I try to summarize in this article all the most important and necessary things. If you know anything useful that I forgot, leave a comment or email me:

Anime fans are a dime a dozen in Russia. Every second person cherishes the hope of learning a moonspeak sooner or later, and has often been cherishing it for six years now. Meanwhile, anyone can learn Japanese to a level at which you can watch TV series and even read simple books in a year or a year and a half.

Language university

If you have your eye on a good Japanese department of a language university and are ready to enroll in it, then, of course, you should do so. The speed of learning in language universities is average: in the first year you will learn the basics of grammar and about 500 kanji. However, the university provides a comprehensive education - not only language, but also history, literature, and politics.

What’s most important is that, willy-nilly, you will constantly be among people who learn Japanese. You will find friends, and subsequently, perhaps, a job related to your passion.

Passing the JLPT

Yarksi

Japanese-Russian dictionary, a catalog of kanji and a universal tool for Japanese scholars, exists for different operating systems and platforms. The same indispensable tool as Wakan - especially if your English is not good.

Contains the largest, besides Varodai, electronic Japanese-Russian dictionary (60,000 words), a database of hieroglyphs with Russian names and interpretations, supports search by multiple characteristics, search by picture.

How to use: as a dictionary, a reference book of kanji, especially as the first thing to turn to if you do not fully understand or doubt the meaning of kanji. Yarksi has an excellent system for indicating meanings, where examples of use are given for each meaning.

• Yarksi-online– dictionary from Yarksi on the Internet.

Anki

Flash card cramming program. A recognized leader, he knows everything in his field: any settings, mathematics, appearance maps, dozens of plugins, versions for all operating systems and mobile phones, Internet version (all synchronized with each other).

How to use: Install on all your devices, set up synchronization, create decks and cram.

You can either compose a deck yourself, adding cards manually, or download a ready-made one from the server using the program. When downloading ready-made decks, remember that they often contain words of several levels at once - in Anki you can choose “to cram only cards marked with certain tags.”

It’s easier to download a ready-made deck, but creating your own is often more convenient - for example, if you want to learn kanji in a certain order. I use two decks: “words” (downloaded from the Internet) and “kanji” (compiled by hand). In the latter case, you can compose a deck automatically from kanji marked for study in the wakana (see jp-tools below).

Be sure to install the “example words in kanji” and “example sentences per word” plugins.

Where can I get lists of words and kanji for Anki?

• Download ready-made decks.
• Create from a list of learned characters in Wakana.
• Learn the characters that are most important for reading your favorite book.

A competitor to Wakana, which does not have a translator, but only a dictionary and cramming of kanji and words. However, many people like it (and the newer one).

AppLocale

A utility from Microsoft that allows you to run applications in a different system locale. Needed to run old or poorly written Japanese programs (often games), i.e. almost everyone -___-". If you see that the application shows crappy language instead of Japanese, run it from AppLocale, setting the locale to 日本語.

Windows 7: To install under Windows 7, you need to run the installer with elevated rights.

Japanese text readers

Almost all Japanese books on the Internet can be opened with Notepad or any other text editor, the main thing is to choose the encoding. But reading books is so inconvenient. Usually they use special programs - readers.

They know how, firstly, to print text vertically from right to left (get used to this form right away!), and secondly, to show furigana not in brackets, breaking the text, but as expected - on the side.

There are many readers, google “aozora-bunko reader”, “japanese reader ruby”. If you don't know which one to choose, try it ArisuViewer.

It is usually impossible to copy Japanese text from such readers, so to look up words in the dictionary, it is useful to keep the same book open in Notepad at the same time.

AGTH /ChiiTrans /ChiiTrans Lite

Applications for translating or assisting in translating Japanese visual novels. With their help, you can play novels, easily and conveniently figuring out the meaning of unfamiliar words or even translating entire sentences on the fly.
AGTH is older, ChiiTrans is built on top of it and is richer - many translation methods, including just words, signing readings, output on top of the game, etc.

Rikaichan

Pop-up translation of words in the browser from Japanese to other languages. Dictionary of names, number and frequency of appearance of hieroglyphs, and more.

Ruby support

The XHTML standard has tags for writing ruby ​​(signatures for hieroglyphs). Some browsers support them automatically, others require plugins and add-ons:

Russian dictionaries!

• Varoday- an electronic version of the large Soviet Japanese-Russian dictionary: 90,000 entries, more than 113,000 expressions, if you count variations.
• JR-Edict– about 6000 words in EDICT format (compatible with many applications).

Links

• WWWJDIC– one of the web interfaces to the EDICT dictionary (the largest electronic Japanese-English dictionary). It’s convenient to assign a search in your browser to some quick combination, for example, “jp”, so that you can search for a translation directly from the address bar.
• Yahoo Answers Japan– the last authority in the translation of incomprehensible expressions. When the expression is not in the dictionary and Google did not help, you can ask the Japanese a question. On this and other similar sites, the most complex and confusing phrases will be broken down for you in a few hours. Don't forget to thank the Japanese and choose the “correct answer”!
• tanos.co.uk– everything on JLPT: grammar, words and kanji for all levels, examples of past tasks, tests. In English.
• Google Translate- Google translator. You should not trust him, use him as a generator of unexpected thoughts.
• /tran/, /fl/– /tran/-imageboard sections. One of the places where you can get a hint (and give a hint to someone else, don't forget about it).
• [email protected] – Jabber conference to talk about foreign languages(including Japanese)

Hiragana, katakana and basic grammar

Hiragana And katakana– Japanese syllabaries. Read about them carefully on Wikipedia. You must memorize them.

Start with hiragana. Print out its symbols on a piece of paper with readings, write them in, and repeat for hours - on the subway, at breakfast, at lectures.

Having memorized most of it, read fairy tales. Stubbornly work your way through the texts, looking for symbols on your piece of paper and understanding the words.

