Japanese with ease

If you want to contribute to the development of the site, have ideas for new articles, pages, etc., want to make edits to existing material, contact me.

Why are you here?

Please, don't be lazy, don't read between the lines. Especially guides about software.

This guide is written for people who primarily want to learn to understand the Japanese language in any form: writing, speech, it doesn't matter. If you want to watch anime and understand everything without English subtitles, read raw manga, watch Japanese YouTube or listen to Japanese music, you've come to the right place. If your main goal is to become a translator/linguist/pass the JLPT within a certain period/learn to speak in 30 days - there may be arguments why this approach is not the best. This guide is written for people who want to perceive the real language and eventually learn to express themselves in it. This method is called immersion.

The first scientist to popularize such approach to language learning is Stephen Krashen. For inspiration, information and motivation thanks to TheMoeWay, MattVsJapan, Steve Kaufmann, Livakivi, AJATT, my friend from Telegram and many others.

This approach tries to squeeze as much as possible out of consumption of Japanese media, and therefore it uses a lot of third-party programs that are free to use. I'll show you how to learn Japanese by quickly looking up words and making flashcards from any content you consume. Examples below:

---

Core Principles

• When learning a new language, we should understand how we ourselves learned our native tongue and how Japanese people learned Japanese. This is achieved mostly through a huge amount of language consumption in its various manifestations, in other words - "immersion".

• Immersion should take up most of the time you spend learning the language and it should bring you as much enjoyment as possible. There's no need to try to learn what you're not interested in. Put textbooks aside, enjoy and relax consuming the media. Yes, it will be difficult at first, but over time, it will require less and less effort and more and more opportunities will be available.

• Immersion provides a better understanding of the language than textbooks. As Panates said:

The average 6-year-old Spanish child has more information about the Spanish language in their head than in all the books about Spanish published in the last 200 years.

This doesn't mean that you shouldn't use any theoretical material for language learning at all; it means that you don't need to get carried away in them, hoping to perfectly understand the language. Nobody ever did and you won't too.

• Interaction with the language occurs mainly in two forms: Input (e.g., listening, reading) and Output (e.g., speaking, writing). In the beginning (and as long as you can), you should spend time only on Input, because Output comes mostly by itself and doesn't help you to understand the language. "What is this nonsense?" - you might ask, but that's how it is. After thousands of hours media consumption in a new language, your brain subconsciously adapts to the structures of the new language and begins to understand how, what, and when to speak. At the same time, this will be much more natural than what textbooks or universities force you to pull out of yourself in the early stages of learning. Of course, you will still need to practice speech to speak fluently, but it will be a relatively easy and smooth process with enough input behind you. If you need to learn to speak as quickly as possible, you can try speaking from the very first day, but it will be much more difficult and there is a high risk of developing bad habits.

• Input can and should be as conscious as possible, meaning that you understand most of what you are consuming and/or try to understand. Of course, at first this will be especially difficult, but it should not demotivate you from immersing. Find media that uses easier language, re-watch what you have already watched and remember well. But it is also important to try to understand what you are consuming. Simply putting a podcast in the background while working for 8 hours is not the same as 8 hours of conscious, thoughtful reading. You need to try to understand and pay attention to the media. That's why it's so important to consume what interests you. Just putting anime in the background while you study is not immersion. Yes, I further advise listening to podcasts in the background of chores, but these should not be chores that heavily occupy your mind, and it is still less effective than if you are focused specifically on immersion. Focused immersion > language in the background > nothing. By the way, it is impossible to learn a language in your sleep, so sleep normally.

• You should strive for i+1 during immersion to maximize productivity. What is that? From Wikipedia:

"input hypothesis": according to it, learners improve their knowledge of the language when they understand language input that is slightly beyond their current level. Krashen called this input level "i+1", where "i" meant language input and "+1" meant the next stage of language acquisition.

Simply put, i+1 is when in a given sentence, only one language unit (word/grammar/something else) is unknown to you. For example, you probably understand what "I am eating a sandwich" means in English - it's a completely understandable sentence. But if you encounter "I am eating natto", this would be an i+1 sentence (assuming you don't know what onigiri is, but this is just an example). The more sentences you encounter that are i+1, the more productive the learning process is. And on this example it's obvious why i+1 is so good, form the context you can deduct yourself that an "natto" is probably a food!

