Disclaimer

I am just someone who recently passed the N4 exam. Please take my opinion with a grain of salt.

Resources

• Brute force memorize hiragana & katakana: https://kana-quiz.tofugu.com/
• Finish Tae Kim’s complete guide: https://guidetojapanese.org/learn/complete/
• Find any missing grammar / vocabulary / kanji for the level you want: https://jlptsensei.com/
• Use these Anki decks to help:
  • Japanese Core 2000 Step: https://ankiweb.net/shared/decks?search=japanese%20core%202000%20step
    • I recommend skipping step 3 - 5 because it contains many N1-N2 words, so just do 1, 2, 6, 7, …
  • Dictionary of Japanese Grammar: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1013111837
• I recommend these Japanese channels:
  • Yusuke (Japanese monologue/dialogue): https://www.youtube.com/@moshimoshi.yusuke
  • Kaname Naito (In-depth nuance explanation): https://www.youtube.com/@kanamenaito
• Free mock JLPT exam: https://easyjapanese.net/jlpt-test?hl=en-US

FAQ

Should I use Duolingo?

Sure, as long as you don’t use it as the sole resource for learning Japanese.

Should I learn kanji or vocabulary?

I don’t have an answer for this, so do whichever you feel is better for you.

• Each kanji has a meaning, so maybe you can focus on a kanji & see the example words that use the kanji.
• You can also notice how some words keep having a certain kanji, so you could extrapolate the meaning of the kanji from pattern recognition.

For example,

• 来月 means next month
• 来年 means next year
• You notice that both has 来, so 来 means next/upcoming.

I can’t memorize hiragana/katakana/kanji, any tips?

My main tip here is to write the hiragana & katakana. That genuinely helped me memorize it during my early days of memorizing them.

I keep forgetting the stuff I learned, how can I retain it?

Consistency is key. It is better for you to do 1 hour everyday instead of 7 hours in a day per week.

I can understand what people say, but I can’t express myself, how can I improve?

I write a diary everyday in Japanese, then ask ChatGPT to review my diary for any glaring grammar/vocabulary errors. If you know someone else who is learning / is fluent, conversation practice (either typing or talking) will definitely help a lot.

I just can’t seem to read wall of text without getting overwhelmed, how can I handle large amounts of text?

In my experience, I am translating Japanese -> English in my head, so large amounts of text would end up overworking my brain. If you can skip the translation process by understanding it without falling back to another language, that would help massively.

Another tip would be just more practice. I don’t recommend jumping to reading news articles if you have limited vocabulary though… Try finding some graded readers for your appropriate level.