So I’ve been grinding Anki and I’m gaining a ton of vocab not a lot I’m still below 2k words but im heading there. I’m also watching cure Dolly’s structure series she explains Gramma quite well. I’m also trying to include immersion in my learning so I’ve been trying to read and listen. But I can’t comprehend like I’m listening to real japanese podcast rn and I can somewhat make out most of the vocab and I understand basic Gramma (super basic Gramma) but I still can’t seem to comprehend.
I have to consciously think about the sentence and try translating it. I know you’re not supposed to try translating in your head but I just can’t seem to comprehend it any advice on this?
And also on immersion what’s the best or rather more effective way of immersion for a beginner like me (my vocab is probably heading to n4 or somewhere between n4-n5) but like I said I’m grinding Anki like crazy. Any advice on how I can immerse and actually constantly use all the vocab.
I picked a web novel from jpdb which was ranked as the easiest which redirected me to syosetu but I can’t comprehend what im seeing on screen either. I’m aware that I’ll probably encounter vocab idk yet and on that should I make cards for every vocab I look up or should I just look up for the sake of understanding whatever sentence I’m looking at.
I’d appreciate any sort of advice on how to go at immersion and how to improve my comprehension.
My goal is to just read, listen and understand japanese. Outputting isn’t my main goal.
3 comments
Try getting a kids Japanese to Japanese dictionary to look up words
For grammar you can probably just keep learning grammar however you currently do but you should get more input English or Japanese so you can get used to speech patterns not usually taught by textbooks or grammar channels.
Channels like gamegengo often go over how Japanese people use real Japanese and how one grammar form is the same as another but just more casual/less casual etc
https://www.amazon.co.jp/%E6%96%B0%E3%83%AC%E3%82%A4%E3%83%B3%E3%83%9C%E3%83%BC%E5%B0%8F%E5%AD%A6%E5%9B%BD%E8%AA%9E%E8%BE%9E%E5%85%B8-%E6%94%B9%E8%A8%82%E7%AC%AC%EF%BC%96%E7%89%88-%E5%B0%8F%E5%9E%8B%E7%89%88%EF%BC%88%E3%82%AA%E3%83%BC%E3%83%AB%E3%82%AB%E3%83%A9%E3%83%BC%EF%BC%89-%E5%B0%8F%E5%AD%A6%E7%94%9F%E5%90%91%E8%BE%9E%E5%85%B8%E3%83%BB%E4%BA%8B%E5%85%B8-%E9%87%91%E7%94%B0%E4%B8%80-%E6%98%A5%E5%BD%A6/dp/4053049369/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?keywords=%E5%9B%BD%E8%AA%9E%E8%BE%9E%E5%85%B8&qid=1679992199&sr=8-4
You aren’t going to understand much with just basic grammar and 1000-2000 odd words. As soon as you hear a word you don’t understand, or have to pause to think about then the conversation has moved on and you’re lost. You have to start with baby steps. Try reading as well as listening.
* Try [Comprehensible Japanese](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPdNX2arS9Mb1iiA0xHkxj3KVwssHQxYP) for listening practice. It has accurate Japanese subtitles so you can see what’s being said if you mishear something. You can also copy the text from the YouTube transcript feature which helps when looking up new vocab and making new Anki cards.
* Try [Satori Reader](https://www.satorireader.com/) for reading practice. It has a very integrated reading system – all text has optional audio, you can turn on/off furigana/kanji/katakana. It also has a built in context sensitive dictionary, so you only have to click on a word to see its meaning in context. Finally, it has a built in SRS system which can be exported to Anki if you want (via .csv files). Satori Reader does cost money, but you can try out a couple of chapters of each Series for free. I recommend you start very simple with the ‘Human Japanese – Extra Credit’ series – this starts off very very basic and teaches you grammar along the way.
Good Luck.
I’ve got an auditory processing issue so I totally feel you on the podcast thing.
**In general** If you know all the words, but don’t understand the sentence. Google translate it. Study the translation and the original sentence. Try and figure out how one became the other. It’s not just a matter of grammar and vocab sometimes even with knowledge of both a sentence just won’t make sense.
**Listening:** having an auditory issue has made listening only activities largely worthless for me until recently. As a beginner I don’t recommend listening to anything that doesn’t at least have a visual with it. You have no idea how much that 1 bit of added context can help. Even better would be to find an anime or a drama with Japanese subtitles. It will help your brain separate the string of sounds into words better, and makes it easier to pick up new vocab.
Personally I use Netflix and the Chrome extension Language Reactor to do that. It can autopause and replay lines at a button press.
**Web novel:** Novel anything really is kind of hard. Think about it. When you started reading in school you didn’t start out with chapter books. You started with picture books. Even with an audiobook and the visual aide of the book, it was too much and too hard to keep up with.
Again I have to point back to like… animelon or Netflix & Language Reactor because what you’ll be reading AND hearing will be short chunks.
**N5-N4:** The bad news is, JLPT vocabulary isn’t structured like developmental learning. What I mean is N5 language isn’t infant, N4 isn’t grade school, and so on. If you turn on a TV show meant for toddlers there WILL be N2 and N1 words and grammar in there.
**Should I make cards for every vocab I look up?** Not necessarily. Most days I just look up new words quickly and keep going. Each piece of media contains its own core vocabulary that repeats early and often. I generally have to look up words several times, but I let the media do the SRS work for me. If it doesn’t repeat enough to learn I don’t worry about it.
That being said, sometimes I feel like my retention is a bit low. So I’ll write down the sentences I see with new words in them. I’m not a flash card person, though you can absolutely do that if you think it will help. But don’t feel obligated to do it all the time or it may tank your motivation to continue.
And my biggest word of advice is **It’s going to be a slow miserable slog for a while**. When I started it took me a couple hours to work through parts of a pokemon game that would have taken me 10-20 minutes in English. I was even having to google translate every other sentence because I couldn’t make sense of what I was reading.
After about a week I had sped up to something still slow, but less painful. Mostly because I had started to pick up some of the common words used.
After a couple months, and some game changes, I found in starting a new pokemon game release that I was reading and playing at almost English speed with very few lookups and no google translate.
So it takes some time to get that ball rolling.
🙂 Hope this helps!