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Concise Guide to Jumpstart Japanese

  • Very short concise guide to combat other guides with walls of text and links to paid stuff that's unnecessary, especially confusing for beginners

  • I'm a JLPT N2 Passer(2022) at the time of writing this and my opinion haven't changed until now

Tips

5 Tips for Beginners (click here)

  • Consistency and pay attention are the secret, no actual other cheat

  • Don't compare yourself to others, don't give up, don't listen to quick success in x time

  • Just do it, many others spend more time figuring out than actually doing, you will never be ready if you never do it

  • Time/Number listed is not strict, even if it takes you x10 longer or lesser day/minimum of what I listed, it's only a baseline

  • No, you are not stupid/too old, if you can learn your native, you can learn other language, even parrots learned

Step by Step Process

  1. Learn Kana; Hiragana(first) and Katakana(second)

    • Do 15 new Kana/day
    • Skip worksheets and long paragraphs details and go straight to the guide
    • Just do the Kana Quiz each time you learn +5 kana and put a gap between reviews, e.g. 15mins/30mins/1hr/8hrs
    • This should take up to 2 weeks

  2. Download Anki and my Anki add-ons

    • Extract(?) the Anki add-ons(Pass: lazyguide) and Paste it to C:\Users\YourUser\AppData\Roaming\Anki2
    • Restart your Anki

  3. Download Kaishi.1.5k.apkg(1.5k vocab deck) then open it

    • Just use again (1 = I don't know the answer) or good (spacebar or 3 = I know the answer) button when doing the deck so you don't have to think about if it's easy (2) or hard (4)

  4. Go to your Deck's option(Cog icon) then copy the settings below

    • (Menu Bar - Top Left) Tools > Preferences and set the settings accordingly
    Anki Settings (click here)

    Anki Settings 1

    Anki Settings 2

    Anki Settings 3

    Anki Preference Settings

  5. Do the Kaishi 1.5k Vocab Deck, start with 10 new cards/day(30 max; don't overdo it) along with the grammar guide on step 6;

    • Kanji is here on the deck; learn vocab not isolated kanji is the motto

  6. Either Tae Kim Text Grammar Guide or Cure Dolly's Video Grammar Guide (First 34 videos only)

    • No, you do not need to perfect the quizzes, you can even skip it
    • What's important is to digest the material properly or get a glimpse of it which you will look back on hundreds of times anyways

  7. Once you've finished Kaishi 1.5k Vocab Deck and Text Grammar Guide or Video Grammar Guide, you can now start mining and do actual immersion early on

    • This should take 2-4 months depending on your effort to be able to start immersing

  8. While immersing you can quickly check grammar points from DoJG(Beginner) and Nihongokyoshi(Intermediate+)

    • Read/watch what you like, but only up to medium difficulty, or 4-5/10 on jpdb, it's going to be a real pain at first, but do it

  9. Go to Lazy Mining Guide I made for easy setup of latest mining tools for whatever media

    • Mining - is the act of creating cards from media you immerse on like VN/LN, my tools provide a single-click mining

Afterthoughts

  • A very dumb down version hence, it lacks info, just do it along the way and if you have questions you can ask on Japanese Immersion Servers or find me on discord

  • No bullshit textbooks, subscriptions or being stuck for years studying thinking you are not ready enough, because you will never be if you don't start immersing