Title Page

Acquiring Japanese Efficiently

Breaking out of the Gaijin Ghetto

Dylan Robertson

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

1. Language Learning Principles Cheat Sheet

2. Japanese Quickstart Summary

3. Specific resources for learning Japanese

1. Resources for Immersion

1. Netflix
2. Youtube
3. Audiobooks
4. Podcasts
5. Resources for Passive Immersion
6. Beginner Reading Material
7. News
8. Novels
9. Using an Ipad and Kindle for Reading
10. Visual Novels

2. Learning the Basics

1. Kana
2. Pronunciation and Pitch Accent
3. Kanji Recognition
4. Vocabulary
5. Grammar

3. Technology for Learning Japanese

1. Anki
2. Yomichan
3. Online Dictionaries
4. Making the Monolingual Transition
5. Mining Anki Cards

4. Output

1. Writing
2. Speaking
3. Making Mistakes
4. Is Early Output Bad?
5. Critiquing High Level Japanese Learners
6. Mui-Mui, the ultimate Japanese learner

4. Topics for Advanced Learners

1. 敬語
2. 関西弁
3. 日本語能力試験
4. 漢字能力検定
5. 日本語検定
6. BJT

5. Advanced Pronunciation Section

1. The Pitch Accent Journey
2. Resources for Studying Pitch Accent
3. Pitch Focused Reading
4. Chorusing
5. Shadowing
6. Adopting a Language Learning Parent
7. Anki and Pronunciation
8. Combining techniques and tactics into an example routine

6. Learning Academic Subjects in Japanese

1. List of various Japanese Universities
2. College Entrance Exam Format
3. 国語・現代文
4. 古文
5. 漢文
6. 日本史
7. 世界史
8. 地理
9. 政治・経済
10. 哲学
11. 法学
12. 数学
13. 物理学
14. 化学
15. 生物学
16. 医学
17. 英語

7. Example Language Learning Routines

1. Absolute Beginner Routine
2. Beginner Routine
3. Advanced Beginner Routine
4. Intermediate Routine
5. Upper Intermediate Routine

8. Language Learning Theory

1. Core Principles of Language Acquisition

1. The Input Hypothesis
2. Automatic Language Growth (ALG)
3. Language and Consciousness
4. Matt vs Japan’s new methodology
5. Why input isn’t all you need - my thoughts on language learning in general

2. Improving Comprehension

1. Active vs Passive Immersion
2. Intensive Listening
3. Freeflow Listening
4. The Brutal Force Approach
5. Incomprehensible Input
6. Factors affecting Comprehension
7. Reading Immersion
8. Balancing Listening and Reading ability
9. Frequency of Words

3. Improving Output Performance

1. Output Theory
2. What does Output actually entail?
3. Improving your Speaking Ability
4. Improving your Writing Ability
5. Output Troubleshooting

9. Miscellaneous

1. Other Guides for Language Learning
2. Youtube Channels
3. Interviews
4. Progress Reports
5. Useful links
6. Fatigue Management
7. Experimental Tactics in Language Learning

10. FAQ 

Language Learning Principles Cheat Sheet

Language Learning Principles

Purpose: let's quickly summarize the core methodology behind language learning.

1. Comprehensible, compelling input is KING.

1. Input: watching, listening to, and reading real native media.

1. Watching: anime, drama, movies, YouTube.
2. Listening: podcasts, audiobooks.
3. Reading: manga, news, Wikipedia, light novels, visual novels, non-fiction books.

2. Comprehensible: able to understand the meaning of the sentence.  

1. There is a spectrum of comprehension from “absolutely nothing” to complete native like understanding.
2. You can improve your level of comprehension by immersing in media that involves pictures, using an online dictionary to look up unknown words, using target language subtitles, etc.

3. Compelling: use fun and interesting content to mitigate fatigue.

1. Example genres: slice of life, romance, comedy, crime, mystery, history, politics, economics, law, medicine, philosophy, etc.

2. Consistency

1. Build an immersion environment: make it as easy as possible to interact with native media on a daily basis.

1. Physically: relocate to the target language country, become friends with native speakers, decorate your room, eat food from that country, etc.
2. Digitally: utilize the internet and technology to surround yourself with your target language and native content.

2. Building daily habits is a more sustainable approach than having a strict, rigid routine.

3. Volume  

1. More time spent with the language each day leads to more progress.
2. Break out of the English bubble and try to live your life fully in Japanese: replace English content with Japanese content.

4. Intensity

1. Immerse in a mix of content slightly below, at, and above your current level.

1. Easier material helps to build automaticity of understanding and is good for times when you are more mentally fatigued but still want to accumulate more volume.
2. Harder material challenges you to push your cutting edge level of comprehension even higher and is good for when you are feeling “fresh”.

5. Frequency

1. Break up your total daily volume into 2 - 3 sessions throughout the day (morning/afternoon/night) instead of doing one giant session.

1. This boosts the overall quality of your learning by lowering fatigue since you will be more fresh for each session.
2. It also helps you interact with the target language more frequently throughout the day.

6. Prioritization

1. It all depends on your goals and what you want to achieve!

1. Listening vs Reading ratio
2. Input vs Output ratio
3. For multiple languages; focus on improving one at a time while maintaining ability in others.

7. Concentration

1. Be actively engaged when immersing: the more you pay attention and try to understand your immersion, the more benefit you will obtain from it.
2. Look up words that you don’t understand with a pop-up/online dictionary.
3. Get rid of distractions: set up an environment conducive to “being in the zone” or a “flow state”.

8. Spaced Repetition

1. Organic exposure: learn vocabulary and grammar in context as it comes up in native content.

1. Try to infer the meaning of new words through context.
2. Use Yomichan to make looking definitions up quick and efficient.

2. Spaced Repetition System (Anki): review new words/grammar learned from native material efficiently.

9. Use monolingual (Japanese-Japanese) dictionaries.

1. Learn how words and concepts are described in Japanese to become accustomed to the “Japanese way of thinking”.
2. Pay attention to example sentences to see how the word is actually used in context and what other words it is commonly used with.

10. Output

1. Your comprehension limits your performance.

1. ie. you can’t talk about something you can’t even understand.
2. Increasing your level of comprehension increases your potential ability for speaking and writing performance as you become able to distinguish between what sounds natural or not based upon what you have seen and heard before in native material.

2. Maximizing your output ability requires dedicated practice and feedback:

1. Speaking with natives.
2. Reading aloud with pronunciation corrections from a native speaker.
3. Getting feedback on writing.
4. Chorusing and Shadowing

11. The Attitude of a Linguist (how to think like a pro language learner).

1. Tolerate Ambiguity.

1. Find a balance between engaging with content and looking up words in the dictionary.
2. It’s okay to not understand everything!
3. Improving your abilities is a gradual process that you hardly ever recognize. You don’t just wake up one day and are “fluent”- your ability is slowly built up with every hour that you put into learning the language.

2. Be self-sufficient.

1. Only you are accountable for your progress: own it and stop making excuses.
2. Be proactive in seeking out resources for your own learning.

3. Experimentation.

1. It’s okay to try something new, fail, and then go “that was a bad idea”.
2. Now you know for the next time what not to do!
3. Or maybe you have a new technique in your arsenal if it went well!

4. Enjoy the process!

1. The language learning process takes thousands of hours.
2. Show up every day and commit to your daily habits and routine.
3. Eventually you’ll get to where you want to be!
4. It’s a new skill that you will benefit from and utilize every day of your life!

Japanese Quickstart

Japanese Quickstart Summary

1. Start listening to and watching native Japanese content (from day 1)

1. Start with comprehensible input material meant for beginners and gradually progress to more difficult content over time.
2. Don’t use English subs!

2. Learn the basics of Japanese (~2 - 3 weeks)

1. Learn to read and type Hiragana + Katakana 
2. Focus on pronunciation and pitch accent (see the corresponding section)
3. Learn to recognize the most common 1000 Kanji using Recognition RTK

3. Learn the most frequent 2000 words and basic grammar (~3 months)

1. Learn 10 - 20 new sentence cards per day from the Tango N5 & Tango N4 Anki decks.

2. Sentence mine 5 - 10 new cards/day from the Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar.

4. Start Reading Immersion (when halfway through step 3)

1. Start with beginner content: NHK easy news, anime + JP subs, graded readers, children’s stories.
2. Listen along to the audiobook if available.
3. Progress to harder content over time as your reading comprehension improves!

---------------------------------------------------- 100 Day Mark -----------------------------------------------

5. Continue increasing comprehension through input + mining native media

1. I recommend learning ~10 - 20 new cards per day in Anki.
2. Increase difficulty and variety of immersion content.

6. Undergo the monolingual transition.

1. The gradual process of starting to use J-J dictionaries instead of J-E dictionaries.
2. You are learning how to learn Japanese in Japanese!

7. Dedicated practice on pronunciation and speaking ability

1. Chorusing
2. Pitch Focused Reading (reading aloud w/ native corrections).
3. Shadowing
4. Dedicated pitch accent/pronunciation Study
5. Speaking with natives

8. Loop the Loop (the language learning process).

1. Immerse in new domains/genres of native media.
2. Mine native material in order to increase your comprehension.
3. Output on that topic to increase your performance.
4. Utilize native feedback to identify errors and deficiencies in your output performance and level of comprehension.
5. Go back to immersion and notice the correct version of phrases/ideas.
6. Repeat indefinitely.

9. Areas that require dedicated practice

1. Handwriting Kanji（漢字検定）
2. Proper use of honorific language （敬語）
3. Dialects（ 関西弁）
4. Learning various academic/professional subjects in Japanese

10. Have fun! Learning a language is a lifelong commitment and becomes an integral part of your day-to-day life.

Japanese Resources

Learning Japanese

Becoming the ultimate weeb

Immersion Resources

Purpose: this is where I am going to link a bunch of resources so that you have material to watch, listen to, and read.

Engaging with authentic Japanese content is how you actually make meaningful language learning progress in a fun manner; devoting lots of hours to the consumption of native material is the most important part of the entire process.

Here are some other useful resource lists:

1. The Moe Way Resource List (simply amazing)
2. kuzuri's resources (a never ending list)
3. Stevijs3 resource spreadsheet
4. Jpdb.io (Difficulty rating of Japanese media)
5. Nyaa (Site for torrenting just about anything)

Netflix

Netflix is the best way to watch anime, drama, and movies in your target language.

Netflix Pro Tips!

1. Change your account’s language in Netflix to your target language in order to access more content and shows with JPN subtitles.

2. You will also want to use a VPN in order to access region locked content.

1. Nord VPN
2. Private VPN (I use WireGuard from this company- contact them)
3. Windscribe 
4. Proton VPN
5. SoftEther VPN tutorial  (free)

3. Use Audio description to include descriptions of scenes where there would otherwise be no dialogue.

4. The Language Reactor add-on allows you to use Yomichan on subtitles to look up words instantly as you watch.

Language Reactor + Yomichan for dictionary look-ups

Animelon

A website that lets you stream anime w/ JP Subtitles for language learning purposes.

Similar setup as using Netflix + Language Reactor + Yomichan.

Youtube

Youtube and Podcasts are the best way to listen to a lot of unscripted, natural Japanese. This helps you understand how Japanese people normally talk in their daily life and is great for working on your conversational ability.

Creating a Target Language YouTube

Create a separate account for TL videos only

Change location and language to TL to access more/trending content

        Gets rid of temptation to click on English videos as they won’t show up

1. Beginner Content

1. Comprehensible Japanese (Website)

1. Learn Japanese from zero through comprehensible input: actively watch the content, make audio sentence cards in Anki for new words/grammar, and do repetitive passive listening afterwards.
2. Their Youtube Channel has a small sample of their videos.

2. ペッパピッグ ー Peppa Pig
3. あかね的日本語教室

2. Video Games/Let's Plays

1. 日常組 (Minecraft)
2. 主役は我々だ! (Minecraft, Kansai Dialect)
3. 牛沢 
4. キヨ (various games w/ friends)
5. らっだぁ (Minecraft)
6. 花江夏樹 (Voice actor plays games with friends)
7. 兄者弟者 (Lets Plays, cool voice)
8. 心霊バスターズ  (Lets Plays)
9. 芦屋岳 (Retro RPGs)
10. フジ工房 
11. レトルト
12. ザクレイ (Super Smash Bros)
13. ふうはや (Minecraft)
14. トラゾースタジオ (Minecraft)
15. のらえもんKの考えるゲーム実況（推理系、謎解き系）

3. News

1. FNN ニュース
2. DHC テレビ
3. 24 Hour News Livestream
4. ウェザーニュース 
5. Weathernews Variety (Highlights/Funny compilations)

4. Educational Content

1. 中田敦彦のYouTube大学 (energetic lectures on a variety of topics)
2. フェルミ漫画大学 (self-help/business books summarized in voiced manga form)
3. 大人の教養TV (educational videos on history, religion, etc.)
4. 旅人の世界史 (History)
5. Sengoku Story (Japanese History)
6. セゴリータ三世 (Technology/product reviews)
7. ワタナベカズマサ  (Technology/product reviews)
8. TEDx Talks in Japanese
9. Japan in Motion
10. トライイット (Middle/High School lectures)
11. とある男が授業をしてみた (Middle school lectures)
12. 岡崎健太のOK塾 (Explains literature and poems at a middle/high school level)
13. 元局アナ流話し方スクール (Accent, Intonation, Pronunciation)
14. 三橋TV (Economics)
15. 伊藤塾 (Law School)
16. ことラボ (amateur linguist)
17. 予備校のノリで学ぶ「大学の数学・物理」(Physics and Math)

5. Comedy

1. エガちゃんねる (comedian does extreme videos/challenges. Highly recommend)
2. エガちゃんねる 〜替えのパンツ〜 (2nd channel)
3. オードリーさん、ぜひ会ってほしい人がいるんです。
4. 私立パラの丸高校 (Animated comedic skits)
5. マリマリマリー (Animated comedic skits)
6. サンドウィッチマン/コント (Sandwich man comedy skits, hilarious)

6. Travel

1. かほの登山日記 (Mountain Climbing, Hiking)
2. やまくっく・やぎちゃん (Mountain Climbing, Hiking)
3. スーツ旅行 (Suits traveling Japan and abroad)
4. スーツ交通 (Suits traveling on trains)
5. 東京限定雑学 (Places in Tokyo, History)

