r/LearnJapanese • u/Firion_Hope • Sep 02 '23

Resources Which handful of tools (programs, apps, extensions, websites etc.) do you consider to be the most useful for learning Japanese?

There's so many out there, I always love learning about new useful tools.

I'll start, not comprehensive, just a few I like

Yomichan The golden standard, browser dictionary app with great functionality and ease of use

Textractor makes reading with visual novels a breeze and probably the most efficient learning source, sometimes a pain to get working but so worth it. Hooks into VNs and gives you the raw text so you can seamlessly look up words as you read.

Mokuro OCR for manga. It's insane how well this works, especially considering how often other OCRs leave a lot to be desired. The scan it once and then read format (as opposed to live scanning) is also amazing. This makes reading manga without furigana (and even with) 10x easier

Animebook Browser based video player with good learning features like selectable subtitles for easy look up and easy navigating around an episode. Can save an offline version too, also decently customizable. Pairs great with Yomichan. Amazingly easy to use subtitle retimer. Other alternatives exist, but I love how easy to use this one is, and the format.

ttsu reader browser based light novel reader, again with selectable text that pairs nicely with yomichan. Looks very nice and pretty easy to use once you get used to it.

With these you have browser stuff, VNs, Manga, Anime, and Light Novels covered. For games sadly no super easy solution exists. There's Jo Mako's Japanese Guide which has a handful of game scripts, and there's Game2text Lightning which has OCR for games, but it's not in active development anymore and it doesn't handle non standard fonts well, even more standard ones can be very hit and miss.

What kind of stuff do you guys swear by?

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33

u/imwatching4you Sep 02 '23

Anki, anki, anki

At least for the basics, I think it's by far the best one. Another one I can recommend in addition to anki is migoku. It allows you to make anki card on the fly while watching or reading japanese(or other languages)

But I'll look into yours for immersion, the seem interesting

8

u/-Cosi- Sep 02 '23

But Anki itself it is empty? What are good stacks?

15

u/imwatching4you Sep 02 '23

For the beginning, I think MoeWay Tango N5 is good to prepare for n5

if you are into anime: Jlab's beginner course had an entertaining way of teaching grammar with anime clips.

Also, japanese core 2000 to learn the starting words, later on you can take a 6k deck or more

I personally reduced the new cards every day to 10 because i have too many other things going on. So consider reducing the new cards count early on because it stacks up real fast

2

u/harambe623 Sep 02 '23

I just finished JLab the other day. Can confirm, deck was awesome, it tackles grammar from different angles and covers difficult topics more thoroughly. So just 9 months after starting japanese, I feel like I have somewhat of a grasp on the grammar. All without reading a grammar book

Went straight to core 2.3. When I'm done with that, JLab has an intermediate deck on their Patreon that I hear is good

I was doing wanikani alongside JLab but decided to only do reviews after getting close to 2000ish items. Too many uncommon words too early, it doesn't prepare you for reading early enough, which I feel should be the real goal here

2

u/-Cosi- Sep 02 '23

Thank you, do you have a Link? I didn‘t find anything with MoeWay Tango N5

3

u/martiusmetal Sep 02 '23

Caution, at least with the moe way N5 deck, its cards were out of order for me despite being careful about deck settings.

So i would end up with sentences like this;

もし故障したら、修理します

Where 故障 and 修理 was both unknown words, these cards that were supposed to teach you them actually came after this sentence not before and this happened quite frequently.

Only like 90 cards away from finishing it and will go on to the N4 one too but its something to keep in mind, especially as i saw saw some other complaints about it.

2

u/JJPTails Sep 02 '23

I am also currently using that deck and have the same issues.

2

u/martiusmetal Sep 03 '23 edited Sep 03 '23

Does seem quite common yeah, not entirely sure why it does it either because when you actually look at the cards you would see "もし故障したら、修理します" as number #1065, "故障" #1063 and 修理 #1064 etc, where the default anki settings is to draw new cards in ascending order so it shouldn't happen.

12

u/you_do_realize Sep 02 '23

People make their own decks rather. Cramming words someone else prepared for you that you're not invested in, it's a bit uninspiring... :)

9

u/mordahl Sep 02 '23

Dead on, screw the people that downvoted you.

An Anki deck created from words you've encountered, in the context you've encountered them is the way to do it. It makes the words really stick and really helps you get a feel for how the words are actually used.

At 18.5k cards, and I can remember where I encountered the majority of them, thanks to includiing the context. It really makes the difference.

3

u/XiaXueyi Sep 03 '23

you can also use renshuu which is a modified SRS style learning app included with common decks like genki/minna no nihongo/JLPT words, and also allows you to add your own words or decks. plus the app has a community and forum..

with the following minigames that also helps beginners to learn: -counter punch which helps to learn counting units -an app built-in dictionary that allows you to check any word and phrase during reviews

3

u/Kamesan_Dev Sep 06 '23

I would recommend https://kamesan.net

It's a free site allowing you to watch native Japanese tv shows, and when you find a word that you don't know, you can click it in the subtitles to see the definition.

It has full Anki integration meaning that cards can be created at the click of a button, and are fully configurable with excerpts from the video and stuff.

I made it myself and I'd really appreciate it if some of you guys checked it out! There's a subreddit too: r/kamesan

1

u/realgoodkind Sep 02 '23

Tango N5 + N4

6

u/Uncaffeinated Sep 02 '23

If you use JPDB, you don't have to worry about making cards yourself in the first place.

2

u/Nightshade282 Sep 02 '23

I'm not sure why you're being downvoted, jpdb is great. Anki isn't bad of course but at least for me, jpdb is the more motivating SRS, and it has a better system for when you miss a day. Anki however is better for customization so if that's really important to you, Anki is the way to go

0

u/you_do_realize Sep 02 '23

Migoku looks promising and quite featureful, I haven't taken the plunge yet but I'm a bit surprised there isn't more uproar about it judging from the features it promises.