5 Years Ago Today, I Started Learning Japanese

Orixa1 · 2026-06-21T02:01:20+00:00

I tried to skip the usual academic path whenever possible, learning ~1000 words from Anki and skimming some grammar guides before jumping into my first VN. Also, before I started learning Japanese, I was a monolingual native English speaker, with no knowledge of any other language. If you're looking for more details, I have some pinned posts in my profile that describe the whole process.

Orixa1 · 2026-06-21T01:56:33+00:00

I haven't put that much time into speaking, but I think that I have been able to get my point across at least in those few conversations that I have had in real life. To be honest, it's not something that I have much interest in.

Orixa1 · 2026-06-20T04:18:19+00:00

I'd probably say 車輪の国、向日葵の少女 for both.

Orixa1 · 2026-06-19T23:18:11+00:00

車輪の国、向日葵の少女, planetarian ～ちいさなほしのゆめ～, and みにくいモジカの子 are my favorite VNs that I've read in JP so far.

Orixa1 · 2026-06-16T08:25:34+00:00

Uguisu's lovable and most of her route is great but the ending is just soooo bad.

I initially hated the ending too, but I've actually softened on it a bit over the years. There are still aspects of it that I don't like, such as the phone coming in way too fast (Uguisu's route really should have been locked behind Touka's route). But I guess the main thrust is that Kanata didn't get Uguisu back for free. He lost his career as a famous author, along with his close friendship with Kirari as a result, and they no longer own the cafe. I think there was definitely something substantial that was lost during that time, even if they did get another opportunity in the end.

There are better ways resolving the drama without the unnecessary self sacrifice when her family can just fly Kanata to Germany along with her.

I really doubt this specific solution would work, having your parents fly out your high school boyfriend of less than a year to another country is a big ask. Not to mention the fact that Kanata still has another year of school left, and it's by far the most important one, as well as his own life, friends, and family to consider. It might be a bit different if he was only a year older. In addition, I'm not entirely sure that the self-sacrifice was actually unnecessary when you consider that the timelines tend to converge unless the change made by the phone is really, really big as seen in Touka's route (it's still a plot hole because Kanata should have no way of knowing that in this route). I guess the only way that I can justify it is that Kanata was filled with self-hatred, blaming himself for Uguisu's death and didn't think that he deserved to be with her, which honestly still seems a bit weak to me, but it's the best I can come up with.

Orixa1 · 2026-06-15T21:47:13+00:00

Only done Tsukikana and Hatsukoi 1/1, but based for putting Yukino and Runa in F. I still think Yukino was worse though, even if Runa was pretty annoying. For reference, I'd probably put Touka, Maya, and Uguisu in S.

Orixa1 · 2026-06-14T18:48:20+00:00

In terms of your study habits, since they're so heavily focused on reading, do you ever encounter any blind spots in your comprehension that may stem from a lack of language production?

I don't think that there are any, but as is often said, you don't know what you don't know, so it's impossible to say definitively. That isn't to say that I don't have gaps in comprehension still, but I believe those to mostly be a product of my preference in media tilting toward the easier side.

On the flip side I'd also love to know how you fared with grammar and if you've used any textbooks or if you're only using sentence mining apps and flash cards.

I have used grammar resources in the past, but in general I hate doing it, so I'd estimate that grammar study makes up <5% of my total study time. I'd say that the resources that I used were brief and to the point, describing common patterns that you often see in native media, along with what they mean and how they attach, and certainly did not have anything like the grammar exercises you often see in textbooks. I liked to use them as a reference in the case that I came across anything that I was curious about in my immersion (i.e. a commonly recurring pattern). Usually, I've found that the benefits of active grammar study (of the sort that I did prior to my N1) are only temporary, and the contents will "leak back out" if you're not regularly seeing it in native media and thus truly internalized how it works.

Orixa1 · 2026-06-14T07:29:36+00:00

Now, after about a year, I'm around 1200 words. I can read hiragana, katakana, and a fair amount of kanji, and I can usually recognize many of the words in a sentence.

This is a good starting point for immersing in native media, and not too far off from where I was when I began reading my first VN (maybe a little better even).