When you get a little comfortable with hiragana, start learning katakana. Everything is the same, but there is no need to rush, and there are almost no texts on it. You will know katakana worse. Everyone knows her less well, and at first they are more confused about her. Not scary.

Both hiragana and katakana need to be learned to be written. The letters may be ugly, but you must remember their shape.

Grammar

At the same time, read something about basic grammar. Any simple book for beginners will do, even those ridiculed by everyone, like Japanese in one month. There is enough information in them.

You must learn:

• Declension of words (present, past, assumption, command, possibility, passive voice)
• Simple and polite form (tobu/tobimasu), and how they are used.
• General sentence structure (va, ha, subordinate clauses and replacing va with ha in them).
• The roles of all simple particles (but, nor, de, o/vo, then, e, kara, made, and others)

Hieroglyphics

Find and learn the general rules for writing kanji. Learn to write these twenty kanji correctly (300-500 copies of each, 25-50 per session).
If you are not going to learn to write kanji (and many do not want to, since it is unnecessary and wastes time), then now write not 20, but 40-50 kanji. This is the required minimum, you can leave it further.

Transliteration

When kana is written down by Russians or in English letters(for example, “jinsei” or “jinsei”), this is called kiriji and romaji. There are different options for this recording:

• Kana:
• Hepburn system: Marii-chan no jinsei wa chotto fukuzatsu
• Kunrei-shiki: Marii-tyan no zinsei wa tyotto hukuzatu
• Polivanov system: Maria-chan no jinsei wa totto fukuzatsu
• Various options not according to Polivanov: vat, Jinsei, jinsei, clearly, chotto, fukuzatsu and so on.

There are irreconcilable disputes between supporters and opponents of Polivanov’s system. Opponents argue that the words in Japanese do not sound like "sh or sh" and that they look funny (for example, 死者 "shisha" - dead person). Polivanov’s advantage is that this is the only unambiguous system; among the entries “not according to Polivanov” there are no clear rules: some write “shi”, some “shchi”, some just at random.

It is not so important which system to use in chats and forums. It is better to use Polivanov in articles and books, since this is the custom, this is good form - although, of course, in each situation you need to look at the circumstances. And when studying Japanese kiriji and romaji, it is better not to use it at all, even at first: learn all readings only in kana.

Pronunciation

When you start learning Japanese from anime, you usually already know how to pronounce sounds in standard Japanese. Practice your pronunciation by reading fairy tales out loud. The sounds of Japanese are close to Russian, just keep in mind that no matter what recording system you prefer (Polivanov or Kiriji-Hepburn), you need to pronounce the sounds “si” and “ji” as they are heard, and not in any of the variants written in Russian.

Cramming kanji and words

Find kanji lists for N5/N4 (formerly JLPT4/JLPT3), print them out, or type them into Anki. Study in large quantities (20-30 new ones, 2-3 hours in total per day for classes). Take breaks sometimes.

At the same time, read either fairy tales or, as soon as you can, no matter the cost, simple light novels in Japanese.

How to read books.

Start with simple books, the plot of which you know well from translation. Read in a row, quickly, so that you don’t get tired of reading. Skip the hopelessly difficult paragraphs, translate the moderately complex and easy ones by copying the words into the translator. Try not to copy entire paragraphs; guess simple expressions yourself.

Look up the kanji you have learned. Combine their sounds, trying to get a familiar word. If you don’t know all the kanji in a word, try to guess anyway, and once you guess, enter the sound into the dictionary and check if it is it.

You can and should start reading simple light novels with 300-400 kanji. You can do this without tears with 1000+ kanji and 4000-5000 words, so get ready for it to be hard at first. This is how it should be - only after getting through this difficult section will you learn to read easily.

As your kanji portfolio grows, add new ones from the books you read and words you learn. Go to JLPT N3 and create, if you haven't already, a deck for the characters you know in Anki. Feel free to add characters that are not included in the JLPT you are currently studying. Learn the kanji that you come across most often first, and let JLPT just be a guide.

Kanji and words

Memorizing individual kanji is useful, but they are remembered much faster as part of words. Therefore, be sure to install the “examples of words with kanji” plugin for Anki, and run through the examples with your eyes every time. When remembering the hieroglyph, repeat not only the reading (“KAN”), but the most famous combinations with it (“yeah, that’s KAN from KANZEN!”).

Get yourself a separate deck for words, or download a ready-made JLPT for all levels. Select only the two lower levels in it, and cram this set of words. Install the plugin for the anka “example sentences with words”, and try to understand the meaning of each word, and not just memorize its translation. Study with examples in what situations the word is used - this way you will remember it faster.

At first, you can learn 10-20 kanji and 80-100 words a day. If this is too much and your Anki debt is growing, reduce the dose. Nobody forbids you to heroically complete 500 words in one day, but this is not necessary. As kanji and words become more rare, the learning rate will drop to 2-3 kanji and 10 words per day.

When learning words, show their readings right away, since words often run ahead and use kanji that are not yet known to you. As the word is memorized, you can begin to cover the reading with your hand and try to guess it first, and only then the meaning.

Never cram without understanding. If some kanji means “eave” or “white pigweed”, find out the meaning of these words, find photographs. Having stumbled upon the “house of councillors”, read about the political structure of Japan. When you encounter an ambiguous or strange word, find and add several clear examples of use to the card. Learn the meaning, not the letters.

• How to make it more memorable(in English.)

Grammar

Reading will automatically force you to become familiar with the intermediate grammar from which most texts are constructed. Nothing special can be said here: when you encounter an incomprehensible or too complex sentence, work on it - take it apart, try to guess the meaning.

Buy yourself a grammar reference book of medium complexity, for example, “Practical Grammar of the Japanese Language” by Lavrentiev. When analyzing a proposal, re-read articles about each of its elements. If nothing works out, ask your older comrades for advice.

