Vocab

Learning Japanese vocabulary has been the main stumbling point for me, and always the reason I get burnt out learning Japanese. I’ve somewhat settled on my current (early) path to vocab learning, but we’ll see how long that lasts…

Lessons learned

Visual Mnemonics are the Best
 Seriously, they are. It’s how I learned hiragana, katakana, radicals. Thank you Tofugu.

Learn Hiragana and Katakana
 This one is obvious and everyone will tell you to do it, but I’ll happily add to the chorus of voices and say DO IT JUST LEARN THEM. Absolutely NEVER use romanji while learning - if there are kanji that you don’t know the pronunciation of then furigana should suffice. Links below for how I learned them using visual mnemonics:

Don’t bother learning to write… but drawing kanji can help memorisation
 For someone with horrendous handwriting like myself, handwriting is a rarity in English let alone another language. So no need to learn how to write hiragana or katakana (although obviously you can if you want), and definitely no need to learn to write kanji. However, ‘drawing’ out a particularly complicated kanji - even just in microsoft paint with a mouse - can help you interpret the kanji as more than just a blob of lines. Paying attention to the radicals as you do so helps too. Stroke order is not important here, just giving your brain a chance to truly appreciate and remember all the lines and shapes in the kanji.

Learn Kanji AND Vocab
 Many resources online say “Just learn vocab, kanji often change meaning and pronunciation anyway”. But I personally have found it very useful to learn Kanji and Vocab simultaneously, really being aware of the difference between On’yomi and Kun’yomi. I’m not saying memorise all the different readings of each kanji without considering the vocabulary they’re in, I’m saying be actively aware that by learning the vocabulary you ARE learning the readings and meanings of kanji, and reinforce that learning separately from the vocabulary if need be. I’m currently using a WaniKani Anki deck that has since been taken down - I may end up paying for WaniKani in the future but I’m a little hesitant on its inflexibility.

Spaced repetition works
 Spaced repetition is intentionally and specifically delaying when you are next tested on knowledge such that the knowledge works its way into your long-term memory. Roughly sorta kinda anyway. It’s great, Anki’s great, nice way to do a bit a day.

Other good resources

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