These are the steps I'm going to take to achieve literacy and get my listening comprehension up to scratch. The grouping of the list indicates which things I'll attempt to do concurrently (within reason). I'll be immersing throughout the process via anime, radio, etc. as well as mining sentences from every resource along the way (i+1). Of course, all of it is subject to change.

1. Learn Kana

2.Assimil
3.Remembering the Kanji

4. Learn Japanese the Manga Way
5. Core 2k + adding example sentences

6. Manga (Yatsubato and such)
7. Tae Kim
8. A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar*
9. An Introduction to Japanese - Syntax, Grammar & Language*
10. Colloquial Japanese*
11. Genki I and II*
12. All About Particles

13. A Dictionary of Intermediate Grammar
14. Dramas/anime/movies subs2srs
15. Core 6k
16. Light novels

...and beyond.

*In no particular order, on no particular timeline; as I go.



Although Assimil doesn't explicitly teach you grammar, you will develop a feel for it (I speak from experience with the Russian and Dutch course), so it seemed like an ideal place to start. Also the audio tracks contain the scripts from the course book, and they speed up as the course progresses. I have a feeling it will keep my mind occupied while learning the kanji.


I'm one of those reasonably intelligent people who are less concerned with results and more concerned with improving the overall process... which more often than not leads to better results. When I've done all of this and feel comfortable, I'll probably jump on Lang-8 and find a cute Japanese girl to skype with-- because apparently interacting with actual human beings matters when learning a language.

Question: Should I be trying to get to a point where I can drill vocab without necessarily needing to add full sentences, similar to where I am with my English (somewhere between 10k and 20k active vocab)?

Sorry this post is all over the place, but if anyone sees any way I can improve this process, or would simply like to share some of their wisdom/experiences it would really help me out.

Looks sensible, but I think all those textbooks in the middle section is a bit redundant. 7, 8, 9, and 11 probably all cover the same ground. 10 is probably unnecessary if you plan on watching a lot of anime and subs2srsing it. Unless you're a huge fan of learning stuff through textbooks...

Doing subs2srs and core6k is probably redundant too.
Children's novels before light novels - furigana is a wonderful thing.
I would say building vocabulary before going into an intermediate grammar book would be worthwhile. You can do more with a good vocabulary than you can with good grammar.
I think adding full sentences is a good thing, but that's because like 90% of my grammar understanding comes from sentences in my subs2srs vocabulary deck. If you've managed to internalise grammar by other means, sure, but I'm not sure that it's a useful goal.

... eh, but I dunno. It's pretty far from what I've done.

Planning will just make you frustrated, because you will stray from it all the time. I agree with Aikynaro that you will be going over a bunch of the same stuff, which is kind of pointless. My advice for a rough plan would be:

1. Kana
Time: A couple days

2a. Vocabulary (~2k most common words)
2b. Grammar (Genki, Tae Kim, etc., only one will be enough)
2c. Kanji (Optional since you can just pick them up from vocabulary) (RTK, KD, etc.)
Time: A couple months

3. Read, Listen & SRS (at this stage I think you just need to do whatever you want, planning won't help because you'll be breaking your plans every other week, you just need to consume as much stuff as you can, and add everything you don't think you'll remember to Anki)
Time: A couple of years

I do realize there is quite a bit of redundancy in the textbooks, but they could potentially have sentences that I can throw into my SRS. Also with the subs2srs/core6k redundancy thing, the two would essentially be the same thing, as I would would most likely be using MorphMan as well... The difference is that the subs2srs would be mined sentences from Anime, and the core6k would be sentences of my own creation, along with clozed deletion and whatever else I can throw in there; same thing, different approach.

Quote:...eh, I dunno. It's pretty far from what I've done.

Can you elaborate just a little? You don't have to get into the heavy details if you don't want to, but I'm curious to see what has worked for others.

Quote:Time: A couple of years

I agree with the sentiment of what you're saying. I will undoubtedly stray from the list above, but as long as I take that into consideration, I don't see how laying everything out in front of me could hurt the situation. I just like to see what I have to work with, and if anyone can make any suggestions.

You seem like the type of person who likes to plan things more than actually do them. And yes I do think planning actually hurts. It takes time away from actually learning. There are many people that spend a lot of time learning how to learn instead of actually learning. Another thing is if things don't go according to plan, you feel like giving up, or restarting constantly even though you've already made progress. I think you just need to drop that sort of attitude and just do whatever you want. Even days are too long, just think about the present, the only thing you can really control. That's what's worked best for me at least. If every moment is good, then every day will be good, and every week, month, year, etc. Nothing is stopping you starting right this second. People who wait want everything to be perfect and I can guarantee you things won't be perfect. This isn't so much directed at you specifically, or even language learning, so don't take it personally. I just thought it could possibly help, because this advice as helped me and I think it can apply to any sort long term goals (like learning a language). Just stop focusing on the future (or the past) and try to do your best in the present. This is just my opinion though.

egoplant says good things. Listen to him.