Common expressions

Sometimes you will come across proverbs and sayings, set expressions, Japanese memes. Learn to notice them, even if you've heard them before. A simple rule that will help at first: if a phrase sounds meaningless, and the words are suddenly not relevant, perhaps you are reading a set expression.

How to fight: choose the most characteristic, strange, unique, unchanging part of the expression and copy it into Google, enclosing it in quotes. Learn in what situations it is used. You can add “意味” outside the quotation marks: sometimes the phrase is in Japanese dictionaries, sometimes someone has already asked about its meaning, and they answered.

What to read

Where to get books in Japanese:

• (it’s not difficult and not so expensive - less than 400 rubles per book).
• Download from the Internet:
  • Aozora Bunko - library of free literature with Ruby
  • Torrents, Share and Perfect Dark are an inexhaustible source of electronic copies of books that you have already purchased in paper form.
• Buy in city stores or borrow from libraries.

Modification of hieroglyph components

Kanji are often modified to include other characters:

水 (mizu) – water, 注ぐ (sosogu) – “to pour”, the left component is also “water”.
手 (te) – hand, 扱い (atsukai) – “care”, the left component is also “hand”.
人 (hito) – person, 住む (sumu) – “to live”, the left component is also “person”.

It is useful to remember such simplifications over time when studying tables of radicals and parts of hieroglyphs.

Radicals and consonances

Often, when included in a more complex hieroglyph, simple hieroglyphs have a special role in it:

• Used as a key when searching in a dictionary
• Influence its meaning (sometimes even set it)
• They influence its Chinese sound (OH).

The first one will not be useful to you, since now there are electronic dictionaries that can be searched for anything. However, it is worth knowing that there is an algorithm for highlighting the main part (key) in a hieroglyph, according to which it is entered into the dictionary.

The second and third help from case to case. While studying kanji, you will notice that among the elements there are “strong” ones that almost always subjugate the Chinese sound:

青い (aoi/SEI, SHOU) – blue.
清い (kiyoi/SEI, SHOU) – “water” + “blue” = transparent, unpolluted
晴れる (hareru/SEI) – “sun” + “blue” = cleanse, brighten (about the weather, for example)

生 (ikiru/SEI, SHOU) – life
性 (saga/SEI, SHOU) – gender, gender
姓 (SEI, SHOU) – surname

It even happens that both readings coincide:

中 (naka/CHUU) – space between something and something
仲 (naka/CHUU) – “person” + “interval” = relationship between someone and someone

Memorization method based on plot

To remember the meaning of a hieroglyph, you can come up with some kind of “explanation” of how this meaning is “logically” obtained from the components of the hieroglyph. For example:

脅かす (obiyakasu) – “to intimidate, threaten.” In this picture we see three components of “force” and one “moon”. A bunch of evil people secretly, at night, came to a man and threatened him.
囁く (sasayaku) – “whisper.” One mouth and three ears: they are clearly gossiping.

You can come up with completely nonsense, as long as it helps you remember:

露 (tsuyu) – “dew”. Foot, “everyone” and rain: all feet are in the rain, the grass is wet. So it's not rain, but dew.

Often you can’t come up with a complete description, but it’s easy to see a hint in one component:

主 (nushi) – “master”
注ぐ (sosogu) – “to pour.” What can you pour? Water. And here it is, water, to the left of the “owner”.
住む (sumu) – “to live.” Who lives in the house? Man, his owner. And now, to the left of the “owner” is a man.
柱 (hashira) – “pillar”. What are the pillars made of? Made of wood. And here is the tree, to the left of the “owner”.

One word - several kanji

Japanese is older than its hieroglyphic writing. Some words in it have multiple meanings, and when kanji were borrowed from China, different kanji were chosen for different meanings. For example:

伸びる (nobiru) – to stretch, to extend (in length)
延びる (nobiru) – to stretch out, to extend (in time)
直す (naosu) – straighten, fix (thing)
治す (naosu) – to cure a disease (of a person)
会う (ay) – to meet, to see each other (about people)
合う (ay) – come together, meet (about things)
遭う (ay) – to encounter (with unpleasant life circumstances)

There are also more subtle cases when the choice of kanji conveys only shades of meaning. Sometimes a word is traditionally written in one kanji, and the author writes it with a rarer one to emphasize some kind of intonation. Sometimes the chosen kanji is not even related to the word at all.

Choosing the wrong kanji is a mistake, although not a critical one. Of course, the chosen kanji cannot be conveyed by voice, so in oral speech the meaning of the word is guessed from the context.

One kanji - several words

It happens that several Japanese words correspond to one kanji. Then in the recording they differ only in the ending, for example:
通う – kayou, walk (to work), ride (to work and back)
通る – tooru, to pass (down the street, through an alley)
笑う – warau, laugh
笑む – emu, smile
In some forms, the words even look the same, and you just have to guess from the context: 通って is kayotte or tootte.

Some pseudo-Chinese words also have multiple readings: 真実 shinjitsu / 真実 sana (truth), 昨日 kinou / 昨日 sakujitsu (yesterday).

Types of words

There are four broad categories of words in Japanese:

1. Originally Japanese words. Usually written with one kanji ending in kana, the ending is declined. Examples: 笑う (warau, laugh), 支える (sasaeru, support), 読む (yomu, read), 擦れ違う (surechigau, warm up). In this case, kunas are used to read kanji.
2. Pseudo-Chinese words. They are obtained by compiling 2-4 kanji and reading them. Examples: 想像 (souzou, imagination), 要求 (youkyuu, demand), 真実 (shinjitsu, truth). They don’t decline, and if you need to get a verb, the Japanese service verb “suru” is added to the end: 想像する – imagine, 要求する – demand.
3. Onomatopoeia and similar words. They are written in kana, less often in kanji, usually with two repeated syllables: にこにこ, ちょくちょく, こそこそ. Essentially, it’s something like the Russian “shorkh-shorkh” or “zhik-zhik”, only there are tens of times more of them and they exist for things for which there are no sounds, such as silence, irritation or dizziness. If you are not afraid of English, I recommend it.
4. Borrowings. Written in katakana, their sound resembles the foreign words from which they originate: ドール (dooru, doll), ドライバー (doraibaa, driver, driver/screwdriver). They often have some unexpected, unusual meaning. Long words are often abbreviated: パソコン (pasokon, PERSONAL COMputer), バイト (baito, part-time job, from German arubaito - work).

