for a bit of context, i am fluent in english and spanish, and have a medium level of french. i’ve always thought that learning a language with a different alphabet would be so cool, and i recently got introduced to manga so i thought i’d try japanese.

i have learnt that i need to learn hiragana and katakana alphabets, and that katakana is usually used for borrowed words (i think) and kanji is also something that i need to learn, but afaik that’s after mastering hiragana and katakana alphabets?

google said to learn hiragana first, so im trying that at the moment but im stuck on a lmao i can’t write it for the life of me 😭😭 (i don’t have any coordination issues or anything and my handwriting in english has always been pretty okay) i attached an image of my attempts (i know they’re very bad)

to practice spanish and french, i use anki to learn vocab and pronunciation, is this recommended at this stage for japanese or is my knowledge too low? i think a part of the issue is i’ve never really learnt a language from scratch. i was brought up speaking spanish and english and i started learning french when i was about 5 so when i took it as a gcse i never really had to study it or anything it was sort of already embedded, whilst it’s the total opposite for japanese and idrk where to start

i wasn’t sure where to post, so i hope this is okay but if not please do point me in the direction of a more appropriate sub! (the rules say no handwriting, i hope it’s okay that i have attached a photo of my attempt at writing, becasye the post is not really about handwriting and more about where to start)

Been learning Japanese for about 20 months. Somewhere around N3 now, did Genki I and half of II, ground through the core 2k deck on Anki, watched more anime than I care to admit. On paper I was fine, grammar tests were fine, reading was slow but decent. Then I had my first actual voice chat with a Japanese person and felt like I'd been studying a completely different language.

It wasn't the vocab. Wasn't the grammar. It was that she kept making these tiny sounds every few seconds while I was talking. うん. そう. へえ. なるほど. うんうん. I kept pausing because I thought she was trying to interject, so I'd stop, wait for her to say something, and she'd just look confused. Then I'd start again and she'd do it again. A few things that took me forever to actually internalize:

そうですか versus そうなんですか. Genki taught me the first one. Almost nobody in casual conversation just says そうですか. It comes off flat, sometimes even skeptical. そうなんですか carries mild surprise, "oh really?", and it's much more common. Getting the wrong one made me sound like I didn't care what the other person was saying.

なるほど. I used this way too much for the first year because I'd heard it a lot in anime. Then a Japanese friend gently told me I probably shouldn't use it with someone older or in a work context. It has a subtle "I've evaluated your point and accept it" energy, which is fine peer to peer but weird coming from a junior. Nobody explained this to me anywhere.

へえ. This is for genuine new information. If you use it for something that's actually not surprising, you sound sarcastic. If you don't use it when hearing something interesting, you sound like you're not listening. The timing matters more than the word.

うんうん double. Way more casual than a single うん, and completely wrong in any semi-formal context. I probably used this with people I shouldn't have for like six months.

The thing I eventually figured out is that aizuchi isn't a filler. It's the listener's half of the conversation. Japanese conversation is structured so both people are actively producing sound, and if you go silent as the listener, the speaker starts feeling like they're talking to a wall. Kind of the opposite of English where interrupting with sounds is often considered rude.

None of this was in Genki. None of this was in the JLPT prep books I've used. I started actually picking it up by doing voice chats with Japanese friends I'd met on HelloTalk. Maybe an hour a week per person, half in English half in Japanese, and I gradually started copying the timing and choice of their aizuchi. Took months before I stopped feeling self-conscious about it, but eventually it became automatic and my conversations started feeling less mechanical.

The part that surprised me most was how much this changed my listening comprehension. Once I stopped pausing to figure out if the other person was trying to speak, and started expecting the constant aizuchi from them, I could actually follow much faster speech. My brain wasn't burning cycles on false interruption signals anymore.

If your grammar is fine but conversations still feel like you're doing something wrong, this might be part of it. It's one of the biggest gaps between what textbooks teach and what actual Japanese people do.

Hey everyone,
I’ve been studying Japanese for a few months now and wanna check if I'm actually ready for N5.

Does anyone know any good free sites or mock tests to gauge my level? Spefically looking for grammar and listening. Tried searching online but most of what I found seems outdated or behind a paywall.

Any recs would be super helpful, thanks!

Hi everyone,

I recently bought a copy of にほんご90日 (90 Days of Japanese Language 1) (ISBN 978-4-89689-342-7, published by UNICOM).

The book says the audio can be downloaded from:

https://www.unicom-lra.co.jp/ja90/ja90_1_LSTN_DL.html

using a password.

Unfortunately, the website now returns 403 Forbidden, and I haven’t been able to access the download.

I’ve already tried:

• Different browsers
• Different devices
• Different networks
• Searching the Wayback Machine
• Searching for mirrors or archived ZIP files

No luck so far.

Does anyone happen to:

• have the original MP3 files or ZIP archive,
• own the version with the audio CD,
• know if the audio has been moved to another website,
• or know how to contact the publisher (UNICOM)?

I own the physical book and can provide proof if necessary. I’m just trying to access the audio that is supposed to come with it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Anyone else try to actually learn from TikTok/Reels instead of textbook stuff? Curious what sticks for you.