• Japanese should become a part of your life, but it should not overwhelm you. Flashcards require regular practice, and irregularity severely impacts their effectiveness, so effort and discipline will be required here more than anywhere else. But apart from that, try to have as much fun as possible - just in Japanese! Listen to podcasts while exercising or cleaning, watch YouTube or anime on your commute, read a light novel before bed. Study 4 times for 15 minutes during the day - that's already an hour of Japanese you could have missed.

• There are no people who "simply don't have a predisposition to languages" or for whom "this method doesn't suit". This excuse is usually used by people to justify the time spent in textbooks. Humans as a species evolved to understand and decipher languages. There is no need to even raise the question of "visual" or "auditory" memory - this is just pseudoscience and has nothing to do with language. You were born a human and learned your native tongue through immersion. Yes, the process of learning a second language differs from what happens when an adult learns a second language, but this is a false dichotomy. It may have both differences and similarities, and this has been proven in various scientific studies. Many mechanisms of language learning engaged in kids are active in adults.

• Flashcards are the best way to "artificially" interact with a language. You don't have to make them at all if it's TOO difficult for you (and I mean mentally and only for a small minority of people, you probably can), but they really help you remember new words fast and not forget old ones, which is useful both in the early stages when every word is very important for understanding, and in the later stages when rare words occur too rarely for effective memorization. Ideally, they simulate the consumption of a word in a real language: you see a word - you try to understand it. If you understood, move on; if you forgot it, look in the dictionary. Flashcards allow you to systematize the appearance of words in front of your eyes, which helps you remember them with the least amount of time interacting with them. Of course, they will not replace real language, so this is only an additional practice and it should only take up a small part of your overall interaction with Japanese.

• Flashcards are better mined. Mining is creating a flashcard directly from the media you consume, copying context from it. This can and should be done in an automated way, as shown in the video at the beginning of the article and will be showed how later. Mined cards are easier to remember, and your understanding of encountered words in real context is much better.

• You don't need to learn kanji. More details later

• You don't need to write down kanji if you don't have a desire to be able to write kanji from memory. If it's not strong, put it off for later. It's not a particularly useful skill in the real world. If it helps you remember new words, write them down. If you really want to be able to write words in kanji from memory, learn how to write words in kanji from memory, but there is NO NECESSITY for this. Do it only for enjoyment, not for productivity. "But the Japanese learn writing in school" SO WHAT? Do you use much of your school knowledge? The Japanese progressively forget how to write kanji as they get older, especially the rarer ones, because they simply don't write them enough to remember, and they've spent more than 10 years learning them and most of them hated that. They can read but not write. So you have to be able to READ kanji, not write them.

• You shouldn't rely too heavily on machine translation. Despite the tremendous progress in translation by AI, even with an accurate translation, you are taking away the opportunity to understand something for yourself. Using it occasionally is fine, of course.

  • You should consume media with audio first, and start reading later, because of something called "subvocalization". Basically, it's when you "voice" words inside your head. If you start reading too early, your subvocalization will use incorrect sounds (as weird as it sounds) and it will impact your accent. Of course, if you don't care about your accent, it doesn't matter.

"But everyone always just learns from textbooks. What is this bullsh*t?" The norm does not mean good. In recent years, language learning through immersion has been gaining momentum, as more and more academics are starting to talk about it. For example, Steven Krashen - a linguist who talked about the input method of learning in the 1970s, as well as Steve Kaufmann, a great polyglot, speaks precisely about this approach. And in general, the online language learning community (mostly English-speaking) is currently using this approach en masse, as people, after trying it, realize that it really is more fun and effective. In other countries and especially academia this approach is still not very popular, which is why this site was created to help explain and popularize this method.

How to Start Learning Japanese

Kana

First of all, you need to learn Hiragana and Katakana. These are two syllabaries that are used for the same sounds but have different applications. Like kanji, you don't need to try to write them from memory; you just need to remember the reading, but you can write them for fun. They will be covered in the guides.

DO NOT USE TRANSLITERATION

It's hard to imagine a worse beginner's mistake. The Japanese sound system is very different from English and probably from almost any other language, so writing words in English letters will cause false associations and lead to mistakes. Do not use materials with transliteration - this is a red flag. Learn the Kana first.

