Hi everyone,
I’m currently learning Japanese on CI Japanese, but I’m not sure how to make the best use of the website’s features.
What’s the most effective way to study on CI Japanese?
How should I use it to improve both my listening and reading skills?
Are there specific tips or daily study routines you recommend?
Any advice or personal study methods would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you! 
Have you tried reading the guide?
I know a lot of guides on other websites aren’t the most useful, but the CIJ guide is actually well-written and answers a lot of questions on how to use this website 
I’m going to copy and paste one of my responses, but my personal advice would be:
”I would say that people new to CI should just try to chill when they watch a CI video. You’ll find that with repeated exposure, you’ll start to naturally acquire vocabulary and grammar structures without even trying.”
Hello!
First of all, welcome to the site! You made a great choice!
The guide page really is amazing. I have read a good amount of theory and it warms my lingvista heart that it is so well constructed, highly advised reading that first before you do anything. It also gives a lot of information on the site as well!
In my opinion the most effective way to use the site is to simply set a daily goal and meet it every single day. Comprehensible Input is the best when it is given in quantity and quality. I started out with 90 minutes and I am at 120 minutes at the moment for daily goals. Also, start to read as soon as possible, it will help you to progress even faster!
Simply watching videos which are around your level, which you understand 80-90% of, will result in improved listening skills. I have started watching podcasts at around the 180 hour mark and I was so shocked how well I understood them. The speed was normal, and I have acquired enough to make the video a pretty normal one in terms of difficulty. For reading just read the transcript of your favourite videos. Each transcript has furigana (hiragana on top of kanjis) which you can toggle on/off. Read a script a few times and then try it without furigana. Do this everyday and you will be amazed.
Tadoku is also a great place to find easy books!
My way is the somewhat newly proposed one by Dr Beniko Mason, the Pure Optimal Unified Input Approach. I do not do anything that is not CI based.
Have fun!
I recently started cold character reading, but I’ve been just reading the transcripts without the furigana because my goal is to learn kanji. Is it actually more efficient to read a few times with furigana and then read without furigana?
I would say that entirely depends on whether you already know how to read the kanji, and just want to solidify it, or it is the first time you have ever encountered it/do not know the reading yet. Take Olly Richards’s Graded Reader for example. Whenever a kanji appears it has furigana. As you progress in the story the furigana is omitted. Though, this can be very annoying when a kanji only appears twice in the story and even if you read it in one sitting you are bound to forget at times. It is frustrating to go back two pages and find the little rascal, but it can also make for a lasting memory.
(Surprisingly this is the same in the B2 Japanese language exam we have in Hungary. It has furigana which gets omitted as you go on. I found it quite funny to be honest.)
I say as long as the exposure is repeated and extensive multiple methods will work. Read a lot and don’t worry about the details. Radicals are often brought up, but I only know of one book which makes short stories around them and that is once again from Olly Richards 30 day kanji mastery book.
I disregard any method that is non CI. I’ve wasted enough years on meaningless things.
Here are the two books I’ve talked about:
https://www.librarything.com/work/28305082/t/Short-Stories-in-Japanese-for-Intermediate-Learners-Read-for-pleasure-at-your-level-expand-your-vocabulary-and-learn-Japanese-the-fun-way!-Teach-Yourself
https://www.librarything.com/work/34332395/t/30-Day-Mastery-Confident-Kanji-Japanese-Edition
I invite you to read the post I wrote in another topic. Here it is :
Hi, I invite you to read the post I posted in another topic:
Afterwards, there are kanji that come up very often. You will learn quite a few of them naturally. Once acquired, there will be others that will come. As if the brain were ready to acquire them.
I only enable the furigana to check when I’m not 100% sure if I heard the pronunciation correctly.
Using short paragraphs is good for that because you can quickly replay a smaller section of the audio after enabling the furigana, turn off the furigana then play back the same sentence again and continue on until you hit another section you’re not too sure on the pronunciation then do the drill again.
When you come across a new word in a video, do you usually look it up in the dictionary? And do you add it to your flashcards to review later?