Speech styles

Men and women speak differently in Japanese. Men's speech is rougher, they often swallow syllables (see below), use “da” and “da yo” instead of “desu” and call themselves “ore” or “boku”. Girls speak more softly, call themselves “watashi” or “atashi”, and construct the phrase in the form of a half-question, ending it with “ne”, “kasira” or “des va”.

When communicating between senior and junior, superior and subordinate, polite speech is used - keigo. In addition to these, there are plenty of other styles and decorations of speech. They are used depending on the character, situation and mood. A fashionable girl, a modest girl, a boy, an old man, a young guy, a young girl - everyone will speak differently.

Some of the elements of speech diversity are:

• The form of the main verb and style words change (“desu”, “da”, “da e”, “da zo”, “da na”, “desu ne”, “de aru”, “de gozaru”)
• The form of the phrase changes slightly (in women’s speech, for example, a semi-questioning tone is adopted)
• syllables are swallowed (in male speech: “surya” instead of “sureba”, “sinakya” instead of “sinakereba”)

In addition to standard Japanese, there are a number of dialects that differ in the pronunciation and form of function words.

Other information

• Kokuji are hieroglyphs invented in Japan in the likeness of Chinese ones. Usually devoid of them.
• Ateji - hieroglyphs chosen to convey sound foreign words. Usually not used, but kana is used.

Additionally

Notes

Recommend some textbooks for beginners to make it easier to start)

Any you like. Go to a large bookstore or Japanese literature store, leaf through and look. I like Lavrentiev’s grammar reference book, for example (the green one, not the red self-instruction manual). I once read “Japanese in one month,” which is normal for a beginner. Many people love Nechaev (this is a tutorial, I didn’t really like it, but I don’t like them at all).

Now it has appeared
www (dot) dicter (dot) ru

It’s just a wrapper for Google Translate, it seems. There are dozens of them.

Yes, absolutely. (sarcasm)

I can't link, it's illegal. But if, let's say, you own a paper copy, the electronic one can be found in torrents and Perfect Dark.

Thanks for the resources! They helped a lot.

If you speak English well, then perhaps Tae Kim’s Guide The best way learn grammar http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/ and Remembering The Kanji (http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Remembering-Kanji-1-James-Heisig/9780824835927) is an excellent assistant in learning kanji. Tae Kim is good because he doesn’t force you to quickly learn the same keigo (which is the sin of many tutorials), and after careful familiarization he allows himself to read various visual novels quite comfortably using the AGTH+Notepad+Rikaichan combination.

A very motivating article, in general, I actually started studying Japanese with it, but after eight months of studying Japanese, it became clear to me that at best I reach N5, although as practice shows, I did not study according to JLPT, because to my I was surprised to find that I knew a little from all levels. (For example, I found familiar hieroglyphs not only in N5, but also in N1). So that’s the question: can you tell me how you motivated yourself to study the language so intensively? How much time did you spend on Japanese every day?

I wanted to read it early 🙂 I spent it on the way to work and home, just an hour and a half to two hours. There’s nothing to do on the subway anyway, but you just sit there and repeat kanji. Why do you think that you only reach N5? N5-N4 are very simple, the hieroglyphs can be printed and learned in a few weeks.

So I know all the hieroglyphs from N5 and most of N4, and in fact I already correspond quite freely with the Japanese on the Internet (albeit on simple topics), I start having problems when I start talking to the Japanese, and this is where it turns out what to learn It was necessary not only to translate the hieroglyph, but also all the readings. This is much easier in correspondence, because Microsoft IME does not require absolute knowledge of the pronunciation of the word. By the way, I would like to recommend you sites for learning the language: busuu.com and livemocha.com (I received most of my knowledge through these sites, because there you can ask questions specifically to the Japanese, and chat is also a very useful thing in conjunction with google transalte, I already called all the Japanese there (it turned out to be more than 100, but I think this is not the limit))

Wow, so maybe you are being unfair to yourself in vain? The JLPT does not test communication skills, it only requires reading. I passed JLPT N2, but I still can’t carry on a conversation freely. So maybe your JLPT level is higher than you think.
And by the way, 100 acquaintances means you are a very sociable person :) I can’t even have that many acquaintances!

Sorry, but what's the point of your level 2 if you don't own it? Why a certificate then?
Language proficiency means, first of all, the ability to speak it.

I'm afraid this question should not be asked to me, but to the authors of the exam. Apparently, that's how it was intended. Why am I getting a certificate? This is said in the article: out of interest, in order to assess your level, compare it with the level of others. After all, everyone takes the exam according to the same rules.

Ooh, thanks for the answer, just like at the beginning of this year, motivation, motivation, motivation! (Probably only a techie understands a techie (especially IT), because when I showed your article to one girl from linguistics, she didn’t appreciate your work at all, but under his influence I never even thought about courses (Well, only sometimes, in moments of despair ) and when I thought about girls (because there are really only girls in the Japanese courses), and by the way, you are from the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics, and have you ever been to the “Japanese Center”? They have so-called “Romashka clubs” there - that is, one? Once a month there you can meet and talk with real Japanese people live, I was even there once, but due to my weak spoken Japanese it didn’t go very well. Here’s their website: jcenter.msu.ru (True, it’s something now. They don’t hold these daisies, probably because summer has just ended).