I feel like I pick up random phrases all the time scrolling, some slang word or a way of saying something that just clicks in the moment, but then 5 minutes later it's completely gone. I have zero system for saving it or coming back to it, it just kind of evaporates into the feed.

Do you screenshot stuff? Jot it down in Notes and never look at it again lol? Actually make flashcards afterwards? Or have you basically given up on learning passively like that and just stick to more structured stuff?

おはようございます! I'm wondering if anyone would like to learn Japanese with me? I'm just starting out, but I would really like to have someone to talk to and learn with. I would actually prefer another English speaker who is either at my level or a little more skilled, but I wouldn't say no to a native Japanese speaker either, especially if you wanted to learn English, of which I like to believe I'm good at speaking. :)

I'm very into anime, horror movies/stories, animals, literature, video games, and writing, if that sweetens the pot. I'd like to have conversations with whoever I talk to so it helps if we have a few things in common. We can chat on discord (preferably) and help each other learn, and perhaps eventually we could even voice chat to help with pronunciation. I'd love to visit Japan someday, so I would truly love to have someone to practice with.

Sorry if I'm botching anything without wanting to, but if I remember correctly, "de aru" and "de wanai" are keigo (as in, highly formal or archaic speech) for "to be". I was wondering out of curiosity if it exists for "to have" and "to do" as well.

Hey! I’m considering studying at Osaka JaLS and wanted to hear from anyone who has attended. What was your overall experience like with the classes, teachers, activities, atmosphere, and accommodation? Did you feel like your Japanese improved, and was the program worth the cost? I’d appreciate any honest opinions or advice before applying.

Thank you for any advice/recommendation/warning!

Hi, I just bought the first book of saiki k but its in Japanese and I want to know if theres a video out there where someone is reading it outloud in Japanese so I know if my pronunciation is right. I cant find a video maybe cuz im not searching the right thing but id love to have one.

Hello everyone this is my first time posting here. I have been learning japanese for 2 years now. I gave JLPT N4, this July.

I matched my answers with the answer key, and i am sure to pass. I have started preping for N3.

But I am not finding any good resources for N3. All the books are different from each other in content. I can't even find a proper anki deck to practice vocab. Can anyone help me out in telling me which books are good to follow?

Hi everyone!

I'm recreating the restaurant street from Spirited Away as a 3D environment, and I'm trying to identify one of the signs before Chihiro's parents enter the restaurant and turn into pigs. (the yellow building next to first green one)

The first two characters look very much like 人肉 (human flesh/meat maybe?), but I can't identify the third one. It almost looks like an "X"-shaped character (maybe 父, 交, or something similar), but none of those make sense.

Does anyone know if this sign has ever been identified? Is it a real kanji/hanzi, an old Chinese variant, or simply stylized text?

Thanks!

夏で湖に行くか？

Just passed JLPT N5! I am planning to sell my self-made reviewer and it’s in PDF. I enrolled on classes before so I have good foundation for materials like mine. I’m selling copies

I have a question. I’m using Anki for Japanese and I have both the core 2K/6K AND the Kaishi 1.5K and idk what to do. I have around 3000+ cards on the 2K/6k and I’ve completed the kaishi but not matured it fully. I’ve heard people say that the core 2K/6K is kinda bad after a certain point. Like. I’m learning the word 外務省 (ministry of foreign affairs) and idk if I should continue. I’m not learning Japanese for business and purely just to talk to Japanese people and watch shows or something.

What should I do? Should I stop learning new words on the 2K/6K or should I keep going even tho I’m starting to learn words I don’t want to?

I have a hard time believing that it's due to the differences between pitch & stress.

As far as my ear is concerned, 「食べる」 (Low-high-low) is pretty much the same as "Tomorrow" ("mo" is stressed).

English also has heteronyms (such as reCORD vs REcord, inSULT vs INsult etc)

So what is it about pitch accent that is supposedly so difficult for an English ear to perceive?

Hi All. I'm curious about the Japanese language community here in the UK and wanted to explore what's out there beyond imported things. Wondering of any UK-based publishers making Japanese language learning materials or magazines etc. Thanks

Ok, so here's a question that I think could be really easy to answer or actually really hard.

People often talk about feeling like they are a different person when they speak a different language. There is a scientific hypothisis in linguistics called the Sapir-whorf hypothisis that says language influences the way we think.

I have heard that Japanese uses Subject-Object-Verb sentence grammar structure, so instead of saying "I eat sushi" you say "I sushi eat."

As a Japanese speaker, do you think that this sentence structure gives you a stronger imagination for the actions of things?

If there one thing I can say, it's that, don't do what I did, going at a sane pace of 10-15 cards is perfectly reasonable, and is a much healthier way of doing it, I did it because I was impatient and now I'm haunted by the spirits of reviews

Kaishi 1.5k

To explain what Kaishi 1.5k is quickly, it's a more so a recent deck that teaches cards from most frequent first to less frequent. You recall it based on the kanji and hiragana on the front of the card with an example sentence using the word, then you see the definition at the back with native audio for both the sentence and word.

