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Japanese is an incredibly fun and rewarding language (if you’ve ever wanted to learn it for ANY reason, most importantly including the “silly” reasons) but the fearmongering and capitalist intervention involved in the language learning process have given it a reputation as an “impossible task” for English speakers, leading to confusion and dkn learners and weird pessimist attitudes about the whole thing. In this thread I will explain how to effectively learn and retain Japanese. This is a tried, tested and true method; probably 99% of all people who try to learn Japanese give up, but everyone I’ve met who has tried and stuck with this has been at or above N3-N4 after 6 months or less including me
You can teach yourself Japanese for free if you have a little free time every day and a computer
1. Drill yourself on hiragana and katakana. These are the phonetic building blocks of Japanese, think of them as equivalent to english letters. This site is a good resource in general. Once you have a solid grasp on this, DO NOT LINGER HERE; move to step 2. You will master kana later.
2. Download Anki. This is a flashcard service. They have a paid app if you’re willing to invest for it, but if not, they have a mobile website (create an account and sync it with your computer).
This is the deck you’re going to download. Import it to Anki and do this every day. I have learned the hard way (twice) that skipping this is bad. If you become overwhelmed, you can change the number of new cards and reviews by clicking the cog next to the name of the deck!
3. Cure Dolly (Youtube, grammar) + transcript. She has kind of a posh accent, you might want to turn subtitles on. Watch a few videos when you feel like it but most importantly set up 4 and 5 as soon as possible
4. Yomitan (must have) is a browser extension that functions as a pop-up dictionary. you need to install dictionaries for it to work. here are some dictionaries you can use with yomitan and explanations of what they do
5. READ. DO NOT LET YOURSELF GET STUCK BEFORE THIS STEP. JUST READ!!!! Most people who fail to learn Japanese do so because they are afraid of not being ready to move on, which is counterproductive. Just read. When you were a child did you spend years on vocab and grammar before reading? No I bet you did not. Pick something to read and learn what you don’t already know by reading in Japanese.
Jiten.moe has a list of novels and visual novels that you can read on your computer sorted by difficulty. So does jpdb. There’s also this document. There’s also this document. Hey look this website is cool too
For visual novels: download LunaHook. It “hooks” to your VN and allows you to use Yomitan on words you don’t know. Turn off the translation feature, it does nothing to help you learn
For literary texts: ttsu e-reader supports epub and htmlz files.
You can also learn Japanese by watching anime, but it’s a little more convoluted and requires a lot more patience.
For manga, utilize Mangatan, but I don’t recommend this right out the gate because when you’re first learning sentence structure you’ll want something with complete sentences.
Set your computer up for mining vocab before you start reading. Once you finish your kaishi deck, you can drill your mining cards (I didn’t do mine until after finishing kaishi because it was too much).
Most importantly: reading is going to be hard at first. It is going to piss you off. You need to muscle through with this because this is where the bulk of your learning will happen. After a while you will just feel like reading because you love reading! Try not to pick something too hard for your first read, but if you’re interested in the story you might be able to muscle through something a little tougher.
Remember to consult yomitan and cure dolly where needed, that’s what it’s there for. As you can see I am quite normal about the Japanese language, so if you have any other questions or need help with anything else feel free to shoot me an ask and I will get back to you promptly. Japanese is not your enemy and it is not impossible. It is your friend
I just learned (quite literally) that the word "e" exists in Spanish like in Portuguese (meaning "and") and I was a little surprised because I thought Spanish only used "y". But although they are used for the same reasons (as connectives) they have different uses.
You see, you generally really use "y" to connect words. However, there is an exception! When the word that follows starts with an "i" sound, then we use "e", even if the word starts with a "h" (which is silent in Spanish). For example:
Padre e hijo
Español e inglés
Julieta dijo que su hermano es sucio e inmoral.
Él era donante de pulmón e hígado.
But why does this happen? Well, since the conjugation "y" is pronounced like “i”, if we used it with another word that also starts with an "i", then it would sound awkward or unclear, because the sounds would merge like “iinmoral” ou “iígado”. So we use "E".