Yes, and about friends: I found only 4-5 Japanese friends there out of 100, with the rest I only chatted once. (The most sociable are Japanese grandmothers).

I haven’t been, I didn’t get ready somehow during my studies) Lazy, unsociable, and so on. Thanks for the useful information. I see that you have tried a lot yourself. If you have interesting observations, please let me know :)

I fully support Misha333 that the article is very motivating, especially considering that I am also a techie, I graduated from Mech-Mat. This is the very first article I read when I decided to learn Japanese, and I read it many times. Just like the Author, I really wanted to read the light novel, to find out how this or that story ended. All thanks to the Japanese animatars, who, God willing, will film at most 50% of the full film adaptation. I’ve already planned out what to read for years. And somehow, even without realizing it, I wanted to become a translator.
And I think that I was lucky with the teacher, I found a teacher in my little Tula who lived in Japan for 10 years and is essentially a native speaker, in addition to all my efforts, I think this will be a big plus. And even this Sunday (9月23日) a real Japanese is coming. I hope to see him, although it will probably be of little use)))
ありがとうございます,himselfさん.

Thank you) I'm glad it was useful to someone.

The article is simply priceless, I’ve already come across it so many times, and every time I discover something new for myself =) There’s just a lot of things :-))) In addition, I already have some experience in learning the language, and I know what is said here from to yourself. Although this is about light novels, I realized for myself that the main thing is to read. I didn’t read a light novel, but a manga, it seems that it’s easier, and knowing the plot of your favorite manga, it’s not scary if you don’t understand something, but there are a lot of moments like “oh! that's how they say it in Japanese! that’s how it’s spelled!” It is remembered well.
Quite a confusing review, it just struck me today that this is not the first time I’ve been coming back here :-))) Thanks to a knowledgeable person for sharing :-))) Perhaps I’ll take the advice and try Anki and learn words a lot a day, and not like this, like me, in a gentle mode - because when I want, then I learn =))) I now have to learn level 3 kanji in a short time, so gambarimas :-))))

Thank you. Happy studying 🙂

For some reason I can’t find lists of words and kanji for JLPT N4-5. Can you tell me where to get them? And also, maybe you know where you can buy cards for this level in Moscow?

Thanks for the article, very motivating. However, there are questions: is it really worth learning without any textbooks, or did you not indicate a single title for other reasons? It's just that when I try to learn without textbooks, just from fairy tales and lists of kanji and words, I feel like I'm missing something. Can you recommend any textbook for beginners? It is desirable that it be from scratch, with grammar, because... It was precisely this that I did not understand well, for lack of a textbook.

It seems to me that it is worth teaching without tutorials, i.e. textbooks that lead you by the hand from lesson to lesson. Other textbooks and reference books may be helpful. But I don't know many of them. I named several in the article and in the comments. I learned the simplest grammar using “Japanese in one month” (it’s really very simple), more complex ones – just by reading books, googling strange phrases on the Internet, consulting reference books like Lavrentiev (on grammar).

Oh, and I would also like to ask for some link to a good database of Japanese fairy tales of varying complexity. From learning hiragana to starting to learn kanji. And no matter how much I searched, I couldn’t find any suitable and rather large database of Japanese fairy tales.

And another question, do you think it’s possible to improve conversational Japanese without language schools?

You can if you find someone to talk to (Japanese friends, or you live in Japan).

Question. Why is it better to learn katakana after hiragana? In my opinion, it is more logical at the same time. For example, I learned the symbol あ - and after it ア. And so on with each character.

You can teach as you like. But katakana is more difficult to learn; there is almost nothing to train it with. Therefore, even if you learn cards with letters equally, when reading hiragana you will still remember it better. Unless you find some katakana text generator and deliberately force yourself to read a lot of them in order to get comfortable with it (not necessary, but a good investment of effort).

Well, there is, for example, RealKana, where random katakana or hiragana symbols are thrown, and you need to determine which symbol it is. Probably good for practice.

No, this is cramming. Same as Anki or printed cards. Cramming is necessary, but practice is when you read the text.

Hm. Many people start learning Japanese because of anime, and the credits are full of katakana.

In subs you mean? In general, Japanese subs are a good thing, but you need to know how to find them. But there’s not much more katakana there, in my opinion. The same as in the light novel.

To practice katakana, try finding an old edition of Golovnin’s textbook on the Internet. Half of the first volume is almost entirely in katakana. There are phonetic text and katakana words for each lesson. This way you can practice the entire alphabet so that there are no problems later. When I started, I learned it that way, even before hiragana.

According to Golovnin, I studied Japanese at the university. True, there was a lot of katakana. A good textbook, I think, for practicing the syllabary alphabet.

Hello, himselfさん！How strange it is that over the years no one has asked, perhaps, the most interesting (for me) question! You wrote more than once that you watched anime, do you continue to watch it to this day? I started learning Japanese 15 days ago, I already know Hiragana, Katakana, and the simplest sentences like 「これは何ですか？」, I know no more than ten kanji. My goal, in general, is to understand Japanese speech (watch anime without subtitles) and read books in the original. I am concerned about the question, please tell me, do you understand speech by ear, in anime, for example? According to you, you don’t have to take it apart? If yes, please tell me if you remember how long it took for you to start succeeding? What minimum words are approximately necessary to understand speech in the same anime? For now, this is my incentive, I am extremely interested in how long and how many kanji I will begin to understand speech, albeit with difficulty.
Thank you very much for your attention!

In order to understand speech by ear, it is not necessary to learn kanji at all (although this will help consolidate the skill). The main thing is words. I am sure that if you want, you will achieve noticeable success in six months. But keep in mind that the language varies: in serious fiction and historical anime, the language is often complex, while in anime about everyday life and simple comedies, the language is often much simpler.
I didn’t study Japanese for a long time, I just watched anime. And I began to understand Japanese speech in simple anime long before I studied. Without even specially learning it, just remembering which words had which subtitles. If you take teaching seriously, then things should go faster. Good luck in your studies!

