Immersion is key and you can make it really efficient with the following tools and resources.
- Introduction
- ① Learning through reading
- ② Learning through listening
- Other ways to learn
- Miscellaneous
Most of the tools mentioned here can be used with Yomichan and Anki to create efficient flashcards.
- Anki: spaced repetition flashcards app for learning pretty much anything (vocabulary, sentence mining, grammar, etc.)
- useful Anki addons: AJT Furigana and PitchAccent
- optimize Anki settings: interval modifier
- Yomichan: web browser extension for translating unknown words in web pages
- it can be linked to Anki with AnkiConnect to generate flashcards of the words you can't read (see here)
- see this guide for a setup tutorial.
- can be used to read books since .epub ebooks contain .html files
More specific categories will be details later, but you can find most of what you're looking for on these websites:
- Itazuraneko: richest source of immersion material (not updated anymore :/)
- Nyaa: biggest torrent site for anime, manga, light novels and dramas
- J-Drama: Google drive with 150 Japanase dramas
Before starting to read books and watch shows in Japanese, you need a decent understanding of kanji and Japanese grammar. Some people recommend learning the 1000 most used kanji and the corresponding vocabulary before immersing, but at the end of the day it really depends on the difficulty of the first thing you're going to read/watch, and I think it can be done earlier with enough determination.
The importance of learning kanji is often underestimated. Japanese grammar highly depends on the way kanji interact, and without them you won't be able to read or watch anything.
Different learning approaches exist, and all of them have their drawbacks. My take on kanji is that learning them independantly is useful at first, but it soon becomes a waste of time; I learned them mainly through immersion.
- WaniKani: famous method of learning based on mnemonics (for beginners)
- RTK (Remembering The Kanji): another famous method but with a really weird order
Even more important than learning kanji is understanding how Japanese is structured. Famous Japanese grammar books aimed at foreigners (Minna no Nihongo, Genki, etc.) teach Japanese grammar in a weird order in my opinion. I would say that learning grammar combining different guides is the best way to understand it completely (and of course immersion).
- Tae Kim's Guide: highly regarded free guide
- Minna no Nihongo: book often used in Japanese class all around the world
- GENKI: another famous grammar book
Buying a physical Japanese dictionary isn't really necessary; a lot of great dictionaries can be found online. Here are the ones I use.
- Jisho: rich Japanese-English dictionary
- Wiktionary: very detailed information for kanji lookup
- JapanDict: dictionary and details on kanji
- 日仏辞典: Japanese-French dictionary
- Takoboto: Android Japanese dictionary
- OJAD: pitch accent dictionary (advanced)
- Massif: example sentences from word
A beginner should start with a bilingual dictionary, such as JMdict (English) Alternate, but it's not the best way to learn new vocabulary.
Switching to monolingual dictionaries with Yomichan is also a turning point in the Japanese learning journey, so I recommend doing it as soon as it seems possible. I couldn't understand most of the definitions at first, but after seeing a lot of them, it became possible.
Going monolingual helps understanding nuances and forces you not to rely on another language. See here for a more detailed explanation.
My config file for Yomichan can be found in this repository.
The dictionaries I use are in the Dictionaries folder (other dictionaries can be found here).
See Monolingual.md for advanced Yomichan customisation (automated creation of Anki cards with furigana and cropped monolingual dictionary definition).
The priority order of monolingual dictionaries I use is:
- 旺文社国語辞典 第十一版 画像無し: concise and very simple definitions
- 明鏡国語辞典: simple definitions too
- 大辞林 第三版: contains many entries and remains quite simple
- 実用日本語表現辞典: dictionary for expressions (is displayed first in this case since the entry is larger)
- 精選版 日本国語大辞典: the biggest Japanese dictionary in existence (fallback dictionary)
- 漢字遣い参考: (not a real dictionary) useful when you encounter words such as 思うつぼ but your dictionaries only know its full kanji form 思う壷 (in which case 漢字遣い参考's entry would be first to appear and you'd just have to use Yomichan on it)
I also use the BCCJW-LUW frequency dictionary with Yomichan, so that I can learn my Anki cards in order of frequency.
It's based on a corpus of 100,000,000 words and I find it more accurate than the other frequency dictionaries.
Reading is the best way to learn vocabulary, grammar and kanji at the same time. Most of my Japanese comes from reading novels, articles and web pages. However, reading raw content is harsh, but these tools can make it easier.
Mokuro.webm
- Manga OCR: great optical character recognition tool
- Mokuro: tool based on Manga OCR, used to turn manga pages into .html files you can look up with Yomichan
- 縦書き頑張ってみるよ: Firefox addon turn horizontal text into vertical text (like in real Japanese books)
- Hibiscus: .epub online reader implementing vertical reading
- ッツ Ebook Reader: same as Hibiscus
- Jidoujisho: Android app to read books and manga with Yomichan-like translation, also with Anki integration (and a lot of other things)
Manga can be hard to read at first, because sentences are short and sometime use very specific vocabulary.
- Itazuraneko Manga: a lot of raw manga
- Tachiyomi: you can bulk download Japanese manga through Tachiyomi and export them to your computer afterwards
In my opinion, reading books is the best way to enhance your understanding of Japanese grammar and discover new words. Unlike reading manga, you don't get extra information from the drawings, and the sentences are more advanced and formal. The good news is that books are pretty easy to find.