But! There's an exception to the exception: if the word start with an “hia”, “hie” ou “hio”, we use the conjugation "y". Some examples:
La piedra está limpia y hialina.
Es un tiempo de fuego y hielo.
Atropina y hioscina son alcaloides.
Note: In “tú y yo,” we use “y” because “yo” starts with a “y” sound, not an “i” sound.
So, thanks to @sentimentalniy-vals and @jardin-de-ciruelas, I found out that the same thing happens with “o” (= or) and “la/una” (feminine article).
In both cases, it happens for the same reason as with “y” — to avoid similar sounds merging and sounding awkward or unclear.
The change of O to U
If the next word starts with an “o” or with an “o” sound, we change it to u. For example:
Unos u otros
Mujeres u hombres
Mañana u hoy
The change of la/una to el/un
If the next word starts with an “a” or with an “a” sound, we change it to el/un (masculine article). For example:
El agua
El hada
Un águila
Note: Although we use the masculine article, the word remains feminine, so the adjective will still be feminine (e.g., el agua está tibia).
Note²: This change only occurs when the stressed syllable is the initial “a.” If the stress is somewhere else in the word, we just keep la or una as usual:
La amiga
La hacienda
Una azotea
Note³: This only happens in the singular form. In the plural, we do not change the article:
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The best study techniques (in general) are the SPQR method, flashcards, mind maps, split pages, teaching the content to other people, past papers and blurting
Free time tip : Carry flashcards or split pages around and test yourself with them whenever you have time to waste (during tv breaks, waiting for the bus ..)
Know your worst topics in all subjects and find resources for every single one of them. Since you know your weaknesses, you can ask for help from your teachers. If your teachers aren’t reliable (like mine lol), make a list of resources you can use to self study, and then self study whenever you can
Find your ideal study routine by testing out different environments: can you study for 1hr in a row or do you need breaks in between? Do you work best at night or during the day?
Mentally go over 1 topic (your hardest) before bed
Best resources : Knowt (quizlet replacement), cheatography (study guides), ocean of pdf (free pdf site for literally anything), khan academy, ck12 (textbooks per grade, study guides, exercises for free)
Best study youtube channels for more study tips: Fayefilms, Cajun Koi Academy, Amy Wang, Han Zhango, Mike Dee, Study to Success, Crash Course, Tina Huang, Ali Abdaal
guys how are you actually supposed to read textbooks and get anything out of them. i feel like i do the readings but then like. theres nothing there afterwards. yay i did it now what. yfeel. i cant highlight anything because im using archive dot org so keep that in mind advice wise
ok my concerta kicked in i can articulate this now- i was talking to my school's academic strategist (which is such an awesome job title imo) abt this and i told her basically "im looking at all the words on the pages in order and absolutely none of them are sticking in my brain am i fucked forever"
and what she said was basically- and i think the metaphor worked too well for me bc idk how to articulate it otherwise- imagine that every chapter u read is a bookshelf. and each subsection is a shelf, and any subsubsections are little sections of the shelf. im using the reading i should be doing rn to illustrate this btw (it's baby's first gender class ❤️)
so all the chapter subsection titles become bookshelf shelves / headers in ur notes. and then u can add in the subsubsections . im switching to photopea bc mspaint is stifling my creative freedom btw
(i ran out of space so i tacked a piece of paper to the side of my metaphorical bookshelf)
and then she said. "are you reading textbooks from the beginning to the end of the chapter in order and reading all the words" and i was like. yes is that not the only option here??? and she was like "ok yeah thats not going to be as effective bc ur taking in too much information at once". and i saidfd. What
and her advice was basically- once you build the bookshelves and categories (make headers and subcategories for ur notes), u go thru and only look at the stuff in bold and the images/graphs/etc. so like, definitions, important passages they put in a fancy box, diagrams etc. and u add the books to the shelf (you put those things in ur notes) (i am realizing i could have said this way more succinctly but i'm committed to the bit now, sorry)
and THEN. once u have the headings down, definitions, etc. if it's a standard textbook, u can go thru and u read the First and Last sentence of each paragraph to get the gist of what it's saying . bc apparently a lot of textbook authors specifically write them to be read in this way. and apparently it is completely legal to do this. the cops don't get called or anything
SO. u take notes on information from first/last paragraphs if u want, and THEN u go in and read full paragraphs once u have a grasp on what the material is covering Rather than just completely winging it
i love doing this bc if i have a header for every topic covered in the text Before i start taking notes then i know im acutally getting important stuff from every category.rather than all my notes being from the first 8 pages of a 30 page chapter bc "its common sense i'll remember it" (i will NOT)
here is my final bookshelf i gave up on drawing all the books halfway thru hope u still enjoy ❤️ also i hope this made sense ❤️
refold has a crowdsourced resource list for spanish, curated & with notes | A1 to C2
dreamingspanish on reddit has a crowdsourced spreadsheet with over 90 channels geared towards learners | A1 to C2
learn natively has a huge deck of spanish books sorted by difficulty by learners | A1 to C2
prensa escrita has a list of news websites sorted by country & sometimes city | B1 to C1 probably
the CI wiki has an editable list of CI resources and a couple of native content links | A1 to like B2?
