I am a beginner for Japanese and have been using renshuu and the genki 1 book to get started. I was also recommended the wanikani site for kanji, however Renshuu also covers that. Would I be "putting my eggs into too many different baskets" as one can say? Should I just stick with Renshuu and Genki? I would love some insight.
Also, I am planning on reaching atleast N3 in the next 3 and a half years. Is that a realistic goal? I study around an hour each day. As said before I am still a beginner working on mastering katakana. I have been enjoying the learning process so far
Wanikani is very popular. The writing is clever and many people seem to respond positively to its irreverent take. However, it doesn’t provide anything you can’t duplicate here for free. So I don’t especially recommend it. Experiment and see what works for you.
N3 in 3.5 years is not unrealistic; however, it might require a bigger commitment than an hour a day.
I am a big wanikani fan, so much that I sometimes irrationally feel worried of being banned for promotion here haha. They have different objectives and complement each other. I prefer wanikani's style for kanji, it gave me strong foundations, but grammar and voiced sentences are really good on renshuu and give you the actual bridge to native content.
I would recommend trying out wanikani one month into renshuu, just when you would be normally starting learning kanji here. The first four levels are free to understand their approach
Wanikani is very popular. The writing is clever and many people seem to respond positively to its irreverent take. However, it doesn’t provide anything you can’t duplicate here for free. So I don’t especially recommend it. Experiment and see what works for you.
N3 in 3.5 years is not unrealistic; however, it might require a bigger commitment than an hour a day.
N3 in 3.5 years may be a little bit overambitious, yeah.
My ultimate end goal is to eventually work in japan for a few years and I am learning Japanese in preparation for that.
Don‘t worry too much about what to do in a year or what to reach in 3,5 years. N3 is a great goal, but it’s far and at this point (if not always actually) it’s better to focus on what‘s ahead of you.
If you need to go faster for some reason: Do that later. It’s easier and more productive to speed up on an intermediate level than now. As a beginner you don’t know enough Japanese yet to widen your learning before you overwhelm yourself and don’t learn anything, ending up in a big frustrating chaos confusion mode.
It’s easier to learn a lot when you already know a lot.
N3 in 3.5 years is more than reasonable and achievable. All depends on how much time and practice you can do. Every person is different. Your mother tongue and your previous experience in learning languages can make a difference. Overall, your goal is realistic. Use it as a compass. Ganbatte!
I agree that you should try Wanikani’s free levels to see if you like their approach! Personally, I did all the free levels and realized it wasn’t for me. Wanikani teaches radicals, then kanji, then words with that kanji in them. I prefer learning words first through listening, then using Renshuu’s SRS to solidify those words, and only then do I use Renshuu’s kanji helper schedules to learn the kanji in the words I already know. Basically, I realized it was useless for me to try to learn a specific kanji if I didn’t already know a word decently well with the reading I was trying to learn. But everyone is different, so you might like Wanikani better than I did!
N3 in 3.5 years is more than reasonable and achievable. All depends on how much time and practice you can do. Every person is different. Your mother tongue and your previous experience in learning languages can make a difference. Overall, your goal is realistic. Use it as a compass. Ganbatte!
That's a little bit reassuring to read
I can speak English and German pretty well, so I'm hoping Japanese as tough of a nut to crack once I get the ball rolling. It's a fascinating language and has been fun to learn so far!
Also, just in case anyone is worried - I don't mind at all if people talk about other sites/apps/whatever that work for them! I firmly believe there is no one resource that can cover all of a language, and so you should definitely check things out, see what works for you. If it's renshuu, great! If it's something else, also great!
I don't know that it's possible to put your eggs into too many baskets—the objection is generally to putting all your eggs in one basket. I use three separate apps for Japanese, and four notebooks and five different colored pens, because every piece of that system does something else that I need.
I don't know that it's possible to put your eggs into too many baskets—the objection is generally to putting all your eggs in one basket.
Eh I think it could be possible if you started using too many apps and such just to keep some streak going, while not actually learning too much. One just has to watch out and control what's actually working for them.
You should definitely try Wanikani, they offer first three levels for free and I think it's enough to get a feeling if it works for you.
For example I didn't even need to finish the first level to know it doesn't . I advise to read some beginner guides on their forums to get a good feeling that to expect and how to use it. You should know, for example that for the fastest progress you should do the reviews as they appear, which is every 2 hours. You don't have to, but then you will progress at a slower rate which does matter when you, say, pay for a monthly subscription at higher levels.
Visiting the site once per day might mean that you will need to take 3 days to convince the website that - Yes, you DO know that 一 is the radical for "one", thank you very much.
Also, be aware that you can utilise user scripts to help with some issues you might have with fow the site works. For example, there is no "mark as correct" button if you make a typo, unless you utilise those user scripts. Otherwise you would need to restart the session or see that bit in the review session and postopne your progress UwU.
It does work for many people though! I encourage you to try it, it does seem like a project that has thoughts behind it and the community seems really nice and supportive and the forums are well worth checking out even if don't end up staying (chceck out their book club!). Checking them out is free
You're not going to "break" your studying with too many apps, but the chances of your efficiency falling gets higher and higher.
Most apps are "smart" in the sense that they're not just quizzing you blindly - what you see/review/study is based on past performance. They know 私 really well? Don't show them that (as much).
If you have multiple apps that cover the *same* thing, then you will most likely not have those apps talking to one another. So app A decides to quiz you on 私, acting like it's a new/weak term, even though app B already knows you've studied it repeatedly, or marked it as "do not study", or whatever.
Given that for most people, our biggest limit is time, we don't want to "waste" time repeating the same activities across multiple platforms.
What is often stated/recommended is that using multiple apps is great, but try to avoid direct overlaps in content. So I might say this: "I'd use anki or renshuu, but not both" - they are both SRS systems that rely on past study knowledge, and most people use them for vocabulary primarily, so you're getting a ton of overlap.
Instead, you might hear someone say "I like renshuu for vocab, but wanikani is just the best for kanji".
. I advise to read some beginner guides on their forums to get a good feeling that to expect and how to use it. You should know, for example that for the fastest progress you should do the reviews as they appear, which is every 2 hours. You don't have to, but then you will progress at a slower rate which does matter when you, say, pay for a monthly subscription at higher levels. 