I’ve started learning Japanese this year, but am having trouble figuring out where to start. Does anyone have any recommendations? I already learned hiragana and will start learning katakana soon.
はじめまして!Welcome to the forums, @Johnny15!
I’m only early intermediate with Japanese, so feel free to take what I say with a grain of salt.
If you’ve mastered hiragana, you’ve started off correctly, in my opinion. It helps you “think” with the phonetics of Japanese and you don’t have to rely on conflicting romaji systems. You can now read aloud about 25% of all written Japanese! And best of all, you’re not limited to sources that rely on a preferred romaji system. There are a lot of good materials out there that rely on only hiragana and the pure translation.
As for what to do next though, I would say that depends on what you want to do with the language. Are you already in Japan? Do you want to visit or live there? Are you interested in conversing with native speakers or other learners? Do you want to be able to watch anime or enjoy other Japanese media without subtitles or translations? Etc.
I currently live in Japan and am scrambling to raise all my skills together with some of the methods I’ve recently learned from members of the polyglot and language learning communities. But I have a significant headstart on reading Japanese and working with kanji, since that was one of my own first loves with the language, and I might have some advice for that in particular.
There’s also a Japanese practice thread here in the forums:
If you want to join us, please don’t worry if you need a translator to make your way through it. You’re quite welcome even just to say hello, and we talk a little bit about some of the methods we use.
よろしく!
I’m hoping to one day live in Japan. I’d like to start learning kanji soon, but I’m not sure if I should learn them from the beginning or wait for a little while.
A way I’ve learned a fair amount of kanji is by talking to native speakers through HelloTalk or Tandem and the hiragana on your keyboard will give the option to change to the kanji. So I can read a lot of kanji that I use on a regular basis.
There’s no reason not to learn kanji now! But you certainly don’t have to learn all of them at once, and you can take breaks if it gets overwhelming.
Many apps and websites have lists of the kanji by frequency, by grade (as is taught in Japanese schools) and by JLPT level. I recommend learning all of the ones in JLPT N5 and N4 as a Japanese learner outside of Japan. After that, you can decide how much further and which direction you’d like to take.
I’d also recommend learning the radicals. It will probably make more sense to learn the radicals as you learn the kanji, rather than trying to learn them separately, but they will help you make sense of each character as a pictograph. Most radicals tie into ancient meanings and interpretations. Some radicals are only there for pronunciation purposes and don’t add semantic meaning—something I didn’t know at first and which tripped me up in trying to interpret them. A lot of dictionary apps also have the ability to look up kanji by selecting radicals within it, making them easier to find.
Whether stroke order is important seems to depend on whom you talk to. If you think you’ll do more reading and writing through print media, it’s less of an issue, and some electronic dictionaries are actually pretty forgiving of “wrong” stroke order. However, other digital dictionaries are quite strict when you try to handwrite an entry. Additionally, knowing and practicing the stroke order makes reading handwriting and calligraphy much easier. As you do plan to live in Japan, though, I would take the extra effort to learn them. It’ll make handwritten communication easier, you’ll impress your Japanese friends, and you’ll be able to read the chicken scratch that is the menu at izakayas and other hole-in-the-wall restaurants in Japan.
It will also really open up the amount of input resources you can use to further your skills and vocabulary. Generally, only children’s books are all hiragana. It can be helpful at first, but by the tenth time you’ve read yet another story about talking animals, you’re itching for something meatier.