Sound System

You need to understand that Japanese does not sound like Russian at all, so you need to pay attention to this right away. There's no need to try to repeat the kana out loud with a terrible Russian accent, reinforcing that accent. Watch videos for beginners on HOW natives pronounce sounds, not Russians who have lived in Tokyo for 2 years. Here's a good video and another one from a pronunciation playlist. At the beginning of content consumption, pay close attention to the sounds and how they are pronounced. It will be especially useful to watch shows with real actors.

You also need to pay attention to Pitch (also called Pitch Accent, tonal accent, musical stress, or whatever it's called in Russian). This is not the same as Russian stress, and not the same as Chinese - it's a different system that combines both of these phenomena. Stress in Russian occurs due to loudness and duration of the syllable, while in Japanese, stress occurs due to a change in pitch of a certain syllable (hence the name "musical tone"), whereas in Chinese, the tones are different in each syllable. You don't need to torture yourself and try to memorize every pitch of every word, but you shouldn't ignore them either. Many words may sound the same if you don't distinguish pitch, and your speech will sound very unnatural.

There is a long course on pitch by Dogen here [E]

Grammar

There are 2 main paths: learning from textbooks or from "guides". The immersion approach is very negative towards learning through textbooks for the following reasons:

1. Classic textbooks often either provide too much theoretical information that beginners don't need (e.g. Nechaeva), or oversimplify everything (e.g. Minna).
2. Classic textbooks very slowly introduce new information, giving lots of exercises, the completion of which is weakly transferable to the real language.
3. Textbooks are limited in how much information they provide about various aspects of the language. Textbooks may teach you to take tests like the JLPT faster, but they are worse at helping you understand real, practical language.
4. Textbooks give a false sense of your level of language understanding. Many finish N3/N2 textbooks, understand everything in them, and think they have a very high level. This is not the case. This overconfidence leads to a lot of adjusting the logic of the language to suit your distorted view.

As a result, you can use textbooks without dwelling too much on explanations and skipping exercises, but why not use grammar guides instead?

There is also a type of person who learns at university/school, to which two more problems are added:

1. Learning a language in a group is very ineffective because people pick up different things at different speeds, everyone is forced to learn the same amount of time, or the group's productivity drops significantly due to the difference in level.
2. Textbooks and (especially) universities usually force you to learn handwriting from memory, which is an almost useless skill for understanding Japanese and being able to express yourself in it in the 24th year of the 21st century.

Based on the arguments above, I believe that the optimal options are grammar guides/databases. In the Russian segment, there is one main option: Tae Kim's Guide translated into Russian. It contains all the information necessary for a beginner. There are some mistakes, but they are not critical. You don't need to perceive the information you encounter anywhere as absolute truth; be prepared to sometimes change and correct your understanding of certain concepts in another language.

There is also the site Nippon Gatari - a warehouse of grammar, organized by levels. If you don't know English, it's the only good option I know of with quite a lot of information. But don't be afraid to Google topics you don't understand, there's always a chance to find a different, more understandable explanation. Don't get attached to a single source.

If you know English, there are as many as 3 (4) good options. Also, various sources in the future will be marked with [E].

1. Tae Kim's Guide [E] (Anki) - most of the guide above, but in the form of flashcards; I started with it myself. Some inaccuracies from the original guide are also corrected there. Read the deck description carefully. The use of Anki will be discussed later.

2. IMABI [E] - a project for beginners and beyond, which is considered better and more in-depth than Tae Kim. It contains a lot of useful information.

3. Cure Dolly's Organic Japanese and its text version Cure Dolly Complete Transcript [E] - A very good guide that shows grammar from a completely different angle. In my opinion, a huge number of things are explained there in an amazingly clear and logical way. The main downside is the terrible audio quality, but you can use the transcript. You also need to understand the very basics, so I would recommend watching it a couple of weeks after using other resources.

4. BunPro [E] - a very convenient site with Japanese grammar, with built-in flashcards (but paid and for output, so not the best option). Lots of information, many examples. Not the best option to start with on its own, but you can take grammar from other sources and review it through BunPro.