7. College/University related

1. Wakatte.tv (street interviews with college/high school students, hilarious)
2. いだちゃんねる (Students from Kyoto University)
3. CASTDICE TV (Introduces and compares various 参考書）
4. CASTDICE Medical【医学部受験専門塾】
5. 医学部受験 MEDUCATE TV
6. 武田塾チャンネル (Introduces and compares various 参考書）
7. 受験生版Tiger Funding (Students try to obtain loans/scholarships. Shark Tank)
8. 河野玄斗の神授業 （司法試験、医師国家試験、公認会計士試験に合格した者）
9. ベテランち（東大医学生）
10. ベテランちサブ
11. 雷獣（灘高校のネタ）
12. いだちゃんねる（京大生の二人）
13. ほんタメ (Book Reviews and Recommendations)
14. 文学YouTuberベル (Book Recommendations)

8. Normal YouTubers/Vloggers

1. きまぐれクック (cutting and cooking fish)
2. 科学はすべてを解決する! (interesting uses of science)
3. 令和の虎CHANNEL (Adults try to kick start businesses/ideas. Basically Shark Tank)
4.  李姉妹ch (Japanese/Chinese bilinguals)
5. 東海オンエア 
6. ひろゆきの部屋【ひろゆき】切り抜き
7. Genki.jp (ナンパ + sightseeing in various cities)
8. たかしの部屋 (Vlogs, games)
9. ぷろたん日記 (Bodybuilding, Eating)
10. OTAKING / Toshio Okada (Otaku, anime)
11.  岡田斗司夫のサブチャンネル【岡田斗司夫】切り抜き
12. しもふりチューブ
13. エスポワール・トライブ
14. フェルミ研究所 (Original manga with voice acting)
15. JURIのモテ男くん養成ch (Relationship advice)
16. 深田えいみ (AV star does vlogs and gives sex advice)
17. あいちゃんねる (Another AV star)
18. みことね (cute girls vlog in 博多弁)
19. 佐賀よかでしょう。(Construction/building things)
20. 千原ジュニアYouTube
21. ジュキヤ (Street interviews)
22. suiyoudoudesou-TV (Directors of famous series 水曜どうでしょう series)
23. Kevin's English Room (Comparisons between Japan and America, mainly focused on food)
24. ホリエモン

9. Horror/Mystery

1. Naokiman Show (horror stories & mysteries)
2. Naokiman 2nd Channel
3.  Zozozo - JapaneseHorror
4. たっくーTV (Mytery Stories)
5. キリン (Mytery Stories)
6. 世界のフシギ探検ch (Mytery Stories)

10. Aussieman's Youtube Recommendations for Kansai-ben

1. ともーみチャンネル (Vlogs, Makeup, Kansai-ben)
2. 大阪太郎 (Live streams)
3. だげな時間 (Podcast in Kansai dialect about random topics)
4. 朝倉未来 (MMA, Vlogs)
5. ヒカル
6. ラファエル
7. わいわいのゲーム実況チャンネル
8. かわにしみき
9. エミリンチャンネル
10. チャンネル がーどまん
11.  タケヤキ翔
12. 古川優香
13. ふくれな
14. てんちむCH
15. PROWRESTLING SHIBATAR ZZ
16. BUNZIN TV
17. 本田健
18. YouTube関西弁講座-大阪おっちゃんねる (lessons on Kansai ben)

Audiobooks

Audiobooks are a great way to take your listening ability to the next level as you have to understand novels at a natural speed without relying on a dictionary. Learning to comprehend the more complex grammar and vocabulary used is pivotal to improving your listening ability beyond casual conversations.

Where to listen to Audiobooks.

1. 青空朗読 (audiobooks for literature available on Aozora Bunko)

2. YouTube

1. アバタロー (audiobook excerpts, mainly focused on philosophy)
2. 窪田等の世界 (mainly Aozora Bunko literature)
3. 西村俊彦の朗読ノオト (mainly Aozora Bunko literature)
4. 朗読ノオト・第二版 (second channel)
5. フリーアナウンサーしまえりこの朗読読み聞かせ (female)
6. 物語シリーズ (Audiobooks for the entire series w/ matching subs)

3. The main 3 audiobook streaming services (comparison 1, comparison 2)

1. Audiobook.jp
2. Amazon/Audible (this is what I use)
3. Kikubon

How to immerse with Audiobooks

1. Listen to the book as you read alongside it

1. This is more like “having the book read to you” since the narrator dictates the pace.
2. Helps foster correct pronunciation habits as you are listening to a native speaker.
3. Pause to look up unknown words + mine anki cards (include the audio!).

2. Repeated passive listening of the audiobook after initial reading

1. Get in additional listening practice as you go about your day while walking, driving, cooking, stretching, cleaning, etc.
2. Relistening is key! Repetition helps you to internalize the sounds, words, and grammar of the language.

Podcasts

Podcasts are the best way to listen to Japanese people speaking “off the cuff”.

How to use Podcasts?

1. If you can find a corresponding transcript to read along with as you listen, then do that!
2. Otherwise just listen and pay attention!
3. Repetition is key while learning- listen and re-listen to the same episode over and over again.

1. YouTube Podcasts and Radio Shows

1. 4989 Utaco + blog w/ transcripts (female Japanese living in America, great for intermediate learners)
2. のがラジオ (female podcast)
3. FMななももこ (female, relaxing)
4. スーツ背広チャンネル (Suits going on epic rants about random topics)
5. ラジオやらせろ！傑作選 (Sandwich Man)
6. ひろゆき (Q&A livestreams)
7. メンタリストDaiGo (Q&A livestreams)
8. 大愚和尚の一問一答 (Buddhism and Life Advice. Non-standard accent)
9. ゆる言語ラジオ (linguisitics)
10. 山里亮太の不毛な議論 (panel member from Terrace House)
11. 新ニッポンの話芸 ポッドキャスト
12. 深夜ラジオ
13. 上原浩治の雑談魂 (Baseball)
14. 飯田浩司のOK!Cozy up! (News)
15. 歴史を面白く学ぶコテンラジオ COTEN RADIO (History)

2. Spotify Podcasts

1. 日本語の聴解のためのPodcast (for Beginners)
2. ゆとりっ娘たちのたわごと
3. 博多っ子のバス待ちラジオ

3. まりもえお！ (Podcast)

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Passive Immersion Resources

What is the purpose of “Passive Immersion”?

1. Turn the “dead-space” in your day into productive language learning by listening (and re-listening) to content as you cook, clean, walk, commute to work, etc.
2. This time quickly adds up throughout the day and builds up over weeks, months, and years.
3. Passive immersion becomes more useful the better your listening comprehension- the more you understand the more you benefit from all of the extra listening hours!

Common mistakes with passive immersion.

1. Make sure that you are still paying attention to the audio when listening- having it on in the background and zoning out doesn’t help your language processing ability.
2. Only listening to something once- repetition of material helps you internalize the language (really starting to beat a dead horse here).

What content should I use for passive immersion?

1. Podcasts and audiobooks are ideal for intermediate learners and up.
2. You can also relisten to anime and YouTube videos you have already actively watched and mined.
3. I mainly use YouTube premium or Audible and just download podcasts/audiobooks to my phone since it's so easy to do (I don’t mind paying the monthly fee for the convenience).

Creating your own passive immersion playlist (for the more technologically advanced)

1. Extracting audio 
2. Condensing audio 
3. Two Tips for Condensing Immersion Audio 

Condensed Audio for Anime/Dramas

1. Condensed Audio Catalog
2. Condensed Audio Mega Folder

Reading Material

1. Beginner Reading material

1. NHK Easy News

1. Has links to the real news article if you want to challenge yourself (this is good for when you are trying to get to an intermediate level)

2. 福娘童話集

1. Thousands of various folk tales, ghost stories, and children stories
2. Will often have accompanying audio of natives reading the story.

3. Free Graded Readers from Tadoku

4. 日本語多読道場 (Free graded readers from N5-N1)

2. Use Japanese subtitles while watching Netflix.

1. Helps to associate the sounds of the language with the written script.
2. Allows you to use anime, drama, movies, etc. to learn new words with Yomichan and Anki.
3. Count this as “reading” time and balance your ability with raw listening.

3. News Websites

1. NHK News Web (Visit the 特集 or スペシャルコンテンツ section if you want to see more unique stories/articles)
2. FNN プライムオンライン 
3. 文春オンライン
4. 朝日新聞ディジタル (Some articles are behind a subscription paywall)
5. 読売新聞オンライン
6. 日本経済新聞 (Economics)
7. Japanese Newspapers (various regional newspapers)
8. ウェザーニューズ

4. Various websites for reading online

1. The Players Tribune JP (Sports Articles/Interviews with athletes)
2. ログミーTech (Tech articles)
3. 仏教ウェブ入門講座 (Introduction to Buddhism, Self-Help)
4. ウィキペディア (Wikipedia)
5. Yahoo!知恵袋 (Japanese Yahoo Answers, must use a VPN)

5. Educational Content

1. 中学生のための、よくわかる歴史 (History articles at a middle school level)
2. 日本史辞典 (Japanese history articles)
3. トライイット (Classroom instruction on various schools subjects)
4. 高校講座 (NHK resource for Japanese High School subjects)

6. Politics

1. 自由民主党

7. Religious Texts

1. 聖書 口語訳 (The Bible translated into Spoken Japanese)

1. 旧約聖書（口語訳） 朗読 (Audiobook for Old Testament)
2. 新約聖書（口語訳） 朗読 (Audiobook for New Testament)

2. 聖書 新共同訳 (more faithful and linguistically challenging translation of the Bible w/ native audio)

8. Twitter is good for casual reading (create a Japanese only account)

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Novels

Fiction novels are the best way to improve your reading comprehension, vocabulary, and grammar due to the complex story-building, vivid descriptions, and varied sentence structure in them. Most people start out reading light novels, visual novels, or web novels as they tend to be easier and include pictures. Try starting there and then branch out to different genres and authors as your ability improves.  

1. Download Epubs

1. Itazuraneko Backup (main resource for obtaining books)
2. Boroboro (thousands of e-books)
3. Trophies' collection of books (Various epubs of light novels).

2. Read Online

1. 小説家になろう (Web/Light Novels from upcoming authors/amateur writers)
2. Aozora Bunko website (the holy grail of pre-war literature)

1. All books on Aozora Bunko are free for Kindle btw.
2. Many of the works here have audiobooks available on Youtube by professional narrators or on the 青空朗読 website.

3. ッツ’s Epub Reader 

1. Obtain an epub of the book you want to read and insert it into this page.
2. Supports vertical and horizontal text.

4. A Guide to Buying Physical and Digital Books (mainly from Japanese Amazon)

1. If you can’t find a book from one of the above sites then you probably need to buy it.
2. As my trips to Costco as a child taught me, buy in bulk and save $$$.

5. 紀伊國屋書店

1. A popular bookstore w/ multiple shops around the world.

6. 読書メーター

1. Track what books you’ve read, see what other people are reading, and get new book recommendations.

E-Readers

Useful Ipad/Iphone Apps

1. Amazon Kindle App

1. Allows you to read books that you purchase on your Japanese Amazon Account
2. Buy books individually or use Kindle Unlimited (subscription service)

2. Dictionaries (by 物書道)

1. Contains a plethora of different types of dictionaries that you can use.
2. Buying the dictionaries was a bit expensive, but it has been one of my best investments for learning Japanese.

Ipad’s Split Screen Functionality

How to Sentence Mine with an Ipad (Ghetto version)

1. Save a list of sentences/words + definitions in an email draft & email yourself the list.
2. Access on your computer and make cards manually.

Using a Kindle for Learning Japanese (Just watch the video, it’s complicated).

Visual Novels

Visual Novels are another great way to read more Japanese as they include pictures, voice acting, and go line-by-line (sentence by sentence), making them less fatigue inducing than normal books and allowing you to read for longer periods of time (broscience says volume is key to gains! In part, it’s true).  

1. Follow The Moe Way Visual Novel Guide + VN Setup

1. Anacreon Text Hooker Page (look stuff up + see how many characters you have read)
2. Clipboard Inserter Extension
3. Download Textractor
4. Download qBittorrent (download torrents of games)

2. Obtaining VNs

1. Buy legally on Steam
2. The Moe Way Discord Server         (easy way to get free VNs/LNs/books)
3. Itazuraneko VN Library
4. Nyaa
5. Sukebei 
6. 東京図書館
7. Nostalgic visual novels online
8. Ryuu games

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Learning the Basics

Purpose: now that you have a bunch of Japanese content to read, watch, and listen to, let's actually get started learning Japanese so that you can understand and enjoy that content.

This section of the guide should take approximately 3 months (~300 - 500 hours) to finish and at the end of it you will know the most common 2000 words of the language, the basics of grammar, and will be able to start understanding actual Japanese content.

Make sure to read through the technology section as well and download Anki and Yomichan.

Kana

This is the first step in your Japanese journey: learning to read, pronounce, and type the basic syllabaries.

1. Learn Hiragana (Tofugu)

1. Primarily used for particles, conjugations, and furigana.
2. Tofugu guide for Typing Hiragana

2. Learn Katakana (Tofugu)

1. Primarily used for loan words from foreign languages, and emphasis/italics.
2. Tofugu guide for Typing Katakana

3. Practice Kana Recognition・Real Kana

1. Learn how to recognize and type all of the kana by going one row at a time.
2. I recommend using all of the various fonts as some characters can look different.

4. Typing in Japanese

1. Download the Google IME (Google IME is way better than Windows IME).
2. Guide for installing Windows IME 
3. Useful IME shortcuts 

5. Ensure that your computer is using a Japanese font (it will often default to a Chinese font).

1. Change your System locale and Region to Japanese in language settings.
2. You can still have your Windows display language in English (or you could go full Japanese mode).

Basic Pronunciation

Focusing on proper pronunciation and pitch accent from the beginning will pay dividends for your listening comprehension and speaking ability later on. There is a lot to be learned and the best way to do it is a little bit every day.

It is still possible to correct your accent as a more advanced learner, but the amount of perceived effort it takes can be enormous and daunting for many individuals (and thus a lot of people don’t want to do it). I think a gradual approach from the beginning is more sensible.

