ghostbri:

ah…i see someone has been reading my sub-N5 tweets :3333c yea i started learning so i could watch japanese theatre because no one subs productions and it’s hard to find info on them in english.

i’m teaching myself! it’s slow going but i really enjoy it. here’s what’s working for me so far:

dr. moku for hiranaga/katakana. it costs a little bit of money. there are obviously free ways to learn kana and it’s not that hard at all, but i 1. have a shitty memory and the mnemonics stuck with me 2. have my phone with me 100% of the time so it was easy for me to study them constantly. 

wanikani for kanji. costs more money. i got a lifetime subscription for $200 during a holiday sale. upsides: drills repetition into you and game-ifies the experience so you’re more inclined to “level up” and study hard. downsides: extremely picky with answers, bad with vocab, reviews pile up fast. still, it works for me. first 3 levels are free so try it out! i’ve heard if you use the code "CRAB YORI GATOR" you get 50% off. a free alternative is anki which i use more for vocab, but you have to be harder on yourself to study.

human japanese for all beginner needs. the full version costs like $20 but it is so thorough and easy to understand. it covers everything from kana to grammar to vocab. i’m still p early on so idk how deep it goes but for a dead beginner it’s great. tae kim is totally free but sort of hard for me to understand. imabi is also free and covers a huuuuuuge breadth of information, but is a bit too thorough for the level i’m at rn.

lang-8 for having natives check your japanese, and just making friends in general. i am…horribly shy about my ability to write in japanese so i rarely post here LOL, but it’s nice to talk to japanese people wanting to learn english and everyone is very forgiving of errors.

NHK easy news for reading practice! i also buy manga to practice reading too. anything with furigana…horf…i also follow a lot of japanese celebrities and artists to practice reading more casual stuff.

animelon for speaking/listening/everything practice. anime with japanese subs where you can look up individual words and quiz yourself afterwards. some of the subs are a little bit off, but other than that it’s been helpful for me to connect listening with reading.

the genki and nakama series of textbooks are great also. i have both and i haven’t finished either but they’re helpful.

when it comes to speaking practice idk im total shit haha. find a buddy i guess…people say to repeat native sentences and record yourself to work on your pronunciation which i haven’t done yet but makes sense to me. 

also prob the biggest thing i’ve run into that i would stress: kanji is not vocabulary. kanji is not vocabulary!! im at a point right now where if i read some material at my level, i can recognize most of the kanji and their readings but i don’t know what they mean in context. so…try your best to focus on vocab early on. that would be my #1 advice.

i hope!!!?! that helps!!!?! if anyone reading this is also learning and would like a practice buddy hit me up  ❤