Before you begin

What you need

This guide assumes that you know the hiragana and katakana and that you're studying basic Japanese vocabulary. The most efficient way to learn the kana (hiragana+katakana) is to drill it through brute force. You can use a kana drill site for this. You can also learn by exposure.

This guide assumes that you know what writing systems Japanese uses, and that you know what Japanese text looks like, and what Kanji are.

This guide assumes that you're learning vocabulary outside this guide. It can't teach you enough words to be useful without getting in the way of the grammar.

If you need more guidance for things other than grammar, try the loop.

Check this: 置 How does this character render? If it's missing the vertical line on the left side, your browser is using Chinese fonts for japanese. You may need to install Japanese fonts or change some system language settings.

How to use this guide and Learn Japanese

Basically, this guide is a primer. This guide takes a very specific stance: The only way to acquire language features and become fluent is to consume them in a real context. This guide doesn't try to drill you, and that's a good thing.

When you read this guide, don't try to memorize it. It won't work.

You shouldn't spend a week on each lesson. In fact, one new lesson a day might be too slow, even if you're also reviewing old lessons.

Every single main lesson in this guide covers basic grammar. You should read the entire thing as quickly as possible. It's important to get stuff in your head sooner rather than later. It gives it time to grow, subconsciously, and even if you didn't feel like you learned it the first time, it makes it easier to remember it for good next time. Just don't get stuck reviewing it forever.

After you get far enough in this guide, you should start trying to consume Japanese content. Especially reading. This guide will tell you when it’s a good time to start, but if you want to try earlier you don’t need to wait.

Trying to read on a regular basis, even if you can't do it for more than five minutes, tells you exactly what your weak points are, and gives you a sense of progress. This guide exposes you to grammar to let you break down things, but you need to consume real Japanese to turn that exposure into acquisition.

The most efficient way to learn vocabulary is to start picking up words from media you enjoy, then memorize them with flashcards. This is called mining. Anki is the recommended flashcard program because it uses Spaced Repetition, which shows you stuff less often the better you know it. You can use frequency lists or shared decks prepared by other people at first if you don't want to mine or find the process of immersing in Japanese media still too hard. A good starter deck is the kaishi 1.5k deck.

If you want to speak Japanese, you must consume audible spoken Japanese, otherwise you'll sound unnatural. It doesn't matter if it's anime or news or living in Japan, you just have to consume it in the spoken unwritten form. This can come after you learn how to read, but you should passively expose yourself to it (with anything: visual novels, music, anime, etc) as early as possible, otherwise it'll take a long time for your brain to pick up on nuanced sound differences, like how Japanese people need to be trained before they can tell apart L and R. If you spend most of your time reading and ignore the spoken language, you can also acquire unnatural pronunciation and pitch accent that might be harder to fix later.

“Help!”

Don't sweat it. Try to find a way to use this guide in a nice low stress way. Don't angst out about something being hard. Some things just take time.

If you still don't know what to do, or you came back here confused:

• Start learning the hiragana and katakana outside this guide.
• Start studying vocabulary outside this guide.
• Understand that not all individual kanji represent complete Japanese words.
• Remind yourself that Japanese is not a literal transposition of English word-by-word
• A lot of concepts will not make sense in terms of literal English.
• You can't acquire a language without consuming it.
• Until you consume enough Japanese, some things simply won't click.
• Always keep moving forward. That's what gives you the language.

Do not memorize this guide. It won't work. It might even be bad for you.

Still stuck?

It's true that everyone learns the same way when it comes to mastery, fluency, exposure, and real world experience, but it's not true that everyone learns the same way when it comes to deliberate study. This guide is deliberate study, and it might not be right for everyone. If it doesn't start working after two weeks, try other resources. Reading explanations about the same thing in different places can make it easier to understand.

Just make sure you don't burn yourself out trying to master them. Mastery only comes from real world experience, and in the case of language learning, that means reading and listening.