Quote:

Quote:...eh, I dunno. It's pretty far from what I've done.

Can you elaborate just a little? You don't have to get into the heavy details if you don't want to, but I'm curious to see what has worked for others.

Well, okay, but it's not really an example you should follow. The story goes like:

1. Learn kana
2. Fail at using textbooks
3. Move to Japan
4. Fail at everything
5. Discover AJATT, fail, but feel motivated anyway
6. Fail at RTK
7. Discover subs2srs, make anime deck based on Nukemarine's video
8. A long time passes productively
9. Eventually can read and stuff

I had a plan, once. It was nowhere near as elaborate as your plan, but it was a plan, nonetheless. It didn't survive contact with my laziness and lack of willpower though, and the only thing that saved this enterprise was finding something that is easy to do every day and actually doing it every day as opposed to my usual style of ***** around aimlessly with grand ideas of what I should be doing.

Quote:This isn't so much directed at you specifically

Tell us how you really feel.

I hear what you're saying, but to me the first part of your response sounded more like a subconscious manifestation of your desire to go back in time and tell yourself to knuckle down. Some people are different than others, you know. Assume, for the sake of argument, that I'm perfectly capable of following a simple plan (as I have done with other languages I speak)... Maybe not to perfection, but at least enough to have a heads up on which direction I'm going in, and where I should be directing my focus. It's not as if I sit around dwelling on whether or not I have the perfect plan... sorry if I gave you that impression. I guess I'm one of those old timers who have the misfortune of believing that prudence is the only thing that distinguishes us from apes (not that I think relying on 'belief' will teach me Japanese).

I think what I should have asked was whether or not the above list has any substantial shortcomings (other than those based on subjective experience, personal defect, and the obvious redundancy of certain areas which were left on the list intentionally), and, if so, what those shortcomings might be and also how you might go about fixing them.

Quote:I had a plan, once. It was nowhere near as elaborate as your plan, but it was a plan, nonetheless. It didn't survive contact with my laziness and lack of willpower though, and the only thing that saved this enterprise was finding something that is easy to do every day and actually doing it every day as opposed to my usual style of ***** around aimlessly with grand ideas of what I should be doing.

Thanks again for the advice. I agree that unsustainable plans aren't worth the effort it takes to make them. That's why I'm really pushing to get into the manga as quickly as possible, in case the work does become too dry.

This would be my plan for you.

*Some people here doesn't believe in passive listening. I do, so if you like, try and keep anything in the background (music, drama, t.v shows, etc)

1.Learn Kana
2.Genki 1+2
3.Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar
4. Either Tobira or Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese grammar (If I did the dictionary first tobira would be much easier)
5. ^^^^^^^^^^^^
6. Cram vocabulary from native sources.
7. Kanzen N2 books
8. Kanzen N1 books
9. Light novels
10. Find a Skype partner
11. Move to Japan and own it up

Notes: As you can see I don't have Core, didn't work out for me. No RTK, worked out for me, but I burned out on that.

Don't know how long that would take you. Depends on how efficiently you use your time.

Personally, I did something closer to this (grouped things are done at roughly the same time):

1.) Learn kana
2.) Playing Pokemon (or some other kana only game that is almost impossible to get lost in, since you've already played it multiple games. Purely for kana recognition practice. I didn't know about Anki at this point, but I think something like this should be done anyway)
3.) Very, very basic grammar (basic particles (わ　が　の　に　へ), sentence order, what verbs look like; mostly learned before I seriously decided to learn the language through pattern recognition in titles and such, as well as remnants from previous, half-hearted jabs at learning the language)

2.) RTK (lazily, only for the benefit of learning to 'see' the kanji)

3.) Core 2k/6k (all in one deck, one after the other. It's easier to keep momentum that way)
4.) Occasional reading (NHK EASY, some manga, mostly just to see how my vocabulary was progressing. Added benefit of consolidating what I learned)

5.) Tae Kim's Guide. All of it (the Android app is very convenient, since it doesn't require web access).
6.) Read. Anything I want (NHK, manga, LN, VN. Obviously some are harder than others and I tend towards the easier ones)
7.) Vocab mining from the things in the last step (I'm just starting this, since I was pretty sick of Anki by the time I finished Core 6k)

Obviously there are things that could've been done better, like using Anki to learn the kana without getting paper cuts and cramps reviewing with flashcards and writing practice (though I do recommend learning to write the kana, at least).
The point of this is that I like to go into things with a plan as well (and I like to be as efficient as possible), which is why I'm only just now starting to add my own cards to Anki. I plan on trying subs2srs as well, but I haven't yet; just recommending it as well.

