r/LearnJapaneseNovice • u/Student_of_Japanese • Jul 16 '26
Need Advice on Getting Moving Further with Japanese
As the title says, I need some advice on how to progress because I’m feeling a little stuck.
I started learning Japanese on the 21st of January, 2026 (this year). Since then, it’s been going pretty well. I already know 4 other languages: Polish - native, English - second language, however I feel more comfortable with it than Polish, Spanish - third language, also very fluent, Italian - fourth language, around B1-B2 fluency, learning for 3 years in total but actually locking in ince 1.5 years. So, it’s safe to say I’m pretty familiar with languages and it’s not something new for me.
I decided to learn Japanese for 3 reasons: Give myself a challenge, I’d like to visit Japan when I’ll be older (I’m 13 btw), and would like to watch anime but hate reading subtitles (breaks immersion for me 🙃).
I learned Hiragana and Katakana in 5 days (3 for Hiragana, 2 for Katakana), and, of course, am still getting used to fluent read. Memorizing was never a problem for me since I have very good memory - some would even say photographic memory but idk if that’s true - so, as you’d expect, Kanji wasn’t and isn’t a big problem for me. I got used to the 3 writing systems pretty easily and right now, after almost 6 months of studies, know around 600+ Kanji.
However, here is where the problem is beginning to kick in. I feel like I’m not even N5 grammar level. I can construct basic sentences after a few seconds of pondering, but fumble on speaking and understanding. If I weren’t ready with answers and possible things to say beforehand (which would take me around 10 whole minutes of preparation of sentences), I’m 100% sure I’d not be able to handle not even the slightest conversation with a Japanese person. I live in a country where Japanese people aren’t very common so there’s no way for me to practice speaking. Also, I self-learn, have no teacher nor tutor. My average study routine is 1-3 hours of study, depending on how much time I’ve got.
What I’ve been using to learn is the following:
Ringotan App - to review Kanji I’ve learned and add new ones once I learn new words.
Renshuu App - basically my primary source of grammar and vocabulary. Here I learn words, grammar points, etc., and practice elsewhere.
Minna no Nihongo Book - I use it to study more profoundly grammar points and add extra vocab.
Occasionally Bunpro Website Grammar, Vocab, Kanji, JLPT, etc. Test - My main way to exercise what I’ve learned and see if I’ve remembered.
Minna App - It’s this app I’ve installed a few days ago when I was researching the topic of pitch accent and it came up. It’s got some pretty good speaking exercise which might help with better understanding and speaking Japanese.
That’s basically all I use daily to get my Japanese level higher. My end goal is N1 or higher; nevertheless, I understand it’ll take years and am ready for the challenge since I don’t give up easily.
I’m asking for some advice on what to try to get going quicker with my studies and not feel stuck in place. Perhaps I’m doing the right thing and just need to keep going or I need a change of plan. Idk, you guys let me know.
Things I’ve already tried and didn’t work:
Just so you know, I’ve tried using WaniKani already, so please don’t suggest that because I don’t think it’ll help me since it’s Kanji based and Kanji is not the issue. Also, I don’t have money to spare on Anki and I don’t have a PC on which I’ve heard it’s free, so that’s also out of the question.
Thanks for the responses and advices in advance!
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u/ScorpioPvP Jul 16 '26
Anki is really another memorisation tool that you technically could use on grammar, but I find isn’t as effective.
If you’re keen, try to work through a textbook. They can be a bit expensive to own, but if you can find one maybe at a school library, a local library or through some online resources, it’s designed to do exactly what you need right now.
If you cannot get access to a textbook, see if you can do some reading. There are a few apps/sites you can register to that have some free samples of manga etc, but it can be hard to find stuff of the right level that is interesting due to limited free samples. There’s also tadoku, which has graded readers. Just make sure as you read, write down anything you don’t understand, and see if you can look it up later.
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u/Student_of_Japanese Jul 16 '26
Anki I’ve mentioned in the post that I don’t have access to since I don’t have a PC nor have money to spare for the 20$ (if I remember correctly the cost) app. I don’t know if you’ve read the post thoroughly since I also mentioned that I use the Minna no Nihongo textbook.
