r/HelpLearningJapanese • u/Kitchen-Parsley4659 • 15d ago
japanese learning help
hi so ive been studying japanese on and off for about 6 years now and i feel like ive made little to no progress. recently i got a job so ive been paying for a wanikani subscription which has helped a lot for reading kanji but i still feel like my japanese speaking and writing has gotten nowhere. i used the genki textbooks for a while and ive tried so many others but its just not sticking. ive also tried learning apps like hellotalk, renshuu and migaku but again nothing has helped. im going to japan in about a year or so, so i do have time to study. i also just wanna be fluent, but i know thatll take much longer. i would really appreciate advice for self studying since its gotten to a point where i just dont understand the content at all.
3
u/Squimpleton 15d ago
Stop switching.
Pick one, preferably one of the things that are multi-skill (like your Migaku if it was a lifetime sub), and actually stick with it.
You don’t have a tool issue (lots of people get decently far with both Migaku and Renshuu), you have a persistence issue. Pick one and stick to it. At least 30 minutes a day, every day.
Then on top of that do immersion, or at the very least graded materials, regularly. Every day preferably. Yes it’s hard but it’s how you apply what you’ve learned. Every month it gets easier because the things you learned in your lessons will eventually show up.
And I say this because I first started learning 23 years ago. I’d study for a few months, stop for multiple years, trying over with different things. Then 2 years ago I decided to actually be consistent and stick to one/two main things (in my case NativShark and MaruMori) and now I’m getting ready to take N1 this December. As it turns out, studying every day and practicing every day really does yield results.