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DJT - Daily Japanese Thread #

Moved to https://writer.zoho.eu/writer/open/e1djb9c30fe61becc4cde8ec2ff226edf2127

DJT is the best Japanese language learning shitposting thread on 4chan for 大変態 that are interested in everything Japanese Japanese speakers learning English are also welcome

Guide by NekousagiKorou on Vencord, add if you want to talk.

The only way to learn 日本語:

  1. Filter all tripfags
  2. Don't waste time/money on ゴミ like: Anki, garbage videos and youtube channels (anything in English like Cure Dolly), shitty apps (Duolingo, Bunpro, Wanikani), translations (google, deeptl), learning kanji instead of vocab (RTK, KKLC, Kanji Damage), textbooks (Genki, Minna no Nihongo, Tobira), writing on paper, pitch accent, Imabi, language schools, courses, teachers, Italki, AJATT, JLPT, Kanji Kentei tests, t*tsumoto and many other scams (explanation - https://gist.github.com/NekousagiKorou/422be363c84f5aee5b51e8ab98cba1ed ). Avoiding these beginner traps will cut down your "studying time" considerably to less than 2 years if you learn every day and never give up. After that it's just enjoying the language and content while fortifying your knowledge and occasionally learning something new.
  3. Fix your health with the grimoire first, it makes life and learning 100 times easier https://writer.zoho.eu/writer/open/1k06rb582b81797ed462aa171b4f8cb41280f
  4. Spend a few days getting familiar with kanas https://djtguide.neocities.org/kana/
  5. Give Tae Kim a fast read, it's not the most accurate grammar guide but it's the fastest with most common grammar. Look up Japanese grammar on Japanese google/ask DJT later on instead
  6. A few years of reading (Yotsuba is a good start https://nyaa.si/view/1363041 ), listening, watching vtubers, shitposting on DJT and having your posts corrected by Japanese flags, googling stuff you don't know and you're done!
  7. Move to Japan, have incest sex with your kids
  8. The ride never ends

絶対英語を学べる方法: https://www.youtube.com/@PipkinPippa

教材: https://gist.github.com/NekousagiKorou/422be363c84f5aee5b51e8ab98cba1ed

図書館: https://nyaa.si/

先スレ

=====POINT 2 EXPLANATION=====

"Why is everything I'm using a scam and why should I uninstall Anki, the most commonly suggested learning tool?" Because it's garbage. Popular doesn't mean good or useful. It means all the idiots fall for the same scam. You're not immune to these things without knowledge from someone smart like me.

First I'll talk(ramble) in depth about Anki, after that I will explain why there are so many scams that people fall for and why they should be avoided even if you're an absolute beginner. The explanations for all of these things will surely intertwine and repeat so for people that don't want to read a wall of text here's a tl;dr: don't waste time/money on any of these scams and just read/watch content+dictionary (www.nyaa.si + www.jisho.com) and start learning.

=====WHY CONTENT+DICTIONARY=====

While it might seem daunting and take some time to get into it mentally (like any other new activity), and to get through the barrier of having to look up every single word (Anki won't save you from this), this is the most effective, most fun, fastest way to do it in the long run (and the main method for all advanced learners so you might as well start early and reap the benefits) which is why I always adamantly fight against all of the scams below and suggest this pure method. Many people have thanked me for this. This is also how you learned your first and probably second language. There is no point in switching it up on your next language. Consuming content will always be superior to all other methods because of how your brain works when enjoying something and making fun memories. All DJT veterans that have been learning for years will ALWAYS tell you Anki is trash or "decent at the start" then needs to be ditched, and to start learning by reading/watching ASAP (why would you ditch a decent method? It was never good in the first place cope huffing idiots stop deceiving newbies just because you fell for a scam). The start when learning anything new is the hardest and where most perish. Will you fight, or take the easy way most people do and not learn anything useful? You want fun when you don't understand anything? Looking things up and learning itself is what should be fun to you, not understanding since that comes later. You will not get much instant gratification when learning a language, the easy way will only slow down your progress. This is a very long, gradual process where only perseverance can keep you going. You can compare yourself to the past self and that's about it but after a few years it becomes very blurry at what level you really are. The only path is forward, no point in looking back.

This info is backed by me learning Japanese for 5+ years, using Anki for my first 2 years, starting reading Yotsuba& on my first month (it was fun and not painful), and also being in DJT the whole time, asking questions and observing how other people fare in their studies, who was doing well and who was failing. People doing things they enjoy always thrived (almost always content consumers), Anki slaves always complained, moaned and then gave up and stopped posting. Things only really sticked from Anki for me for maybe 6 months due to novelty, after that it was a hellish chore and a waste of time and in the meantime I was learning far more interesting and useful things from reading manga and watching anime instead. 5 years in, If I could start over, I would have gladly ditched Anki and completely replaced the time lost with actual memorable content instead of soulless flash cards, and it would have definitely made me better at Japanese I guarantee you that.