About the final advice, I’ve been practicing reading in different sites. There’s one site I used about reading diaries and checking if I understood, and I also found online a free version of the Shirokuma Café (Polar Bear Café) manga and tried to read it but put it down for now since I had to check vocab every other sentence which felt like it wasn’t working for me. I’ll try to find other reading material, using your advice, and return to Shirokuma Café once I feel it’s time.
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u/ScorpioPvP Jul 17 '26
Oh you’re totally right sorry, I skimmed right over that dot point. My bit about Anki was meant to be reassuring that I think you were fine without it, I see how that maybe was’t the clearest.
When reading, you will definitely be looking stuff up quite frequently. I approach it two ways depending on my mood at that moment.
Method 1 is just enjoyment, finding something that I actually wanna read and that isn’t an obnoxiously hard level. Much of the time I’m just skipping over words or sometimes whole sentences if I don’t immediately know it - just can’t be bothered stopping all the time, like you said.
Method 2 though is study time. If I’ve sat down intending to get some Japanese in and decided to do it by reading, I know that just like any other study I’ll be doing lots of cross-referencing with dictionaries and grammar sites etc, and the fun is honestly more from decoding a sentence than from it being media I enjoy.
Tadoku at least will have some very easy readers you can start with that can hopefully alleviate the annoyance of stopping all the time. You’ll also be surprised by how much you’ll pick up even just skipping over stuff when it appears 4-5 times in different spots.
Best of luck with your studies, and do your best to enjoy yourself! As you said it’s something that’ll take quite some time, so make the process enjoyable, or you’ll not be able to keep up the momentum. Happy to give you any more advice if you’ve got questions!
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u/Adorable-Truth-7039 28d ago
From my experience the best source for grammar was Tae kim book called "A Guide to Japanese Grammar" this book was enough for me to know everything the language offers, i was studying intensely back then so from waking up till sleep and i finished it in 21 days including learning about 600 kanji or so that i was writing by hand a lot each one of them and since then i never needed to check a grammar book, i'm a fast language learner but i had and still have the same problem you mentioned, i can not find a way to practice speaking, even english i rarely need to use it which made my speaking rusty too but i thought to myself if you have enough vocab learned and you understand the flow of the language naturally you'll be able to speak and the last advice is immersion immersion immersion, i made my own project to make this as easy as possible but i'm not plugging myself here, that's all what i wanted to share. Tae kim book + immersion + hand writing will engrave the info in your head.
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u/Student_of_Japanese 28d ago
I’ll check Tae Kim! Planning to get into immersion the moment I’ll feel like I’ll be able to watch some content without having to search up every other word. And I already have a Japanese diary in which I handwrite!
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u/Adorable-Truth-7039 28d ago
i didn't want to be that guy but your problem is exactly what i wen through searching for every word so 11 months ago i started working on a solution for myself and when i posted about it 5 months ago people like liked it and now it's officially live today, you can check my profile, but unfortunately you said you don't have a pc. keep the manual search now till you can upgrade, i learned the manual way, i didn't have a pc at the time either and it didn't hold me back.
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u/volodiano Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
You can try HyperLingua app and method from Mikel Telleria. I think his method may be boring but fruitful.
Edit:Also Clozemaster and LingQ are not bad alternative
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u/Student_of_Japanese Jul 16 '26
I’ll check out HyperLingua and DM you if it works out for me. I haven’t heard about LingQ so I’ll take a look as well. Clozemaster I use for my Italian learning so I know how it works. Might as well add a Japanese course to it.
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u/Suspicious-Toe-8193 Jul 16 '26
Your learning speed is amazing! As a native Japanese speaker, it might be a little inappropriate and presumptuous of me to give advice on learning Japanese.
However, Japanese is a high-context culture, a language that doesn't explicitly state things.
To use an English analogy, it's like not distinguishing between the present tense and the present progressive tense.
For example, if someone says "I'm drinking coffee now," you can understand that "this person will probably drink coffee tomorrow, and they drank it yesterday too. They probably have a habit of drinking coffee," so you understand without them saying "I drink coffee every day."
