r/LearnJapaneseNovice

I’m staying in Hawaii for a week right now, so I’m trying to nail down hiragana and katakana quickly so I can practice reading on all the signs and stores I see.
A problem I’ve run into is the lack of spaces, am I missing something? I know there aren’t spaces, but what are you supposed To do when you don’t know the words? How do you know when one word ends and another begins?
I’m worried I might build some bad habits of combining words and particles or other words thinking they mean the same thing.

Is there an easy way to tell when one word ends and another begins? Right now I’m just looking for particles I know that set of sirens in my head. Like I see “の” and I think “well that’s probably not in a word, so the word ended right before.”

Also kanji, I’m waiting until I get the kanas down before looking into kanji, but I’ve noticed it’s used in the middle of sentences here, so obviously it has sounds, but they also mean entire words, that can be spelled with kana. So does the kanji make the entire sound? Or is it its own alphabet?
Basically what I’m asking is, are Kanji characters used as like a shortcut?

I gave my examination today 5th July 2026 and i really don't have hope of passing .. like there are so many reasons I am still in 12th and I stopped somwehere in the middle after I return that was more tbh.. and one more fault of mine maybe is i follow shokyo nihongo i really don't think that book is really good for beginners or for me i think it's tough

So can u suggest me a book I can actually make my preparation good?

Finished learning hiragana and got very used to it and it's become easy thankfully, but katakana just won't click for me!!!! I just suck at memorizing katakana for some reason, help pleaseeeee

I began studying japanese 1 month ago (although i was sick for a week so lets say 3 weeks) currently i know around 200 words (Kaishi 1.5k), present and past tenses of ichidan and godan verbs, (i dont know how to conjugate adjectives yet i still have to learn what な and い adjectives are), and basic uses of は、が、を、と、の、か、よ、も、へ、and に. But right now im only using anki and bunpro for vocabulary.

As you can notice, I'm not studying grammar at all, thing that I want to fix. I have tried Minna no nihongo, i did the first 5 lessons but I didn't like it and the fact that i had to study 2 "different" vocabularies one being kaishi 1.5k and the other one being each lesson's vocabulary made the book a little bit exhausting to read. And this is just a small complain but i didnt like the fact that many words were written in hiragana instead of using the kanji.

I found about this grammar guides, and they look more like what I'm looking for and probably something that will complement better with bunpro and anki.

My plan is: Anki for vocabulary, a grammar guide for grammar (obviously asdasgdagdasd sry for my bad english idk how to express it without being redundant), and bunpro for reviewing what i have learnt that day from anki and the grammar guide. When I learn a little bit more of grammar and vocab I would like to start reading NHK news.

So my question is what are the differences between this two grammar guides? Which one do you recommend?

Sorry for my broken english and tysm for your time beforehand.

I was listening to すずめ by radwimps and noticed that, while 'a' was generally pronounced as /ɑ/, its pronunciation ranged from /a/ to /ɒ/ to even /ɔ/. The very first line, I hear, /kimi no kɒ ni ɒɾɯ ɑkɔ tɔ ɑoki sem̩/. Can someone explain why the 'a' is pronounced so differently, and if this is something that only happens during singing?

So I'm learning edjectives and I got to い adjectives and how to change their tense (くない for negative, かった for past tense, くなかつた forg negative past tense) but how do you do that with な adjectives? I know that the な connects an adjective to a noun but how could I change the tense without removing the na?

An example how can I change 静かな森 (a quiet forest) to "A forest that was quiet"

So, I'm trying to learn Japanese, but I have problems with concentration, getting distracted or forgetting to practice and dealing with chronic fatigue. I really want to learn Japanese but I've been trying for 5 years with minimal progress.

Any advice?

Hi all, I know this type of game is not sought after as it's not too shiny with crazy confetti and sounds, but we enjoy it.

We've added AppClip for the first time and want to know what you think about it:
https://appclip.apple.com/id?p=io.github.galitach.SliceItPerfect.Clip
We know it can deteriorate the number of downloads as you can just pin it and play it directly on apple's website. It is free anyway without ads (you can buy the cosmetics pack for supporting the dev but it's not required as we have also added color blindness support for different colors pallets.

I've been learning for about 3 weeks now, I've learned all of hiragana and katakana in that time and a lot of the particles and grammar rules. But after going through an anki deck that had a lot of common phrases that use kanji I feel like I've got analysis paralysis, there's so much to memorize and a ton of kanji look similar but mean totally different things

I tried using genki instead of tae Kim's guide but genki almost feels TOO textbook, (like when am I ever gonna need to know the word for bicycle?) I don't want to give up but I'm not sure how to proceed, some advice or anki deck recommendations would be helpful

Hello I want to start learning from scratch but don't know where to begun with and what to do?

I mean I do know what to learn 1st and what's next but don't know where to learn from. Anyone suggests a book, a youtube channel, podcast, etc.. or something like that.

Note: Please don't suggest paid academy like yoiso or doulingo, or other like that i want to learn free.

I have around 1.5 to 2 years before I leave to go japan.

Hi I am currently going to enroll in a college , but I want to learn japanese so I can apply for jobs and scholarship for higher studies in japan. Can someone tell me how to actually learn japanese from scratch so I can reach n2-n1 level in 4 years

I got the jlpt n5 exam on the 5th of july and I can read hiragana/katakana, can understand a few stuff from a simple convo and have a decent idea about the grammar and stuff, but my kanji is weak.

think of me as a complete beginner in learning kanji and how much kanji can I learn in 2 days, I'll lock in and commit to it, I wanna learn as much as possible. I have a book to learn kanji from but is there any way to memorize it with meaning.

what advice would u give me to get a decent mark in the exam?

I thought learning Japanese would be “learn Japanese.”

Turns out it’s:

kana game

kanji game

vocab game

grammar game

listening game

speaking game

politeness game

“why is this particle here” game

And each game has its own tools.

I’m trying to avoid using 19 apps and burning out, so I made a simple beginner stack:

Kana

Tofugu kana guide

Kanji

WaniKani or Kanji Study

Grammar

Cure Dolly / Tae Kim / Genki, depending on pain tolerance

Dictionary

Jisho / Akebi / Takoboto

Vocab

Anki sentence cards

Listening

Japanese with Shun / Comprehensible Japanese

Speaking

ISSEN for tiny voice conversations

My question:

For people past beginner level, what part did you over-study and what part did you neglect?

I suspect I’m over-studying kanji and under-studying listening/speaking.

My nephew is marrying a Japanese woman in 7 months. Most of her family does not speak English, but I would like to be able to communicate at least at a very basic level with them. I am quite good at languages. I learned Arabic in the military, and qualified in German as well. I've learned Russian to an intermediate level (B1), and Turkish and Kazakh to maybe A2/B1. Also learned to read Latin and Old English to a decent level within a year (not the same year :) I hate not learning how to read a language as I'm mostly a visual learner, but the Japanese writing system is so complicated that I simply don't have the time right now. Pimsleur I think is just too slow for me. Any suggestions?