Words and Kanji

Learning words is much easier than it may seem. It just takes time. To memorize words, you can use flashcard apps and services. The best completely free option is Anki. The best semi-free option is JPDB.io, which also has a guide [E]. You can take words from ready-made decks, but it's better, of course, to mine them.

You don't need to learn kanji

How so? Simply. Kanji almost never needs to be understood out of the context of words. Kanji are used to write words, so you need to learn words in their kanji form. For example:

日本 [にほん] - a word consisting of 2 kanji. To learn it, you don't need to "know" the kanji 日 and 本.

You simply try to remember its reading [にほん] and its meaning - Japan. This will be very convenient to do with flashcards.

"Why not learn the kanji first, then the word?"

Because it's less effective. You don't need to try to memorize kanji separately. It's a skill of little use when learning a real language. When Japanese people see 日本, they don't think of this word as "sun base" or something like that; they only have one concept in their head - Japan. From childhood, they first learn the spoken form of the word, and then add the kanji. In our case, we simply learn the kanji form simultaneously with its "phonetic" form, which is relatively close to how the Japanese learn words. Of course, ideally, you can learn the word without kanji first, and then add the kanji, which will probably even help with listening comprehension, but in my opinion, that's just extra hassle.

I've heard various nonsense about this, some say that when the Japanese hear a word, they break it down by composition and then get the meaning from its composition. This is just nonsense. They don't break down words like いなずま, and then imagine 稲妻 in their heads and rack their brains over what it means "rice-wife". Just as you, when you hear the word "паровоз" (steam locomotive), don't think that it's a vehicle that carries steam. The specific type of transport that we refer to as "паровоз" immediately appears in your head.

Yes, learning words as combinations of kanji is fun, interesting, and fashionable, but it only works at the beginning when textbooks specifically give you words that are easily perceived through such logic. In the real world, one kanji can have several basic meanings, dozens of readings, and other subtleties that will simply break your head when memorizing words that don't fit within your understanding when using this method. Over time, the approach of learning without memorizing kanji will bring you more and more benefits, because you will encounter more and more words with unique or rare kanji. For example, words like 薔薇 will be easily remembered thanks to their uniqueness.

Actually knowing kanji may only be useful if you want to pass exams where you need to write by hand (a useless skill in the real world), or if there is a part with a kanji test where you need to distinguish 成績 or 成積 (a useless skill in the real world, because in practice there are very few such similar words and it's easier to understand the difference in specific cases).

If you want to learn to write in Japanese, check out this guide with information

Over time, words with new and especially unique kanji will be something interesting and easy for you to remember, compared to yet another word-combination of old, familiar kanji. Don't repeat the mistakes of many, including mine (I learned 1200 kanji separately before realizing it was a waste), don't learn kanji.

You need to learn words with Kanji

When you mine words, no matter which program or service you use, try to learn the kanji form right away, unless it's not incredibly rare and ancient, because:

• Sooner or later, you will encounter the word in kanji form.
• You will get used to memorizing kanji faster.
• Memorizing a word in kanji form forces you to remember how the word is read, so it will be easier to recall when reproducing (writing, speaking).

How to Learn

First of all, you need to choose the program that suits you better. On this website the information will be mainly aimed at using Anki, since it is free, has the most features and compatibility with other apps, as well as community support.

Anki - most features, most configurable, many addons, harder to use.

JPDB - easy to use, relatively intuitive. Much more convenient mining for video content if you pay 5$\months

Since starting to mine everything right away is not the most convenient option, I suggest starting with "core" decks, which are usually decks that focus on more frequent vocab, but it's better to switch to mined cards as soon as possible, they are much easier to remember, you just need to put in the effort once and set everything up for it.

Now you need to choose the first deck. For Anki, Kaishi 1.5k is the best option right now. On JPDB, you can create a deck from the 3000 most common words, which is also an excellent option. Before using the decks, you still need to learn how to use either Anki or JPDB so read their respective guide above.

Effectiveness and Comfort

Many language learners, especially Japanese language learners, are unaware of the number of resources and programs that exist to ease your adventure in learning the language. I'll highlight the main points and provide links to more information. Much of this will be useful for mining. Where to download anime, games, subtitles, and more can be found in Resources.