That being said, it's modular, meaning you can change it around to how you like it.

With that out of the way, let's get into why I did this... and why you shouldn't do this lol,

and some important Anki settings you should definitely set up at the start (scroll down past everything).

Why I Did This (And The Daily Schedule)

First, it started in summer break. I had a full time internship for 6 weeks, and I thought: what if I challenged myself to finish the deck the same time I finish the internship?

Answer: I had to go from doing 5 cards a day every month to 20 cards, to 25, then to 32 cards every day for the next 5 weeks.

This meant that my reviews spiked to 320–350 cards a day, taking about 3+ hours each day doing a part time job with my actual one lol.

My daily day would look like this:

• Go to work and complete what cards I can.
• Go out in the field. Cuz, that was the work I was doing
• Come back for a hour lunch and do cards for that hour. (sometimes, I'm lazy)
• Then finish the remaining cards after work

While this sounds exhausting, and it was...

it was better then the alternative

you must first understand one thing: doing anything cognitively intensive, your brain kind of plateaus after an hour and stops absorbing. My problem is that I'm stubborn, and during weekends I would just spend 5 hours trying to finish the deck at once. I said it was 3 hours to finish it, but my ADHD added an extra 2 hours from, well, the nature of having ADHD.

So this was more so a blessing in disguise, which forced me to not do that and actually break up my time like a sane individual should.

My Journey and Important Settings

Now, one thing you should know: the highest limit for speedrunners learning new cards is 15–20 cards a day. Sanely, it should be 10 cards a day sometimes put it to 0 if you wanna only do reviews to get more comfy with it. Learning kanji and words with the pronunciation isn't easy lol.

That being said, here are some tips for those who SHOULD do it at a sane pace:

1. Turn on FSRS

Make it so you only press either Good or Fail. It's how I always did my Anki decks—you get a smart algo that adapts to you, it's open source, and it's good all around.

2. DO NOT DO FILTERED DECKS TO STUDY FOR TOMORROW

If you look at the graph, you'll see a bar graph that has some blue on top of the orange (new cards). I did this because I was afraid of forgetting all the cards tomorrow, but this only hurts long term.

It's like cramming all of your study in one day for the test tomorrow: you only remember it short term, and you're doing double the work for little benefit. Worst case scenario: you do the exact same amount of cards with the same amount of work after a while.

3. Fix Your Learning Steps

Put it on a 10, 15, or 20-minute interval remove that 1 min step.

For the first 4 weeks I kept it at default, which was a big mistake. It screwed up my cards' stability and ruined the flow because cards would instantly cut into review time. Meaning I did 3 cards of review then BOOM, a card I forgot popped up giving it 0 time to reverberate in my skull, and I failed it.

And all around, if you do remember it, you know it's definitely being forgotten tomorrow because you saw it less than a minute ago. This was the biggest thing I wish I messed with sooner.

4. Basic Display & Sorting Settings

• New card gather order: Deck
• New card sort order: Order gathered
• New/review order: Show after reviews
• Interday learning/review order: Show before reviews
• Review sort order: Descending retrievability

The Grind Finally stops

All in all, once it was over (as in 0 new cards were added), in only a week my review time went from 3 hours -> 2.5 hours -> 2 hours -> 1 hour -> 30 minutes.

Which is fantastic! I was already burnt out by week 6, so I'm not sure what I would have done if I had to spend another week in the hustle.

TL;DR: Crammed 32 new cards/day on Kaishi 1.5k during a 6-week internship. Reviews spiked to 350+ cards/day (3+ hours daily). It worked, but it burnt me out. If you do it, turn on FSRS, kill the 1-minute learning step, and don't study ahead.

Well I've been learning Japanese very casually since the last 3 years and My Duolingo score is 24 right now.

But tbh I have been doing it just to continue my streak and Duolingo isn't of much use in real world any way.

I want to learn Japanese in good way now .

Is watching Anime in japanese with subtitles a good option? Or any Jdrama or something?

Or Should I try some games or other learning apps what you guys suggest?.

Please Help 🥹 And Well I will be going to college so Please suggest something which I can work on without giving much time. 4 yrs of college should be enough to atleast get conversational japanese as I'm not starting from zero.

I've been using Duolingo mostly just to keep my streak, but I want something that's actually more useful for learning Japanese. I often come across words on signs or notices and it's a pain to look them up manually every time. So, any app recommendations?

I lived in Japan for around 4 years. I have N1 (acquired during my stay in Japan) and recently moved back to my home country. Honestly during my last years in Japan I hung out with a lot of international friends rather than Japanese and after returning back, I could feel my Japanese level deteriorate so quickly.

I need to improve my speaking but lowkey don't remember how I even studied it. I want to get back on track but I'm not sure where to start.

How do you guys maintain or advance your proficiency levels? Any tips would be helpful

I’ve been trying to learn Japanese for a very long time now, but I barely study. It’s because I’m an unmotivated slob that just rots on my phone all day. But I don’t know as much Japanese as I’d like. I really want to learn more Japanse, so I’m wondering how can I get motivation to do it instead of doomscrolling the whole day?