Good afternoon, Vladimir! Thank you for the excellent article, I read and re-read it with great pleasure and it seems to me that I will return to it more than once. Involuntarily I envy your ability to learn language: for such a short time and come so far. I’ve been learning Japanese myself for a year and a half now, but things, as they say, are still there. In terms of: it’s hard to read, you have to naturally wade through the text, periodically interrupting to soothingly wring your hands and run around the room. Conversation is easier (I can handle it at the everyday level), listening comprehension is worse, but it also works.
From my experience, what may be useful for those coming after: I read texts from books aimed at developing reading in foreigners. That is, Japanese Graded Readers, Nihon Bunka wo Yomu and others - there are many different ones. The essence is the same: original or adapted texts with audio recordings. Reading, hearing, shadowing in one bottle.
I also write short texts and dialogues to practice vocabulary or grammar. By hand - in vertical writing - and on the computer - to throw it into the network of language learners like italki. They don't always check, but sometimes they make useful comments. I write kanji a lot and for a long time - it calms me down, and I’m also a graphomaniac.
Useful resources not mentioned above: manythings.org/japanese, I use the kanji section. What I like: the kanji field can be colored however you like. If you want, learn in JLPT, if you want, learn in Japanese school curriculum. You can get into the language of news and newspapers; there are quizzes on the most common words in which the kanji you are learning is used. Minus: the site is not very fast at all, and when America is active it is almost unresponsive.
Regarding different teaching methods: I probably tried everything except Russian textbooks. There was Rosetta, there were courses (and there are), there was an exchange visit to Japan, there were lessons on Skype with a Japanese teacher, textbooks, books, independent studies. What suited me and remained: Skype, books, self-study, courses from a Japanese philologist. This is the story. I hope it will also be useful to someone.
Thanks again! ^_^

How did you motivate yourself to learn the language?
Now I have completed the first volume of みんなのにほんご in my luggage (by the way, what level does the first book correspond to?), I seem to want to teach and study, but I somehow feel uneasy with textbooks, I want variety. Now I only repeat the words I learned in Anki.
And is there an opportunity to correlate your knowledge regarding JLPT, or are there websites?
By the way, when applying for a job, my knowledge of the Japanese language influenced me a little and brought me to the forefront in comparison with other applicants, although the work is not related to Japanese in any way))))).

Maybe try reading? It's challenging and interesting. You can try your hand at JLPT on their official website (there are examples there), or you can also find literature for preparation, assignments from previous years (usually it’s all in Japanese).
I didn’t give any special motivation, but when I started studying correctly (that is, a lot), it was interesting simply because everything worked out.

By the way:
>You can and should start reading simple light novels with 300-400 kanji.
Are simple light novels, in principle, almost everything? If not, can you recommend any simple light novel based on your experience? Or maybe you just know about one.

There are more complex light novels, usually science fiction or historical. I didn't include a list in the article because I wouldn't be able to make a good one - I need to read a lot more than I did. But, for example, the first volumes of Haruhi are quite simple.

It seems to me that for a beginner it is more important that he has already read this book or looked at it in translation. I would choose five or six light novel anime that I liked and found simple, and then read a couple of pages at a time and see which one comes easier.

Can you tell me if I understood correctly? Do I need to quickly go through the grammar, memorizing something along the way, then take the light novel and translate it to strengthen the grammar, and then start learning kanji?

But how will you translate a light novel without knowing kanji? The article has a different order.

Well, for example, you can take a manga that has furigana in it. I was rather worried about the question of how well you need to go through the grammar at first, quickly and without really memorizing or trying to learn something

Then yes, it is better to immediately consolidate it in practice. Of course, you still try to remember.

Great article, thanks. Last summer I took advice from it as my main focus and was as pleased as an elephant - reading with 1200 kanji is already quite good.

However, there is a question regarding the set of kanji used. You've read a lot and have a lot of experience, right? I myself use VN-ki for practice (hookers’ extraction of text on the fly with a furigana signature greatly speeds things up), and at almost every step I come across “non-certified” kanji. From the lists of 常用 and JLPT, of course, there are also a lot, but besides them, every now and then 人名用 pops up not in names, but in meaning, or kanji, which are not in any lists at all, or a word usually written in kana is suddenly written in kanji (よろしい　＝ 宜しい,　しゃべる　＝　喋る). Is this a normal situation for an artist, or have I simply come across VNs exclusively from highly intelligent snobby authors? I still learn them by heart, they won’t be superfluous, they’re just interesting.

It’s normal, especially your examples – it’s like this at every step.

常用 were compiled a long time ago and not only by popularity, but since then fashions have also changed. In terms of usage, it is only on line 1389.
Did they look at it the last time in 2010, bringing the list up to 2,000 thousand? At least that's what the wiki says.

Well, okay, that’s what an artist is for. Thanks for the answer :)

Another stupid question, can you advise where to download the original light novel of the same Haruhi? Otherwise it doesn’t work on Aozora perfect dark

It should be written in Japanese: 涼宮ハルヒ

Help with listening((. Speech is too fast. How to develop listening skills?

For example, watch a lot of anime with subtitles, comparing what they say with the translation. Depending on your level of knowledge, you can look for simple audiobooks (but this is more difficult).

How can you keep up with everything? I only manage to understand 1-3 words in a sentence. And you also need to understand what the meaning of the sentence is. Meanwhile, the 2nd or 3rd sentence in the dialogue is already spoken. Will listening skills improve significantly if you read even more? Or some other method to improve hearing?