Do the following as you learn kana so that you also learn proper pronunciation/phonemes

1. Watch Fluent Forever’s Pronunciation Videos (Uses IPA and mouth diagrams)

1. Japanese Writing Systems and Pitch Accent
2. Japanese Consonants
3. Japanese Vowels
4. Spelling Rules

2. Read the Basic Japanese Pronunciation Guide from Tofugu (uses IPA)

3. For an introduction into Pitch Accent, watch the following videos:

1. 10 Minute Intro to Pitch Accent by Dogen
2. Word level Pitch Accent by Matt vs Japan
3. Sentence Level Pitch Accent by Matt vs Japan
4. Darius on Strategies to Acquire Pitch Accent

4. Train your ability to perceive pitch accent using kotu.io

1. Level of increasing difficulty: 2 mora words < 3 mora words < minimal pairs < all words < words + particle < questions only < sentences.
2. Minimum: do ~10 min/day until you can get 100% effortlessly (100 questions) on minimal pairs w/o replaying the audio on the quiz.
3. Alternative: NALA-J 
4. Alternative #2: https://kuuuube.github.io/minimal-pairs/

5. Watch ~1 video/day of Dogen’s Phonetics Series

1. This is the best collection of videos available in English on Japanese pronunciation covering pitch accent, phonemes, devoicing, nasalization, and vocal placement.
2. Introduction: videos 1 - 5
3. Basics of Pitch Accent: videos 6 - 32
4. Phonetics/Phonemes: videos 33 - 57
5. Advanced Pitch Accent Concepts: videos 58 - 80

Basic Resources for Pronunciation and Pitch Accent

Listen to Native Speakers pronounce words

1. Forvo (listen to native speakers pronounce words in isolation)
2. Youglish (hear native speakers pronounce words/phrases in a YouTube video)
3. Use ShareX to record native audio and include it on your Anki cards (Windows Only)

Resources for Yomichan

1. Pitch Accent Dictionaries

1. I like using NHK 2016, Kanjium 2, and 大辞泉

2. Various Monolingual Dictionaries also list the pitch accent of words.

1. I like using 大辞林、新明解、and ディジタル大辞泉

3. Download Forvo audio to Yomichan so that you don’t have to go to the website

1. Use Local Forvo Audio to download NHK, Shinmeikai, and Forvo audio to your computer to make it even faster to hear native audio.

I recommend buying the NHK Accent Dictionary app for iPhone/Android from 物書堂 

Has audio files from trained native speakers and a search function for ease of use.

This free online version of the NHK Accent Dictionary also exists, but it only has the audio of the base word + particle

The above resources are all that beginners need for now and will start you off on a strong foot. Continue on reading if you are interested in more advanced resources and tactics for improving your pronunciation!

Learning Kanji?

Interesting videos about Kanji (not much practical use though)

1. Origin of Kanji 
2. What they never told you about Kanji 
3. Why Japanese Kanji suck

Let’s take a quick detour into how the philosophy of learning Kanji has evolved over time.

1. Rote Memorization.

1. Write out the same kanji over and over again on a piece of paper.
2. For some reason, this is still what they do in the Japanese education system, despite the obvious inefficiency and lack of a systemic approach.  

2. Remembering the Kanji 1 + Remembering the Kanji 3

1. James Heisig brilliantly combines the SRS, mnemonics, and a logical system of increasing complexity to teach you how to write 3000 kanji by hand.
2. This is what the old AJATT method recommended doing before even learning vocabulary and grammar (it was seen as a rite of passage)! Many people never made it past this step due to the sheer amount of studying required and lack of practical language ability gained…

3. Recognition RTK (aka. “Lazy Kanji”)

1. Khatz, the founder of AJATT, eventually realized that as a beginner you do not need to be able to handwrite thousands of kanji before you actually start learning the language (seems a bit obvious in hindsight really). Instead, let’s just learn to recognize the most common characters and then get on with learning vocabulary and reading Japanese content!
2. Reduced from 3000 characters to the most frequent 1000 characters. Don’t feel like you have to do the entire deck: usually anywhere from 400 - 600 characters is enough for most people to get over the “Kanji Hump” and be ready to move onto learning vocab. Quick and dirty is the name of the game here.

Common beginner traps to avoid when it comes to learning Kanji

1. Learning to write kanji at the beginning.

1. Focus on recognition first: this is the fastest and easiest way to get comfortable with reading native content.
2. Typing only requires recognition of the correct kanji.
3. Once you reach an advanced level you may want to develop handwriting ability (covered later in this guide).

2. Trying to memorize a bunch of “readings” of kanji out of the context of vocabulary.

1. Almost all characters in Japanese have multiple “readings” (pronunciations) and even if you learn them you won’t know how to pronounce words: just learn vocabulary as a “unit” and you get the readings for free.

3. Using Wanikani

1. It’s expensive, slow-paced, and free alternatives exist.
2. It tests you on random readings and vocabulary out of context

4. Doing all of RTK 1 + 3 at the beginning before learning any vocabulary

1. Learning 3000 kanji before you learn any vocabulary or grammar is a giant waste of time and doesn’t give you any actual Japanese ability: this is nothing more than a party trick.

The genius of the Heisig method

1. Learn to deconstruct characters into primitive elements systematically,

1. Characters are made up of components, not just random squiggles.

2. Learn kanji in a logical order of increasing complexity

1. This is the most important part of RTK. Some very common kanji are incredibly “complex” (have a lot of components/strokes): it’s much easier to learn simple Kanji first, and progress over time to the more complex ones, despite the difference in frequency.  
2. Combining frequency + complexity is the best of both worlds.

3. Create a “mental dictionary entry” for each kanji in your brain

1. Overcoming the “Kanji Hurdle” builds a foundation, priming your brain to make learning vocabulary easier.

Kanji frequency data

1000 Kanji covers ~90% of all Kanji that appear in most Japanese content. That’s efficient!

RRTK 450

        A shortened version of the above featuring only the 450 most common Kanji.

Vocabulary

Vocabulary is often the biggest bottleneck preventing you from understanding native content, and is thus one of the most important areas to focus on. While you could just start mining native material from the get-go, using a premade Anki deck is going to save you a lot of pain, frustration, and time.

1. Naturally acquire vocabulary listening to CI Japanese.

2. I recommend using 開始 1.5k deck

1. Make sure to enable pitch accent information.

3. Old recommendation: Tango N5 Deck & Tango N4 Deck.

1. Learn the most frequent ~2000 words in Japanese using sentences (learning in context) that are largely ordered in an i+1 format.
2. Every card includes audio from native speakers.
3. You can finish in ~3 months if you do 20 new cards/day.

4. Core 2.3k VN Deck (alternative to above)

1. Some people find that this deck suits them better than the Tango Decks since it uses vocab cards instead of sentence cards.
2. The example sentences used in this deck are not logically ordered in an i+1 format, making them quite difficult for beginners and not particularly enlightening for seeing how a word is actually used in context.  

5. After you finish one of the above decks, start mining new words from native media.

1. At this point you should find that you are starting to understand actual Japanese content.
2. When you start mining your own cards I recommend learning ~10 - 15 new cards/day in order to keep your daily Anki time at a reasonable amount.

You should also be reading through a basic grammar guide while going through these decks.

Grammar

Here are two interesting videos on the subject:

1. How to (not) think in your target language 
2. Why You SUCK At Japanese Grammar

Why study Grammar?

1. Studying grammar allows you to improve your comprehension of native media.
2. The more you understand your immersion the more enjoyable it becomes and the more language ability you acquire from it.

How to study Grammar?

1. Sentence mine a basic grammar guide like Tae Kim or Sakubi for new words, particles, conjugations, phrases, etc.

2. Card format

1. Front: Japanese sentence with 1 new thing to learn.
2. Back: explanation of that new word/grammar point.

Example Bilingual Sentence Card from the Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar

3. Study Japanese → English.

1. You should only study to increase your comprehension of native media, not to learn how to formulate sentences and translate thoughts from English to Japanese
2. Just become aware of various patterns and what they mean; natural use of the language is obtained through understanding (thousands of) hours of immersion and gaining a correct intuition for the language.
3. Eventually you will even be learning new words and grammar in Japanese once you go monolingual.

4. You will continue to learn new grammar as you mine native media and make more sentence cards.

Example Monolingual Sentence Card mined from native media

The Dictionary of Japanese Grammar is the best resource for mining new grammar. I highly recommend that you mine the entire series after reading through Tae Kim. This is a long-term project that will take you quite a while- just do a couple of pages per day. Consistency and Self-Discipline is key!

Technology for Language Learning

Purpose: this section will focus on setting up software that is going to make learning Japanese more efficient.

Yomichan and Anki are going to be your best friends while you learn Japanese.

Anki

Loved, hated, and feared, Anki remains one of the best ways to review vocabulary and grammar that you learn from native media.

Videos

1. Trenton’s video on why you should be using Anki
2. Matt vs Japan on What is the role of the SRS?

Summary

1. Immersion is a “natural SRS”.

1. Frequency is pre-built into the language by how often natives actually use certain words/phrases in various contexts and media (daily conversation, novels, anime, etc)
2. Anki acts as an “artificial SRS” and will let you review words more frequently than they naturally occur, helping speed up the language learning process.
3. Using the SRS will let you systematically review content, allowing you to increase your passive vocabulary and understanding of native content.

2. “Prime” your brain by creating a ‘mental dictionary’ for new vocabulary/grammar that you mine from native media.

1. Learn pronunciation + rough meaning of a new word in context- actual meaning will be refined through understanding the word used in various contexts during immersion.

3. Comment from Matt: The role of the SRS within the greater process of language acquisition is to help you efficiently learn the basic meanings of words, in order to greatly increase your capacity to notice words and understand sentences in your immersion, and in turn vastly accelerate the process of acquisition. Knowledge is just knowledge; it can never directly transfer to acquired ability. That's why SRSing with no immersion is a dead-end. But, by helping your brain make sense of the language, knowledge can indirectly lead to acquisition when combined with immersion. This is why combining SRSing with immersion leads to faster progress than immersion alone. Also, what I say about “words” applies to grammatical structures as well. In reality, most of what is commonly referred to as “grammar” can be viewed exactly the same as words from a language learning perspective.

4. Overall, Anki supplements immersion learning through effective studying of vocabulary and grammar in context, acting as a catalyst to speed up your acquisition of the language.

Pro Anki Tips

1. Try to spend only 20-40 minutes per day in Anki; at the very most don’t exceed 1 hour of Anki time per day.

1. Beginners benefit from being on the higher end of this spectrum as they need to learn the most common words and grammar patterns relatively quickly in order to jumpstart their comprehension in the language so that they don’t feel “lost in the sauce” when immersing.
2. Advanced learners are usually on the lower end of this spectrum as they know more and don’t see new words in native media as often.  

2. Download the Anki app for your iPhone.

1. This lets you do reviews anytime you have a few spare minutes during the day.
2. This is the best $25 you will spend on language learning.

3. Aim for a retention rate of 85 - 90%.

1. If you are above 90% that means you are reviewing cards too frequently and wasting time in Anki that you could spend immersing in your target language.
2. If you are below 80% then you aren’t remembering enough and need to adjust your settings, review cards more frequently, or make higher quality cards.

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Optimizing Anki

Anki’s default settings can quickly lead to you spending unnecessary amounts of time studying with a reduced retention rate (which we obviously want to avoid).

While reading the user manual takes a while, it is the best way to learn about Anki and how each setting affects the algorithm and how to create your own card templates.

FSRS Algorithm

1. THE ULTIMATE 2025 ANKI SETTINGS
2. The NEW Best Anki Settings 2024! New FSRS vs Anki default algorithm (SM-2)
3. FSRS Github
4. ABCs of FSRS
5. Spaced Repetition Algorithm: A Three‐Day Journey from Novice to Expert
6. Expertium's technical explanation of the FSRS Algorithm

Anki Tutorial | Deck Options and Algorithm 

This video will give you a basic understanding of how the (old) Anki SM-2 algorithm works.

Various articles about optimizing Anki settings.

1. Anime Cards
2. Optimizing Anki for Language Learning by Eminent
3. Anki Settings for Med School

Recommended Anki Settings

FSRS takes care of most of the bulk work for this (trust the algorithm), but there are still a couple of settings that you want to mess with and see what works for you. Below is what I use.

All of the settings are able to be adjusted in the “options” tag (the little gear cog).

1. New cards/day = 10 - 20.

1. You can adjust this number based upon your workload.
2. If you have more free time and want to learn more words per day then increase the number.
3. If you have exams coming up, are busy at work for a couple of days then decrease the card count (sometimes even to zero) and just do your reviews in order to let the daily review count die down for a bit.

2. Maximum reviews/day = 9999

3. Learning Steps for new cards

1. Vocab Cards: 1m 5m 1h
2. Sentence Cards: 5m 1h

4. Lapses

1. Relearning steps: 10m
2. Leech threshold: 6 - 8 lapses
3. Leech action: suspend card. This allows you to go in and edit the card (to make it better for learning) or delete it.

5. Display Order

1. New card gather order: Random
2. New card sort order: Order gathered
3. New/review order: show after or before reviews (up to your preference)
4. Review sort order: descending retrievability.

6. Enable all three “bury siblings” options.

Notes on Settings

1. Learning new cards after reviews is the most flexible option

1. Allows you to choose how many cards to learn each day.
2. Ensures that you do all of your reviews every day.

2. Learning new cards before reviews forces you to wait the proper amount of time between learning steps and leads to (slightly) better retention.

3. Failing a card in the learning queue forces it to go back to the beginning and you have to repeat all learning steps- don’t make too many learning steps.

Anki Add-ons

1. MIA JPN DX Note (my most used note type)

1. Sentence, Vocab, or Audio cards all with one template.
2. Can add sentence audio and images w/ ShareX hotkeys.
3. Can add furigana with [] brackets.

2. Review Heatmap

1. Visualize your progress and build your learning streak!

3. FSRS Helper Add-On

4. Quick Color Changing 

1. Use this add-on to highlight words according to their Pitch Accent.
2. Heiban = blue: #0000ff
3. Atamadaka = red: #ff0000
4. Odaka  = green: #00aa00
5. Nakadaka = orange: #ffaa00
6. Kifuku = Purple: #aa00ff

5. Kanji Grid

1. See how many unique kanji you have in your Anki collection
2. Note: you have to put all of your decks as subdecks (under a parent deck)

1. Make sure to select the parent deck when generating the grid
2. Enter in the fields that you want it to check. I use: “sentence word expression meaning glossary”

6. Kanji Colorizer Stroke Order Add-On

1. Great for Kanken practice and making your own writing cards that aren’t already covered in the deck

7. True Retention

1. This add-on gives more accurate retention stats
2. Press “shift” before hitting the stats button to pull up the page.

Sentence cards

Sentence Card Format (*=essential)

1. Front of the Card: sentence in target language*
2. Back of the Card

1. Definition of the target word*
2. Native audio of the target word*
3. Native audio of the sentence (highly recommended)
4. Furigana
5. Pitch Accent Coloring
6. Image of the show

Example Monolingual Sentence Card made from The Great Pretender

How to review Sentence Cards

1. Read the sentence on the front of the card (either in your head or out loud)
2. Listen to the native audio on the back of the card.
3. Read the definition of the target word on the back of the card.
4. Pass the card if you correctly understood the meaning of the sentence + pronunciation of the target word.
5. Fail the card if you forgot the pronunciation of the target word and/or didn’t understand the sentence.

