choose to ignore it. Use the following guide, and only focus on the hiragana portion (since thats all you know how to read right now): Assuming you are able to read hiragana, typing in hiragana is surprisingly straightforward. For times like this, reference books are quite good. As a bonus, you will learn some important foundational knowledge about how kanji works in here as well. You burn out. In the beginning, this will largely be grammatical things, and words that don't use kanji, from your textbook. Once you get there though, you'll be ready for "The Beginner of Japanese" section! Note: Make sure you keep working on your kanji! Hiragana is Japan's version of the alphabet. As you're moving along, there's always going to be more to learn. I'm glad you asked. Though, this does depend on how much time you have to spend on your studies and what grammar method you choose. This is why you spent so much time on WaniKani (or one of its alternatives). You should keep going until you finish, and/or you reach the end of this guide. You also need a good system to handle and process these words. For the recent time, I tried to actually find some way I could optimize the way I learn Japanese- I have (relatively) a lot of free time and the ability to follow an organized plan, but I have no idea how to make a curriculum that would emphasis these advantages. , Beginning Kanji & Stockpiling Kanji Knowledge, Using a Spaced Repetition System For Vocabulary, Answering Your Japanese Language Questions, Alternative: Learning Japanese Grammar On Your Own, Optional: Finding A Japanese Language Tutor. It slows you down in the beginning so that you can blast through this wall. You've already been preparing for this moment. Although katakana words won't show up a lot right from the start, there are enough to make it worthwhile. Good pronunciation starts with hiragana. To help you with this choice, we wrote a guide: Read: The Best Japanese Textbooks for Beginners. In our Japanese learning method, you're going to learn to read kanji characters very early. This should become second nature. Think about pitch accent as you do it. We'll fill in this section with that guide in the near future, but for now don't use my slowness as an excuse. Thankfully, a lot of the pain most learners feel at this stage comes from poor learning or teaching methods from the beginner stages. It is the best Japanese language reference book out there, in my opinion. Or, there just isn't enough paper in the world to cover everything. Read: Spaced Repetition and Japanese: The Definitive Guide. It may even *gasp* be a pleasure to learn! This takes your focus away from the grammar you're trying to learn and makes progression slow and frustrating. It might be the time to actually open a textbook. Without guidance, it can feel like progressing is an impossible task. Figure out what makes sense and make it work. The remaining meanings and readings will come via vocabulary and other practice. It's also a good way to spend your extra time while the number of kanji you're learning is still quite low. For this, we wrote a guide. If you are doing kanji on your own, or using another resource, you should know the most common meaning and reading of around 300 kanji and 1,000 vocabulary words. Instead, you'll just be doing it. At this point, you have a strong base of kanji and vocabulary. Okay! Recognize this stage exists and know that you're supposed to feel these uncomfortable feelings. It's all a part of the process and if other people made it out, you can too. I'm partial to Evernote and have my own processes built up there. What one textbook doesn't teach well, another probably does. Carefully completing this section is going to be necessary if you want to avoid the thing that takes down most learners: the intermediate wall. Just because we're doing it right doesn't mean it has to be inefficient. Learn kanji with the radicals mnemonic method, Spaced Repetition and Japanese: The Definitive Guide, Keyword Mnemonic Method for Learning Japanese Vocabulary, The Best Japanese Textbooks for Beginners, How to Answer your Japanese Language Questions, The Best Japanese Reference Books & Dictionaries. We'll list some really good reference books at the end of the Beginning Japanese section, so make sure to take a look. We'll talk more about that later. For that, we have another guide for you to read: Read: Onyomi vs. Kunyomi: Whats the Difference? I am a beginner (both at Japanese and at schedule planning) who knows the Kana and a handful of words (I also learn Kanji with Anki), but not much beyond that. You'll just need to make sure you maintain your pace to keep up. Doing this will create a strong foundation of Japanese inside of you, something you can use to base other knowledge off of. Let's assume for a moment that your Japanese vocabulary knowledge doesn't get you to 80% (or more). There's a good chance you'll find something important to help you on your own Japanese language journey. These "slowdowns" will speed you up as you strengthen past knowledge and make connections between them. Most people go into a textbook with zero knowledge and wind up spending a large chunk of their time looking up words they don't know. You're about to get plenty of practice and your reading speed will naturally increase over time as you move on. You don't know enough grammar: Imagine you're looking at a sentence that contains three separate grammar points. And that's okay. Just get started. The most difficult thing about learning Japanese is kanji. It's time to talk about the elephant in every Japanese learner's room: kanji. As soon as you can read and type hiragana it's time to start tackling kanji. Make sure you can pronounce all of the hiragana characters correctly before moving on. Although it may be difficult now, just knowing pitch accent exists and how it works in Japanese will give you a leg up. Being a beginner of anything is great. A lot of a beginners time when using a textbook is spent looking up kanji and vocabulary. You are, but it's a bit hidden. Read: Learn kanji with the radicals mnemonic method. Hiragana and kanji are just more useful right now, so spend your limited time and energy there. If that's the case, there are a few possible reasons: You don't know enough vocabulary: If you don't know a lot of the words in a sentence before studying with it, then you don't understand 80% of the sentence before you start. Now its time to kick Japanese grammar's butt. You will learn a lot of vocabulary purely from your kanji studies. I was about to ask the exact same question - it's a bit overwhelming coming to it for the first time. Onyomi vs. Kunyomi: Whats the Difference? Note: With any skill, it's important that you focus on the things you're worst at. If you don't, that 80% ratio will tick down until your studies no longer feel sustainable or fun. This section will cover all of the sounds that don't exist in English, giving you a head start. Katakana is similar to hiragana in many ways, and thanks to this, learning how to type it should be fairly easy. The more deliberate your steps, the easier everything that follows will be. They may even seem slow compared to other methods, but everything has been carefully selected to get you to the finish line faster and more efficiently. Remember: You're not in a class. The time you put into kanji, vocabulary, and pronunciation will begin to pay off. Longer and longer ones, in fact (though it will depend on how well you're doing). In cases like this, you can make an exception. There are a few differences to figure out, but you will be able to apply your hiragana knowledge to it and progress quickly. This, in combination with mnemonics and worksheets, will allow you to learn how to read hiragana in a day or two instead of a month.