I’ve been using this website for a couple of weeks and my comprehension has improved so much. It feels so satisfying to rewatch an old video and find it suddenly comprehensible.
My goal is an hour per day but I am also spending time reading and doing Pimsleur lessons on my commute.
When I think about language learning, I usually think about speaking. However, reading has been very rewarding although I’m still struggling through Lvl 0 graded readers. It feels pretty cool to be able to read a completely different alphabet as someone who has always marveled at multi-lingual people.
On top of CIJ, I’m also making the effort to learn Kanji, as when I was young and learning English, understanding root words added so much to my comprehension. I’ve explored a couple of options and have settled on WaniKani.
My goal is eventually to be able to understand native Japanese speakers and read novels - that’s long-term. Short-term, I want to be able to navigate around during my upcoming Japan trip (in just a couple of months, eek!)
Anyway, I’m very grateful I found this wonderful platform!
Would anyone else care to share their experiences?
Hello there and welcome to the site! You’ve made a great decision!
I signed up in February and at the beginning I only watched video after video. Since I tried multiple times to learn Japanese I had some background knowledge, so I just binge watched my way through absolute beginner and beginner, haha.
I think around June I went back and checked out a podcast channel I tried to watch during the early days. I was really, really surprised that I understood the whole video. That was maybe around 180 hour mark? I can’t remember sadly. After that I found more and more. It is really funny to me that the lifetime membership came around the time where I watched the least CIJ content. (Signed up anyway, because my life is CIJ, without joke, haha).
You are still a beginner, but these are my favourite channels these days:
Japanese Super Immersion
I love these guys so much, because their humour matches mine perfectly.
Emma:)Japanese
Initially her voice startled me (I am kinda sensitive to certain voices) since it was quite high, so I stayed and did not regret it.
Uki Uki Japanese Podcast
I will make Sensei proud, haha. I don’t have a Discord, so I do not get any information on new teachers. I just happened to see her name in the teacher filter and did some digging and I ended up being a regular viewer.
Recently I have started playing around with the idea of a language exam in Japanese. After some looking around my level is not nearly as high, yet my comprehension is which is a mystery to me, but anyways. So, since there is a written exam I have started a daily kanji practice. I still refuse any non CI based methods. What I do is watch absolute beginner level videos (since I have finished all of them once already) and instead of watching the video I read the transcript without furigana (the hiragana on top of a kanji which indicates the reading). Now, I have to put it on font size 72. For some reason if I cannot see every single dust on the kanji my brain just ignores it. Yes, my eyes are not great, but boy. What the hell.
Anyways. After listening to a video while reading the transcript I usually do something else. After a while I come back and read the transcript again without furigana . This works for short videos. For a much longer one I most likely would just read it with furigana a few times before trying to read it without any.
I do revise these maybe 2-3 times before starting to practice the alreadyacquired kanji. I usually do not struggle with stroke order, as of now, and because the transcript is not targeted input, but Optimal Input, I will come across quite a nice variety. I use Jisho to check the stroke order and the proportions, though my kanji look horrible, haha.
Ah, and if you paste some text into Jisho it will put furigana on top of it. It is quite handy when you are out in the wild, or try to understand a cat smoking Vtuber…
I guess this is it? I am kinda lost at the moment, but oh well. Real life is a mess so I don’t bother. My daily input goal is 2 hours, but I can manage 3 maybe 4 starting tomorrow.
