#Stuck In Analysis Paralysis

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

summer glacier
#

Hi everyone. I decided that I wanted to learn Japanese and managed to learn hiragana in 3 days using Tofugu and a Kana quiz site. I was also using Ringotan as it helped me remember the stroke order. I had to stop learning because of my exams.

Now that I've finally got some free time, I decided to get back to it but I quickly got overwhelmed. I read guides like the Moe Way, Xelieu, Donkuri, Refold, downloaded the Kaishi 1.5k and Usagi Chan Phonetics deck on Ankidroid, watched YouTubers such as Livakivi, Matt VS Japan, Trenton《トレントン》, bookmarked resources like IMABI, Cure Dolly, Mokuro, Bilingual Manga Reader, Wotaku, Ankiconnect, downloaded Kiwi browser, Yomitan, ASB player, asb autosubs, Akebi, Jsho, Takoboto.

All these resources and information are both good but also really overwhelming. The guides have different approaches to immersion and learning Japanese. I really don't know where to get started. I also don't have access to my PC for a month so I'll have to do immersion on my Android using Kiwi browser but there's the issue with not being able to pause the video when the subtitles pop up and block the button.

Where do I go after learning Katakana? Do I immediately start watching anime with Japanese subs? Or do I learn Grammar? How much Grammar should I know? How many cure dolly videos? How many pages of IMABI? When do I start doing Anki?. How long will it take until I can actually watch anime without subs and read light novel's and manga?

Sorry for the rant. I'm just really confused and I hope the more experienced learners could guide me.

cerulean skyBOT
#

<@&1248039856404431062> Stuck In Analysis Paralysis

timber hare
#

Hi! I totally understand how you feel. A lot of people get sucked into resource hell in the beginning and spend more time trying to learn what to do than actually doing anything. I've also been guilty of this at the beginning. The thing is that there's more than one way to do immersion and get results, which is why guides can vary in their recommendations. Everyone eventually finds what works for them, but just starting something is the important thing and you can adjust how you do things as you go.

For the lack of access to PC at the moment, do you have an android or iphone? If it's android, you'll be able to use jidoujishou which let's you play videos you have downloaded, or videos from YouTube and add subtitles so that you can pause and look up words.

For katakana and Hiragana, you don't need to learn how to write them. You will learn how to recognize them by watching content with subtitles. After learning katakana, you can watch anime if you want. You will want to do some lookups. If you can't use jidoujishou, you can try using the animelon while you wait on getting access to a PC. Animelon isn't as good as using ASBplayer, but it will work fine as a stopgap. You can also try comprehensible input, like Tachi said, which is meant to be watched with little to zero lookups.

You can start chipping away at grammar bit by bit. Just pick one grammar resource and stick with it for now. They all teach mostly the same thing. I suggest trying the refold primer. It's fairly succinctly laid out. You can branch out to other resources later. Anki you should do 10 new cards per day, in the kaishi deck, and make sure you have the new and better FSRS algorithm enabled, which you can read about in #❓faq I think.

For grammar and Anki time, I would suggest spending no more than 20-30 minutes total per day. And then the rest of your time should be spent on immersion, mostly freeflow while focusing, and looking up words that stand out to you every so often.

#

Around stage 3a is when people are comfortable watching anime without subs in a genre they are familiar with. It takes on average 1000-2000 hours of active immersion (active freeflow or active intensive or interactive) for most people to get to stage 3a, depending on what people focus their time on. You can get comfortable with manga or light novels in a genre before or after stage 3a. It mostly depends on how much time you spend reading.

Learning Japanese does take a lot of time, but it can be fun from day one depending on your mindset and choosing things to watch that you can enjoy even though you don't understand everything.

ripe sphinx
#

which site is the kana site you're using because I lost mine. Thanks.

#

This is just so I can get a refresh since I'm not doing much yet other then anki

timber hare
ripe sphinx
summer glacier
timber hare
summer glacier
#

One more question. I downloaded the recommended dictionaries in TheMoeWay a while ago. Should I delete them and use the ones recommend in Marv's Github in the tool-starter pack?

timber hare
#

I know for sure that these one's are compatible. There might be more that are compatible

Screenshot_20240924-154701.png
summer glacier
timber hare
zealous bobcat
#

One wise thing that MattVSJapan said goes like this: there is one big predictor of how fast you will grow in learning Japanese. That is, your "just sit down and do it" attitude. You know approximately what to do and what there principles are, right?
As a beginner you kind of do the same thing they do in traditional schools: learn some words, learn some grammar. The difference is that you add a ton of listening and reading.

Take any recent guide, none of them are completely stupid. Stop optimizing. Quality is not important at this stage, focus on quantity, focus on just doing MORE.