You just need to gain experience. Start with simpler anime. If you understand at least some of the phrases, that's good. When a phrase is interesting, you can stop, rewind, and listen again. By the way, this naturally happens to novice translators; they are forced to listen to each phrase several times in order to record and translate it correctly. But, of course, this is tiring, and it’s better to choose an anime where you don’t have to do this all the time.

For me, if I don’t understand something because of fast speech, reducing the audio/video playback speed helps.

Hello, thank you very much for this article and for your work, I just started to comprehend the Japanese language and almost learned kana, well, 10 kanji, not a lot of course :). Can you advise a beginner what books to download or buy? teaching aids I will be very grateful to the authors.

Look through the store to see which ones you like. Any simple grammar textbook will do for a start; you can also find lessons on the Internet.

Do I need to learn how to read kanji? Is this checked in JLPT? So far I know 1100 words in Anki + 50 hieroglyphs, again in Anki (I added it because I wanted to learn how to write, I don’t see the point in memorizing readings, but I learned it anyway), I read the basic grammar section of Tae Kim, I repeat it periodically so that it gets ingrained into the brain =) I’ve never read manga or light novels, I’m doing it because it’s interesting, but I just don’t know what to do next - either continue to expand my vocabulary (downloaded the program on my emikata phone, where words from different JLPT levels are given in lists), or continue to learn kanji (kanji study application) I add a card with a hieroglyph + words with it (but this is tedious, such an operation takes up to 20 minutes, in the end my maximum is adding 10 kanji per day, http://fastpic.ru/view/78/2016 /0709/3eda34fb675c6e963cd5206bba7dad05.png.html this is what happens + words in the corresponding deck), or grammar from textbooks. I also try to watch ovrimonogatari in the original - sometimes I pluck out familiar words, it’s a pity there are no subtitles for it in Japanese. I've been training for eight months. Please tell me what to do next and how to work most effectively, and I apologize in advance for stupid questions, because above you have already written a whole article just about how to work most effectively. I’ll also be grateful if you recommend an interesting and light light novel (I myself have only read Kizumonogatari in translation, but that’s probably too complicated) Thank you.

I learned both kanji and words at once. The more you do at once, the better it sticks. It’s good when the words are a little ahead of the kanji, and anime and TV series are a little ahead of the words, so that first you memorize the word, then learn it consciously, and then recognize the kanji and understand how it works. If you are too lazy to create cards, you can download ready-made ones and remake them to your taste.
I haven’t read Kizumonogatari, but in general the series is complex. Even with N2 it was not easy for me to get through it. I remember that volumes 1 and 4 of Haruhi seemed easy, and then most of Ore no Imouto.
If your previous exposure to Japanese was short, then eight months is not that long. Just cram slowly and everything will work out)

I tried to search for 俺の妹 in Google, in Yandex (it gave a link to a root tracker with another light novel on the scanned pages, there is no furigana, I don’t know how to read it, I can’t be sure yet), and on Aozora. Now I'm looking in Perfect Dark. I enter 俺の妹　ラノベ into the search and it gives one result lol. Oh yes, is it normal that the speed is 150 kb/s?
By the way, I’m familiar with Japanese from anime – about 100 titles – but I didn’t really listen and didn’t always watch with subtitles, so the words didn’t really stick in my head. I also downloaded Fate with Japanese subtitles and furigana, which is really cool, although I still don’t understand anything.

みんなの日本語 has an excellent workbook on hieroglyphs, try doing one lesson a day (10-15 pieces per lesson). Plus small tasks at the end of the lesson for practice. These characters cover N4-N5.
The main thing is to prescribe it every day. I started from the very first one, now I can reproduce more than half of the book)).

Tell me, is it possible to determine for sure from the ます form which conjugation the verb belongs to? Are there any tricks or simple rules? Well, for example, as in Russian: “if the verb answers the question
"what to do?" or “what to do?” – soft sign needs to be staged.”

I learned a lot of verbs in the ます form, and I often get confused about the conjugations.
For example１） かきますー＞かく　
ょみますー＞ょむ
everything is in the first conjugation, this is understandable, since the ます-form ends in (い)
２）　ねますー＞ねる　
みますー＞みる　　(does not end with (い), and there is only 1 hieroglyph）
why for example おきます　－　おきる
かります　－＞かりる　（ends in (い), but 2nd conjugation）
3) Everything is clear with the third form.

If you know the spelling -masu form in hieroglyphs, then you can look in the dictionary what kind of verb it was.
If the verb ends in -emasu, then this is exactly the 2nd conjugation, because For 1st verbs, -masu must be preceded by I.

In other cases, it is impossible to determine the conjugation. Moreover, several verbs of different conjugations can have the same -masu form, including the ones you yourself showed.

okiru (2nd conjugation) - oki- (2nd form) - okimasu
oku (1st conjugation) - oki- (2nd form) - okimasu

kariru (2nd conjugation) - kari- (2nd form) - karimasu
BUT, TA-DAM!
KARU! (1st conjugation) - kari- (2nd form) - karimasu
狩る - karu - to hunt

In this case, the only way to determine what kind of verb it was is context.
For example, you met an unfriendly hunter with a gun in the forest.
You: Doo suru tsumori ka? (colloquially, “what are you going to do?”)
Him: Kemono wo karimasu. (polite, “hunt monsters”, not “borrow a monster”)

However, if you had a monster and it was tame, perhaps he wants to borrow it from you for hunting.

Verbs should be learned in 3 forms (in -u, i.e. oku, okira, yomu, etc.), for two reasons:
Firstly, in the dictionary verbs are always given in 3rd form. I don’t know why some textbooks give -masu forms, apparently so that you can immediately compose polite sentences, and not have to explain that the verb must first be put in the 2nd form, and then add -masu. But then everything will have to be relearned! In addition, the -masu form is only used in polite speech and only for the last verb in a sentence.