Software and stuff

Many programs only exist for Windows or at least Linux\Mac, so ideally it's best to use a PC. Anything that works through Android I'll mark as [A], iOS - [iOS].

Before installing anything, including Anki, be sure to read the introduction to software, here I'll just describe what's out there:

• Yomitan [A] - (now Yomichan) an incredibly convenient dictionary program that allows you to look up the meanings of almost any words you encounter on the internet. It's simply indispensable for learning Japanese. Hover over a word - see the translation, what could be easier? It's also a very important for mining.

• JL - a dictionary program that may be more convenient than Yomitan for some tasks, such as watching video content or playing visual novels.

• MPV - a player that with the help of plugins and one of the programs above helps make flashcards from any video content with audio and images. (In the example, to the right, it's not part of the player, more details in the guide for MPV)

• ASB Player - An alternative to MPV for mining, but it's an extension for Chrome, with its own pros and cons, but the main thing is that it works with online videos, which can be very convenient for some. You can also use it to connect external subtitles to almost any video, and it extracts subtitles from some sites, like YouTube allowing the use of Yomitan seamlessly.

• Automatic Subtitle Retimer - an extension that automatically retimes subtitles. Often anime subtitles, especially for older anime, doesn't match the video and you sometimes need to change timings throughout the episode, which is annoying. This program helps fix that.

• Mokuro - a program that scans manga and displays text over the images, which can be read using Yomitan.

• Cloe - an on-the-fly OCR program.

• Textractor - a program for extracting text from visual novels so that it can be looked up using Yomitan\JL and flashcards can be made. There are also some alternatives, more details in the article on VNs (/software/vn.md). Agent is an alternative for some apps that are not compatible.

• Yomininja - when nothing else works with a videogame of your choice this is your last option.

• Ttsu Reader - the most convenient reader for .Epub books, works through the browser, allows to use Yomitan.

• Ten10 [iOS] - a "plugin" for Safari that allows you to look up words.

• Jidoujisho [A] - an all-in-one Android app that allows you to look up words with a popup dictionary in the web\YouTube\any downloaded video and mine cards from it. An insanely good app.

With the software above, you can use other resources to find content easy enough for you to enjoy.

Starting your Immersion

The most difficult thing in the beginning is finding something you can actually understand. More than anything, I recommend consuming visual content at the beginning, simpler anime and dramas is perfect. YouTube will be usually too difficult in the beginning, but if you're interested in it, it's amazing.

Don't read at first, but don't forget about it.

Reading allows you to consume much more language per unit of time than listening, so the more you read, the more effectively you learn. For starters, manga may be the optimal option, try different media, different styles, different genres, everything until you find something interesting. Ideally, maintain a balance of reading and listening, but of course, something will interest you more, something less, so try not to completely neglect any part of the language.

Try to fill all your free time with Japanese. 4 intervals of 15 minutes during the day that you would have wasted on VK - that's an hour of Japanese you missed. Over a year, that's 365 hours of Japanese. Maybe even enough for JLPT N5. Put podcasts or Condensed Audio in the background of other tasks. It's not full immersion, but it's better than nothing. MUSIC won't work! Maybe only if the singer has a very clear voice and you also have the words in front of you.

Listen to Steve Kaufmann:

Personal recommendations for content for beginners:

Audio:

Condensed audio - audio tracks from video content, with pauses between dialogues cut out. It sounds absurd, but it's a decent option to practice listening, especially at the beginning of your journey. Speech in anime is much simpler than in most podcasts, and listening to only podcasts for beginners can get boring.

Podcasts: NIHONGO CON TEPPEI, UYU's Japanese Podcast

Anime: Isshukan Friends, Tsuki ga Kirei, K-ON!, many Ghibli movies are very easy to perceive, and also rewatch what you've already seen and love.

Book: I had the same dream again

Manga: Yotsuba to!

but in general, manga is relatively simple, there's a lot of manga already formatted in the Mokuro library and you can see word translations with Yomitan

Example:

These resources will help you with the problem of finding something simpler:

JPDB.io - a bunch of different content by difficulty, but the difficulty is measured only in terms of vocabulary. Also, the algorithm gives a strong preference to shorter works, but there are a lot of settings.

Jo Mako's Spreadsheet - a huge Excel file with a lot of info and content. Initially, it's hard to figure out only.