Calling all of the methods below a scam since they're all suboptimal compared to the true and tested method of sitting the fuck down and learning properly from Japanese content+dictionary. This works for all languages, all things in the world probably. You learn by practice+theory in a fun environment, most of the things below do not provide that and even feast on all sorts of beginners and ADHD crowd by giving instant gratification, they even make you pay! Disgusting wastes of time.

=====ANKI=====

You are wasting time and hindering your progress a lot by using it. It doesn't mean it's useless. It means its extremely suboptimal. There is absolutely ZERO reason to learn with a suboptimal method when you could be using something better from the start. I've seen countless people make posts where they're stuck in beginner hell due to Anki. On the other hand, I've also seen countless people make posts where they uninstall Anki and switch over completely to consuming content they enjoy, then they talk about how they're finally making good progress with their studies and found their own, better way to learn. I would show you tons of proof since this is dozens of posts I'm talking about but I never saved any images of them since I didn't think I'd need them, until now. I will over time gradually create a massive "fuck anki" collage and keep it updated here.

Anki is a beginner trap that people for some reason rely on and won't get rid of, they think it's the only way to learn and end up never even touching basic manga like Yotsuba&, then they quit learning Japanese or get stuck. To learn you only need good content that doesn't bore you and a dictionary. Looking things up by yourself, researching random word trivia, reading new things, asking people what something means etc is all enjoyable and fun. Going through the same meaningless flash cards like a robot without even being interested in them is not fun. Without fun you will remember far less things since your brain associates fun and interesting memories with learning. When (not if) your brain blocks out Anki from your brain since it's a massive chore, you will not learn from it. At the start you might learn more from it due to the novelty of starting to learn Japanese, at that point almost everyting is fun and you soak in knowledge like a sponge, BUT it's more efficient to never touch scam methods like Anki, and just from the start read Yotsuba& with a eng-jp dictionary like Jisho. Once you start getting better you look for answers in jp-jp dictionaries, google or ask on forums like DJT. The more you do this the better you will be and your workflow will also become faster and more enjoyable. Eventually it's not even studying, just enjoying things in Japanese while occasionally learning a new thing here and there once a few minutes.

Obviously the starts are the most daunting, challenging and scary to most people, but by going with Anki you never start learning Japanese properly, depeding on deck you start learning Chinese if you pick something dumb like an RTK/kanji only/radical deck. Core decks are an awful, sterile and isolated way to learn ONE meaning of a word, while Japanese is infamous for having multiple meanings on the same word! All core decks are instantly useless because of this, the only thing that saves you are dictionary definitions where you can dig through all the different meanings and pick the right one that fits. Mining decks are the same, you are putting a DICTIONARY definition into ANKI. Just uninstall Anki and look at the dictionary instead, you don't need another program to view a dictionary! Why should you suffer with a suboptimal method like Anki to "prepare yourself" for real content? You will never be prepared since Anki is NOT CONTENT, it's useless flash cards that you will forget in a few minutes. These cards don't even have any slang or dialects in them, you will get absolutely destroyed by pretty much any Japanese that doesn't stick to the dictionary form which is extremely often.

Would you rather remember an epic scene from a manga/anime, or would you rather remember the flash card for 経済? Your brain will always prefer learning new things if they're fun, not if they're boring. If you learn a word during an anime moment that made a great impression on you, that word will stay with you forever. Flash cards cannot ever do this because they are lifeless, sterile, isolated, without context nor story. They're useless. The longer you learn this language the more you will realize everything I write here is true.

=====GARBAGE VIDEOS AND YOUTUBE CHANNELS=====

Anything in English, especially like Cure Dolly, should be avoided. If you want to learn Japanese you need to find Japanese youtubers that you enjoy watching. Some are below in Resources section. English speakers are not Japanese natives and can misguide you, give bad habits and shitty examples. They are simply not experts in the field and are a waste of time compared to the real deal.

=====SHITTY APPS=====

Stuff like Duolingo, Wanikani, Bunpro and many others that you can find online. This is one of the worst ways to learn Japanese. You get baited in with promises of learning Japanese for free, only to eventually (after getting through a dozen shitty filler lessons that didn't teach you anything useful) run into a paywall where you get coerced to buy a subscription to continue learning at SNAILS PACE. Fuck off.

They keep you there as long as possible, make the lessons as useless and slow as possible (but not slow enough to make sure that you feel like you're making some progress) and squeeze out as much money as possible. You think you're learning, you stay because they give you some nice lipservice and a pat on the back for learning 1 word, you get addicted to the instant gratification. In reality you're making almost no progress. This is the basis for most of the scams listed here. Textbooks, classrooms, teachers, apps, they're all the same with a different spin on it. Illusions, smoke and mirrors, business.

=====TRANSLATIONS=====

Do not use online translators and think that they're decent, they are not. It's all AI nonsense that's not even close to human intelligence and the intricacy of languages cannot be explained by machines, especially context heavy Japanese. https://translate.google.com/?sl=ja&tl=en&op=translate This is the only good translator simply because its kanji handwriting tool is very good, you will use it or DJT often when you can't figure a kanji out. There are probably other good kanji handwriting sites (Jisho is not one of them) but this is good enough for 99% of kanji from my experience.