comprehensible hub has tons of spanish podcasts for learners | A1 to B2
letterboxd has a ton of very fun #español lists, e.g. movies mentioned in the wild project podcast, latin american female directors, made in puerto rico | ~B2 to C2
there are also a ton of moocs in spanish for intermediate to advanced learners (moocs are online courses, usually free) | B1 to C2
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Now that the quality of Duolingo has fallen (even more) due to AI and people are more willing to make the jump here are just some alternative apps and what languages they have:
Language Transfer (Languages: French, Swahili, Italian, Greek, German, Turkish, Arabic, Spanish, English for Spanish Speakers)
"I want a good audio-based app and money's no object"
Pimsleur (Literally so many languages)
Glossika (Also a lot of languages, but minority languages are free)
*anecdote: I borrowed my brother's Japanese Pimsleur CD as a kid and I still remember how to say the weather is nice over a decade later. You can find the CDs at libraries and "other" places I'm sure.
"I have a pretty neat library card"
Mango (Languages: So many and all endangered/Indigenous courses are free even if you don't have a library that has a partnership with Mango)
"I want SRS flashcards and have an android"
AnkiDroid: (Theoretically all languages, pre-made decks can be found easily)
"I want SRS flashcards and I have an iphone"
AnkiApp: It's almost as good as AnkiDroid and free compared to the official Anki app for iphone
"I don't mind ads and just want to learn Korean"
lingory
"I want an app made for Mandarin that's BETTER than DL and has multiple languages to learn Mandarin in"
ChineseSkill (You can use their older version of the course for free)
"I don't like any of these apps you mentioned already, give me one more"
Bunpo: (Languages: Japanese, Spanish, French, German, Korean, and Mandarin)
I'd like to direct anyone who is learning, or might want to learn a language to Refold. It is a free resource that has been an invaluable tool for me that covers how to learn languages and gives you a nice roadmap to follow. The more popular languages even have a roadmap tailored to them.