Natively - literature by difficulty.

More information can always be found in Resources.

Also, you may have questions about studying the language. You can always contact:

Japanese Language School - TG chat

Japanese Chat - TG chat

Japanese StackExchange [E] - a site for questions about Japanese

HiNative - a site for questions about any languages, ask questions either in English or Japanese.

Dictionaries and Translators

DeepL - the best machine translation, better at translating to English.

NYARS - the most complete Russian web dictionary.

Jardic - Russian web dictionary.

JPDB.io [E] - a very convenient English and Japanese-Japanese dictionary, convenient search by kanji and readings, can be used

Словари и переводчики

DeepL - лучший машинный перевод, лучше переводит на англ.

НЯРС - самый полный русский веб словарь.

Jardic - русский веб словарь.

JPDB.io [E] - очень удобный англ и яп-яп словарь, удобный поиск по кандзи и чтениям, можно использовать вместо Anki.

Jisho [E] - хороший англ словарь c примерами.

Goo - яп-яп, очень большой и полезный словарь.

Kotobank- Японский словарь-энциклопедия

Вас может заинтересовать

Я веду телеграм канал Я СХОЖУ С УМА НА ЯПОНСКОМ о том, как я учу по 100-200 слов в день уже год, пощу интересные вещи, там же можно связаться со мной, сообщить об ошибке, предложить дополнения. Оцените!

Наш чат флудилка

Гайд о том, как я концентрируюсь на флешкарточках по 3-4 часа в день более года тут

Еще несколько деталей

Что вы видите

Что вы видите тут: 直? Иероглиф должен выглядеть как тот, что на картинке слева. Если же он выглядит как иероглиф справа - у вас отображаются китайские шрифты.

Как изменить шрифты

Что вы видите

Очень часто, стандартный шрифт в системах китайский, и из-за особенностей UNICODE похожие иероглифы между языками имеют один символ. Это может показаться не очень страшным, но таких мелких или иногда не очень разниц много, и это может негативно сказаться на вашем опыте изучения языка.

Вот более полноценный пример. Это слово 直す - исправлять, переделать. Оно должно выглядеть так, как снизу на картинке. Если у вас верхний вариант - нужно изменить шрифт.

Что вы видите

Windows

Проще всего просто установить японскую раскладку и всё.

macOS

Выбрать японский язык как предпочитаемый в настройках Языка и Региона.

Android

выставите японский как второй язык по приоритету.

iOS

Добавьте японскую клавиатуру

Anki

выберете любой японский шрифт на пк версии и в настройках стилей карточки введите

.card { font-family: НАЗВАНИЕШРИФТА; }

например можно скачать шриФт IPAex Gothic, установить его, и в настройках стилей вписать

.card { font-family: IPAexGothic; }

Либо можно в ручную перенести файл шрифта в директорию анки:

Windows: C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Anki2\(profile)\collection.media macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Anki2/(profile)/collection.media Linux: ~/.local/share/Anki2/(profile)/collection.media Android: /storage/emulated/0/AnkiDroid/collection.media

И изменить соответствующие шрифты в настройках стилей.

Клавиатура и ввод

На Windows, вам нужно скачать языковой пакет для Японского в первую очередь, но стандартный метод ввода на японском это Microsoft IME. Он нормальный и красивый, но он предлагает слова гораздо хуже, чем Google IME, поэтому лучше скачать его на официальном сайтe (Кнопка WINDOWS 版をダウンロード), установить его просто, после этого у вас появится раскладка Google Japanese Input. В настройках Японской клавиатуры, чтобы у вас не было 2 клавиатур, лучше удалить Microsoft IME

В этой статье можно почитать про использование японской клавиатуры.

На Android, Gborad от Google является самым распространённым и полноценным вариантом. У вас предстоит выбор - использовать набор свайпами из 12 кнопок, или писать ромадзи. Так как большинство японцев предпочитают писать свайпами, я бы настоял на этом варианте, но это не критично.

---

Теперь вы полностью готовы в изучению японского и все зависит лишь от вас. Помните, учеба языка - это на долго. Прогресс будет быстрым только сначала. Получайте максимальное удовольствие из процесса и тогда вы не просто не бросите, вам не захочется бросать японский.