first things first hiragana and katakana.
Hiragana and Katakan are two out of the three japanese writing systems, the third being Kanji (more on that later).
now you may ask, why three?
because each and every one has there own unique uses. hiragana is mostly used for function words and inflectional ending. while katakana is used for loan words and onomatopoeic words.
how to memmorize them quickly?
Very simple, with the use of Mnemonics
Althought a bit unknown and usually people make fun of it when they see it, it's by far the most effective and fast way to learn both Hiragana and katakana, and maybe even use it for kanji as well.
Tofugu's guide inHiragana and katakana is probably the best there is in quickly learning them. and with quick i mean quick, usually people learn both of these kana in weeks maybe even months! but with the use of Mnemonic you will sure learn them quickly, for me it took three days to memmorize them!
Theories and ideas.(unfinshed)
Stephen Krashen
Here is a short video of him explaining his theories.
Immersion and how to learn Japanese.
Imagine learning Japanese is the final product that you want out of your reaction. Of course you need ingredents for this reaction to happen, with out it you will never get the finall product, that main ingredent being your words that you aquire through immersion and how to use it, of course geting to that final product with just immersion needs alot of time and energy, as such you need catalysts (especially in the early stages of learning) for your reaction, althought not compleatly nessasery, it will make the reaction happen quicker and with much less effort, those catalysts being your vocab and gramer. Here is the thing though learning with immersion is 100% nessacery, you can't just memorize vocab and gramer and expect to be good at any language, adding more catalest while there is no ingredients will result in nothing to happen, Learning with immersion is neccacery no matter how you spin it to learning a language.
NO SUBTITLES!
Never, and i mean NEVER use subtitles!
Japanese learners usually get stuck at this step, they say they are learning Japanese and if you ask them "are you using subtitles" and they say yes you should be sure that they probably have been learning japanes for the longest time with out much success.
Not usning subtitles forces your brain to connect what you already know of the language and with what you don't, and from that concloud what the words mean, that is exactly how you will all your words, you can't use a dictionary for that.
If you aren't convinced i will give you an example, imagine the word rain, a few things have poped into your mind when you read that word, it could be seen as the name for water faling from the sky, it could also be seen as a name of some one, it could also be used in the prase "it is raining cats and dogs", but, if you used a dictionary for that the only thing you will get is "the name of water falling from the sky", same thing with Japanese, you need to hear the words in context to give them meaning, using subs deprives you of that.
Immerse at your level.
This one seames a obvious, but you should only Immerse with stuff that are slightly upove your level, learning form material that is below your level will not result in you aquiring the language (although you can do it if you want to feel confident in the progress that you have done so far), at the same time if you use material that is way upove your level you wont gain much from it.
ps: It is hard find material that is at your exact level as such it is usually recomended to go slightly upove. EX: if your at an itermediat stage it is best to go for watching jdrama insted of reading the news.
Don't look up words.
Although this is a bit hard at the begining of learning a language it is beter for the later stages to not use a dictionary and try and learn the word through context, of course it there is a spacific word that you are having truble with you can look it up just only in the very hard cases where you cant figure it out.
Repatition.
Repeating the words that you just heard or read is a great way of understanding them, for example the more you read a certan sentence structure the more you get used to it the more likely you are to understand what is being said with out needing to think about it much like how you are reading this while fully understanding what is being said.
Immersion.(unfinshed)
Theorized by Stephen Krashen and popularized in the Japanese learning community by Matt vs Japan it is by far the most effective (and the only one proven to actually work) way to learn Janpaese.
Off course there are alot of ways to immerse ,but we will only discuss the most popular three below.
Immersion type | pros | cons |
---|---|---|
Visual content. | The most effecint way to learn a language, with visual learing you can directely tell what is being said form that assume what the words mean. lots of repatition which good to strengthin your memory of sentances and there structure. | Requires your full atention; can get boring after a bit; you have no idea what is going on during your early stages of learning(as expected). |
podcasts. | Can be done anyware EX.Driving, on a bus or drawing. | Not as time effecint as watching show. |
Reading. | Good if you want to train your reading, which is compleatly nesacery if you want to be any good at the language. | It's only good if you want to train your reading and not very good for learning the language (espically early on where you are yet to know that much kanji), usualy recomended at an intermediat stage in language learning. |
This list will be organized from beginner to intermediat, if you want expert content you can look any ware, being it anime or the news or a book.
Visual content.
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Beginner.
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Comprehensible Japanese.
My favorit channel starting learning Japanese, the words are said clearly with easy to folow visual input, perfect for compleat beginners.
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Comprehensible Japanese.
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Intermediat.
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日本語の森/nihongonomori.
Sketches made with the intent to teach the language, every sketch has a phrase that is trying to teach, an example is given and then the definition.
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日本語の森/nihongonomori.
Reading.
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Beginner.
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Tadoku graded reader.
A 1796 page pdf made for 5 levels, very good if you are starting to learn to read.
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Tadoku graded reader.
Grammer.
Althought not compleatly nessasery to learn japanese, you don't need to get a full n1 or to full understand every thing to learn the language, you only need to know some of the basics and you will do great.
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Tae kim's guide.
You can't really get any where with out hearing about tae kim's guide, but it is true how good it is, so good in fact you only need it to learn the grammer tae kim also has a youtube channel.
It is worth noting that you only read the grammer guide. -
Supplements to Tae Kim's Guide to Japanese.
Some people didn't like how some of the grammer was teached in tae kim's guide so this was made.
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Easy Japanese Grammar lessons.
Made by NHK it Delivers you the grammer in an easy way to understand through context.
Toys.
Toys!
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kanjigame
Fun silly little game to play online with your frinds about who can say the kanji quickest.
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Kana memorizing games.
Games you can play to help you memorize your kana
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Kanji usage frequency.
Tells you how common a kanji is in books, wikis and news.
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2500 most used kanjis in newspapers.
The most used 2500 kanji made in a grid, when clicking on a kanji it sends you to its jisho.org page.
Other guides and sources.(unfinshed)
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TheMoeWay.
This guide is better than mine could ever be, it describes every aspect that you would need to learn the language perfectly.
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Refold.
Made by Matt vs Japan is great if you want a more indepth explaination of Imersion.
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r/LearnJapanese
A very large collection of resources.
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Tofugu.
One of my personal favorits, it covers all aspects of learning japanese.
They are also the same people who made wanikani. -
Awesome-Japanese.
Organized from beginner to advanced, it is a great way to find something that suits you.
A little warninig with this one, it is very old so most sites on here are dead. -
A year to learn japanese.
A full 165 page long book about learning japanese.