Hi everyone, tomorrow will mark the end of my third month of japanese learning and for now it’s really been nearly a positive experience. I’m especially proud about my vocabulary learning, I learnt 1700-ish words and pretty much all of the N4 kanji which I think is pretty cool considering I usually spend around 1 hour a day learning Japanese.
However, my biggest issue by far is grammar, I really don’t know much and it’s really frustrating, I tried watching a few Cure Dolly video (maybe 10) and it was really good however I came to the conclusion that I probably need to study with a proper textbook.
By the way, Genki 1 is around 60 euros where I live which is a bit much for me, I already *obtained* the textbook in PDF but I don’t know if it’s very practical this way. Has anyone study Genki this way? By the way, since I’m not really a total beginner (especially with vocabulary), how should I deal with Genki? I’m a bid scared that I will not have a consistent workflow and will just end up doing as much work as I feel like before dropping out, how long should I expect to pass on each chapter on average?
If anyone has been in the same situation please let me know! Thanks in advance.
8 comments
Work through it with [Tokini Andy](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLA_RcUI8km1NMhiEebcbqdlcHv_2ngbO2) he explains the books very well.
personally, i would say that genki works best in a classroom environment. i’m not sure i would recommend it for just reading through by yourself.. you would pay a lot for stuff you wouldn’t be using, like speaking exercises.
Genki (and other textbook) Study Plan:
Two or three 45-60 minute study sessions a daily (or whatever you can do). Example: Chunk A – vocab, kanji and dialogue; Chunk B – textbook; Chunk C – workbook.
Before studying the chapter, get the majority of the vocabulary and kanji (if any) down.. Genki marks the vocabulary used in the dialogue, so it’s easy to prepare for. (You might have already done this, it seems)
Try reading the dialogue WITHOUT looking at the English translation. Try to guess the meaning from the pictures and the dialogue prompts. Check to see how you did.
Chunk A: Everyday practice vocabulary, kanji (if any) and dialogue, shadow the audio, review the previous day’s work… you can preview the exercises you’ll be doing so you can brush up on the vocab you’ll need.
Chunk B: Everyday work in one grammar point. Do the associated exercises in the textbook. If it’s a speaking exercises, do both parts.
Chunk C: Do the workbook exercises sometime later.
Don’t forget to do the reading and writing in the back of the textbook. You can get your writing checked on an app like HelloTalk. Do corrections and resubmit. Move on to the next chapter and repeat.
You can add and subtract chucks or mix things up depending on your preference and life factors. You can combine low effort and high effort study in a day or study session, or break up the hour.
For example: while making and eating breakfast, listen to a podcast (30 minutes), watch a YouTube video for grammar during lunch (30 minutes). During your commute (60 minutes) do Pimsleur. Read manga for 20 minutes a day, do the workbook for 20 minutes and meet with a tutor for 30 minutes.
Congrats on memorizing that many words so quickly! That’s impressive.
I don’t often give advice. But you need to start reading and listening immediately. Memorizing words is only the first step to acquiring them. You need to see/read them in multiple contexts. Then listen to that material. This should take up at least half your “study time.” It’s also enjoyable!
Grammar is also acquired. Keep up with Cure Dolly (or whatever source such as Genki) and then experience the grammar with the words you know. That’s how you truly make it all natural in your head.
>my third month of japanese learning
>I learnt 1700-ish words and pretty much all of the N4 kanji which I think is pretty cool considering I usually spend around 1 hour a day learning Japanese.
Okay so firstly, this seems like a fairly unbalanced approach to learning the language. You have basically learnt 400 hours worth of vocabulary in 100 hours while picking up close to no grammatical foundation (and probably little listening/output practice, since these require grammar)
For your case, I would recommend Tae Kim’s grammar guide (google it), which I used to learn grammar myself. It covers basically all grammar up to N4 and some stuff beyond N4 as well. It’s free and in English and some people swear on it so give it a try!
That said, you should also find some audio resources to learn with if not already doing so or it would get tough later.
Genki’s grammar explanations are pretty shit a lot of the time. Read the grammar explanations and when it doesn’t make sense, watch the cure dolly video to get the real explanation for the grammar topic.
I’d really recommend tae Kim’s grammar guide for grammar. The explanations are good and if you finish it I think you can hop straight into immersion. Personally it took me a month to read and understand all grammar points in it while simultaneously immersing with yomichan. Immersion at the same time as learning grammar is super important in my opinion because every thing you learn is almost immediately reinforced by immersion. You can find it pdf through a simple Google search too so no piracy needed. Good luck my friend!
for each chapter…
1. read the story in front, but it might use grammar and words you don’t even know yet. It’s a teaser because you *will* learn that stuff later
2. start working on the vocab. learn 5-10 words a day (put into anki) as you work through the chapter
3. work through the grammar points in the chapter
4. do the exercises at the back of the chapter
5. flip to the *back of the book* (past the chapters) and there are way more exercises you should definitely do
6. there are kanji back here too (chapter 3+, chapter 1-2 do not have it), learn them in whatever way you can (that’s another discussion entirely)
7. do the workbook or the online workbook
8. go read the story at the beginning of the chapter again, guess what you can understand it now