The Refold roadmap is a step-by-step guide for learning any language from scratch. We explain exactly how to combine media, strategic study,
Can you clarify/explain reflexive verbs vs base forms? Ex: yo duermo vs me duermo. I think it's basically I sleep vs I go to sleep, maybe? But for other reflexive verbs especially I don't understand the difference
It's a little difficult because dormirse is one of the weird reflexives
In general, the reflexive ending -se to an infinitive just means that the action can be done to oneself; the subject and object are the same
As an example: lavar "to wash" can be done with laundry, the floor, pets, children... etc. but then you have lavarse which is "to wash oneself", as in lavarse las manos "to wash one's own hands"
[lit. "I wash myself the hands"; body parts rarely have possessive adjectives like "my" if it's obvious whose body parts they are, similar to me duele la garganta "my throat hurts" or literally "the throat hurts me"]
Many verbs can be reflexive this way, like hablarse "to talk to oneself"... or they can be reciprocal which just means that two or more subjects do something to one another like conocerse "to meet one another" or "to get to know one another"
Sometimes verbs can be either plain reflexive or reciprocal depending on context; casarse can be "to get married" as in one person, or casarse as "for two people to get married to each other"
With other reflexives you sometimes stumble across weird ones. You can usually tell something is up when it doesn't make sense in the traditional reflexive sense - where "oneself" doesn't make sense
In your case, dormir is "to sleep" and dormirse is "to fall asleep" or "to go to sleep"
It gets a little more confusing than this with reflexives. I'll try to be comprehensive and clear, but just know that reflexives opens up to a whole lot of grammatical concepts that are weird and confusing and VERY advanced - I'm talking advanced in a way that native speakers don't often know how to explain, it's just the way things are and what sounds right
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The reflexive here is a special kind of reflexive where it adds a little something to it; sometimes the difference seems minimal to non-native speakers [like comerse with food is MUCH more common than regular comer; like me como la pizza is "I eat the pizza" and is much more common]
Other times you get an entirely new expression... like acordar is "to come to an agreement" while acordarse is "to remember"
And sometimes the difference is very subtle but significant like dormirse, or something like olvidarse "to forget" being a little more common than regular olvidar
The exact reasoning depends on the actual verb, sometimes it's a more passive expression (like romperse is "to break down" where it's implied "on one's own" rather than actually breaking something which feels purposeful)
And other times it's like dormirse where the meaning seems to be subtly different. When I explain it to people I try to tell them to think of verbs that change meaning depending on prepositions or additional words... like caer is "to fall", but caerse can either be "to fall down" or it can be "to fall out" as in teeth or hair etc.
A few common ones to keep in mind:
ir = to go
irse = to go away
dormir = to sleep
dormirse = to fall asleep, to go to sleep [can also be "to go numb" the same way you might say "my leg fell asleep"]
morir = to die
morirse = to pass away (suddenly or it impacts you emotionally)
acabar = to finish
acabarse = to run out, to be depleted
romper = to break [active]
romperse = to break [passive], to break down, to break on its own
encontrar = to find
encontrarse = to feel [like ¿te encuentras bien? is "are you okay?"]
creer = to believe
creerse = to believe (usually without evidence)
parecer = to seem
parecerse (a) = to look like, to resemble
acordar = to come to an agreement
acordarse (de) = to remember
fijar = to affix, to put in place
fijarse = to stare at, to look at
imaginar = to imagine
imaginarse = to put oneself in a situation
preguntar = to ask
preguntarse = to wonder, to consider, to contemplate
olvidar = to forget [feels active]
olivdarse (de) = to forget, to slip one's mind [feels passive]
pasar = to pass / to spend
pasarse = to overindulge / to be out of line / to exceed, to outdo
caer = to fall
caerse = to fall down, to fall out
concentrar = to gather / to pool, to pool together, to accumulate
concentrarse = to concentrate, to focus, to pay attention
dar = to give
darse cuenta = to realize, to come to an understanding
quedar = to remain, to be left
quedarse = to stay behind
[as in quedarse en casa "to stay home"]
hundir = to drive into, to plunge, to sink
hundirse = to sink down, to sink (boats)
ahogar = to smother / to stifle / to overwhelm
ahogarse = to drown, to suffocate
despedir = to expel, to emit / to get rid of / to fire someone
despedirse (de alguien) = to say goodbye, to say one's goodbyes
You are also going to want to be aware what's called los verbos de cambio or "verbs of change". These are verbs that mean "to become", and they're reflexive and used in different situations:
convertirse en = to become, to be converted to
transformarse en = to transform into
ponerse = to become (emotions)