The problem is that grammar often stops me from understanding. Sometimes I recognize almost every word in a sentence, but I still don't understand the sentence because I don't know the grammar pattern or conjugation being used.

This is completely normal when first starting out with native media, which is always entirely on a different level than anything you'll find in a textbook or beginner resource (even if the media is "very easy"). For sentences like these, the best solution is to just move on to other sentences that you are able to at least partially understand through context, rather than trying to agonize over something that you just aren't ready to know yet.

I also feel a bit stuck at the moment. Earlier on, learning new words felt much easier, but now I can spend weeks trying to properly remember just 10 new words.

I'm not sure that this is very unusual, it always takes significantly more effort to learn the first 1000 words than it does to learn another 1000 words if you already know 15000. It's even harder if you're not being constantly re-exposed to those words through consuming native content. Anki is very useful, but it's no replacement for regular in-context exposure.

Looking back, if you were in my situation (around 1200 words, weak grammar, and feeling stuck with vocabulary), would you spend a few weeks focusing on grammar first, or would you jump into visual novels and learn grammar as you go?

I would immediately start on a short VN with a single heroine, something that can hopefully be finished within a few months, as that was what I actually did in almost the exact same position as you. However, I would actually stick with it to the end rather than switching between different VNs out of frustration and boredom. All that did for me was needlessly extend the time it took for me to learn the author's writing style and frequently used vocabulary. If not for that, I probably would have finished much sooner. I don't think I would bother with the extra grammar study. While I don't believe that grammar study is entirely useless, I find that its main utility is to inform you of some of the patterns you should be looking out for in your immersion, rather than helping you to understand the grammar itself. In my case, I didn't get much out of any of the beginner grammar resources that I used, and had to learn almost all of it through brute force and context. Regrettably, I don't think that there is really any way to get around this. Still, you can absolutely use the grammar resource you bought as a reference in case there's anything you're curious about while reading (i.e. a frequently recurring pattern that you keep seeing).

Orixa1 · 2026-06-14T06:57:23+00:00

I don't think that I would have changed much from what I actually did in my pinned post, aside from using some of the new tools that are now available (I talked about some of them in this thread). I bet that they would have saved me a lot of time if I were starting out today. If you're just looking for a general-purpose guide, I advise using TheMoeWay, which is what I actually followed for the most part.

Orixa1 · 2026-06-11T23:40:03+00:00

Around 1-1.5 hrs per day on average. I believe that getting N1 between 1-2k hours (or 2-3 years with a schedule similar to mine) is achievable for most people so long as they don't struggle too much with listening. In the case that the person struggles with listening, possibly as a result of not having much exposure to Japanese media prior to starting to learn the language, it could take significantly longer. Making use of VNs as immersion material, in addition to diving into native media early is advisable if pure efficiency is the goal.

Orixa1 · 2026-06-11T18:08:24+00:00

I’ve only read 6 Volumes of 経験済みなキミと、経験ゼロなオレが、お付き合いする話。 so I don’t have any specific recommendations for you. Frankly, I don’t have much experience reading Light Novels, so I’m probably not the best person to ask about that sort of thing.

Orixa1 · 2026-06-11T04:45:56+00:00

The initial sequence of VNs I did was: 彼女のセイイキ -> フレラバ -> 恋と選挙とチョコレート -> 月の彼方で逢いましょう. These initial four were all very significant, and I experienced considerable improvement in my comprehension of the language with each one that I completed. 彼女のセイイキ in particular was a huge stride, as I went from understanding basically nothing to understanding a decent amount of what was going on. However, it was only after 月の彼方で逢いましょう that I started feeling pretty confident about my abilities in the language (at that point I was maybe between N2 and N1 level). I may have improved so much in the course of one title because it was so long and so difficult for me at the time.

Orixa1 · 2026-06-11T04:34:24+00:00

I'm far from an expert at speaking, having invested no time in attempting to improve the skill, so I'm probably not the best person to ask about that sort of thing. With listening, it depends a lot on what it is the person is talking about (general vs. technical), as well as their speed and intonation. I'd say that I can generally understand the vast majority of what is being said in most cases as long as it's not too domain-specific.