Benefits of Sentence Cards

1. See the word being used in context

1. What words are commonly used together
2. What particles are commonly used with that word (important for transitive/intransitive verbs and active vs passive sentences).

2. Essential for set phrases and idioms.

3. Allows you to differentiate multiple meanings of one word.

Disadvantages of Sentence Cards

1. Longer review time, especially if you include sentence audio.

Anki Card Making Pro-Tips!

1. “Pick low-hanging fruit” and make cards in an i+1 format. ie. do not include multiple unknown words/grammar points in your sentence cards. The only thing that you shouldn’t know on the front of a card is that one new word/grammar point you are learning.

2. Keep your sentences short!

Vocabulary Cards

Vocab Card Format (*=essential)

1. Front of the card: word*
2. Back of the card

1. Definition of the word*
2. Native audio for the word*                  
3. Native audio for the sentence (highly recommended)
4. Image
5. Example sentence* can either be on front or back (or both).

Example Monolingual Vocab Card from 盾の勇者の成り上がり

How to review Vocab Cards

1. Read the word on the front of the card.

1. Recall the pronunciation and (at least a rough idea of) the meaning of the word.

2. Listen to the native audio on the back of the card.
3. Read the definition and example sentence on the back of the card.
4. Pass the card if you correctly recalled the pronunciation and your idea of the rough meaning of the word matched what was on the back on the card.
5. Fail the card if you incorrectly recalled the pronunciation and/or completely forgot the meaning of the word.

Benefits of Vocab Cards

1. Faster repping time.

Disadvantages of Vocab Cards

1. If the word has multiple meanings or is set phrase/idiom then reviewing only the word will not test you on the particular meaning → I would use a sentence card in this case.

Generally vocab cards are best for (concrete) nouns.

Audio Cards

Format

1. Front: native audio for the sentence*
2. Back

1. Text of the sentence*
2. Definition of the target word*
3. Native Audio for the word
4. Image

Example Audio Card from『坊ちゃん』夏目漱石

How to review Audio Cards

1. Listen to the audio of the sentence on the front of the card
2. Read the example sentence + definition of the target word on the back of the card to check your understanding.
3. Pass the card if you correctly understood the sentence when listening to the audio.
4. Fail the card if you did not understand the sentence or “missed a word” when listening to the audio.

Advantages of Audio Cards

1. Train your listening comprehension and helps you stop depending on JP subtitles.
2. Learn alternative readings of words.

Disadvantages of Audio Cards

1. Longer review time since you are listening to the sentence audio twice.

I’m a big fan of this card type as it first tests your listening comprehension (which I think is the most important skill in language learning) and then your reading ability as you read the sentence to confirm your listening comprehension. The only downside is the time requirement for this card type, but this is probably the best way to review for overall language gains and to make sure that your comprehension ability in listening and reading remains balanced.

Hybrid Anki Cards

Format

1. Front: example sentence w/ target word bolded (color code for pitch if desired)
2. Back

1. Definition of the target word*
2. Native Audio for the word*
3. Native audio for the sentence (highly recommended)
4. Image

Example Hybrid Card

Hybrid cards allow you flexibility in your style of reviewing. You can either read the full sentence, or just test yourself on the pronunciation of the target word if you want to save time and are confident in its meaning.

More Anki Tips

1. Stay consistent: do all of your reps everyday

1. Use the heatmap add-on and keep your “streak”.
2. “Catching up” on multiple days of reps is not a fun experience.

2. Don’t use the hard/easy button.

1. Removes decision fatigue- you either know the card or you don't.

1. Good = feel comfortable with this card and don’t need to see it as often.
2. Fail = don’t feel comfortable with this card (forgot pronunciation/meaning) and need to see it more often.

2. Improper use of the hard button can easily cause you to have to spend way more time reviewing Anki cards (ease hell) when you should have pressed ‘again’ and just relearned the card.

3. Timebox your reps

1. If you can't do all of your reps in one morning session, then just do them when you have freetime throughout the day. This helps turn those dead pockets of time into productive language learning and allows you to accumulate study volume throughout the day.

Dealing with Leeches

1. Option 1: Delete them

1. If a card isn’t sticking then forget about it and focus on the cards that are easy.

2. Option 2: Move all your leeches to a separate deck and relearn them

1. Go into the browser and right click “forget”.
2. Look into editing the card to see if something can be changed to make it easier to remember.

Tips to save time in Anki

1. Keep sentence cards on the shorter side so you don’t have to read as much.

1. No one wants to read a whole paragraph: 3 - 7 words is plenty for one card.

2. Only include one example sentence.

1. You don’t need to include every usage case of a word on your cards- you will learn them through immersion.
2. If a word has multiple, distinct meanings (and the various meanings aren’t obvious from already knowing one of them), then make a sentence card for each meaning.

3. Only include the relevant definition of the target word based upon the example sentence.

4. If you really want to save time, then consider using bilingual definitions.

1. They are much faster to read than monolingual definitions due to the decreased length of the definition and the increased reading speed in your native language.
2. However, the shorter definitions are also less precise.

Yomitan

Yomitan is a the ultimate pop-up dictionary for learning Japanese that supports multiple bilingual and monolingual dictionaries, native audio from Forvo, frequency lists, pitch accent dictionaries, and Anki Connect to create high quality cards with one button (see “Sentence Mining”).

Download Yomichan Dictionaries for Japanese

1. Download the contents as a .zip file (don’t extract)

1. I put all of the dictionary zip files into one folder for organization

2. Open Chrome and click on the icon for Yomichan Settings.

1. Select “Configure installed and Enabled Dictionaries”.
2. Click Import and select the dictionary files that you want to import.

Other useful things for Yomichan

1. My Yomichan CSS Code (for formatting)
2. Yomichan Forvo Server (listen to native speakers pronounce words)
3. Local Forvo Audio (create cards faster by downloading audio files to computer)

Recommended Monolingual Dictionaries

1. 大辞林 第三版 (my favorite dictionary, includes pitch accent information)
2. 新明解国語辞典 第八版 (unique definitions, includes pitch accent information)
3. ディジタル大辞泉 (includes pictures, similar to 大辞林)
4. 実用日本語表現辞典 (covers phrases/slang that don’t appear in other dictionaries)
5. JMDict (quick bilingual reference)
6. 漢字遣い参考  (gives you alternative forms of the word to search if it isn’t popping up)

Recommended Frequency Lists

1. [Freq] Anime and J-Drama
2. [Freq] Novels
3. [Freq] VN Freq v2
4. [Freq] Aozora Bunko

Recommended Pitch Accent Dictionaries

1. [Pitch]アクセント辞典v2
2. [Pitch] NHK 2016
3. [Pitch] 新明解 第八版
4. [Pitch] 大辞泉
5. [Pitch] 大辞林 第四版

Yomichan Pro-Tips!

1. Yomiception!

1. This will allow you to use Yomichan on unknown words within pop-up definitions.
2. Select “Allow scanning search page content” and “Allow scanning popup content”
3. Set the max number of child popups to 2 or 3 (I find that if I’m having to do more than 2 or 3 recursive lookups in order to understand a monolingual definition then the word just wasn’t meant to be learned- just move on).

2. Turning Yomichan into an online dictionary page with the Yomichan Search Page

1. Click on the “magnifying glass” and a separate page will pop up.
2. You can then use this page as a normal online dictionary. This is useful for things you can’t Yomichan (eg. PDFs) and have to copy and paste in order to look up.  

The “Magnifying Glass”

Using the Yomichan search page while reading 三四郎

Online Dictionaries

If for whatever reason Yomichan doesn’t work, then the following websites are good alternative options to look up the meaning of a Japanese word or phrase.  

Recommended Online Dictionaries

1. 広辞苑無料検索 (literally has every dictionary)
2. Weblio (大辞林 第三版, 実用日本語表現辞典)
3. goo辞書 (デジタル大辞泉)
4. コトバンク (デジタル大辞泉、大辞林 第三版 and 精選版 日本国語大辞典)
5. Jisho (Standard Japanese-English dictionary)

You can usually google things and find an answer.

〇〇 意味 (will usually give you top results from Weblio, kotobank, or goo辞書)

〇〇とは (same as above)

〇〇と〇〇の違い (difference between two things)

〇〇の尊敬語・謙譲語 (for when you need to write business letters/emails)

  Monolingual transition

Reference Videos

1. How to make the monolingual transition
2. Matt vs Japan's In-Depth J-J Dictionary Walkthrough

Purpose: use J-J dictionaries for target word definitions.

I do not recommend going “cold turkey” one day (the advice from the old days), but instead recommend a gradual transition.

1. Suggested that you have at least ~3000 bilingual cards, although you can always try to go monolingual earlier if you feel like it.
2. If you have not gone monolingual after ~1000 hours (~6 - 12 months) then focus on it.

My simple three-step process to make the monolingual transition

1. Start looking up words in a monolingual dictionary when immersing.

1. If you understand the definition then create a monolingual card.

1. If there is an unknown word in the definition then create a bilingual card for it and then create the original monolingual card.

1. If you can make this secondary card monolingual then do so, otherwise just create a bilingual card.

2. If there are multiple unknown words in the definition then you have two options:

1. Just make the original card with a bilingual definition.
2. Start sentence mining the unknown words in the definition (may or may not be worth it depending upon the words’ frequency).

Tips for the Monolingual Transition

1. Look up the definition of words that you already know

1. This will let you get a feel for how dictionaries tend to phrase ideas since you will already know the concept that is being described.

2. Cross reference multiple monolingual dictionaries

1. They often provide different perspectives and will give different definitions (some are short and concise while others will give you a lot of additional information)

3. Mine unknown words in definitions.

1. You can create cards where the front is the dictionary entry of a word and the back is the definition of the unknown word in the original definition.

Example Monolingual “Dictionary Card”

The more you use a monolingual dictionary the more you will get comfortable with it.

Ultimately the monolingual transition will take multiple months before you are comfortable with the vast majority of definitions that you come across; it is okay to reference the bilingual dictionary.

Sentence Mining

1. Old School Sentence Mining (this is what I use as it requires minimal setup and technology)

1. ShareX Setup (for pictures + audio)
2. Making monolingual sentence cards in real time (notepad++ and online dictionary)
3. Making sentence cards

2. New age mining with Yomichan and ShareX (This guide is based off of Animecards)

1. Create high quality cards with one click using Yomichan.
2. Include image and sentence audio using ShareX hotkeys.
3. Yomichan Handlebars (necessary for the setup)

3. Example Sentence Sources

1. 用例.jp (taken from books)
2. Youglish (natives in Youtube videos)

Output

Purpose: now that we have a high level of listening (and possibly reading) comprehension in Japanese, let’s actually start using the language to communicate with native speakers.

1. Here are some other good guides on starting to speak/write:

1. Matt vs Japan's Guide to Starting Output 
2. Chronopolize's Guide to Outputting in Japanese
3. Aussieman on why you suck at speaking Japanese

2. Useful websites for native feedback & interaction

1. Hello Talk
2. Using a tutor with Italki
3. Tandem
4. Language Learning/Exchange Discord Servers
5. LangCorrect

Speaking

Speaking consists of a couple components:

1. Understanding what your conversation partner is saying (listening ability)
2. Pronunciation
3. Phrasing thoughts naturally in the target language

Why listening ability is the most fundamental part of language learning:

1. If you can’t understand what your partner is saying then you can’t have a conversation!

2. Pronunciation (phonemes, accent, intonation, and rhythm) is another aspect of speaking ability that demonstrates the power of listening: you can’t accurately mimic how a native speaker sounds without listening to Japanese people actually talk a lot.

3. Improving your pronunciation usually requires dedicated practice- lots of concentrated and repeated listening is the most fundamental part of tuning your ears to how the language sounds- then chorusing lets perfect your mimicking skills!

Speaking Practice Ideas

1. Talk to natives (make friends and just converse w/ them).

1. You can also use iTalki to buy a Japanese language tutor who will correct you.

2. Monologue on a random topic (a good exercise for overcoming output anxiety)

1. Use a random topic generator.
2. Book/Movie review
3. Rants
4. Summarize a news/wiki article in your own words.

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Making Mistakes

There are two types of “mess-ups” that can happen when outputting: errors and mistakes.

1. Errors are subconscious; you aren’t aware that you are wrong and you need a native speaker to point it out to you for you to become cognizant of the issue.

1. This stems from a lack of comprehension ability.
2. Once corrected by a native, make a mental note of the correction and be on the lookout for it in your listening and reading immersion.

2. Mistakes are things that you can notice yourself upon review of your writing or a video of you speaking.

1. Examples would include slips of the tongue, fumbling with words, stuttering, freezing, using the wrong particle or conjugation, etc.
2. This stems from a gap between your level of output and your level of comprehension: just because you can read and understand a novel written by Murakami Haruki doesn’t mean that you could create that type of book yourself.

A good idea to improve your speaking ability is to record yourself talking (usually just monologuing on a subject).

Similarly, doing daily journaling (or typing) is a great idea for improving your writing ability.

You can then review your speaking/journaling and look for areas to improve upon, or even show it to a native speaker and get their feedback and corrections.

Early Output

1. References

1. Is Early Output a Sin? 
2. The Biggest Mistake People Make Learning Japanese

2. Why is it useful to focus on comprehension first and go through a silent period?

1. Outputting at the very beginning is largely a waste of time since you’re mainly translating thoughts from your NL into your TL when trying to speak.
2. Focusing exclusively on building comprehension of the language with immersion and Anki leads to faster results than trying to get better at everything all at the same time.
3. You can’t have a conversation if you can’t understand what the other person is saying.

3. Why should you output?

1. Motivation: you get to interact with native speakers, which helps you formulate an identity as a member of the “in-group” and identify with the target language and culture more.
2. You raise your “input sensitivity” (Comprehensible Output Hypothesis): your brain naturally pays attention to certain aspects of input more when you realize you don’t know how to phrase a certain thought when speaking.
3. Deliberate practice: you need to practice speaking if you want to improve your speaking ability to its maximum potential.
4. You can receive corrections on mistakes/errors that you make. Through recasts your brain can become stimulated to acquire the “missing aspect” in your language model.
5. Helps you overcome the “fear” or “anxiety” of outputting by making it a habit to utilize the language for communication with native speakers of the language rather than just a tool for comprehension.