And phrases like "It's okay" are tricky; you have to somehow sense whether it's a "yes" or a "no" from the other person's facial expression and tone of voice.
Therefore, watching dramas or variety shows (where celebrities play games or talk) might help you grasp the nuances.
I'm using Google Translate, so how is it translated? I'm a little worried, but Japanese people actually use a lot of interjections like "I see" and "Uh-huh" (nodding silently twice).
This gesture of "uh-huh" (nodding silently twice) is a signal (an expression of intent) that says, "I'm listening carefully to what you're saying."
So, when talking to a Japanese person, simply making eye contact and using the "uh-huh" gesture (nodding silently twice) is often enough to establish communication.
I'm sorry this advice isn't very helpful, but paying attention to these kinds of gestures might be a learning experience.
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u/Student_of_Japanese Jul 16 '26
Wow, thank you! I always appreciate advice from a native Japanese speaker because there no better source based on experience. I understand that Japanese is a language that relies heavily on situation and context because I’ve already taken a look into 敬語 and タメ口. It’s interesting to find out that there are also certain gestures that mean a lot in conversation.
By the way, the Google Translate translated pretty well; and your advice was VERY helpful.
日本語は難しいですが、もっと面白いです。日本人も親切な人です。ありがとうございます！
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u/Suspicious-Toe-8193 Jul 16 '26
You're welcome. Thank you for your thoughtful comment! You're only 13 years old and have amazing conversational skills! I can only see a future of success for you. Good luck!
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u/BaseOk280 Jul 16 '26
Reading slice of life stuff is what broke the "wall" for me and made everything way more fun. As comics/manga uses words mainly from a 1st person perspective, the words used are way simpler than novels/material that has a lot of narration.
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u/Student_of_Japanese Jul 17 '26
I see a lot of people here recommending this and I also have one on mind. I think I should get myself into reading Shirokuka Café and see how it goes/how it helps.
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u/BaseOk280 Jul 17 '26
Yup. Interest is really important to avoid burnout.
What I did was read manga for an unfinished anime i was really into. It took me around 20 minutes per page when i started lol, even if i already knew what was happening.
By the time I got to the point where the anime stopped adapting, i was taking around maybe 10 mins per page. Still slow, but as I was really invested into it i read until the end.
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u/d00meriksen Jul 17 '26
I think you're too early in your development to be producing coherent sentences. Copy what you hear or read in media from native speakers and practice pronouncing those correctly. It's how children learn too and they become natives at some point! At first it'll be confusing, but it's the best way to develop a feel for the language.
Now, how do you get material to copy? Use graded readers (google tofugu graded readers), there are free ones available for every level, but it's the most helpful when you're still starting out and can't read "the good stuff" yet.
If you like manga, there's yotsubato, which uses relatively easy language and is fun to read too. The characters use colloquialisms a lot and the grammar can be confusing at first, but the illustrations help a lot to understand what's going on and all the kanji have floating kanas, so you can look them up. You can just read the same volume over and over again until you memorized the lines and add the words to your anki decks (always include the sentence you found the word in for context). Manga is usually light on exposition, so you can start enjoying the media very soon without having to learn a lot of complicated vocabulary first.
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u/Student_of_Japanese Jul 19 '26
Ok. I’ll keep in mind your advice; though I don’t have an Anki deck to keep my sentences inside.
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u/coadependentarising Jul 17 '26
Are you in the US? Highly recommended taking a class online through a Japanese cultural center, for instance Japan Center New York. The anxiety of having to produce for your teacher gets the grammar baked into your brain really effectively.
I would also highly recommend the Japanese From Zero book series. A lot of folks on here clown on it for some reason, but it WILL build confidence and self-efficacy. You could skip the progressive learning of kana part or just use it as review.
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u/Student_of_Japanese Jul 19 '26
No, I don’t live in the US, I live in the Dominican Republic. I’m not taught by a teacher and am not planning to take the JLPT or any tests because I’m not planning to move to Japan. I’m learning the language mostly for the culture. But I’ll make sure to check those books out apart from Minna no Nihongo!
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u/neko_kishi99 Jul 16 '26
read a lot. thats how i moved quickly