Learning Japanese from zero by listening: 2021 Log

[golyplot]

That's rather strange because I can access all the lessons of J1 for free (Jap/French). I'm an old user, so perhaps I have some (unknown from me) privileges. I'm currently doing "books" after the "yes & no" lesson.

I think existing users were grandfathered in when they started charging money.

[golyplot]

I went ahead and bought a three month subscription ($30) to Lingodeer yesterday. So far I've gone through the first four lessons. I'm still not sure what the best way to use it is, since there's no SRS. Also, the mouse-only interface makes going through the lessons incredibly tedious. At least the lessons are much shorter and easier to compensate. If Duolingo had an interface like this, I'd never make it beyond Basics 1 in any language out of frustration.

I also watched the first three episodes of Let's Learn Japanese Basic yesterday to get some listening practice. At least it's more fun than Lingodeer.

I finally unlocked my first vocabulary on Wanikani last night. Only level 1 and it's already kicking my ass. I had been wishing I could get through the slow parts at the beginning to where it actually got interesting. Be careful what you wish for I guess. I finally reached level 2 this morning, so it's only going to get harder from here (52 new lessons waiting for me, in addition to all the vocabulary from yesterday). I have no idea how some people managed to ace everything on Wanikani. I often get the readings wrong even when I remember the mnemonics, due to incorrectly guessing which hiragana correspond to the mnemonic (was coup-d-etat supposed to be kude or kuda?) or even more frequently, guessing incorrectly on whether to use the On-yomi or Kun-yomi readings, and if so, which reading. Plus, I'm also having trouble keeping straight even the meanings of the words, now that there's a lot of them using the same kanji.

[devilyoudont]

So, we always recommend Lingodeer over Duolingo in the Japanese learner community, and I thought maybe it would be helpful to clarify why...

1) Lingodeer uses recordings of native speakers rather than Text to Speech... In practice this means that Lingodeer never makes an error about how a kanji should be read

2) Grammar explanations are available in app, rather than limited to desktop only

3) An intermediate learner such as myself will not find errors in Lingodeer

This may seem like a very low bar to clear, but none of the above can be said for the Japanese course on duolingo

[golyplot]

I do really appreciate the native audio. I just wish it had an SRS and the UI was more polished like Duolingo is (or used to be).

[kraemder]

Edit: I pasted my answer (にゆう) and the "correct" answer (にゅう) into the dev console and mapped it to unicode code points to try to debug their stupid question. It turns out my answer was using the regular YU while the correct answer is expecting small YU. My mistake had been to just type in each hiragana one by one (NIYUU) when you're apparently supposed to type NYUU instead to get the small YU. It would have been nice if they explained that anywhere. Oh well, at least I figured it out now.

Edit 2: It turns out that Wanikani does in fact have a page on this very topic. I wish I had seen that first instead of having to figure it out the hard way.

This sounds like how I learn everything. My favorite resource learning Japanese was the Core 2k/6k/10k deck. Here's a link to the 2k one: (if you like pictures look for a different version with pictures)

https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/2141233552

[golyplot]

My favorite resource learning Japanese was the Core 2k/6k/10k deck. Here's a link to the 2k one: (if you like pictures look for a different version with pictures)

Thanks for the suggestion! I'm already doing Wanikani, which seems to serve a similar purpose, but I might try Anki as well if I get bored sometime.


Update: I did two lessons on Lingodeer today and watched ep4 of Let's Learn Japanese Basic I. I recognized the book kanji (本) in the Lingodeer lesson, which I thought was really cool, since I learned it from Wanikani earlier today. It's neat to see stuff crossover like that.

I also watched ep2 of SAO tonight (with subs). I barely even bothered trying to listen to the Japanese this time. It's mostly for entertainment, rather than learning. But I do hope that I'll start picking up more of it once I'm farther along.

[golyplot]

I had a revelation while doing the Language lesson on Lingodeer this morning. Japan (日本) is composed of the kanji Sun and Book, which have the readings nichi and hon respectively, while 日本 is pronounced nihon, which is (sort of) a combination of the readings I've learned. It's cool to see connections like that.

As far as Wanikani goes, level 2 is proving easier than I expected. I got around 85-90% correct yesterday, and 97% correct on the review this morning. So I'm once again mostly left bored, waiting for the next set of exercises to unlock. Obviously, I'd like to be getting 100% on everything, but it's still much better than I expected. I'm still frustrated by how often I remember the mnemonic but still get the reading wrong though. I had to make up my own mnemonic for 人工 because Wanikani doesn't even have one.

[ロータス]

I have never used Wanikani but from what you wrote, it seems that they only let you do a set amount of kanji a day? You cant increase it? What amount is it set to?

Not allowing you to increase the amount and study how you want seems like a way to get the most money out of you long term.

[kraemder]

Remembering the meaning or English translation of a kanji is tons easier than remembering it's Japanese reading. Which is why reading Kanji is tons easier for Japanese people. If we used kanji to write English on the other hand they'd be screwed. Anyway. I really struggled with kanji and would have loved to reverse the situation and make them read English using a crazy writing system like theirs.

日本 sun book for sure but 本 also has the reading もと hand means origin or source. Land of the rising sun. Makes sense right?

[golyplot]

I have never used Wanikani but from what you wrote, it seems that they only let you do a set amount of kanji a day? You cant increase it? What amount is it set to? Not allowing you to increase the amount and study how you want seems like a way to get the most money out of you long term.

It starts out really slow, but from what I've read, it quickly gets to the point where you're begging it to stop. Most of the discussion I've read from people on higher levels is about stuff like avoiding burnout and strategies for managing the review queue. A common piece of advice I've seen is to avoid doing new lessons as long as you have 100+ items in the "apprentice" stage.

Wanikani consists of 60 levels. Most levels can be completed in a theoretical minimum of 6 days and 20 hours, while some levels can be completed in half that. So the theoretical minimum is around a year, but few people have come close to that. One person managed to complete it in only 368 days, which is notable because of just how rare and insane that is. 1.5-2 years seems more realistic, and even that is better than most people do.

I doubt it's particularly profit motivated either, given that a) the free levels are incredibly slow, leading to a bad first impression, and b) they focus most of their marketing on buying "lifetime memberships" anyway. It seems like it's just a genuine belief that their fixed SRS timings are the most effective way to learn.