weebgrind

**What on earth is this?
I'm currently trying to learn Japanese, but even though I tend to be focused for hours on speedrunning while on stream, I'm pretty terrible at staying on task otherwise. So I decided to start streaming while studying to stay focused for longer periods of time.

**What about speedrunning/your normal streams??
That's not going anywhere. I'll either be doing them later, or I already did and you missed it. In the meantime, feel free to hang out in here and enjoy the jams, study alongside me, or whatever you'd like.

**What kind of studying are you doing on stream?
I'm doing anki flashcards, and then studying with games, manga, books, news articles, etc. I can only really stream the games directly; otherwise, I'll have something else on while I read in the background.

!! Please check the updated version of this pastebin after reading this if you'd like to learn!
https://pastebin.com/WbX49356

**I was thinking about learning Japanese on my own too. Where should I start?
Go to https://itazuraneko.neocities.org/learn/learnmain.html and read the whole main guide. It should answer most questions. Essentially, it follows a theory of language acquisition through wide consumption of native media. It uses condensed language learning resources to make reading actual Japanese approachable as quickly as possible.

This video explains the idea pretty simply: https://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=G5IPArDxO40

I followed the guide for the most part when starting, but chose to not study kanji in isolation in favor of just writing out the kanji in my vocab deck (using Jisho for proper stroke order, etc.) to aid my recognition as I learned words for the first few months. Eventually I had good retention without the extra effort.

For grammar study, I used a textbook called Japanese the Manga Way. It's very similar to the guide by Tae Kim that the site recommends, but easier to understand, with much more thorough examples that provide good reading practice. It helped a lot to get accustomed to reading on my own, and I highly recommend it over other grammar resources. You can find it on the main itazuraneko learning page listed above, in the Learning Resources section. That section has a great list of resources already, but here are some I use commonly myself:

Grammar:
itazuraneko.neocities.org/grammar/dojgmain.html - online version of the Dictionary of Japanese Grammar. great for quick grammar reference.
maggiesensei.com - natural, easy explanations of specific grammatical phrases (I usually google "[phrase in hiragana] maggie sensei")
imabi.net - another comprehensive grammar site. good for more thorough descriptions, but difficult for beginners.
sakubi.neocities.org - a very concise grammar guide that's a bit difficult for beginners as well, but useful as a side resource.
youtube.com/channel/UC0ujXryUUwILURRKt9Eh7Nw/videos - grammar explanation videos in Japanese

Reading:
jisho.org - J->E dictionary (you can also look up specific kanji by entering it and adding #kanji to the search)
eow.alc.co.jp - A great Japanese online E->J dictionary (avoid resources aimed at english speakers like Jisho for E->J)
kanjitomo.net - free OCR program for help reading manga scans or other things that don't have furigana. avoid using the built in dictionary, which often shows strange readings. just copy-paste into an online dictionary or webpage to use yomichan instead.
it also has a name dictionary, though, which can be very handy.
if kanjitomo can't recognize something, try writing the kanji into google translate (switch left side to Japanese and select the pen)
thejadednetwork.com/sfx/ - manga sfx dictionary
https://yattoke.com/2018/03/02/gion-gitai/ - lengthy sfx reference page
https://glenn-sun.github.io/jp-lookup/ - a site that combines jisho, weblio, and an image OCR into one webpage. handy for mobile.
https://japaneselevelup.com/difficulty-level-guide-everything-japanese/ - an article with many media recommendations roughly organized by difficulty. the rankings are a bit all over the place but it can be handy for ideas if you have no idea what to try.

Watching/Listening:
https://archive.org/details/hikibiki_podcast - a high-quality entertainment/media podcast called ひいきびいき
https://mov3.co/ - streams of various Japanese TV channels.
https://avistaz.to - an asian drama tracker with public signups (sometimes)
supernative.tv - focused listening comprehension training with short drama and anime clips. use the Speak Back feature for best effect
radio.garden/listen/ - worldwide radio station finder
youtube.com/channel/UChBBWt5H8uZW1LSOh_aPt2Q/videos - recordings of simple conversations with italki tutors. good for beginners.
a few gaming youtubers i like to watch:
お湯さんち: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfqU_D-tjFS51SjaD-7cEPg
こたば: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9LV_DxTD1PrETUetoBYsDg
オイルKEN: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCle_sApppajP42wXDIy1bpw

Speaking/Writing:
https://www.youtube.com/user/Dogen - a YouTube comedian/writer who has very useful pitch accent lessons on his patreon
https://langcorrect.com - a site for getting your writing corrected by natives.
https://discord.gg/zWjFqFZ - LanguagesｘVideo Games, a small eng/jpn discord channel focused on learning by playing games with others in your target language.
https://discord.gg/VMNnyEk - The Eng/Jpn Language Exchange discord. Massive community that's great for asking questions and finding natives to practice with, although it can be a bit distracting since there's a ton of regular/off-topic chat.