I recommend having an English translation of the book you're reading, alongside the Japanese version. Advanced Japanese syntax can be quite confusing, and you may think you understood the meaning of a sentence when in reality you mistook a grammatical form for another.
- Aozora Bunko: ~15,000 royalty-free Aozora Bunko books
- Itazuraneko Books: all kinds of Japanese books (even more than Aozora Bunko)
- Z-Lib: biggest online library (not only Japanese)
- Imperial Library: if Z-Lib is down [tor]
- Sōseki Project: Natsume Sōseki novels cut in blocks, with word definitions and audio
If you want to read books on an e-reader such as Kobo, you can add this custom html dictionary created from JMdict: Kobo Dictionary
Note that you need to be comfortable with reading Japanese without a dictionary if you want to read on an e-reader: looking up words takes a lot more time than on PC, and you won't be able to create Anki cards.
You can set up MPV and Yomichan to generate vocab Anki cards with the context sentence, both in Japanese and translated in English, with the audio of the line, a screenshot of the scene and a definition of the word (or a translation)
Example.webm
- MPV: the best media player when it comes to customisation; you can really enhance your immersion setup with the following addons (courtesy of the AJATT community)
- Mpvacious: use Yomichan on video subtitles and create Anki cards (if you are on Wayland you'll need wl-clipboard)
- Sub-transition: speed up a video when there are no subtitles on screen
- Autosync-mpv: automatically sync a subtitles file to the audio
- Videoclip: create video clips
- Jidoujisho: can also be used to watch videos with translatable subtitles and Anki integration on your phone
Japanese subtitles for specific shows can be really hard to find or even unavailable (e.g. Ashita no Joe). If what you are looking for can't be found in theses lists, it probably doesn't exist.
- Kitsunekko: updated collection
- Itazuraneko Subtitles: old but very rich collection
- Tatsumoto's List: list of subtitles collections (Tatsumoto's Guide)
- Japanese Movies: subtitles for Japanese movies, ordered by directors
Whisper AI can be used to generate fairly good subtitles, but you need to use medium/large models, which can take a long time.
Use this only if you already have a good understanding of spoken Japanese.
- Whisper AI: open-source transcription AI
- FreeSubtitles.AI: free transcription service powered by Whisper AI
AJATTers like to listen again to what they already watched, so they created tools to cut the silences in a video and output an audio file with only the spoken lines. The goal of condensed audios is to optimize immersion time, by listening to them when you're commuting or doing something else.
However, a lot of subtitles in Japanese media are used to describe background sounds or people screaming (like ああ or （大きい物音ー）), so I made another script to clean .srt files, which reduces the audio file by another 3-5 minutes most of the time.
- impd: a script that generates audio files containing only the lines
- subcleaner: a Python script I made to clean .srt files for condensed audios
I personally never use streaming websites for learning. Downloading what you consume makes learning easier, as you can use all kinds of tools that only work on files on your computer. However, I used to do so at first, so here are the best ones I found for anime:
- Animelon: Japanese and English subtitles available
- Zoro.to: you can turn off the English subtitles, but no Japanese subs
I rarely watch TV online but there are lots of way to do it:
- AS Stream: simply watch TV
- jp.m3u: playlist of channels you can open in mpv
- News24: watch news through mpv
Watching Youtube videos is a good way to learn japanese, but finding interesting channels can be hard.
Audiobooks and podcasts are for more advanced learners, but you can find a lot of them on Spotify or other platforms. Having a visual support is easier for learning.
- Youtube.md: a list of good YouTube channels
- Podcasts.md: a list of Spotify podcasts I recommend
- Itazuraneko: I don't listen to audiobooks but Itazuraneko has a lot
There aren't any tools like Mokuro or Mpvacious for games (of course), but it doesn't mean that it's impossible. Playing games where you have to understand the story to progress is best.
- Manga OCR: can also be used on games if you play them on PC (via emulation if not available on PC)
- ROMs: mega-thread for ROMs
- Emulators on Arch: for Arch users
Reading VN is a good way to learn Japanese because they use natural spoken Japanese, in contrast to what you can find in books, and you can rely on the pictures to understand what is going on. In some VNs like Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, there even are audio lines that help you even more.
- Textractor: crazy tool which hooks on a function in a VN to output the text written in the game and pastes it in your clipboard so that you can use Yomichan/Anki
- VNs on Arch: honestly it's easier on Windows this time
- jpdb.io: gives an estimation of the level needed to read/watch given works
- Jo Mako's Japanese: same
- Kanji Frequency: kanji usage frequency
- On'yomi Frequency: on'yomi ordered by frequency among tōyō kanji
- Aozora Bunko stats: number of kanji needed to read Aozora Bunko novels
- you need to know 7744 to be able to read all of them
According to this study, knowing 500 kanji gives you 80% comprehension, 1000 kanji 95% comprehension and 1500 kanji 98% comprehension. Even though 95% sounds like a lot, it still means that you don't understand 1 word out of 20 (more or less according to the level of what you are reading). These texts, imitating what happens when reading a Japanese text with those 3 levels of kanji, help understand the importance of learning them:
- MLC Kanji Level Check: estimaes your jōyō kanji knowledge
- JLPTCheck Quiz: estimates your JLPT level
- TheMoeWay: in-depth explanations of Anki and Yomichan, plus other tools
- Animecards: how to link Yomichan and Anki, and other useful information
- Tatsumoto's Guide: very rich, Linux oriented
React
Typescript
Django
Laravel
Facebook
Microsoft
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Alibaba
D3
Tencent