=====LEARNING KANJI INSTEAD OF VOCABULARY=====

Stuff like RTK, KKLC, Kanji Damage, Kanji/radical Anki decks and various other kanji textbooks etc. While apps are absolute trash at teaching Japanese, kanji textbooks and decks don't even teach you Japanese, they teach you Chinese, thus making them utterly worthless and the absolute worst method to learn Japanese. The Japanese language is made out of Hiragana, Katakana AND Kanji, not JUST Kanji. Stay away from these scams unless you plan on learning some Chinese as well, but there's probably a better way to learn Chinese anyway than this trash.

=====ALL TEXTBOOKS=====

Above kanji textbooks, Genki, Minna no Nihongo, Tobira etc. Pretty much the same level of slow and useless like apps, but with an upfront price tag instead of having to buy access after trying out the free trial. And with the added discomfort of having to use paper and pen, instead of being able to copy paste kanji to look them up online when needed, you bet you will have to go through a dictionary and kanji handwriting with this one. Utter waste of time and money designed to be used in a classroom with a teacher (which gets paid more the longer you are with him).

=====IMABI=====

An honorable mention goes to Imabi which is a decent grammar guide. Then why is it here? Because it's too fucking long. Almost every page about every grammar point feels like a novel designed to hurt your head as if a brick-thick book fell on it. Not just that, it has the same flaw as Tae Kim. They are both not Japanese natives therefore you should take what they write with a grain of salt since they cannot be experts. They are better than most English youtube grammar guides though. Tae Kim is simply faster and more to the point to get you ready for reading+dictionary which is why it's favored over stuff like Imabi. You might find some interesting and obscure grammar points on Imabi in times of need but these will come once a few months and you probably won't even need this site to solve the mystery of some niche grammar point, google and DJT will probably do a better job. Other grammar guides are simply worse or longer than Tae Kim.

=====LANGUAGE SCHOOLS, COURSES, TEACHERS, ITALKI=====

Same problem as apps and textbooks, it will be slow and cost money, probably the most of them all. It is possible to get some sort of Japanese talk buddy or some sort of free teacher online but I don't think they're necessary to learning Japanese. Natives hang out at DJT all the time and will answer almost anything making these paid teachers fairly obsolete. Talking with someone in real time is the only advantage here but you better make sure you're signing up for talking with an actual native and not someone larping as Japanese. Just not worth the effort, you can get all questions answered online and you'll get plenty of talking practice done if you get into Japan.

====AJATT=====

While AJATT (the original site seems to have died?) follows the same principle as this guide (immersion, content+dictionaries), it is a cult with an internet personality behind it with a community not worth interacting with (/jp/djt/ and t*tsumoto also took a liking to it somewhat, making it even more repulsive). Also, while it touts using immersion, from the very start it suggests you use garbage like Anki decks and mining.

=====JLPT, KANJI KENTEI TESTS=====

Kanji Kentei is a joke. You don't need JLPT to get into Japan or to get hired in Japan. You get pretty much a permanent visa if you marry a Japanese person. All the N5-N1 levels of JLPT are joke difficulty compared to what any native will throw at you when you try talking to someone. No amount of overpriced tests and targeted learning for tests will ever replace actually learning the language properly on your own. Only do JLPT N1 since it actually has some worth to it, but only if you truly know you need it to get some sort of special job that requires it. The goal in learning Japanese is not to pass N1, it is to know Japanese well enough to understand and be understood by most people you'll interact with. N1 will not prepare you for that.

=====WRITING ON PAPER=====

Absolutely do not do this as a beginner, it is a massive waste of time. You will remember kana and kanji shapes by default by seeing them over the years of learning, without even training them on paper, and will be able to recall quite a bit. If you truly need to write on paper (because you're moving to Japan), then you should practice some writing once in a while, especially your name. Hopefully by the point you're going to Japan you have already learned some Japanese so writing in paper won't slow down your studies much. It's worse if you have to write while being a complete newbie. You can still write things on your phone then just copy how the moonrunes look with your writing, you don't have to memorize this shit, we live in the future.

=====PITCH ACCENT=====

Doesn't exist, every dialect says things differently, different people get used to different things and say them in their own way, emotions change the way you speak. There are no rules when speaking, anyone that gets stuck on this because they think they have to perfectly recite something like a robot will never sound natural. https://youtu.be/1RKWcCyD7GI

=====T*TSUMOTO=====

He who shall not be named https://streamable.com/6nlhff

=====SUMMARY=====

Does all of this mean that these scams are useless? Not really but yes. You can learn various things from them but understand that they will always be suboptimal, cost money or be slow on purpose to keep you as a cash cow. None of them come even close to content+dictionary in efficiency and fun so why even bother?

Resources, useful links:

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