4. When should you start outputting?

1. I think that early output is the thing that most the immersion learning community has changed its mind on the most.

2. The original recommendation in the AJATT community was to delay speaking until you already had a near native level of listening and reading comprehension. This is what I followed- I didn’t start outputting regularly until after 3,000 hours of input (over 1.5 years), which I think led to a good bit of output anxiety, but relatively rapid progress in terms of boosting speaking ability once I actually started conversing with natives on a regular basis.

3. I think that the above factors (mentioned in “why”) helped people realize that starting output much earlier is beneficial to the language learner.

1. Pronunciation issues can be taken care of early on by ear training + chorusing + pitch focused reading.
2. Native corrections in the form of recasts has been proven to have long term benefits for language acquisition.
3. Identity plays a big role in language acquisition.
4. Multiple case studies of people who started output early on ending up with great pronunciation + speaking ability.

4. The current recommendation for when to start output:

1. After a large amount of phonetic training so that you have a good accent since outputting only reinforces your current level of pronunciation ability.
2. After you have a good foundation in listening comprehension.
3. You don’t have to consciously think of what to say or translate things in your head- the language just flows naturally.
4. After an initial silent period of 500 hours

5. How should you start outputting?

1. Utilize cross-talk: they speak in Japanese and you speak in English.

1. This will help you get used to conversing with Japanese people, lowering social anxiety while building your sense of identity with the target language.
2. If you can naturally think of something to say in Japanese, then say it!
3. This technique doesn’t force you to speak in Japanese, making the situation less stressful.

2. Utilize an iTalki tutor or friend who is willing to give you constant corrections in the form of recasts.

1. The native speaker should correct your mistakes (whether accent, vocabulary, or grammar) simply by saying the correct version without explicitly pointing out the fact that you made a mistake.

6. My opinion on the subject

1. I recommend going through a silent period of at least 500 hours where all you do is comprehensible input (primarily focused on listening), active study (sentence audio cards in Anki), and dedicated phonetics practice (practicing perception, phonetic awareness, and chorusing) in order to build up a base level of comprehension.
2. When you start outputting, you should still bias the majority of your time towards comprehensible input (at least a 5:1 ratio).
3. Don’t avoid speaking forever; if you haven’t started outputting after 1,000 hours then you definitely should- deliberate practice is necessary to improve your speaking ability.

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Critiquing High Level Learners’ Output

Let’s see what even some high level people struggle with and what gives them away as foreigners.

Brutally Honest Nitpicking of Eric (KoreKara Podcast)'s Japanese

        Rhythm: prone to skip “small ッ” and shorten long vowels when pronouncing loan words

Lack of variety in sentence ending particles （語尾）

        Incorrect pitch accent on words occasionally

        Sometimes phrases ideas in a weird way

Brutally Honest Nitpicking of Dogen's Japanese

How good is Dogen's Japanese? Dogen NitPicked by a Japanese guy

Nitpicking Matt vs Japan's Japanese (2017 ver.)

Kaz mainly picks on Matt sometimes messing up pitch accent

Nitpicking オージマン Aussieman

Native level accent (verified by multiple Japanese people from Kansai); this is largely because Aussieman mixes standard and kansai-dialect.

Nitpicking Mr. Katsumoto's Japanese, the AJATT founder

        The famous Blue Shirt Video where Khaz is mainly corrected on Pitch Accent.

Important to note that Khaz has never studied Pitch Accent in-depth and mainly just did lots of listening and shadowing; there is definitely room for improvement (there always is in anything), but pretty good for someone who just had headphones in 24/7 listening to Japanese.

5 Years of Japanese Immersion - TheImmersionGuy

Random guy who has done AJATT for 5 years posts a video speaking about his experience. He speaks Japanese at the beginning and end of the video.

Mui-Mui Appreciation Page

I consider とある中国人のむいむい to be the best foreigner at Japanese.

The Mui-Mui Method

1. Lots of repetitive listening to Japanese (mainly anime, variety shows, and podcasts)
2. She did Pitch Focused Reading（音読）every time she read something.
3. Utilized monolingual dictionaries when she didn’t know a word.
4. Specifically learned about and studied pronunication/pitch accent at  東京アナウンス学院 and received professional training from announcers and radio hosts for two years.
5. Lots of speaking to Japanese people

Conclusion: Mui-Mui is super based and figured out how to get really good at Japanese all on her own utilizing an AJATT method (while being completely unaware of the fact).

Life goal as a language learner: be more like Mui-Mui.

この中国人の日本語勉強法は異次元すぎる…【学習歴15年】

        Mui-Mui talks about improving pronunciation and accent.

【努力】中国人が人生をかけて編み出した”日本語の勉強法”を大公開！

Mui-Mui talks about AJATTing, using monolingual dictionaries, and improving pronunciation with reading aloud.

外国人にはどう足掻いても超えられない日本語の壁がある

Mui-Mui talks about how pronunciation/accent is THE determining factor between “high level learners” and “those indistinguishable from native speakers”.

She specifically mentions pitch accent, how emotions affect intonation, rhythm, and paying special attention to words containing 長音・促音・撥音

学習歴約15年の日本語学習者による最強の語学勉強法とは？

Repetitive listening to Podcasts/Radio Talk Shows to work on listening ability w/o relying on subtitles.

Reading aloud while focused on accent, intonation, and rhythm.

Recommends magazines/interview transcripts over novels as they are stylistically more “conversational” and not as many rare/literary words appear.

        Using Twitter to practice writing.

        Attend 飲み会 and make Japanese friends to practice speaking

        Move to Japan to force yourself into an environment where you can only use Japanese.

        Cared about developing pronunciation, accent, and intonation to a native like level.

                Notes that it is hard to develop w/o a native correcting you.

Recommends going to announcer school.

Topics for Advanced Learners

Other Topics for Advanced Learners

Learning a language is really a lifelong endeavor that requires daily, dedicated practice: there is always something to work on improving. How far you learn Japanese is entirely up to you: some people are content with just being able to read their favorite books while looking up words occasionally, others want to achieve a native-like accent and become a news broadcaster in Japan, some may even want to go to university/graduate school in Japan and work professionally with their new found language abilities. What you pursue with your language abilities is entirely up to you: I’m just here to provide you resources to help you accomplish your goals.

"Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why he wanted to climb it. He said, 'Because it is there.' Well, space is there, and we're going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail, we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked." - John F. Kennedy

敬語

Learning to understand honorific language is quite simple, and can be acquired through normal immersion + sentence mining, but learning to use it correctly when speaking is a different matter.

Even natives have to specifically study this topic when they first get a job, so why would you be any different? Get a book on the subject in Japanese, study it, and then practice with native speakers.

敬語の指針 (Itazuraneko)

A comment from reddit suggests the following books:

1. 敬語の教科書1年生
2. 敬語の使い方が面白いほど身につく本
3. 入社1年目ビジネスマナーの教科書
4. 入社1年目 ビジネス文書の教科書

Often you can just google 〇〇の尊敬語・謙譲語 and find a good business article/blog explaining the proper usage of some conjugation/phrase, etc.

関西弁

While Japanese does feature a wide variety of dialects, there are really only two main ones: 標準語 (Tokyo) and 関西弁 (Osaka, Kyoto, etc.).

More obscure dialects simply don’t appear frequently enough in Japanese media for them to be worth learning explicitly unless you plan on moving to and living in that specific region. If that is the case, then you can pick up that dialect through lots of interactions with native speakers during your time in that region of Japan.

Aussieman’s Simple Advice for Learning Dialects!

1. Listen to a lot of content from that region (mainly Youtube and podcasts).
2. Speak to people from that region.

Study Materials/References

1. 京言葉 (an in-depth blog covering grammar and accent)
2. YouTube関西弁講座 大阪おっちゃんねる (has 5 playlists covering 大阪弁)
3. 京阪式アクセント（基礎）
4. 大阪弁講座 

Other websites

1. わたさんの大阪弁アクセント講座
2. 近畿日本語アクセント辞典
3. 京阪アクセント辞典

Books from Amazon

1. 聞いておぼえる関西(大阪)弁入門
2. 大阪ことば辞典
3. 大阪ことば学
4. かんさい絵ことば辞典

I guess you could apply the techniques in the “Pitch Accent” section of this guide to learning to speak kansai-ben (with a native speaker from that region who is willing to work with you) if you were interested in that, but the lack of resources available for it would have me suggest that most people should just stick to speaking Standard Japanese.

日本語能力試験

Take the N1 and get your certification so others can stop bothering you about it and so you can go work in Japan.

1. JLPT文法解説まとめ

1. This is another good grammar resource to sentence mine besides the DoJG.
2. Someone already pre-made an Anki Deck for the website if you don’t want to mine it manually (which is what I did since I only wanted to make cards for new words/patterns).

2. 新完全マスター読解 日本語能力試験N2 and 新完全マスター読解 日本語能力試験N1

1. These books on reading comprehension are good to get used to the types of questions and texts that the JLPT uses.
2. It focuses more heavily on analytical reading of essays, dissertations, and passages from newspapers and novels. A lot of themes are economic, scientific, political, or philosophical in nature. There is also a good chunk of “Business Japanese”.
3. It comes with an answer book that explains why the answer is correct and why other answers are wrong so it’s pretty easy to self-study from.

3. Past JLPT N1 Tests (2010-2019)

1. Take a couple of official tests as practice to get used to the formatting + timing.

4. Kotoba quiz bot codes (via Discord, good for extra practice)

1. N2 Vocab: k!quiz n2 nd 20 font=5
2. N1 Vocab: k!quiz n1 nd 20 font=5
3. N2 Grammar: k!quiz gn2 nd 20 mmq=2
4. N1 Grammar : k!quiz gn1 nd 20 mmq=2
5. N1 Listening: k!q ln1 10 nd font=5 mmq=2 atl=20

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漢字能力検定

We’ve come full circle back to learning Kanji (remember how that was like 40 pages ago?), but this time we are going to learn how to write them from memory. This will be a much easier process to do now that we have a high level of reading ability, and we can do it entirely in Japanese without having to resort to using made-up english keywords from Heisig.

ひらがなとカタカナの書き方

Use QM’s Kanken Deck to learn how to write.

You will be prompted with a Japanese sentence and an underlined word in kana. Simply write the word in kanji!

Note: this deck is an absolute grind and is not for the faint hearted or those lacking discipline. Also, some of the vocabulary and example sentences are taken from some pretty advanced material (you can always trim them down or replace the card w/ another that you create using the Kanji Colorizer Stroke Order Add-On)…

Official Practice Resources

1. 漢検 過去問題集

1. 漢検1級 過去問題集
2. 漢検準1級 過去問題集
3. 漢検2級 過去問題集
4. 漢検準2級 過去問題集
5. 漢検3級 過去問題集
6. 漢検4級 過去問題集
7. 漢検5級 過去問題集

2. 漢検 分野別問題集 

1. 漢検1級 分野別 精選演習
2. 漢検準1級 分野別 精選演習
3. 漢検2級 分野別問題集
4. 漢検準2級 分野別問題集
5. 漢検3級 分野別問題集
6. 漢検4級 分野別問題集

3. 漢字検定WEB問題集 

More 参考書・問題集

1. 史上最強の漢検マスター

1. 史上最強の漢検マスター準1級 問題集
2. 史上最強の漢検マスター2級 問題集
3. 史上最強の漢検マスター準2級 問題集

2. 旺文社 出る順ｘ分野別 漢検問題集

1. でる順×分野別 漢検問題集 準1級        
2. でる順×分野別 漢検問題集 2級
3. でる順×分野別 漢検問題集 準2級

More Free Practice Material

1. Nick's Compendium of Kanken Practice Tests

1. “example” = Practice Test
2. “corrigées” = Answers
3. 答案用紙 PDFs (print off your own Blank Answer Sheets)

2. 毎日漢字 (Practice problems for ３級・準２級・２級)

3. 漢字検定準1級 無料練習問題 (practice problems for 準１級)
4. 漢検１級模擬試験倉庫 (some Japanese dude’s blog of practice problems)

5. spacepluskk’s Google Drive of Practice Exams

6. 漢字逞筆 (lots of practice problems for １級)

1. 漢字逞筆 Anki Deck

Useful Online Dictionaries

1. 四字熟語辞典オンライン

1. 四字熟語 Anki Deck

2. 四字熟語の説明 
3. 漢字辞典オンライン
4. 漢字ペディア 
5. 対義語辞典 
6. ことわざ辞典オンライン 

More Useful Links

1. Smug17's massive Sentence Bank (3 million cards from anime/VNs/LNs/Audiobooks)

1. Useful for when you want to create your own cards but don’t want to have to find example sentences w/ audio + images from your own immersion.

2. TMW Kanken Bros List of Resources

合格者の体験談

1. Bret Mayer's Website (first American to pass 漢検１級)
2. Evgeny Uskov's Website (Russian guy who has passed 漢検１級＋日本語検定１級)
3. Doth passes Kanken ２級 in 653 days

Kanken Study Routine for ２級

1. Work through QM’s Writing Deck by level.
2. Once you’ve finished the appropiate deck level, work through the official Kanken practice problem books (問題集＋分野別問題集）.
3. Create Anki Cards from practice books for missed questions (as needed).
4. Repeat Steps 2 + 3 w/ additional practice books (if needed).
5. Do Kanken Mock Tests.

日本語検定

To be added….

日本語検定 (Japanese language test for Natives)

BJT

To be added…

ビジネス日本語能力テスト (BJT)

Pronunciation

Advanced Pronunciation Guide

Purpose: provide the resources, exercises, and advice for those who are interested in having a native like pronunciation.

Revisit the ‘Basic Pronunciation’ section if you can’t yet differentiate between the various pitch accent patterns of isolated words and/or haven’t finished watching Dogen’s series on Japanese phonetics.  

Interesting videos on Mandarin pronunciation

1. 如何用「回音法」學好英文口說 | 史嘉琳 Karen Chung | TEDxNTUST

1. Enlightening TED Talk from a Chinese teacher of English who tells you why focusing on and working on your pronunciation is important.

2. Overcoming Chinese Accent Fossilization・It's never too late to learn Chinese Tones

1. Interesting case study about how an advanced Chinese learner went about fixing their bad pronunciation habits at a late stage.

3. This Man Has the Best Chinese of Any Foreigner Who’s Ever Lived

4. He SELF STUDIED Native-Sounding Chinese in 1.5 Years?! How Did He Do It?

The Pitch Accent Journey

Can pitch accent be acquired naturally? 

