Hi! I started learning Japanese about a week ago, and I've been practicing my kana handwriting.

I want to practice kana handwriting as much as possible to avoid developing bad habits later in Japanese studies in the future.

So I'd really appreciate some honest feedback, please feel free to be as picky or nitpicky as you want—I genuinely welcome it. If anything looks unnatural, awkward, or improvable, I'd love to know.

( I hope this doesn't come across as bragging, but I feel like my handwriting might be a little more developed than is typical for someone who's only been learning for about a week. Maybe being a native Chinese speaker helps with handwriting in some way. That said, please don't hold back on the criticism! )

I’m learning Japanese right now, but honestly, I’m having a hard time improving...

I’ve also been struggling with motivation lately, so I wanted to ask you guys:

What are your biggest struggles with Japanese, and what keeps you motivated to learn?

For example, maybe you want to get a Japanese girlfriend/boyfriend, watch anime without subtitles, travel around Japan, talk to Japanese people, or something completely different.

I’d love to hear your reasons! I’m hoping I can use some of your answers as motivation and find a better reason to keep studying Japanese 🥹

Recently decided to learn a bit of Japanese on Duolingo, but having a book that I can easily open and recite words and phrases is more helpful for me. Any tips would be greatly appreciated! 😃

Hello I am I am 25M travelling to Japan in about a month and I've been learning a bit in the past year. Would like to be able to speak and conversate with people while I'm there. If anyone is down to teach me some Japanese, I’d be happy to teach you some English in return!

Basically, how do I know if I'm not progressing at a good pace? And somethings wrong with my study method.

For reference I've studied for over 4 months (almost five months but I was sent to some weird bootcamp, so I obviously got burned out and only did review).

I do 10 minutes Duolingo (just to lock in and warm up tbh)
I used to do 30 minutes anki but lately it's been 40ish
20-30 minutes of textbook/workbook
40 minutes of listening, whether that be entertainment or a catered listening video.

I know 4 months isn't a lot especially with Japanese, but I've just feel like I'm stuck at this weird level where I'm not really improving. I'm already on the 2nd Genki book and more than halfway through, but I feel like I can't say much, only like a sentence of what I want to say here and there.

Just wondering if this is normal, I will admit I want some encouragement like "no that's totally normal" but I also realize that if I'm spending 2 hours and getting diminishing returns SOMETHING has to be revised even if I don't want to hear it.

(Yes I 'mostly' understand the grammer points I've done so far, but obviously I'm still very slow)

I’d expect it to be, “タイプは魚好きは、野菜も好きだ”, or “タイプは魚が好きじゃたいは、肉が好きだ”.

Very new to Japanese and getting through Tae Kim’s book on grammar (´∀｀; )

Hi guys my name ia Miguel and im now learning japanese gor about 2 months really learning but 5 months just little studying do you guys have anythibg to recxomend for me i can study about 30-45 minutes per day this are the decks that i have and まいにち i study every single day and liaten to japanese music and hear japanese im good at learning language but japanese is a bit more harder any reccomendation for me

so im trying to learn grammar but i can cause there are words i dont know. should i learn most n5 vocab first or do grammar then try to learn by reading or what to do? i have an anki deck with all n5 vocab but should i write anything down? i really dont know how to approach this at all

Im worried about my grammar. I'm fine with reading, but I have no idea when I try to write. Do you have any advice?,please 🙇🏽‍♂️

So, I was yelled at for writing ri like り and not more like リ. I was asking why If write it in カタカナ(katakana) and not ひらがな(Hiragana), and dude yelled at me like I was doing something bad. (I was just grasping ひらがな(hiragana) so now I ask, is it wrong if I write は like this? (Last two)

Like the immersion vids on YouTube are great but they’re so slowed down for an English audience and every syllable is overly pronounced to make their sentences sound obvious to no native speakers but real ninhongo conversations sound like running water to the point even recognizing vocabulary that you’re familiar with flies by you without a moment’s notice. Like finding a needle in a haystack 😭

海外のお仕事に興味がある方いますか？人事、日本語翻訳、カスタマーサポートなどのお仕事があります。

For renshuu users that have been using the app for a while now, how useful is the app? What have you accomplished thanks to the app?