Other than the already acknowledged redundancies, I think your plan is pretty good for a basic outline, especially since you're planning to do sentence mining as well; though, you may want to wait until after Core 2k (or partway through it) to start, since i+1 sentences will be nearly impossible to find before then.

Oh, and you might want to consider participating in Tadoku (ReadMOD) once you start reading.

These planned lists always seem a bit ridiculous to me as it makes it sound like "I won't do #2 until I finish #1, and I won't do #5 before I do #4." Seems crazy for someone to prioritize DoBJG and DoIJG before "Vocab/Core." Lists are horrible for language learning because its not an executive process like a program, its all a gradient of executions.

If you want your list to better reflect the reality of things, then group stuff together in each "Step" so it better reflects that point in your learning.

1) RTK/Kana, Basic grammar, Genki 1/2, easy manga
2) Intermediate grammar, Core, harder manga, podcasts, anime
3) Novels, seinen manga, focused sentence mining.

Like others have said, you don't need to have everything so strictly ordered, but as far as attacking textbooks go, I would do RTK along with Genki I and II. Then Tobira and then Kanzen Master N2 and N1. You can do Core after you finish RTK. Attack native materials any time you like.

Plans are nice. However, there's an issue: why would someone who knows a lot about Japanese and even speaks it a little (you, in six months time), follow a plan laid out by someone who doesn't (your current self). I don't think experience with other languages is enough (I speak other languages too, didn't make me qualified to pick out the right tools for Japanese).

You should make a plan that gets you to low intermediate level. Then you should get there. Then you should make a plan that gets you to mid intermediate level. Then you should get there. Then you should...Ok, now I'm just copy pasting, so I'll stop.

As far as this first plan, I'm not sure what advice to give. I tried all kinds of things, but it's hard to evaluate how much they helped. I started with

-kana (with the Heisig method, I highly recommend it),

-the first 30 lessons of Pimsleur (I don't recommend it, I hated it),

-I finished RtK (I'm ambivalent about doing it first),

-SRSd some song lyrics (it was fun, and very helpful, but it would have to be music you like to enjoy it - and it took some effort to get the translations right, seeing as I was still a beginner),

-Core2K (tried different versions, settled for the optimized order, clozed deleted sentences version where you produce a word on each question from the clozed deleted sentence and its translation; but you only need to actually read the translation on rare occasion, most of the time reading the sentence itself is enough),

-read Yotsubato (very helpful, but again, you have to enjoy what you're reading - there are other relatively easy manga with furigana, and English fan-translations are available to help you make sense of them),

-did Tae Kim, even did the Anki deck for a while (the resource itself was helpful, but if I had to do it all over again, I'd skip the Anki deck and just revisit the chapters themselves on a need be basis; or buy a book on grammar perhaps, but, again: I found Tae Kim to be excellent, one of the clearest, best organized grammar resources I've ever encountered in any language),

-and watched a lot of TV (as a beginner, with subs; variety, comedy -Gaki No Tsukai rules, and hundreds of hours of it has been subbed online; I also watched sports, without subs obviously, but it's hard to find current Japanese sports commentary outside Japan, since my favorite live TV streaming site has been crapping out). This last part was probably the bulk of my "studies", and it was very helpful.

Unfortunately, I don't like the Japanese dramas, and with anime it's hard to keep engaged on account that they're animations, but used more as replacements for actors than cartoons. Makes it hard to suspend disbelief. The only anime I really loved was Death Note. I prefer manga, or live action adaptations to anime.

What is amazing, on the other hand, is the Japanese movie scene. One of the best in the world.

Anyway, as far as advice, I think I agree with egoplant's line of thought the most.

The one thing I'll point out on your list, is I do think Assimil is a great start to learning and listening to the language.

Try to mix things up, you will learn more that way by challenging your brain.

Aikynaro Wrote:Doing subs2srs and core6k is probably redundant too.