1. The ideal method to learn pitch accent is through your brain’s natural language acquisition device- completely subconsciously without conscious interference.

1. Train your phoneme and pitch accent perception from day one and prime your brain to acquire pitch accent naturally through lots of phonetically aware listening immersion.

2. However, most people in the Japanese learning community do not seem to be able to do this.

1. Most learners are coming from a native language where pitch accent isn’t important to distinguish the meaning between words and phrases- so their brain is not naturally “primed” to notice and acquire it (due to a lack of necessity).

2. System two (conscious) learning from early reading and early output interferes with the brain’s mechanism to properly acquire pitch accent and reinforces bad pronunciation habits.

3. Pitch accent seems to be highly susceptible to damage from conscious interference.

3. Conclusion: most people will need to put active work into improving their pronunciation and accent if they want to sound like a native speaker.

4. It is still possible to correct your accent as a more advanced learner, but you will have to do more work focused on correcting mistakes and bad habits than if you were to have focused on it from an earlier stage.

How to improve accent and pronunciation

1. Train your ability to perceive pitch accent

1. If you can’t perceive pitch accent in real time as you listen to Japanese then you won’t be able to accurately imitate it: improving your perception will improve your ability to mimic and produce the language.

2. The first step is to be able to perceive pitch accent correctly using kotu.io.

1. In level of increasing difficulty: 2 mora words < 3 mora words < minimal pairs < all words < words + particle < questions only < sentences.

2. Maintain “Phonetic Awareness” when listening to Japanese.

1. Try to hear pitch accent when watching Anime, Drama, Movies, YouTube or while listening to Audiobooks and Podcasts.

2. Actively compare your perception of pitch accent against the correct version.

1. ex. If you think “that word sounded nakadaka”, then verify it against a pitch accent dictionary.

3. Also pay attention to phonetic phenomena such as devoicing and nasalization.

3. Learn the correct accent of individual words

1. Maintain “Phonetic Awareness” when listening.

2. Use the NHK Accent Dictionary, Yomichan, or Youglish while listening to and watching Japanese.        

1. Test your perception of what pattern you think you hear versus what the pattern actually is.
2. Look up the pronunciation of any word/phrase you don’t know the accent of.

3. Include Pitch Accent information/coloring and native audio on your Anki cards.

4. Use Pronunciation Cards (covered below).

4. Learn the rules of Pitch Accent by reading through the NHK Accent Dictionary.

1. All of the rules are incredibly simple, there are just a lot of them that you need to be exposed to: take it slow and focus on one at a time.

5. Pronunciation Exercises

1. Pitch Focused Reading (PFR)
2. Chorusing
3. Shadowing

6. Go to Announcer/Narrator/Voice Actor School in Japan

1. Not yet confirmed to be necessary, but also not yet disproven. Definitely helpful either way as you get native feedback from trained professionals.
2. Official part of the むいむい method.

Phonetic Awareness

The two levels of Phonetic Awareness

1. Recognition

1. Pay attention and “try to hear” Pitch Accent as you watch Anime, Drama, Movies, and YouTube or listen to Audiobooks and Podcasts.
2.  You should do this anytime you are immersing in content w/ native audio.
3. Pitch Accent Case Study by Kezi shows how to learn pitch accent from anime

2. Active Recall

1. Having correct active recall of Pitch Accent when reading aloud or speaking.
2. We will mainly work on this with Pitch Focused Reading and Chorusing.

You can look up the pronunciation of anything that you are unsure of when watching, listening, or reading with the NHK Accent Dictionary, Yomichan, or Youglish.

Learning Pitch Accent w/ Anime

ぼ＼くはよわ＼い

け＼ど・ひとつだけ￣ ちょ＼うしょがあ＼る

High Variability Phonetic Training

1. Phonetic training should utilize a wide variety of words and native speakers (age/gender/dialect of that speaker) to effectively train your brain’s phonetic perception.

2. HVPT is the reason why Pitch Accent training works.

1. Your brain continually refines the “range of possible/acceptable sounds” for what is and what is not considered a phoneme or a certain pitch pattern.

3. Requires that your brain receives a high variety of dedicated phonetic training.

1. kotu.io and other pitch trainer websites are naturally limited in the amount of variety that they can provide- still useful, but they could be better by slowly building complexity.

2. Maintaining phonetic awareness during active/passive listening immersion is a free-form version of HVPT; there is a lot of variety, but not a lot of specific, dedicated practice where you have an immediate test-feedback loop (dedicated practice is how you improve at any skill). This is why it is important to test your perception of what you think you are hearing against the actual pattern by looking up words with the accent dictionary. This process helps your brain refine what is and is not a pitch pattern.

4. Currently, chorusing is the best technique that we have for executing HVPT and improving pronunciation. Pitch Focused Reading is another good technique used to improve pronunciation via active recall (reading aloud).

Advanced Pitch Accent Resources

For those who can read Japanese, here are some more in-depth resources on pronunciation and pitch accent.

The Holy Grails

1. NHK Accent Dictionary PDF (the absolute best resource)

1. Again, I prefer the app for the reasons stated above.
2. Pitch Accent of Verb Conjugations (summary in English)
3. Pitch Accent of Adjective Conjugations (summary in English)

2. 新明解 Accent Dictionary PDF (the second best resource)

Supplementary Resources for Pitch Accent

1. 東京式アクセント (wiki page overview)
2. 日本語標準アクセントの概要 + 詳細
3. 助詞・助動詞のアクセントについての覚え書き
4. Not Orange's list of Pitch Accent for Suffixes/Counters (very useful list)
5. 日本語教育用アクセント辞典

Supplementary Resources for Pronunciation

1. 東京外国語大学言語モジュール (basic Japanese pronunciation and accent)
2. 日本語の発音を知る (blog covering pronunciation of phonemes by using IPA notation + mouth/tongue diagrams)

Recommended list of books for Japanese Pronunciation, Pitch Accent, and Phonetics

1. 日本語アクセント入門 (introduction to standard Japanese and various dialects)
2. アクセントの法則 (book compares standard and kagoshima dialect)
3. 日本語のイントネーション しくみと音読・朗読への応用
4. 美しい日本語の発音:アクセントと表現 
5. 音声を教える

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Pitch Focused Reading

Q: What is the most effective exercise for fixing your pronunciation and pitch accent?

A: Reading out loud and having a native speaker correct you. This forces you to use active recall  and recognition.

This exercise is highly touted by Darius, Matt vs Japan, and Mui-Mui (among many others) for working on your pronunciation; it forces you to actively recall and produce the correct pronunciation and pitch accent of everything you can read and to be able to recognize the difference between what you said and how the native speaker said it when you are corrected.

This is an absolutely brutal exercise if you ignored pitch accent while building up your reading skills and vocabulary. Expect your reading speed to drop as you get corrected or spend time looking up the correct accent of words/phrases multiple times per sentence. As you get better (and fix your pronunciation), you will find that you naturally start to read with the correct pronunciation and pitch accent (which is ideally what you should have been doing all along).  

Step-by-Step Guide to PFR

1. Use any reading material that you would normally use (novels, LNs, VNs, news, wikipedia, manga, etc.) and read it aloud.

1. Ideally, you would pick content that is not too difficult for you as too many unknown words will distract from the purpose of the exercise (which is proper pronunciation).

2. The native speaker should correct you everytime you mess up the pronunciation or pitch accent of a word/phrase.

3. Hear and understand the difference between what you said and the correct pronunciation.

4. Repeat the sentence correctly.

5. Continue reading aloud as before.

6. Have the native speaker send you a list of all of the words/phrases that you messed up along with an audio file of them pronouncing everything correctly at the end of the session.

7. Review this list throughout the week.  

Darius’s Advice for PFR

1. Use an iTalki tutor if you regularly make pitch accent mistakes (ie. every sentence or so).
2. Use a friend that is a native speaker if you are at a level where your pitch accent mistakes are occasional and it won’t be annoying for your friend to correct you every so often.

What to do if you don’t have a Native Speaker to help you out

1. Find a native speaker (seriously)- utilize iTalki to buy a tutor for an hour once a week.
2. Use Yomichan, NHK Accent Dictionary, Forvo, Youglish, or OJAD to look up the accent of unknown words, verb/adjective conjugations, compound nouns, suffixes, counters, etc.
3. Record yourself while reading aloud.
4. Compare and contrast your recording w/ the audiobook or podcast.
5. Repeatedly listen to the audiobook/podcast throughout the week.

Chorusing

References on Chorusing

1. Laoma Chris's video
2. Olle Kjellan's Original Paper 
3. Refold Tutorial on Chorusing

Step by Step Guide to Chorusing

1. Find ~20 total sentences to chorus.

1. Ideally you should choose them from a language parent (someone you want to sound like).
2. Each sentence should be approximately 2 - 4s in length.

2. Work your way through the sentences.

1. Listen to the sentence being pronounced by the native speaker.
2. Mimic the speaker in real time and repeat the sentence aloud.
3. Repeat the above multiple times.
4. Switch to the next sentence and repeat the process.

3. Work on chorusing for 15 - 20 minutes per day.

1. You don’t have to do every sentence every day.
2. Pick 20 new sentences weekly.

Pro Tips for Chorusing!

1. Repeatedly listen to the podcast/anime/drama episode/chapter of the audiobook throughout the week.
2. Record yourself in order to compare and contrast yourself w/ the original audio.
3. Have a native listen to you and provide corrections.
4.  Look up the pitch accent of any words you are not confident in.

A Hybrid Approach to Chorusing and Pitch Focused Reading

1. You can instead pick sentences from an audio source that also has a written component.

1. Audiobook + Novel.
2. Podcast + Transcript.
3. Anime/Drama/Movie/YouTube Video + JP Subtitles.
4. Yudai's Short Studies w/ Audio 

2. Read the sentence aloud as you listen to the native audio, trying to mimic the narrator.

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Shadowing

Matt vs Japan's Ideal Shadowing Setup 

The ideal content for shadowing is podcasts, audiobooks, or YouTube videos from your language parent.

Shadowing is best for advanced learners to work on their fluidity and intonation due to the freeflow nature of the exercise.

Audiobooks are easier to shadow than natural speech (podcasts/YouTube) due to the clearer pronunciation and slower rate of speech. Try starting off with them and then transition over to shadowing your Language Parent once you get the hang of the exercise.

Pro Tips for Shadowing!

1. Repetition. You can shadow one podcast/audiobook chapter for a week and then switch up the material the next week.
2. Record yourself and listen back to it to find out where you can improve.
3. You can send the recording to a native speaker for feedback.
4. You can overlay the recording w/ the original in Audacity to hear discrepancies between yourself and the native speaker.

Adopting a Language Learning Parent

Using a parent narrows your target from sounding “native-like” to sounding like a specific person. A smaller target means that you have a much better basis to compare yourself too. “Aim small, miss small.”

1. Picking a Language Parent

1. You should choose someone that you want to sound like.
2. This person should be the same gender as you.
3. This person should be close to you in age.
4. They should speak the dialect that you want to speak (this is most likely going to be standard Japanese, unless you are interested in Kansai dialect).
5. They should have an abundance of content available for listening.

2. YouTube Challenge!

1. An easy way to find a language parent is to pick one YouTuber you like and to watch every video they have made; this should be anywhere from hundreds to thousands of hours of content.

Anki and Pronunciation

The hardest part about pitch accent is being able to recall the correct accent of all of the individual words: you either know it or you don’t.

Reviewing Anki Cards: Chinese Tones and Japanese Pitch Accent

1. During your normal reps, you should be actively recalling the correct pitch accent of words/sentences.
2. Even if you don’t fail the cards for wrong pitch accent, you should at the very least try to remember the correct accent and then have the info on the back for you to verify if you were correct or not.
3. I like to color code my vocab/sentence/audio cards for pitch accent information.

The above video discusses what to do for normal vocab/sentence cards in Anki.

“Pronunciation Cards” only test you on the correct pronunciation of words/sentences.

Pronunciation Card Format

1. Front: word, phrase, or sentence.
2. Back

1. Pitch accent of word/phrase
2. Native audio for the word/phrase
3. Any corresponding rules for learning pitch accent patterns.

How to Review Pronunciation Cards

1. Read aloud the word/phrase on the front of the card.
2. Check your pronunciation on the back of the card.
3. Pass the card if you correctly said the pronunciation.
4. Fail the card if you didn’t.

Example card for remembering the pattern for counters/suffixes

Example Vocab Card from 文豪ストレイドッグス

Example Pronunciation Card to remember conjugations

Advantages of Pronunciation Cards

1. Systematically learn Pitch Accent

1. Suffixes
2. Counters
3. Compound Nouns
4. Particles
5. Verb Conjugations
6. Adjective Conjugations

Disadvantages of Pronunciation Cards

1. Niche purpose (only for people who care about sounding like a native).

Pro Tips for Pronunciation Cards

1. Don’t add every word you mispronounce when doing Pitch Focused Reading.

1. Your Japanese friend sends you the list of words/phrases you mispronounced w/ audio of them correctly pronouncing each one.
2. Review the list ~1 - 3 days later.
3. Only add cards for words that you mess up during the review session.

Pitch Accent for 10k most frequent words

Boost your foundations! Focusing on the pitch accent for the most common words used in conversation will have the biggest effect on improving your pronunciation and speaking ability.

Delete cards if you get the accent right the first time (and were confident you knew the correct accent).

Pronunciation Routine

Here’s one method that combines all of the concepts and techniques that we have discussed in this section into a holistic pitch accent training routine.

Step by Step example routine

1. Find a short story on Aozora Bunko and read it aloud (PFR).

1. Have a native listen to you and correct you (best option).
2. Or use Yomichan/NHK Accent Dictionary to diligently look up the pronunciation of words/phrases you are not 100% confident in.

2. Keep a list of words/phrases that you messed up (or had to look up) the Pitch Accent for in a Notepad++ file and then review it within the next day or two.

3. Make Pronunciation Cards for words/phrases that you still don’t remember during the review session.

1. Doing the list in Notepad++ first helps to reduce the total amount of cards you have to make.
2. You could even do a second review session another couple days later if you don’t want to add that much stuff to Anki.

4. Find and listen to the corresponding Audiobook.

1. Maintain Phonetic Awareness and try to hear the Pitch Accent as you listen.

5. Shadow the Audiobook.

1. Record yourself.
2. Listen back to the recording or send it to a native to find out where you can improve.

6. Repeat with more stories.

You might want to repeat the routine multiple times for a single story, or you could simply do it once or twice and then move onto a different story to keep your interest up.