Secondly, this way you can immediately determine the conjugation of a verb, although there are exceptions:
http://www.nihongo.aikidoka.ru/505-verb.html
Please note that there are verbs that are written the same way, but use different conjugations and different hieroglyphs:
変える - kaeru - to change (something) - 2nd conjugation
帰る - kaeru - to return (home) - 1 conjugation

I will also take the liberty of giving advice on listening - you asked above.

Pure listening is well trained by watching anime not with captions, but WITHOUT captions. If you leave the captions on, your brain will jump to them. You should watch a simple anime. The best thing is purely school, the main thing is that without any techno-magic, because... it often involves terminology unique to the series.

Firstly, the characters’ speech is quite simple (all of them are high school students) and covers most of everyday topics. If it is not clear from the text what is happening, in most cases you can guess it from the image.
Secondly, there is a lot of it, more than 10 seasons of 50 episodes - enough to master the skill. Most of the seasons can be watched separately from others, because... there are different characters. I watched 4 seasons and my favorite was Futari wa Pretty Cure Splash Star.

There is a second method that is closely related to listening - visual novels in Japanese. But this will work well if your reading skill is improved, but your listening skill is not - or vice versa. Because the characters' lines are voiced - and you immediately see the text of the lines in hieroglyphs. And you can press the funny button with the speaker in the log until you get tired of it - and listen to the text again - and check it with the inscription.

Help me please. Once again I take up the study and try to do everything correctly and without gaps. I'm filling out one of them now. According to Polivanov, how do you write the combination of a long etinated dakuten of the sa- group?

っじゃ，っじゅ，っじょ。If it is clear with romaji according to Hepburn and Nihon-shiki, then with kiriji it is not at all (jjya, zzya, zdzya (dja)? How to read is also clear, but how to spell it correctly?

Honestly, I don't know. According to Wikipedia, the first consonant is doubled, that is: -dja. You can try with examples, but I don’t remember such words. Edict knows only タレッジョ... taredjo. Does it seem normal?

Hello. Once again, taking the JLPT, I was convinced that something was wrong. Well, I’m not good at large sentences (texts), complex ones, etc., I can’t understand from which side they need to be translated and how to correctly understand the meaning, even if most of the words are familiar. A similar problem arises with listening. Long remarks are almost impossible to understand. Moreover, due to the speed of speaking, I can’t even immediately repeat what was said, let alone translate... it’s some kind of dead end Why did you only notice this on JLPT? Before the exam you complex sentences

didn’t encounter them regularly, or did they not cause problems for you? What level are you taking, how do you prepare?

The problem actually existed before the exam. I passed N3. This time I was preparing for 読解　Shin Kanzen Master. It was difficult, but somehow I managed to understand the meaning and answer. During the exam, probably due to the feeling that there was almost no time, I didn’t even have time to really read the largest texts, let alone the meaning.

Do you read a lot? How do you parse unclear sentences?

I haven’t read practical fiction yet. Everything is within the textbooks. Simple sentences I can understand it almost immediately; if there are unfamiliar words, I look them up in dictionaries. With complex matters the situation is worse; in practice, I cannot accurately formulate in Russian what is written in the sentence.

So try to read quickly. If you're taking N3, it's high time. It is not necessary to formulate each one in Russian, it is enough to roughly understand it. But it’s useful to work on sentences, reread, think about it, guess the meaning, and sometimes Google incomprehensible phrases.

Thank you! Regarding listening, what advice can you give?

When you know more words and grammar, it is also easier to perceive speech by ear. Well, as usual, the more you do something, the better it gets. You can watch anime and TV series without subtitles, for example.

Passed N2 with a good score after 1 year and 2 months of studying from scratch. My journey in learning Japanese literally began with this article. The advice in it was very helpful, I especially liked (and still like) the sections “How to learn Japanese” and “Work plan”, which were then encouraging and set a tough but worthy bar. Thank you very much and good luck in all your endeavors!

Thank you! I’m happy for you, I’m sure that everything will continue to work out for you :)

Good afternoon. I have a question that I think many have asked.
I am a 2nd year student, studying to become a programmer. In principle, studying is easy, but a huge number of subjects not really related to it and a terrible schedule thanks to which I am exhausted and exhausted almost every day at the university from morning to evening. My English is a little difficult, although the guys with whom I sometimes get along online games like ARMA has to communicate in English, they say that they completely understand my speech, but I very often do not understand them. Due to the fact that I basically need English both in life and in my profession, I have to learn it too, and I also really want to learn Japanese. The other day I gulped down the motivation in this and a couple of other articles and began to leisurely study hiragana.
Is it possible for a person who has a little difficulty with languages ​​in parallel with English, to study, with varying success, such Difficult language How is Japanese and what difficulties can I encounter?

I wouldn’t seriously study two languages ​​at the same time, but on the other hand, are you studying English seriously now? Or are you just unhappy with the level? One way or another, learning hiragana little by little is harmless and will come in handy later.

Why do you want to learn Japanese?

Listen, did you study Japanese on your own or at school/with practice? Now I’m trying to learn Japanese myself, well, my soul lies, however, everyone insists that it’s simply impossible to do it alone, somehow my mood immediately worsens and the desire to quit the whole thing grows.

That’s how I studied it, as I write in the article. Is this being said by people who have learned Japanese, or who are just learning it themselves? You can simply not have such conversations with them. Teach yourself and teach.

I took a 4-month break, before that I completed level n4. We'll be working on N3 until mid-June. I'm preparing for the MEXT program.
Thanks to the site and comments, they very often motivate and warm up interest in the language)).

Please!

Where can I take the test? And what does working with hiragana mean, as I understand it, it’s like an alphabet, but what exactly do you need to do, cram?

Good afternoon. The Wikipedia article says where the exam takes place. Examples of questions are available at the office. website, but not enough. Options for previous years are published in books, you can probably google them.

Yeah, you need to cram hiragana - it's an alphabet, you just have to learn to read it.