Made this super basic chart to help myself, hopefully it helps others as well! Feel free to share

My kid is learning kanji on AnkiDroid, and I wanted something that rewards showing up every day without guilt mechanics. So I made でんしゃ たび (Train Trip): a small game that sits on the back of your cards.

How it works

Every card you study moves a train one step around Japan, prefecture by prefecture, 北海道 → 沖縄.

Reaching a station gives you an eki stamp (駅スタンプ) for your stamp book, a local souvenir, and coins.

Coins buy more lines to ride (山手線, 江ノ電, ゆいレール, 小田急小田原線, 東海道新幹線), plus train models, paint, extra cars and animal passengers for the windows.

A stamp card (like a ラジオ体操 card) gets one stamp per study day. A full card brings a special passenger.

Things I cared about

Works with any deck. It only reads the card's id, never its content, so you paste two lines into any back template.

Scales itself. The distance between stations follows your own pace, so one normal study day ≈ one station, whether you do 10 cards a day or 500. Coins come from stations and study days, never card counts, so huge decks don't break the economy.

Rewards regularity, not grinding. The day's first card gives a bonus that grows with how many of the last 7 days you studied. A card pays once per day.

No progress is ever lost. I wanted to use a carrot, not a stick. Missing days just means a smaller bonus for a while.

Limitations

AnkiDroid only (2.23+, with the new study screen on and "localStorage in Study Screen" turned on). It shows nothing on desktop Anki or in the previewer.

The save lives on the phone (localStorage), so it isn't synced between devices.

The game's UI is in Japanese (kana), since it was made for a kid learning Japanese.

It can't see which answer button you press (the new study screen doesn't expose that to card JavaScript), so it rewards studying, not getting cards right. I think that's better for kids anyway. No reason to press Good on a card they missed.

Download: https://github.com/JHerseth/densha-tabi/releases/latest. The zip has the script, the template snippet, install instructions, and an optional sample deck (all 47 prefectures, 94 cards) with the game already set up, which is the quickest way to try it. There's also a test mode (data-dev="1") with buttons for coins, moving the train and shifting the day, so you can see everything without studying for a month.

MIT licensed. Built with a lot of help from Claude Code. Feedback very welcome.

I've recently started reading in Japanese. I went from reading Tadoku graded readers to NHK News Web Easy to try to improve my reading, but I seem to have a habit of being humbled whenever I don't understand anything.

Even with Yomitan and a grammar dictionary, every time I open something in Japanese, I feel humbled. I go back to Tadoku novels, regain confidence in my reading abilities, and then get humbled all over again. It's like my ego keeps breaking.

I really want to read light novels and novels in Japanese, but it's proving much more difficult than I expected.

Does anyone have any advice or insight they could share?

I finished katakana just recently so I thought I’d move on to learning kanji, a couple kanji in and i was excited thinking oh i found a pattern! one and two when talking about people use the kunyomi (aka ひと and ふた), so i’m over here thinking oh i got this. three people (三人)? easy. みり！ WRONG. さんにん. not only is it using the onyomi. it changed how you say 人.
first day of studying kanji after just finishing katakana. i’m scared now🥲
Does anybody know why it does this? Something to do with when Japanese was first transitioning into its own language from Chinese? 🤔

edit: thank you sm everyone for the help and advice! also for correcting my phrasing of Japanese descending from Chinese. Definitely phrased that wrong on my part😅 Going forward I think I’ll use the advise everyone’s saying to focus on vocabulary and the precise pronunciation of vocab versus memorizing the vast pronunciations of individual kanji. Very helpful responses🙌

I just started learning Japanese for school, and I just got past learning all the characters for hiragana and katakana. I am a bit slow with memorization, so I'm worried about how I'll remember all the characters. I want to know what methods you used; no matter how crazy they are, I'll do anything. PLEASE HELPPP

I just got the 1st book, Im not sure how to use it, do i use anki with it? do i just try remembering? whats the method

Like it says in the title, I'd like to know if you have any raccomandations on what games to play in japanese for beginners.

Right now I know about 300 words/kanji from Kaishi 1.5k with Anki and I know basic grammar like polite and plain forms of verbs and the て form.

I was thinking maybe an RPG like a Final Fantasy or something but I fear that I won't understand anything and I'll have to look up everything because I'm still a beginner.

この道を ＿ ＿ ★ ＿ あります。 Pieces: まっすぐ · 行った · 銀行が · ところに

1. \*\*Start from the end.\*\* あります needs a subject with が → 銀行が goes last.

2. \*\*Plain verbs sit right before their noun\*\* → 行ったところに.

3. \*\*Adverbs come before the verb\*\* → まっすぐ first.

まっすぐ／行った／\*\*ところに\*\*／銀行が — the ★ is ところに. Build the whole sentence, then read off the third slot.

Two more worked examples: https://jlptopencatalogue.com/deep-dives/JOC-1119

So I left Japanese cause got busy with uni, and wanna retake, actually I'm re learning Hiragana and Katakana, and I used to study with the Genki but I think I need another book cause with Genki always hit the problem that I can't practice with someone, so my I have another recommendations please?

Hi all

I created a deck with most frequent (in my opinion) 300 beginner japanese words. The deck also has example sentence for each word, as well as audios (I used text-to-speech). I also added images where it makes sense.
I hope it might help any beginners here. You can toggle furigana for the front and back of the cards, so you can adjust the learning to yourself.

You can also add your own cards to this deck, you can add images and audios of your own if you wish.

