I’ve been studying Japanese for nearly a year, but I need help

14 comments

1. hellotalk and italki have video tutors available

2. I tutor

3. Just my opinion but I’d probably move off Duolingo. Get the Genki book and maybe use the Tokini Andy subscription service.

   Think you’ll learn far more from that than duolingo but that’s up to you.

   I personally don’t think Duolingo is very useful.

4. [https://learnjapanese.moe/guide/](https://learnjapanese.moe/guide/)

5. I’m using LingoDeer for grammar and find it really good. It’s similar to DuoLingo in its approach, but it gives explanations for each lesson rather than throwing you right in like DuoLingo does.

   It is a paid service, but you can do the taster lesson for free. You may find a tutor suits you better, but if you like the self-teaching approach then I think LingoDeer is really good!

6. google?

7. “I’ve been using Duolingo for nearly a year, but am still in the beginner stages.”

   That’s very much expected. Duolingo moves rather slowly and the entire course, even if you eventually finish it, only covers beginner grammar and vocab up to lower intermediate. I am not a Duolingo hater like many here, in fact I enjoyed using it on the side for my first few months of learning Japanese, but it is very limited in how much it teaches you. It does not bring you anywhere near to being fluent. Before trying a tutor I would first move on to either Genki (if you like college textbooks) or Japanese from Zero (if you prefer something easier, target at self-learners) and see how that goes.

8. >I’ve tried different methods for self teaching, but they’ve all been difficult to be consistent with and I haven’t progressed very far.

   You basically need a study guide. Outside of that, Japanese is studied like you would any other language: is/are equivalent, there is/are, expressing singular and plural, basic questions (what, who, when, how, why), likes/dislikes, possession (have equivalent(s)), routines, comparisons, superlative, conjunctions, actions in the past, etc.

   The one big difference you’re gonna run into is kanji, but you can use pop-up dictionaries and other tools like OCR to help with that. And kanji themselves have many tricks to help make them easier to learn. I don’t want to go too much into specifics or I’ll end up writing a wall of text.

9. 1. Get off duolingo
   2. Watch JapaneseAmmoWithMisa’s grammar playlists N5-N3
   3. Watch or read a lot of Japanese
   4. Expand vocabulary

   I have very detailed comments on my profile on how to so each of those things, workflow etc.

10. I recommend you use a textbook. Minna no Nihongo or Genki. Youtube for supplementary grammar explanations/listening skills. Wani kani for Kanji.

11. I also started with Duolingo and that was a total fail. Not for me. I guess I’m just one of these people that learn better with others. I can recommend learningfunnywords on Instagram. She’s doing Japanese courses and personal classes and I took the beginners class 2 years ago, but back then uni getting was getting a bit too busy I couldn’t continue. Now waiting for July to start another one. But the courses are mad cheap and really good. I was paying around 20 usd a month for weekly group classes and she was sending us quizzes and memory cards after every class. 2 years ago there were 5 people in my group but I don’t know if it’s still the same

12. I have a tutor and we do group sessions for 1hr30m every sunday so it’s not that time consuming. There’s multiple groups to cater to different schedules and some people move around if they need a time slot change.
    We follow minna no nihongo and there’s teachers on youtube who follow the lessons. There’s also a workbook from MNN with answer keys so you can check yourself

13. I recommend increase your listening skills. Although that’s just me

14. I found trying stuff and seeing what helps you the best, is a great way to learn Japanese. Not to stick with something if you don’t feel like it’s benefiting you a lot. I enjoy playing games and reading, so reading NHK easy and watching YouTubers play games in Japanese (e.g. Pokémon, Zelda, FF) worked well with how I approached parsing sentences. As well as watching YouTubers who explain grammar concepts in Japanese (albeit it may take a while for this). Tokini Andy, Japanese Ammo, Miku, Japanese Quest, Game Grammar, game geno, ako nihongo lessons, are YouTubers I’ve used as almost tutors. But for legit one on ones, a lot of people do seem to use italki