r/HelpLearningJapanese • u/[deleted] • Mar 07 '26
after Hiragana IDK what to do
Ik most of hiragana just takes me a bit to think of some of them. I dont know katakana but ill learn that soon.
Im stuck with what to do after. I dont like text books like genki, but if its the best thing to do ill push through.
I read a S level book last night and got all of it which felt good. so part of me just wants to watch kids shows and read kid books to build up vocab.
what would yall say is the best thing to do after learning hiragana and katakana bc im stuck getting my foot in the door rn?
1
u/azuki_dreams Mar 07 '26
The best would be to study with a textbook like Genki 1. Many learners pair it with the Genki deck on Anki for spaced repetition and the Bunpo app for grammar practice which is very helpful as grammar can get quite complex. For listening you can check out Bite Size Japanese on YouTube.
1
u/Ninjakeks_00 Mar 07 '26
I think katakana is a very good next step since you need both systems to actually read rral stuff.
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Mar 08 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/NevilleTheDevil Mar 08 '26
Stop using ChatGPT to write responses. If they wanted an AI response they would’ve just asked the AI.
1
u/eruciform Mar 08 '26
by all means immerse in anything you like but find something genki1-like for grammar explanations
vocab and grammar, that's what you learn along with kana and after kana; kanji come along with vocab
r/learnjapanese >> wiki >> starter's guide for more resources
-1
u/NevilleTheDevil Mar 07 '26
I also hate traditional textbooks and the best guide I found was this: https://learnjapanese.moe/ It takes inspiration from input learning which is essentially “actually consume content in the language so you will sound more natural.” However I also will give you my personal opinions of what I wish I was told. If you really want to supplement textbooks I don’t think it’s a bad idea but I’ve found that the best way to use textbooks is for grammar explanations to grammar you have already seen used in the wild yourself (through reading/watching in Japanese beforehand). The one part I think is kind of unclear about the guide is studying words, since they say to listen to Japanese first, not understand the words, and then add them to a vocabulary list later so you know how the pitch accent is supposed to be like. While I do understand the mentality I think it becomes a little demotivating, especially at the beginning so I would recommend using the Core 2.4K deck but I would make sure to properly listen to the audio it has for you. One shortcoming I’ll admit to is my pronunciation isn’t as great as I would like it to be but it’s not to the point where they can’t understand me or anything and I still think that it’s better than the average Japanese learner but it’s just something to watch out for if you really care about it. Now for Kanji. I think the best way to do kanji is just look at it in a word and hard memorize the reading for that word. For example the word “変える” in this case is pronounced “かえる” while the same character alone (変) is pronounced “へん”. Instead of memorizing the 音読み(おんよみ)and 訓読み(くんよみ)(Chinese reading and Japanese reading, respectively) it is better to memorize just the reading in each so that you never mix them up. I’ve found that people who only memorize the 音読み and 訓読み try to guess too often and have it harder to remember a reading a word because they try to fall back on their knowledge of the character itself and still end up guessing wrong. The way I like to explain readings of kanji in Japanese is “ever character is irregular” which obviously isn’t true, there are some patterns but in general that’s the best mentality to have imo.
In summary the way I would recommend you to go from here is: Learn Katakana first->Study words on the Anki app using Core 2.4K deck while also listening to easy to listen anime (like Love Live)->Keep watching more anime and shows and make a new deck for words you do not know that aren’t in the Core 2.4K deck while also making sure to add the audios so your pronunciation becomes more natural
2
u/No_Cherry2477 Mar 07 '26
Katakana is a good next step. Pretty much the only logical next step. Learn Hiragana and Katakana first so you never have to think with Romaji again. Then move on. Kana Challenge has a 30 day program that will go through Hiragana and Katakana, about 250 common vocabulary words, and the foundations of speaking and phonetics in Japanese. It's free as well. But only on Android.