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Duolingo is bad. You should have a mix of resources that fit you best: Wanikani (absolutely essential), Bunpo, LingoDeer, Bunpro, and audio drills lessons, like
by bluepizza 4y ago
Duolingo is bad. You should have a mix of resources that fit you best: Wanikani (absolutely essential), Bunpo, LingoDeer, Bunpro, and audio drills lessons, like Pimsleur.
Add a occasional speaking lesson with a teacher on iTalki.
- Tijdreiziger 4y agoI checked out Wanikani's free blog posts to learn kana, but they seemed pretty useless as an L2 English speaker. They might be useful for L1 English speakers, though.
- bluepizza 4y agoThe interesting thing about it is learning the kanji, which is essential for reading. It might be an extra step to learn a few new words in English, but it is not a complex task.
- Tijdreiziger 4y agoIt is not complex per se, but it is unnecessarily confusing. For instance, Japanese い (i) is similar in pronunciation to the letter 'i' in various Germanic languages (e.g. Dutch, German, Swedish). The romaji reflects this similarity. Enter Wanikani's (Tofugu's) explanation: > い is pronounced like the ee in "eel." To remember this kana, just think of a couple of eels hanging out. Like I mentioned, this is probably useful for L1 English speakers, but it is not worth having to go from Dutch 'i' to English 'eel' in order to finally go to Japanese い (i).
- bluepizza 4y agoWhen you use the app, not the blog, there are audios with the pronunciation, instead of these approximations. Wanikani is the app I refer to as useful, not Tofugu’s blog.
- Tijdreiziger 4y agoOK, I'll check out the app once I get to studying kanji (still working on kana at the moment). Thanks!