LLearn Japanese

Need a beginner podcast with focus on grammar

I’ve been self studying ineffectively for about a year, basically only learning kanji on wanikani (srs with mnemonics). I know a lot of vocab & kanji, but i don’t know any grammar.

I tried studying with minna no nihongo, but it takes a lot of self control and dicipline that i just don’t have, so i’ve had trouble motivating myself to start studying with it, got to chapter 5 before i stopped and i feel like the things i learned didn’t stick very good. If someone asks me to say a sentence in japanese i get stunlocked buy if they point to a random object or word i can probably say it in japanese and write it in kanji.

I own both genki and minna no nihongo and i plan to start one of them from scratch but i want something that i can also do more passively when I’m not studying so that i can retain knowledge better, and i’d prefer a pod with more focus on grammar than vocab since i already know all the beginner kanji. Got any ideas?

tl;dr: Study for long time but only kanji. Kanji knowledge good, grammar bad. Want good beginner podcast with focus on grammar.

14 comments

  1. I’m pretty much in the same boat. Problem is that every podcast I’ve tried is entirely in japanese which… isn’t incredibly helpful at my level. Something like cure dolly in podcast form would be great.

  2. The self-control and discipline problem might be a meta-problem to work on. Passive learning will only take you so far. Real results take a lot of work.

  3. Hm for me I was ahead in grammar and behind in vocab.

    Basically you need to use a textbook or something *like* a textbook such as Tae Kim’s Guide, and just go slowly and get used to doing it.

    The self-discipline will come but you have to suffer through some painful days, and then after about 10 days it’ll be pretty easy.

    A tutor also can hand-hold you through the book if you want, but costs more.

  5. Anki deck JLABs beginner Japanese. How I got started learning my grammar alongside RTK. It’s no podcast but since you are not a complete beginner you can delete the basic vocab it is teaching you and keep the grammar.

  6. If lack of discipline is a problem now, it’ll be *really* bad once you hit the intermediate plateau. I’d suggest working on that now.

  7. If you like wanikani / SRS try out [https://bunpro.jp/](https://bunpro.jp/) for grammar. You can even follow a path so you go through all the same grammar points as popular textbooks.

  9. I don’t listen to any podcasts so I can’t help with that, but since you mentioned it I’m going through Minna no Nihongo with a tutor from italki. If you don’t mind paying, that probably solves all your problems. Can’t get distracted because your teacher is gonna keep you on a schedule (assuming you book regular lessons), plus you get to practice your input and output at the same time.

    Another resource I found useful for my early immersion was Satori reader. It’s basically a guided reader with grammar explanations and native audio narration. The first two chapters of each story are free, so you can check it out without committing.

  11. If you study your Genki books, you can check out [Tokini Andy’s YouTube channel](https://m.youtube.com/@ToKiniAndy). He talks in English too much, but his explanations and examples are really good. He even breaks down a sentence with color coded fragments so you can really understand how the sentence is put together.

  12. I recently started the shadowing course, and have been enjoying the shadowing course at https://www.mikurealjapanese.com/store . It’s $18/month for 4 lessons per month, and it sounds like it matches what you’re describing. She has a set of free sample lessons, so you can see if it would be a good fit.

    Otherwise maybe check out her YouTube, or Japanese Ammo with Mia, or CureDolly

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