I picked Aozora Bunko because a lot of the works are relatively short (~10 - 60 minutes), and almost all of them have audiobooks available on Youtube or 青空朗読.

You could also do this with novels + audiobook, podcast + transcript, anime/drama/YouTube + JP subtitles.

アナウンス科

Going to Announcer or Voice Actor school (2 year curriculum) truly is the ultimate dedication to perfecting your Japanese speaking ability.

A proven part of the Mui-Mui Method.

専門学校 東京アナウンス学院

募集要項 留学生

Academic Subjects

Academic Subjects

Purpose: here are a bunch of resources for learning middle school, high school and college level subjects in Japanese.

It’s not required that you go through this section at all in order to learn Japanese, but you might find that this can be (1) interesting immersion content, (2) help you learn a new subject in Japanese, and (3) shows you what Japanese people are taught in their school curriculum. If you want to go to university or grad school in Japan then it would definitely be a good idea to work through the resources in this section.

If you would like a google doc of just this section: Japanese Academic Resources

ユーチューブ大学

参考書のおすすめ（主に受験生向け）

1. CASTDICE TV
2. CASTDICE Medical【医学部受験専門塾】
3. 医学部受験 MEDUCATE TV
4. 武田塾チャンネル

ヨビノリ (website)・予備校のノリで学ぶ「大学の数学・物理」(Youtube Channel)

        Focuses on Math/Physics at the Undergraduate level.

とある男が授業をしてみた

1. Has good lecture videos for middle school subjects.
2. 中１数学・理科・中２数学・理科・中３数学・理科
3. 国語
4. 歴史・地理・公民

トライイット

1. Good lecture videos for middle/high school subjects.
2. 中学数学
3. 中学理科
4. 中学歴史・中学地理・中学公民 
5. 高校数学
6. 理系科目：物理・生物・化学
7. 社会科目：日本史・世界史・地理
8. 古典：古文・漢文

NHK 高校講座 (Video series + PDF notes on various high school subjects)

日本の大学

1. References

1. 大学受験パスナビ（大学の情報）
2. 大学偏差値ランキング 

2. 東京一工 (Top tier national universities)

1. 東京大学
2. 京都大学
3. 一橋大学 (only Law, Business, and Economics)
4. 東京科学大学（旧・東京工業大学／東京医科歯科大学）

3. 医科大学

1. 東京慈恵会医科大学
2. 順天堂大学
3. 日本医科大学

4. 早慶上理 + ICU (Top tier private universities)

1. 早稲田大学
2. 慶應義塾大学 (The number one private university in Japan. Has a very strong networking system)
3. 上智大学 (mainly known for being an “international” school strong at English)
4. 東京理科大学
5. 国際基督教大学 (ICU)

5. The remaining 旧帝大

1. 大阪大学
2. 名古屋大学
3. 東北大学
4. 九州大学
5. 北海道大学

6. TOCKY

1. 筑波大学 (known for STEM and research)
2. お茶の水女子大学
3. 千葉大学 (has a strong Medical school)
4. 神戸大学 (pseudo 旧帝大レベル）
5. 横浜国立大学

7. MARCH (generally seen as the “borderline” for good private universities in Tokyo)

1. 明治大学 (by far the best university in this group)
2. 青山学院大学 (known for partying)
3. 立教大学
4. 中央大学 (mainly known for their prestigious Law School)
5. 法政大学 （第一志望0人説）

8. 関関同立 (mid tier private universities in Western Japan)

1. 関西学院大学
2. 関西大学
3. 同志社大学 (#1 private university in Western Japan. Far above others in this group)
4. 立命館大学

9. 成成明学

1. 成蹊大学（安倍大学）
2. 成城大学        
3. 明治学院大学

10. 日東駒専 (anybody can enter these colleges with minimal effort)

1. 日本大学（タックル大学として有名。そして、例の大麻事件も…）
2. 東洋大学 
3. 駒澤大学
4. 専修大学

11. 産近甲竜 (equivalent of above in Western Japan)

1. 京都産業大学
2. 近畿大学
3. 甲南大学
4. 竜谷大学

12. 大東亜帝国

1. 大東文化大学
2. 東海大学（柔道部は日本一）
3. 亜細亜大学
4. 帝京大学
5. 国士館大学（柔道部はかなり強い）

13. その他

1. 東京外国語大学 (good university for foreign languages)
2. 国際武道大学 (Martial Arts)
3. 天理大学（大野将平の母校。言わずもがな柔道部は強い）

Differences between perception of colleges in Western and Eastern Japan

        お金を掛けずに大学に行け！国公立 > 私立

        腐っても医学部。医学部 > 理系 > 文系

        東の東大、西の京大。東大 > 京大 > 阪大 > 名大 > 神大

大学入試の仕組み

1. 大学入試の仕組みを理解しよう！

1. Series of articles that outline the structure of university admissions.

2. 大学入試センター・共通テストの方針 

3. 日本の大学受験ガイド

1. 東大対策
2. 京大対策 
3. 慶應義塾大対策
4. 早稲田大対策

Just so we have a good understanding of the time commitment that this takes, the people (ie. Japanese natives) getting into top level national, private, or medical universities usually spend ~4000+ hours studying over a 2 - 3 year period for these exams (~5 - 6 hours/day), with the last year being very heavy on studying (it’s very common for natives to spend 10+ hours per day studying during this period). Some even start attending cram schools while in middle school. For reference, it took me about 5,000 hours to pass the JLPT N1.

国語・現代文

Modern literature is perhaps one of the best subjects you can study to boost your understanding and comprehension of the Japanese language as it is largely focused on reading, analyzing, and summarizing literature. This section is worthwhile for all learners of Japanese.

The best thing you can do to improve your Japanese reading ability is to read more literature on 青空文庫

1. 中学レベル

1. 中学基礎がため100%できた! 中3国語
2. 国語の文法 (blog on Japanese grammar for middle schoolers, very useful)
3. 中学校国語文法 (Supplemental Wiki article/good review of above)
4. 岡崎健太のOK塾 (Videos that explain literature in an easy to understand way)

2. 基礎レベル

1. 現代文キーワード読解 
2. ゼロから覚醒 はじめよう現代文
3. 船口のゼロから読み解く最強の現代文

3. 入試現代文へのアクセス

1. 入試現代文へのアクセス 基本編
2. 入試現代文へのアクセス 発展編        
3. 入試現代文へのアクセス 完成編

4. 読解力をアップ！

1. 現代文読解力の開発講座
2. 現代文と格闘する

5. 問題集

1. 現代文 基礎問題精講
2. 現代文 標準問題精講
3. きめる! 共通テスト現代文
4. GMARCH&関関同立の現代文

6. 現代文のトレーニング

1. 私大編 現代文のトレーニング
2. 記述編 現代文のトレーニング

7. 記述対策

1. 船口の最強の現代文記述トレーニング
2. 国公立標準問題集CanPass現代文
3. 得点奪取 現代文 記述・論述対策
4. 上級現代文 I
5. 上級現代文II

8. 過去問

1. 世界一わかりやすい 早稲田の国語 合格講座
2. 早稲田の国語
3. 東大の現代文25カ年

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古文

Learning Classical Japanese has no real practical benefit for your modern Japanese ability, but it does allow you to enjoy a wider range of literary works and can be a fun endeavor.

Resources for the 外人

1. Matt vs Japan's Introduction to Classical Japanese
2. Haruo Shirane Classical Japanese Grammar
3. Haruo Shirane Classical Japanese Reader

Resources for Natives

1. 歴史的仮名遣い教室         

2. 単語帳

1. 読んで見て覚える 重要古文単語315
2. 読み解き古文単語

3. 岡本梨奈

1. 岡本梨奈の1冊読むだけで古典文法の基本&覚え方が面白いほど身につく本
2. 岡本梨奈の1冊読むだけで古文の読み方&解き方が面白いほど身につく本
3. 岡本梨奈の古文ポラリス 基礎レベル
4. 岡本梨奈の古文ポラリス 標準レベル
5. 岡本梨奈の古文ポラリス 発展レベル

4. 問題集

1. 古文上達 基礎編 読解と演習45
2. 古文上達 読解と演習56
3. 最強の古文 読解と演習50

5. 記述対策

1. 国公立標準問題集CanPass 古典
2. 得点奪取 古文 記述対策

6. 読んで見て覚える 古文攻略マストアイテム76  常識・文法・和歌

7. 過去問

1. 世界一わかりやすい 早稲田の国語 合格講座
2. 早稲田の国語
3. 東大の古典25カ年
4. 東大入試詳解25年 古典
5. 鉄緑会 東大古典問題集 資料・問題篇/解答篇 2013-2022

漢文

Learning to read Classical Chinese in Japanese is meme level material tbh. It’s only one question in the 国語 section so it’s not even that important of a subject for securing a lot of points. If you’re doing this section you should probably just start learning Mandarin Chinese and learn it the right way.

1. MARCHレベル

1. 漢文 早覚え速答法 共通テスト対応版
2. ステップアップノート10 漢文 句形ドリルと演習
3. マーク式基礎問題集 漢文
4. センター試験の過去問

2. 漢文道場

1. 漢文道場  基礎編
2. 漢文道場 入門から実戦まで

3. 記述対策

1. 国公立標準問題集CanPass 古典
2. 得点奪取 漢文 記述対策

4. 過去問（資料は古文のものと同じ）

1. 世界一わかりやすい 早稲田の国語 合格講座
2. 早稲田の国語
3. 東大の古典25カ年
4. 東大入試詳解25年 古典
5. 鉄緑会 東大古典問題集 資料・問題篇/解答篇 2013-2022

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日本史

History is a great subject to study as it will introduce you to a lot of more difficult subjects in Japanese: politics, economics, religion, war, etc. It’s also interesting (who doesn’t love samurai) and showcases a lot of things unique to Japanese culture!

日本史事典 (Articles on various historical events and eras)

1. 一度読んだら絶対に忘れない日本史の教科書

2. 金谷の日本史 「なぜ」と「流れ」

1. 金谷の日本史「なぜ」と「流れ」がわかる本 原始
2. 金谷の日本史「なぜ」と「流れ」がわかる本 中世
3. 金谷の日本史「なぜ」と「流れ」がわかる本 近現代史
4. 金谷の日本史「なぜ」と「流れ」がわかる本 文化史

3. 詳説日本史（高校の教科書）

1. 詳説 日本史B 
2. 詳説日本史ガイドブック 上・詳説日本史ガイドブック 下

4. 問題集

1. 時代と流れで覚える! 日本史B用語
2. 共通テスト過去問研究 日本史Ｂ
3. HISTORIA  日本史精選問題集
4. 実力をつける日本史100題
5. 日本史B 一問一答
6. 日本史史料 一問一答

5. 記述対策

1. “考える”日本史論述
2. 段階式 日本史論述のトレーニング

6. 過去問

1. 早稲田の日本史
2. 東大の日本史25カ年
3. グラサン日本史note

世界史

1. 一度読んだら絶対に忘れない世界史の教科書

2. 茂木誠の世界史Bが面白いほどわかる本

3. 詳説世界史（高校の教科書）

1. 詳説世界史B 
2. 書きこみ教科書 詳説世界史

4. 問題集

1. 時代と流れで覚える! 世界史B用語
2. 共通テスト過去問研究 世界史Ｂ
3. センター試験過去問研究 世界史B
4. HISTORIA 世界史精選問題集
5. 実力をつける世界史100題
6. 斎藤の世界史Ｂ 一問一答

5. 記述対策

1. 判る!解ける!書ける!世界史論述
2. 世界史論述練習帳new
3. 段階式 世界史論述のトレーニング

6. 過去問

1. 早稲田の世界史
2. 東大の世界史25カ年

地理

1. 村瀬のゼロからわかる地理

1. 村瀬のゼロからわかる地理B 系統地理編
2. 村瀬のゼロからわかる地理B 地誌編

2. 共通テスト用

1. 共通テスト地理B 集中講義
2. 共通テスト地理B 地図・統計の考察問題71

3. 大学受験 ココが出る!! 地理Bノート

4. 問題集

1. 実力をつける地理100題
2. 納得できる地理論述

5. 過去問

1. 東大の地理25カ年
2. 東大入試詳解25年 地理

政治・経済

1. 共通テスト用

1. 蔭山の共通テスト政治・経済
2. 共通テスト政治・経済 集中講義
3. 共通テストへの道 政治・経済

2. 蔭山克秀の政治・経済が面白いほどわかる本

3. はじめよう経済学 (YouTube series with HWs, quizzes, and answers)

1. はじめよう経済学
2. はじめよう経済学＋(Plus)

4. 問題集

1. 政治・経済 標準問題精講
2. 私大攻略の政治・経済 要点整理と問題演習
3. 政治・経済 計算&論述特訓問題集

5. 試験攻略入門塾 速習!

1. 試験攻略入門塾 速習! ミクロ経済学
2. 試験攻略入門塾 速習!  マクロ経済学        

6. マンキュー

1. マンキュー 入門経済学
2. マンキュー 経済学I ミクロ編
3. マンキュー 経済学II マクロ編
4. マンキュー マクロ経済学I 入門篇
5. マンキュー マクロ経済学II 応用篇

7. 神取道宏

1. ミクロ経済学の力
2. ミクロ経済学の技

哲学

素人が哲学をわかりやすく解説してみた (series of short introductory articles)

飲茶 (I’m a big fan of this author who explains philosophy at a middle school level)

1. 14歳からの哲学入門 「今」を生きるためのテキスト
2. 史上最強の哲学入門 (introduction to western philosophy)
3. 史上最強の哲学入門 東洋の哲人たち (introduction to eastern philosophy)
4. 哲学的な何か、あと数学とか (an amazing book on the story of solving Fermat’s Last Theorem)
5. 哲学的な何か、あと科学とか

Actual textbooks used in Undergrad/Masters??? (need to look/ask around)

法学

 伊藤塾・伊藤塾 YouTube

The number one 塾 for law students looking to pass the bar exam.

