How people learn Japanese

[Time]

I am curious how other people learn Japanese, this is how I do it.

Step 0: Do Wanikani throughout the day. Memrise as well. Anki if you have to. I find I have more motivation for Memrise than Anki, but sometimes I am not able to access the internet, so I use Anki then.

Step 1: Read a grammar book (one chapter and/or 15 mins perday)

-Tae Kim

-Intro to Modern JP

-The DOJG series

Step 2: listen to stuff

-Jpod101 However many podcasts you want

-A raw JP podcast, if you can't understand everything do not worry.

-Pimsleur is for pronunciation and speaking/listening practice. It's JP is about full speed in conversation. (I find Japanese usually start slower then work up to 10x the speed of English)

-Watch raw anime, then watch it with subs.

Step 3: Read

When you get to about N5(I hate the JLPT scale but everyone knows it) in kanji knowledge, read Doraemon, forget Yotsubato (It has spelling mistakes). At N3 go ahead and start reading harder manga and some novels. I recommend slice-of-life. (I do not yet know about later levels) If yo can read games, go for it.

Step 4: Speak

Talk to Japanese, there are the skype forums and also some groups have some Japanese people you can talk to.

Step 5: Write

Lang-8, chatting with Japanese. I keep my journal in Japanese and Spanish.

This takes me about 2 hours each day to do all the physical things except listening and reading, which vary.

This is something I refined after learning Japanese for awhile. I should be N2 level(gahh somewhere in early High School late Middle School) by the end of the year.

[Aggressor]

1. Tae Kim's & Ixrec's guides.

2. Read VNs you wanted to read. <-- one can stop here

3. Join a TL project.

4. Ask around things you don't get.

Well, my goal was "I want to read VNs in moon" and I'm already there. I don't try to speak or to write, and VNs are perfect material for reading and listening.

[Time]

1. Tae Kim's & Ixrec's guides.

2. Read VNs you wanted to read. <-- one can stop here

3. Join a TL project.

4. Ask around things you don't get.

Well, my goal was "I want to read VNs in moon" and I'm already there. I don't try to speak or to write, and VNs are perfect material for reading and listening.

This is new to me. I think I will read this.

[Down]

Learn kanas and a few kanjis, read several sources about grammar.

Watch shit tons of anime until I get what is said.

Read VNs with a text hooker and an online dictionary.

In no specific order. I hope it'll work eventually. I memorized a few hundred kanjis, the most common one, but I don't feel like grinding down the whole 2000, so I'll stick to about 300-400 and learn the rest as it goes.

Otherwise, there's this thread

[garejei]

For me it went something like this:

Acquired a solid knowledge of grammar and basic vocab via intensive private classes. My teacher was great so that went relatively fast, and I understood stuff much easier compared to Tae Kim. I know people swear upon that site but it just never worked out for me. I have a separate textbook focusing just on N1 and some N2 grammar as well, iirc it's called どんな時どう使う 日本語発言文型. Another book I used is マンガで学ぶ日本語会話術 + another one that I can't recall the title of right now, but it was basically a book preparing you for language exam material. Then I started playing JP games on my PSP and reading visual novels in Japanese for advanced vocab. Pretty much refused to play anything in English for a couple of months. Also played PSO2 and went out of my way to party with Japanese people, having to chat in JP really forced me to get better. I used Interpals for a bit for similar reasons.

I also used to talk on Skype with a close friend to improve my speaking. For listening, I would watch anime and sometimes rewind certain scenes and listen again. I also had listening CDs that came with some of my textbooks. And I eventually became a fan translator.

I think that's about all the methods I used.

I admit I've been slacking off a bit with reviewing my vocab lists lately, but constantly reading VNs and being part of TL projects keeps my mind sharp, so it's not that bad.

[Sparkker]

I'm lazy so I do it per Kanji like hell...

I really don't care how much time I spend learning JP since time is something I want to lose while learning it..

Well, I'm still noob at JP so maybe if I permit it I'll be done by next year or so..