[as in ponerse triste "to get sad", ponerse enojado/a "to get angry", there's ponerse rojo/a which could be "to blush" or "to get red"... these are understood as very temporary and usually emotions]
volverse = to become, to turn (drastic)
[most common is volverse loco/a "to go crazy" or "to go mad"; if volverse is being used as "to become" it's usually very drastic and unexpected]
quedarse = to become, to be struck + physical condition
[as in quedarse de piedra "to be stunned" which is literally "turned to stone", or quedarse mudo/a "to be struck silent/dumb/mute", or quedarse ciego/a "to be blinded", quedarse sordo/a "to be struck deaf", or quedarse paralizado/a "to be paralyzed"... also used as quedarse embarazada sometimes as "to get knocked up" or "to become pregnant", and there's an expression quedarse de brazos cruzados which is understood as "to stand around doing nothing" but literally "to stay behind/be left with arms crossed"]
hacerse = to become (with effort)
[most understood as "to make oneself" - this is used for something you achieve with personal effort often times; hacerse rico/a "to get rich", hacerse famoso/a "to become famous"... it's also often used for dietary restrictions or religious conversions; hacerse vegetariano/a "to become a vegetarian" or hacerse budista "to become Buddhist" as an example; it's also sometimes used for vocations or something you study and work at for a long time or with a vow like hacerse monja "to become a nun"... while not 100% the most common expression it expresses a devotion and work ethic rather than just expressions that use ser as "to be/become" with professions]
Be especially wary of ponerse because it honestly has so many additional meanings: ponerse la ropa is "to put on clothes", ponerse el sol is "for the sun to set", ponerse could be "to become", or an expression like ponerse las pilas is "to get your act together" or "to get yourself in gear" but literally it's "to put one's batteries in"
There are also some verbs that are just more commonly reflexive for your purposes... like concentrarse, or a verb like graduarse "to graduate" where simple graduar is "to calibrate", a couple others are jubilarse "to retire" or something like desahogarse which is "to vent" [lit. "to un-drown oneself"; in the sense of "get off one's chest" to make them feel better]
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Addendum: I do have to mention that reflexive endings get used for many things so it is sometimes weirder and more complicated and no one explains why; the umbrella term is "pronomial" which includes the reflexives, but it just means any time you see a reflexive ending but it might not fit the typical "to onself" definition
And, the weirdest one of all is se which you might think is reflexive but it also might not be
There are going to be times you see a se that isn't reflexive; sometimes it's passive, sometimes it's impersonal, sometimes it's taking the place of le or les in a sentence with indirect and direct objects
Really, se is the weirdest one and I only mention it because you're going to be confused by se many times; it's just versatile
In general, a se refers to a 3rd person something and it gets used in descriptions of 3rd person unspecified, or to mean "itself" or "oneself" in some cases. There's almost always a 3rd person-ness to se where something is happening but it might not be a "thing" so much as it happening "on its own", if that makes sense
Here’s a vocab list (based on this post) you can fill in with your own target language(s). There’s also an empty vocab list at the end in case you find additional words i missed in my lists. I’ll upload more lists with the rest of the vocab words from the post above soon too!
-> here’s a link to a Google Drive folder with the pdf file if you prefer that format
Feel free to post & share your filled-in lists for other language learners!
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How to use Notion for Language Learners - a masterpost
So, I have been learning languages for a while now, and one of the things I have always been struggling with is having a space that could gather all the info I need, the spreads I used to make on my bullet journal, and maybe even something more.
Notion has become my best friend all over the last couple of years, but as I am a pretty sick perfectionist, I am still mastering the art of creating efficient templates, but I am slowly overcoming this problem of mine… In the meantime enjoy my favorite YouTube videos all about Notion x Language Learning:
how to make the best language learning plan | notion templates | AD by Anna Lenks
ULTIMATE LANGUAGE PLANNER IN NOTION FOR POLYGLOTS by me :)
How to make a language learning plan that WORKS ✨ Notion for language learners by Elysse Speaks
How To Make A Sentence Mining Database in Notion | Language Learning | Tutorial + Free Template by Leafling Learns
How I Created a 30-Day Language Study Plan That Works! by Shea Jordan
Create a language learning schedule that works + Notion Template! by Jusuf
updating my language learning notion 🖊 by Jo Renee Languages
Language Learning: Notion, RemNote And Reverso (French) by Red Gregory
How I plan and organize my life and languages | Notion tour 📝 by Lindie Botes
Hope you enjoyed this post, in the meantime I'll go and create the best language-learning hub you will ever see
