I’ve just started learning Japanese and one of my resources is Genki, I have the workbook too. I sat down today to get started and when I got around to actually starting, I couldn’t relate his videos to the book/s properly.
I don’t have any knowledge of the language (other than trying to learn the basics over the last few days before starting the workbook) so that isn’t helping but I’m also a visual learner and if someone is talking about the material I’m using, I need to see them using it too 🙁
Can anyone advise how they got started this way? I feel a bit overwhelmed.
P.s. I’m also using hellotalk, but I’m shy. How do you find it?! Are people friendly?!
Thanks everyone!
2 comments
I feel the videos are there to get you a bit more acquainted with the grammar and how it’s used. It’s not going to walk you through the chapters sadly, but watching a video, then doing the related chapter then doing the video again should give you a better grasp than by doing the textbook alone.
As he mentions, Genki does teach things in a detrimental way sometimes and there are better tricks to learning certain things like conjugations.
I’m a visual learner too and I know exactly what you’re talking about. Sadly, I think most people aren’t this and can learn pretty effectively just by going through the textbook alone and be able to retain everything they read. There’s no shortcut for visual learners and we just need to grind and do double, triple the work.
If you’re only a couple of days into Japanese I would say it’s a too early for hellotalk. Most Japanese who are learning English are at a pretty high level and it makes keeping a conversation going difficult if your Japanese is low. That’s my experience, though I’m not exactly the most exciting person on there compared to others.
Give Game Gengo’s videos on Genki a go as well. I really enjoy them and he’s a professional teacher afaik. It’s a bit more visual than Andi’s videos and there’s better explanations overall. Both will help nonetheless.
The best way to start just like everything is at the beginning.
Just because you haven’t mentioned it yet, make sure you learn hiragana and katakana at the beginning also if you haven’t seen it yet you should watch his video on how he would start.
https://youtu.be/L1NQoQivkIY
You should also consider starting the Anki deck he mentions in that video Tango N5. I suggest 10 new words a day.
https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/866090213
Ok now that that’s out of the way his first video starts with chapter 1 and a good process would be to read the chapter first and then watch his video on chapter one. After that you can go through the workbook and the textbook and answer the questions. If there is anything you don’t understand then rewatch the part you’re having trouble with.
A good pace would be a chapter every week or two.