Hey there, I hope it’s not the wrong place to ask.
I have been studying Japanese for a month, already studied before but I didn’t remember a lot, starting with 20, and now doing 60 new cards a day overall from different decks so it’s hard to count precisely, but I think I know around 500 words and kanji and understand basic grammar. I really want to start immersing but I just feel too lost without any help. I watch “Made in Abyss” and I can only pick out some of the words. I tried Googling but it’s all about HOW to immerse and not what to use.
Does anyone have recommendations for good shows or manga with easy language? And are there any useful tips? Thank you in advance!
4 comments
It’s been a month. You’re nowhere near immersion yet. At a generous estimate, you could be doing graded readers at the lowest level. Continue studying vocab, kanji, and grammar daily. Focus on making your own sentences using a variety of grammar and scenarios. A diary could be helpful in that area.
With only 1 month of study, 500 vocab words and some very basic grammar knowledge, you aren’t going to get very far in immersion without a LOT of lookups.
Your best bets:
Level 0 Tadoku readers: [https://tadoku.org/japanese/en/free-books-en/](https://tadoku.org/japanese/en/free-books-en/)
Comprehensible Japanese: [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPdNX2arS9Mb1iiA0xHkxj3KVwssHQxYP](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPdNX2arS9Mb1iiA0xHkxj3KVwssHQxYP)
I think you’re making the same mistake I did when learning (I have been studying 3 months now). When you see these YouTubers who say they learned Japanese purely through immersion of 2 years straight or by watching anime for a year and just doing loads of ankidecks it makes you think that’s the best way to learn. But these YouTubers are either incredibly talented or (the more likely option) lie about how much grammar and vocab study they had to do before immersing. Either way they set unrealistic expectations for learning Japanese. Personally I have made much more progress by studying grammar at a slow pace using Japanese from Zero as I know that’s made what I’ve learnt so far really stick.
That’s pretty great though. Going through media and picking out words is actually really good practice.
For me, anime helped a lot. It really got my ears used to the Japanese sounds. I would also suggest watching some Japanese youtubers too because it could help you learn more natural Japanese than is in most anime.
You’re going to progress a lot without even realising it though. Every word you recognise in an anime will help you remember it later down the road.
When you get to a high enough level, watching media with subtitles in Japanese can help teach you even more words.
As for recommendations, I think it would be easier to keep to everyday life anime because they use phrases that you’ll see in the textbook and might use in conversation:
– Yotsuba&! is a manga about a little child. It’s a comedy for anyone but the language used in it is really simple and good for learning basics.
-Nichijou is an everyday life anime. A lot of the concepts are simple and it’s really good for getting to know Japanese culture.
-Ano hi mita hana no namae wo bokutachi wa mada shiranai deals with a group of friends dealing with the death of someone in their friend circle
-Toradora is an anime based off a light novel. It has strong characters and is really good. But not everything is explained and if you want more you can try reading the novels.
It’s still early. Don’t stop studying. Learning a language just takes time. If you put that time in then you’ll come to understand it in no time. Good luck