Japanese study group

[Maya]

I'm more motivated than ever to learn Japanese because Iron Klaus left Twitter last week and now Shu-Pa! is leaving, too.

 

Anyway, I'm just trying to assemble learning materials now. I took three semesters of Japanese ages ago but never got good at it. Like someone else said, I hope I could learn enough Japanese soon enough before all Japanese translators leave Twitter.

[Maya]

9 minutes ago, hananistellata said:

Welcome back to learning!

 

Here are some learning materials that I recommend.

 

Tae Kim's Guide to Japanese Grammar ( http://www.guidetojapanese.org/grammar_guide.pdf )

Just like the title suggests, it's a guide to Japanese grammar but is also extremely helpful in other aspects of the language all-together (such as new/important vocabulary, teaching the basics of the language, giving real-life scenarios, etc). Everything is explained in thorough detail.

 

Jisho ( https://jisho.org/ )

Just like the title suggests, Jisho is an online dictionary for the Japanese language. You can find results even if you type Japanese words with English characters or draw the Kanji! You can also view proper stroke order with the GIFs they provide. They even have a section where you can look up the names of historical figures or famous people (spoiler, Yuzuru's name is on there as, his bio is pretty outdated though).

 

JLPT Sensei ( https://jlptsensei.com/ )

This website has a little bit of everything, a vocabulary section, a grammar section, a Kanji section, textbooks you can buy, specific JLPT levels for the people who are studying for their JLPT exams, if I remember correctly they even provide free mock tests for practise. An extremely vital and useful tool.

 

Kanji! ( https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lulilanguages.j5KjAnd )

I don't know if this tool works on browsers since I only use this one on my phone, but I might as well provide the Google Play link just in case.

Kanji! is a pretty simple app that... well... teaches Kanji. That's about it. It's as simple as it gets. It has Kanji from all levels seperated in categories. You can take you time with learning each one and the process is pretty simple all-together. 

Thank you very much for sharing this collection of learning materials! I'd also recommend this Yuzu-themed "30-day vocab challenge" (https://tsukihoshi14.tumblr.com/tagged/vocab+challenge). Is there a way to make a sticky list of these materials on the 1st page OP and expand the list along the way?

[Hayuzu_san]

I love Nihongo generally and have learned for three years in junior high school but stop when I started senior high school. Now my biggest motivation to re-learn Nihongo is I want to understand all interviews, texts, videos of Hanyu-san without hoping for someone to actually translate it. But now I'm so busy with my master's degree that I haven't got the time to re-learn Nihongo. I only got little time here and there to watch his programs again for motivation. くやしい。

[Solea]

For some reason I have a lot of trouble with memorizing hiragana and katakana. I seem to do really well with listening, but for some reason, the memorization isn't coming easy to me!

[Yukok]

53 分, Soleaさんが言いました:

For some reason I have a lot of trouble with memorizing hiragana and katakana. I seem to do really well with listening, but for some reason, the memorization isn't coming easy to me!

I guess the hiragana and katakana are confusing to non Japanese people.

But I think  being good at listening is your strongness✨

 

I'm rooting for you🤗

[Glory]

On 3/5/2022 at 6:34 PM, Solea said:

For some reason I have a lot of trouble with memorizing hiragana and katakana. I seem to do really well with listening, but for some reason, the memorization isn't coming easy to me!

It helped me to write down the letters over and over again. I started with the first 5 hiragana until I could remember them. Also you could try speaking the letters when you write them since it sounds like you learn by listening. After writing all the hiragana letters, it helped me to watch YouTube videos of walking around Japan. I would pause the video if I saw some hiragana then if I couldn't remember which letter it is, I would look it up. After I learned hiragana, I started learning katakana in the same way. Hope this helps you a little bit! You can do it! 

[guitarist]

On 3/5/2022 at 7:34 PM, Solea said:

For some reason I have a lot of trouble with memorizing hiragana and katakana. I seem to do really well with listening, but for some reason, the memorization isn't coming easy to me!

What I would suggest is using song lyrics from kids' anime, to mix visuals with listening. The reason I suggest kids' specifically is because they often use simple words and the lyrics are included either in hiragana, or with furigana on top. Try to read along with the singing. I did that over and over with a lot of songs, and then eventually I moved on to j-pop, which has more advanced vocabulary. It really helped my reading speed!

 

For example, this the first OP from Cardcaptor Sakura (which was my favorite show when I was 6 haha):

 

 

[river]

Anyone on here planning to take the JLPT? I've signed up for the N4 this year. I'm sort of worried about the listening part, though...

[Hydroblade]

8 hours ago, river said:

Anyone on here planning to take the JLPT? I've signed up for the N4 this year. I'm sort of worried about the listening part, though...

I was nervous about it too, but after listening to Yuzu talk... It was pretty easy haha. Just pay a lot of attentions, IIRC you can take notes of the audio on the booklet so that might help.

[river]

I realize this is pretty much thread necromancy at this point... but I passed N4!

 

Never let anyone say being a Fanyu isn't useful. The entire reason I started studying Japanese again was so I can understand all the media we get about Yuzu.

[risako]

I start studying Japanese today

[Tae Grane]

I registered for JLPT July, my level is like upper N4, I thought maybe I can study for N3 but I heard the gap between these two level is huge so I decided to take N4  Does anyone else is going to take JLPT in July?    

[sallycinnamon]

On 1/26/2023 at 6:53 PM, river said:

I realize this is pretty much thread necromancy at this point... but I passed N4!

 

Never let anyone say being a Fanyu isn't useful. The entire reason I started studying Japanese again was so I can understand all the media we get about Yuzu.

 

Congratulations, that's really big, it takes a lot of studying and effort.  

[wabisabi]

I'm learning Japanese mainly for fun (and to not have to wait/rely on translations) and not planning on taking any tests, but 頑張って to those that are! 

[morimaru]

こんにちは！みなさんの日本語の勉強のためになにかお手伝いできたらうれしいです。