I think I've disagreed with this before, but I'll do so again. Subs2srs can be mixed in with core just fine if you toss in the morphology plugin. It gives you a larger corpus of sentences to pool from. And the Subs2srs sentences are much less boring than core is. I found learning core2k/6k step by step awfully boring. With the morph plugin, I can just look through the browser at what sentences have interesting focus morphs and queue those up for learning when I'm ready to learn something new. (Or I'll queue up interesting stuff that I see in another book i'm reading or anime I'm watching.) I guess I'm not very systematic these days.

Stansfield123 Wrote:What is amazing, on the other hand, is the Japanese movie scene. One of the best in the world.

Don't want to turn this into a movie thread but, definitely a matter of opinion. They do some genres different from the West, but I find actors are far more hit or miss in Japan.

[RawToast]

If I had to work using your initial list as a base, I'd scrap a few things. There's a lot of overlap in your textbooks you may wish to avoid (or do, if you want some revision).

4. Learn Japanese the Manga Way
7. Tae Kim
8. A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar*
9. An Introduction to Japanese - Syntax, Grammar & Language*
10. Colloquial Japanese*
11. Genki I and II*
12. All About Particles
13. A Dictionary of Intermediate Grammar

Whilst there are differences most of these are going to cover the same points over and over. Unless you plan on doing N5/N4 and really want these points down for a test, I'd drop a bunch of them. I'd keep hold of the grammar dictionaries and compliment them with one of Genki, Tae Kim, LJtMW, or Minna.

imho, you can start reading comics way before you finish core2k. i started reading books when i learned around 500 words. sure, it was a pain, but learning a new language will often be like that. besides, reading is the best way to learn new vocabulary and make it stick.

umetani666 Wrote:imho, you can start reading comics way before you finish core2k. i started reading books when i learned around 500 words. sure, it was a pain, but learning a new language will often be like that. besides, reading is the best way to learn new vocabulary and make it stick.

You can, but at least in my case that kind of pain is just too much to endure through.

There's no helping the fact transitioning to native materials will hurt, but there is still a massive difference between reading books 500 words in and reading books 3k~ words. imo.

Your path is somewhat similar to mine. I procrastinate a lot, but I always remember to review what I've learned daily, and listen to something in Japanese whenever possible. That way, if I don't feel like I've reached a point in learning Japanese at a level where I think I should be at, it isn't all that bad since I can read/write kana at a level that's slowly increasing to how quickly I read and write the English alphabet, and my listening skill is extremely good, too. So I'm always doing something in Japanese.

I've set up a path pretty much like this (the basic steps being kana > kanji > vocab > sentences + grammar > speaking):

1. Kana
2. Remembering the Kanji (coinciding with writing practice from sites)
3. Core 2k
4. Genki 1 (as I wait for daily review time to be reduced and also to see how far I've
progressed)
5. Core 6k
6. Genki 2 (same thing as something to do while getting review time down)

- All while getting 10,000 hours of Japanese listening in, ala AJATT style. I'm already at around 1200+ hours or so, so listening will be the most time-consuming I'm guessing, which is why I'm starting as early as possible with it and getting in as much listening as possible. That way, when I'm finished with some of the other major elements on my list, I won't have to wait around for another two years or more sparsely listening to Japanese and wondering why I can't follow what's going on even though I'd have the vocab and grammar already learned. My sense of hearing/listening will have already adapted to the Japanese language.

-Further flexible progression from there

Sad part is, I'm still on step 1. But I'm also learning how to read and write every kana character except for the rare unused ones, so it's been taking longer than expected.

After Core 6k I figure I'll pretty much have enough Japanese vocabulary to start reading (even just lightly) material in Japanese, and enough vocab that my listening ability will have caught up with the vocabulary I learned, so I should (feasibly) be able to understand at about 90% (just a guess -- could be lower or higher) what I'm listening to, since I can already follow a lot of what I'm hearing. Plus Genki 1 and 2 should offer a reasonable amount of Japanese grammar, which I'll study more Japanese grammar in some way after Core 6k and Genki 2.

Stansfield123 Wrote:Plans are nice. However, there's an issue: why would someone who knows a lot about Japanese and even speaks it a little (you, in six months time), follow a plan laid out by someone who doesn't (your current self).

This. The more Japanese you learn, the better you understand how you yourself best learn Japanese. Don't forget that you're not just learning Japanese, you're learning how to learn Japanese. That said, any method is better than no method.

Hirakana Wrote:

Stansfield123 Wrote:Plans are nice. However, there's an issue: why would someone who knows a lot about Japanese and even speaks it a little (you, in six months time), follow a plan laid out by someone who doesn't (your current self).