Highly recommended books to read before starting (undergrad) Law Program

1. 条文の読み方
2. 判例の読み方

Digital Dictionary Apps by 物書堂 (very useful/highly recommend)

1. 有斐閣 法律用語辞典
2. 六法

六法

1. ポケット六法
2. 判例六法Professional

伊藤塾の入門シリーズ (provides a good high level intro to each subjecct)

1. ePubs of the entire series
2. 伊藤真の法学入門
3. 伊藤真の憲法入門
4. 伊藤真の民法入門
5. 伊藤真の刑法入門
6. 伊藤真の会社法入門
7. 伊藤真の民事訴訟法入門
8. 伊藤真の刑事訴訟法入門
9. 伊藤真の行政法入門

行政書士試験

1. 行政書士試験 資格・試験ガイド

2. 伊藤塾の「うかる！行政書士」シリーズ

1. うかる！ 行政書士 入門ゼミ 2025年度版
2. うかる！ 行政書士 総合テキスト 2024年度版
3. うかる！ 行政書士 総合問題集 2024年度版
4. うかる！ 行政書士 必修項目120
5. うかる! 行政書士 民法・行政法 解法スキル完全マスター 第2版
6. うかる! 行政書士 憲法・商法・一般知識等 解法スキル完全マスター

3. 行政書士試験過去問集

司法書士試験

1. References

1. 司法書士試験の試験科目は？配点や問題数・合格するためのポイントを解説
2. 司法書士の独学におすすめのテキスト11選！

2. ゼロからスタート! 海野禎子の司法書士 1冊目の教科書

3. 「山本のオートマシステム」シリーズ

1. 司法書士 山本浩司のautoma system (1) 民法(1) (基本・総則編)
2. 司法書士 山本浩司のautoma system (2) 民法(2) (物権・担保物権編)
3. 司法書士 山本浩司のautoma system (3) 民法(3) (債権・親族・相続編)
4. 司法書士 山本浩司のautoma system (4) 不動産登記法(1)
5. 司法書士 山本浩司のautoma system (5) 不動産登記法(2)
6. 司法書士 山本浩司のautoma system (6) 会社法・商法・商業登記法(1)
7. 司法書士 山本浩司のautoma system (7) 会社法・商法・商業登記法(2)
8. 司法書士 山本浩司のautoma system (8) 民事訴訟・執行・保全法
9. 司法書士 山本浩司のautoma system (9) 供託法・司法書士法
10. 司法書士 山本浩司のautoma system (10) 刑法
11. 司法書士 山本浩司のautoma system (11) 憲法

4. 「司法書士スタンダード合格テキスト」シリーズ (alternative to above)

1. 司法書士 スタンダード合格テキスト 1 民法〈総則・債権〉
2. 司法書士 スタンダード合格テキスト 2 民法〈物権・担保物権〉
3. 司法書士 スタンダード合格テキスト 3 民法〈親族・相続〉
4. 司法書士 スタンダード合格テキスト 4 不動産登記法Ⅰ
5. 司法書士 スタンダード合格テキスト 5 不動産登記法Ⅱ
6. 司法書士 スタンダード合格テキスト 6 商法・会社法
7. 司法書士 スタンダード合格テキスト 7 商業登記法
8. 司法書士 スタンダード合格テキスト 8 民事訴訟・執行・保全法
9. 司法書士 スタンダード合格テキスト 9 供託法・司法書士法
10. 司法書士 スタンダード合格テキスト 10 刑法
11. 司法書士 スタンダード合格テキスト 11 憲法

5. 伊藤塾の「うかる！司法書士」シリーズ（問題集）

1. うかる! 司法書士 必出3300選 民法編
2. うかる! 司法書士 必出3300選 不動産登記法編
3. うかる! 司法書士 必出3300選 会社法・商法・商業登記法編
4. うかる! 司法書士 必出3300選 憲法・刑法・民訴・民執・民保・書士・供託法編
5. うかる! 司法書士 記述式答案構成力 不動産登記 基礎トレーニング
6. うかる! 司法書士 記述式答案構成力 不動産登記 実戦力養成編
7. うかる! 司法書士 記述式答案構成力 商業登記 基礎トレーニング
8. うかる! 司法書士 記述式答案構成力 商業登記 実戦力養成編

司法試験予備試験・司法試験

1. Explanation of Bar Exam, Mini-Bar, and Law School by 伊藤塾

1. 司法試験制度とは
2. 司法試験合格〜司法修習
3. 司法試験合格後の仕事概要
4. 司法試験とは
5. 予備試験とは
6. 法科大学院/ロースクールとは

2. 法科大学院協会 「共通的な到達目標モデル」について

1. Explanation of the level of knowledge you should have from attending Law School.

3. 【河野玄斗】司法試験対策のまとめ！

1. 伊藤塾に通っていた。
2. 予備校の参考書をベースにして問題演習用の参考書を各科目１冊ずつやっていた。
3. 論文式試験の対策は優先するべきだと考えている。
4. 過去問・模擬試験をしっかりやる。

4. 司法試験・予備試験合格講座（映像授業）

1. 憲法
2. 民法
3. 憲法
4. 刑事訴訟法
5. 民事訴訟法
6. 会社法
7. 行政法

5. 「LEGAL QUEST」シリーズ (reported as being “very dense reading” by my friend who has done an undergrad law program in Japan)

1. 憲法I 総論・統治
2. 憲法II 人権
3. 民法I 総則 
4. 民法II 物権
5. 民法III 債権総論
6. 民法IV 契約
7. 民法Ⅴ 事務管理・不当利得・不法行為
8. 民法VI 親族・相続
9. 刑法各論
10. 行政法
11. 会社法
12. 民事訴訟法
13. 刑事訴訟法
14. 労働法
15. 知的財産法
16. 経済法
17. 国際私法
18. 民事執行・民事保全法        

6. 「基本」シリーズ

1. 基本 憲法I 基本的人権
2. 基本 刑法I 総論
3. 基本 刑法Ⅱ 各論
4. 応用 刑法Ⅰ 総論
5. 応用 刑法Ⅱ 各論
6. 基本 行政法
7. 基本 行政法 判例演習
8. 基本 刑事訴訟法I 手続理解編
9. 基本 刑事訴訟法II 論点理解編

7. 「判例百選」シリーズ

1. 憲法 判例百選I
2. 憲法 判例百選II
3. 民法 判例百選I 総則・物権
4. 民法 判例百選II 債権
5. 民法 判例百選III 親族・相続
6. 刑法 判例百選I 総論
7. 刑法 判例百選II 各論
8. 会社法 判例百選
9. 刑事訴訟法 判例百選
10. 民事訴訟法 判例百選
11. 行政 判例百選I
12. 行政 判例百選II

8. 「事例から考える」シリーズ（問題集）

1. 事例問題から考える憲法
2. 事例から民法を考える
3. 事例から刑法を考える・刑法事例演習教材        
4. 事例から行政法を考える・事例研究 行政法
5. 事例で考える民事訴訟法事・事例演習民事訴訟法
6. 事例演習刑事訴訟法

Other recommended links

1. 有斐閣 (Buy various law texts/dictionaries)
2. 基本書まとめWiki＠司法試験板 (book reviews from law students)
3. 裁判例検索 (look up court rulings)

Law School Entrance Exam Practice Problems (for those who have done undergrad law)

1. 慶応義塾大学 過去の入試問題 (free PDFs)
2. 京都大学 過去の入試問題 (free PDFs)
3. 東京大学 過去の入試問題 (have to purchase)

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数学

1. 中学数学

1. やさしい中学数学

2. 問題精講シリーズ

1. 入門問題精講 数学Ⅰ・A ・数学II・B・数学III
2. 基礎問題精講 数学I・A・数学II・B・数学III
3. 標準問題精講 数学I・A・数学II・B・数学III
4. 上級問題精講 数学Ⅰ＋A＋Ⅱ＋B＋ベクトル ・数学III

3. 大学への数学１対１シリーズ

1. 1対1対応の演習/数学I・1対1対応の演習/数学A
2. 1対1対応の演習/数学II・1対1対応の演習/数学B
3. 1対1対応の演習/数学III 微積分編・1対1対応の演習/数学III 曲線・複素数編

4. 理系数学

1. やさしい理系数学
2. ハイレベル理系数学

5. 入試数学の掌握

1. 入試数学の掌握 総論編
2. 入試数学の掌握 各論錬磨編
3. 入試数学の掌握 各論実戦編

6. 過去問

1. 東大の理系数学25カ年
2. 東大入試詳解25年 数学＜理科＞
3. 鉄緑会 東大数学問題集 資料・問題篇/解答篇 1981-2020
4. 鉄緑会 東大数学問題集 資料・問題篇/解答篇 2013-2022

7. マセマ出版社

1. 大学基礎数学

2. 微分積分

1. 初めから学べる微分積分・演習 大学基礎数学 微分積分
2. 微分積分・演習 微分積分
3. ベクトル解析・演習 ベクトル解析

3. 線形代数学

1. 初めから学べる線形代数・演習 大学基礎数学 線形代数
2. 線形代数・演習 線形代数

4. 確率・統計

1. 初めから学べる確率統計・演習 大学基礎数学 確率統計
2. 確率統計・演習 確率統計

5. 集合論

1. 大学基礎数学 集合論
2. 集合論

6. 微分方程式

1. 常微分方程式 ・演習 常微分方程式
2. ラプラス変換 
3. 偏微分方程式

7. 複素関数・演習 複素関数
8. フーリエ解析・演習 フーリエ解析
9. 数値解析・演習 数値解析
10. 有限要素法・演習 有限要素法

8. 基礎数学 東京大学出版会

1. 線型代数入門・線型代数演習
2. 解析入門 I・解析入門 Ⅱ・解析演習
3. 多様体の基礎
4. 微分方程式入門・偏微分方程式入門
5. 複素解析
6. 微分幾何入門 上・微分幾何入門 下
7. 数理物理入門
8. 整数論
9. 数学の基礎 集合・数・位相

9. 雪江明彦

1. 代数学１ 群論入門
2. 代数学２ 環と体とガロア理論
3. 代数学３ 代数学のひろがり
4. 線形代数学概説
5. 整数論１ 初等整数論からp進数へ
6. 整数論２ 代数的整数論の基礎
7. 整数論３ 解析的整数論への誘い

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物理

1. 宇宙一わかりやすい高校物理（中学生向け）

1. 宇宙一わかりやすい高校物理 力学・波動
2. 宇宙一わかりやすい高校物理 電磁気・熱・原子

2. 物理が面白いほどわかる本

1. 漆原晃の 物理基礎・物理[力学・熱力学]が面白いほどわかる本
2. 漆原晃の 物理基礎・物理[電磁気]が面白いほどわかる本
3. 漆原晃の 物理基礎・物理[波動・原子]が面白いほどわかる本

3. 浜島清利（高校物理の黄金ルート）

1. 物理のエッセンス 力学・波動 ・ 熱・電磁気・原子
2. 良問の風 物理 頻出・標準入試問題集
3. 名問の森 物理 力学・熱・波動1 ・ 波動2・電磁気・原子

4. 問題集

1. 物理の質問91        
2. 物理 重要問題集
3. 難問題の系統とその解き方 物理 力学・熱・波動 ・ 電磁気・原子
4. 鉄緑会 物理攻略のヒント よくある質問と間違い例

5. 新・物理入門（高校物理を微積分で解く参考書）

1. 新・物理入門
2. 新・物理入門 問題演習

6. 理論物理への道標（ほぼ大学の１・２年生レベル）

1. 理論物理への道標 力学・熱学・力学的波動
2. 理論物理への道標 光学・電磁気学・現代物理学入門

7. 過去問

1. 東大の物理25カ年
2. 東大入試詳解24年 物理・上
3. 東大入試詳解 20年 物理・下
4. 鉄緑会 東大物理問題集 資料・問題篇/解答篇 2013-2022

8. マセマ出版社（「キャンパス・ゼミ」シリーズ）

1. 力学

1. 力学
2. 演習 力学
3. 解析力学 

2. 電磁気学

1. 電磁気学
2. 演習 電磁気学

3. 振動・波動・演習 振動・波動 

4. 熱力学

1. 熱力学
2. 演習 熱力学
3. 統計力学

5. 量子力学

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化学

1. 宇宙一わかりやすい

1. 宇宙一わかりやすい高校化学 理論化学
2. 宇宙一わかりやすい高校化学 無機化学
3. 宇宙一わかりやすい高校化学 有機化学

2. Doシリーズ

1. Doシリーズ 鎌田の理論化学の講義
2. Doシリーズ 福間の無機化学の講義
3. Doシリーズ 鎌田の有機化学の講義
4. Doシリーズ 鎌田の化学問題演習 理論・無機・有機

3. 問題精講シリーズ

1. 化学 入門問題精講
2. 化学 基礎問題精講
3. 化学        標準問題精講

4. 原点からの化学

1. 原点からの化学 化学の理論
2. 原点からの化学 無機化学
3. 原点からの化学 有機化学
4. 原点からの化学 化学の発想法
5. 原点からの化学 化学の計算

5. 新理系の化学

1. 新理系の化学 上 ・ 新理系の化学 下
2. 新理系の化学 問題100選 
3. 化学 記述・論述問題の完全対策

6. 問題集

1. 化学重要問題集 化学基礎・化学
2. 理系大学受験 化学の新研究
3. 理系大学受験 化学の新演習
4. 鎌田の解き抜く化学 理論化学・無機化学1編
5. 鎌田の解き抜く化学 無機化学2・有機化学編

7. 過去問

1. 東大の化学25カ年
2. 鉄緑会 東大化学問題集 資料・問題篇/解答篇 2013-2022

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生物

1. 必修整理ノート

1. 必修整理ノート 生物基礎
2. 必修整理ノート 生物

2. 大森徹は生物の神

1. 忘れてしまった高校の生物を復習する本
2. 大森徹の最強講義117講 生物
3. 大森徹の最強問題集159問 生物
4. 大森徹の生物 実験・考察問題
5. 大森徹の生物 記述・論述問題
6. 大森徹の生物 遺伝問題
7. 大森徹の生物 計算・グラフ問題
8. 大森徹の入試生物の講義

3. 問題精講シリーズ

1. 生物 入門問題精講
2. 生物 基礎問題精講
3. 生物 標準問題精講
4. 生物 思考力問題精講

4. 田部眞哉

1. 生物合格77講
2. 生物問題集 合格177問

5. 過去問

1. 東大の生物25カ年 + 東大入試詳解25年 生物

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医学

How to get into Med School in Japan

1. 大学受験

1. Japan doesn’t have “Medical School” like America does (4 year undergrad → 4 year Medical School): you apply for a 6 year medical program straight out of High School.
2. This is the standard route, even for people who have already graduated college w/ a degree （医学部再受験）。

2. 医学部編入試験

1. This selection process lets you go straight to 2nd/3rd year classes if you already have a degree, but the number of universities that offer this system is limited.
2. Entrance exams usually only require Biochem, English, and personal interviews.

How to become a Doctor in Japan