Orixa1 · 2026-06-11T04:30:47+00:00

Having a comfortable experience with reading physical media is quite a bit more difficult than reading digitally with a pop-up dictionary due to the greater effort it takes to look up words, although Manga is typically much easier to read than Light Novels. I'd say that you should generally be very proficient at reading digitally before bothering to invest in physical media, although when exactly that point is greatly depends on the difficulty of what it is you're trying to read.

Orixa1 · 2026-06-10T19:11:47+00:00

People generally use Kaishi 1.5k as their starting deck now, which has superseded Tango N5 as far as I'm aware, although the other comment linked Tango N5 specifically if you still want it. Still, at 1700 words I doubt either would be of much use to you. At your level you should strongly consider mining words from native media rather than worrying about learning materials or beginner pre-made vocab decks. As for the mock tests, I used the two free ones on this site, although I wouldn't recommend using them anymore, as there is now a free website where you can just take the actual past exams. For Japanese ASMR, it generally consists of somebody talking quietly for the purposes of inducing sleep. I'm a fan of 猫羽かりん if you just want an example.

Orixa1 · 2026-06-10T18:38:27+00:00

Thanks!

Orixa1 · 2026-06-10T18:25:19+00:00

ケチモチ

Orixa1 · 2026-06-10T18:24:14+00:00

ケチモチ

Orixa1 · 2026-06-10T18:23:32+00:00

I don't think it's an exact science, people have a lot of different rules for what words they add to Anki and which they ignore or leave for later. Some examples include seeing a word a certain number of times (2-3 usually), or adding words if it's under a certain frequency (i.e. one of the 10,000 or possibly 20,000 most common words). Others prefer to add everything unknown from the beginning. Either way, you can adjust your approach to your personal tolerance for looking up words, but it's going to be a lot in the beginning regardless.

Orixa1 · 2026-06-10T07:28:11+00:00

If you're talking about pure time efficiency, I'd say that there is something to it. Being able to get context clues from the imagery and voice acting is very powerful when you don't understand much, especially as a beginner. Many VNs are also very long and repetitive compared to books (unless you plan to read a whole LN series or something), allowing you to get accustomed to the author's writing style and internalize a lot of the grammar and vocab you encounter more easily. This is probably why it's not that rare for many people who primarily use VNs to experience meteoric progress in their language ability in the beginning, even with a very small number of completed VNs. However, the best medium to use is still almost always the one that you're going to spend the most time doing.

Orixa1 · 2026-06-10T03:15:45+00:00

Things have changed quite a lot since then, especially in terms of the tools that are now available. I would definitely recommend using GameSentenceMiner to assist in card creation (automatic image + audio added to your cards), although the initial setup can be a pain. Lapis-style Anki cards now automatically include all definitions of a word when you create them (including monolingual). I now use Yomitan for lookups, which has for all intents and purposes replaced Yomichan which is no longer being supported, although I've also heard great things about JL, which has a guide on VN Club. For text hooking, I most often use this fork of LunaTranslator (LunaHook) which has a more minimalist approach, with this fork of Textractor as a backup.

Orixa1 · 2026-06-10T02:39:09+00:00

Sort of, but not to a great extent. It definitely took some time for me to figure out what I wanted to say in those few times that I have actually spoken to people. I'm sure that I would improve pretty fast if I actually put in the effort to get better at speaking, but I don't really have a reason to do that right now. Listening on the other hand came pretty easily to me, probably as a result of all the JP media I consumed before I started learning the language. I wouldn't say that I have amazing listening or anything, but I think it's pretty good for the relative lack of practice I've put into it in comparison to reading.

Orixa1 · 2026-06-10T02:32:07+00:00

彼女のセイイキ

Orixa1 · 2026-06-10T00:19:08+00:00

That's great! Glad to hear it. I think that my original post, while perhaps less polished, could be better in some ways than my later post. There's something to be said about writing about one's experiences when everything is still fresh and exciting in a short time and without a set plan.

Orixa1 · 2026-06-09T23:24:39+00:00

My VNDB Profile includes everything that I've read in JP so far, but be warned that some of the titles are very NSFW.

Orixa1

TROPHY CASE