This. The more Japanese you learn, the better you understand how you yourself best learn Japanese. Don't forget that you're not just learning Japanese, you're learning how to learn Japanese. That said, any method is better than no method.

And this! Knowing what I know now, and had the online resources been available at the time, I would have done kana>basic grammar>RTK>Core2 and more advance grammar, with some overlap. (Each step will help you with the next step, and yes, I was glad I had some familiarity with Japanese when I finally plunged into RTK.) After you've done all that, if you're still in the game, you'll have a much better feel for your strengths and weaknesses, both in the language and the study of it, and will be in a better position to evaluate and choose the next steps and the right resources for you.

I think planning for short term goals, combined with flexibility, is a great idea. My learning has been very random and would have benefited from having some kind of plan at the outset; it's taken me longer to get where I am now than it might have otherwise. I also wish I'd been more strict with myself about balancing speaking, listening, reading, and writing.

Thank you all! With a little minor digging (sticky posts are your friend) I've found a very interesting compendium of methods people have used/are using to teach themselves the language: http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=4943

It sounds like when you're planning for language learning, less is more. I've drastically reduced the number textbooks I'll be using, and I've also tried to incorporate native material as early on as possible, especially reading (engaging with native text for mining purposes, which will help me figure out exactly where I stand in terms of grammar and vocabulary, and which areas I'm actually struggling in... as opposed to studying millions of arbitrarily chosen sentences in a lifeless vacuum). I've also found a meetup group in my area, so hopefully that will help with networking.

Thanks again. Feel free to continue posting if the above link is not a be all end all for lurkers.

Looking back, what I'd do would be:

1) Pimsleur + RTK
2) Michel Thomas + RTK
3) Hiragana/Katakana + Some good grammar, be that Minna no Nihongo, Genki or whatever makes up a structured course, Assimil seems to be great too. +RTK
4) Core 2K/6K + JapanesePOD101

At this point you will be at an upper intermediate level (roughly B2, approaching C1) and just consuming native material alone will take you to C2 and beyond.

There are a lot of additional activities you can do, like watching stuff with subs or whatever you find fun, just to kill time with Japanese and to keep the flame alive.

More doesn't hurt, but slacking off will push you back.

I'm new to japanese, so on one side I've not so much to suggest to you, but on the other side since we are on the same boat, maybe you may find my suggestions useful

First of all "don't even think about crossing the river before you build the bridge" or something like that... the risks are, you keep thinking about what to do instead of doing it, and worse when you finally get to the point of doing it you could find your planning isn't going to work for you... and this can be frustrating... you put so much effort in your study program and now it reveals itself to be inappropriate.

On the other hand a little bit of planning can be motivating, but keep the points more generics like...

1. Learn kana;
2. Start approaching kanji and rkt, and see if it works for you;

Stop for now When you finish point 1. you can add another point, like:

1. DONE;
2. I've started rtk, first 50-100 kanji, on the beginning it was hard but now it's ok, so i can...
...3. start to think about vocabulary and grammar. I'll try to start Genki and use Anki for grammar points and vocabulary/simple sentences;

It's only an example, I hope it can be useful for you

For Kana you can do them in 2 o 3 days, so go for it if you haven't already done it, and then ask yourself what you want to do like:

1) I'll do only rtk and start Genki (or other book) and/or Core only after rtk;
2) I'll do rtk beside "x"... (and you decide what to do, but don't put too much things at once);

Personally, I've started with RtK and at first (like you can see in my threads) I was like "what?? It's impossible!" but now, very slowly I must say, I'm at only 150 kanji but I've understood how to make stories and it's going to be less scary

Now that I've started to understand how kanjis work I'm going to start Genki and make a deck, ignoring the kanji I still don't know (99% of them xD ), using furigana... but it's more to fight the boredom of rtk

And here is my suggestion while you do whatever you choose:

start reading and listening to songs, anime etc.. and take the words you recognize and keep listening over and over... and put them in a deck I can guarantee you it's a good way to start memorizing vocabulary... you are going to run often into all sorts of pronouns, some verbs, nouns etc.. like I've seen three anime in the past weeks and there are some words I didn't knew but they say them so many times... like "いきてる" or "みらい"... or you listen to the same verb but in different forms so you start to become familiar with conjugations... but like what I said above, for now it's more about motivation than real study

I am a beginner myself therefore what i say here should be taken with a pinch of salt. I shunned textbooks and started reading 絵本（picture books）when I barely finished 五十音図, because I suspected the boredom of reading any textbook might end up killing my motivation.

This is the fantastic website I started with.
http://www.ehonnavi.net/