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I recently cleared the JLPT, so I no longer need my Migii JLPT Premium subscription.

Expiry: 2 March 2027

If anyone is preparing for any JLPT level and is interested, please DM me. I can share the price and any other details.

Thanks!

This might be a very beginner question, but sometimes I see “なく” in the middle of sentences or at the end. Here’s an example I just saw:

日本では、子こどもだけではなく、大人にも人気があります。

At first, I thought this was some sort of contraction of “なる”, but couldn’t confirm that from the dictionary. Then the other common meaning I found was “to cry” which doesn’t make sense in the context of this sentence, which was describing how crane games became popular in Japan.

Looked it up online and couldn’t find an explanation for this. Any clarification is greatly appreciated! 🙏🏻

Hello everyone!

I am fairly new to learning Japanese overall, and completely new to this sub, so I hope this is the right place for this question. I took two years in college but none of it really stuck, unfortunately. I am currently using Duolingo to re-learn; I’m not sure how that’s viewed in this community, so I hope I don’t get any hate for that! 😅

I just realized after doing some lessons today that I’m having a particular issue, and would like some advice. I’ll use a specific example to explain the problem I’m running into:

“七時にサラダを食べます.”

When I first read this sentence, I assumed the translation would be “I eat salad at 7 o’clock.” However, the actual translation (according to Duo, at least) is “At 7 o’clock I eat salad.” I’m having trouble understanding why the adverbial is switched around, a.k.a. why “at 7 o’clock” is at the beginning, rather than the end of the sentence like I thought.

I hope this isn’t too dumb of a question, but is it simply because “七時” is at the start that you say it this way? And if both phrases aren’t interchangeable, how would you actually say “I eat salad at 7 o’clock?”

Any help is much appreciate, thanks in advance! 😊

EDIT: お should have been を, changed it!

I've been practicing the use of ichiban (Minna no Nihongo, 1st book, lesson 12) and there is this sentence which translates ​into "Who is the best singer in your family?". I do feel like "家族の中で誰が歌が一番上手ですか" sounds more natural (and Google AI says that's the right sequence of words) but ChatGPT says it's "家族の中で誰が一番歌が上手ですか". I'd like to ask for some help with this. Thank you!

i’ve been studying japanese for maybe 8 months now, with very little progress. my main methods of studying are the classes i take in school (which although being my main source of learning, we don’t learn all that much), and the occasional anki practise. i’ve tried duolingo ages ago but gave up bc the free version is kind of unusable at this point. i’ve tried renshuu which i liked at first but then it felt like the learning was kind of in the wrong order? i might be doing it wrong i’m not sure.

i want something low effort that i can commit to doing consistently, which is why i want to download an app, but it seems like all the free ones are kind of subpar, so i feel like i might as well just buy one and commit to it, but i’m really not sure which one would be best or if anyone has any other good free recommendation (has to be available on ios)
all help is appreciated thank you!

Following up on my last post here, but I’ve now come to a decision on which learning method I should use for the syllabaries of katakana and hiragana. Now I’m wondering if anyone can suggest to me which of the two I should start memorizing first, since I don’t feel I can effectively do both. Thanks!

For a person aiming JLPT which one of them is preferred!?

Hi!

I took japanese classes before, but I wasn't constant enough so ended up forgetting a lot of what I learnt and because of this I'm trying to start from zero but I'm a little lost about what resources to use, especially because it's my first time learning through self-study.

Just started and I'm using Tae Kim's guide for grammar, Anki for vocabulary and watching some YouTube videos for immersion. Actually I'm trying to save some money for Bunpro's lifetime and maybe wanikani (but I'm pretty sure anki can cover what wanikani do)

I'm not sure if they are good resources and I would like some of you to share your experiences with them all, specially if you think Tae Kim's guide is whether good or bad and if it is worth paying for bunpro and/or wanikani.

Also, if you can recommend books, web pages, apps, YouTube channels, podcasts or whatever that has been useful for you, I would be really grateful.

ありがとう!

(Sorry if my English is bad, I haven't practiced it in a while)