Hello everyone, so I am slowly progressing with my Japanese learning and I will be moving house in the next few weeks. This will leave me with about 8 hours a week on a quiet train with a table seat every week while I commute to and from work and I am thinking this could be ideal time for learning and I am curious if people have suggestions on particular things I can do beyond what I already am. Right now I am currently doing the following:
* Daily Anki deck review (Core 2k, Genki 1 and 2 Vocab, N4 and N5 Kanji, Tae Kim Grammar Guide). Today was about 250 reviews and 14 new cards. If any other decks are recommended, please do suggest them.
* Retro gaming. I have started playing older games like Pokemon Gold in Japanese for some more interactive learning and I have started a new Anki deck for the new words I encounter. Well, I write them into a notebook and then add them to Anki later. If people have other game suggestions for around N4 JLPT level then great I would love to hear them!
* Japanese TV and Anime. I try to watch without any subtitles and see how far that gets me.
I tried to do reading of things like ドラえもん and while I can slowly get through them, I am not sure I am ready yet in terms of my vocab and grammar. Bought various manga and some light novels as well to test myself in the future as I progress more.
Anyways, just curious to see if there is things that people suggest I try. Thanks for any tips/advice!
6 comments
On my similar commute I usually listen to podcasts or read.
I take my daughter to dance class and have to wait outside. While there I usually read manga and look up words I don’t know. When I get home I add them to my anki.
Recommended deck: Jlabs begginer Japanese, it’ll cover Tae Kim. I can’t recommend it enough, because early on in my journey I was aimless until I found Jlabs deck.
RRTK another deck I recommend. It turned the Kanji from random squiggles to have meaning, as well as helping to create a method to remember future Kanji. Note, I did the RRTK deck alongside with the RTK book, and he gives good insight that are invaluable to the kanji remembering journey.
Best of Luck
I highly recommend “Nihongo con Teppei” (Japanese Podcast for Beginners) on Spotify. It is a great little podcast you can do on commute.
Try “The Konnichiwa Podcast” on spotify. They talk about various topics in English and Japanese, constantly switching between the languages. I find it incredibly helpful for learning since, even if I can’t fully understand the japanese, I can still follow the conversation as they explain stuff in english too. Plus it’s really entertaining!
I listen to the TokiniAndy Genki lessons on my commute. The video is unnecessary, audio is sufficient. Exception would be the first few chapters if you’re an early beginner.
Podcasts. If beginner podcasts are boring for you then try normal native Jp podcasts like haruki radio.