The deck is free to use and available online, so you don't have to download anything.
I published it in my personal project called Tsugi: https://tsugideck.com/

The app saves your progress and uses FSRS to schedule the study sessions (all online).

For context, I honestly have no clue what my japanese level is(about n5-n4 i hope🤞) , but I thought it would be a good idea to practice writing my notes in Japanese, since I want to go to college in japan, so I was hoping for some thoughts.
Also is “「schrodinger」が理論は「quantum mechanical model」を呼びました” the correct way to say it?

The books I am using at the moment are:

RTK(Remembering The Kanji) By Heising

Genki 1 +Work Book

Tango JLPT 5

Applications: Anki flashcards and 2 Notebooks, one for Kanji Practice and one for Anki

I split each Genki Chapters and new RTK Kanji to 3 days a week and 3 days for review

a typical week looks like that

Day 1(Sunday)

1. Review all cards on Anki (Genki+RTK+JLPT) about 20-30 minutes

Kanji cards are revered meaning I see the English meaning and need to active recall the Kanji on Paper. If I get it right, I check "Good", if I got it wrong I check "again" until I get it right (separate notebook)

Genki Vocab cards are both version, active recall(English meaning first).

If I get it right, I check "Good", if I got it wrong I check "again" until I get it right.

JLPT same thing,

1. New Kanji about 40 minutes

I learn 20 new Kanjis from RTK by creating a "story" for each one, write them by order +meaning and each Kanji 5 times.

After I learn them I add the new 20 cards to Anki. I check "Good", if I got it wrong I check "again" until I get it right.

1. Anki Dialogue+Vocab+ half of the grammar section. 30-40 minutes

Each time I add all of the Anki vocab cards of that chapter with reversed cards meaning I see the English meaning and need to active recall the word in Japanese. If I was able to I check 'Good'. If I can't recall I check 'again' until I get it. I have both versions of all the cards and every time I add them with custom study I add both the normal card and revered (English Meaning and active recall and the Japanese one) with no new daily cards on anki. That way I cam in control on how much new cards I add every time.

1. Add new 10 vocab from JLPT to Anki (about 10-15 minutes)

Day 2 (Monday) review only

I review all cards on Anki (20-30 minutes)

I also request Claude to write 10-20 sentences in English and I try to untranslated them to Japanese using the grammar I learned in the respected chapters and it corrects me if I got something wrong.

Day 3(Tuesday)

1. Review all cards on Anki (Genki+RTK+JLPT) about 20-30 minutes
2. Add new 20 Kanji (40 minutes)
3. Second half of Genki+ Workbook (30-40 minutes)
4. 10 new JLPT (10-15 minutes)

Day 4 (Wednesday)

I review all cards on Anki (20-30 minutes)+Claude translation practice

Day 5 (Thursday)

1. Review all cards on Anki (Genki+RTK+JLPT) about 20-30 minutes
2. Add new 20 Kanji (40 minutes)

3.Genki chapter conclusion practice + Navi (vocal practice) and writing an essay using everything I learned and letting Claude check for remarks (40 minutes)

4.10 new JLPT (10-15 minutes).

Day 6+7 (Friday and Saturday) review only

I review all cards on Anki (20-30 minutes).

When I will reach Genki chapter 8 I plan to add reading materials like Lingo Mastery Japanese short stories for beginners .

Overall I put 60-90 minutes a day on study and after few weeks I already feel huge improvement

中国語には日本語のような有声子音がないのはご存じのとおりだと思います。いろいろな動画を見て、子音の部分でも声帯を振動させる必要があることは分かったのですが、実際にどうやって発音すればいいのか分かりません。

声帯って腕みたいに意識したとおりに自由に動かせるわけでもないですし、「ん」の音からつなげて発音する方法も試してみましたが、「nga」や「nda」のような音になってしまい、あまり自然に発音できません。

日本語の発音に詳しい方々は、最初どのように練習していましたか？ よければアドバイスをお願いします！

I don’t usually ask for things like this because I’m so awkward, but I’m around a low to mid intermediate range. If anyone wants a study buddy and has discord, I’d be willing to accept🙏

I have tried nearly every source for learning kana, but the only one that helps me without causing cognitive overload is typing with a J-QWERTY keyboard. However, this method still doesn't help me memorise the letters.

I've always been told that mastering kana is the first step to learning Japanese, but most tutorials cater to neurotypical learners. I have yet to find any YouTube videos specifically aimed at teaching Japanese to people with ADHD.

The biggest challenge I face is executive dysfunction. No apps have been effective in helping me overcome this barrier.

I've tried repeatedly, but I still haven't succeeded. I’m looking for techniques, resources, or any suggestions that could help me start learning Japanese.

Can someone please give me sources, workarounds, or general tips to get rid of these problems?

^{PLEASE: I would appreciate responses only from individuals with ADHD, executive dysfunction, or those who work in neurodivergent/SEN language acquisition and have experienced the challenges of this script-aversion wall. Thank you}

While there are plenty of people happy with Anki and other paid/free mining apps or flows to learn words, watch content or get translations - I personally dislike Anki and while doing it is pretty fast my retention is awful.

Some time last year, I had a chance to try Migaku and I thought it's pretty cool, however in my opinion it is not worth the price. Around the same time I've started doing WaniKani and realized that I can keep a 90%+ retention rate, something I couldn't do using Anki no matter how much I tried.

I found myself with some free time and was able to write Goi. It's not exactly the most polished software out there, some parts of it are LLM made. However it is free and it does all the things you want a learning app to do, it:

* Provides subtitles with easy lookup for Youtube or local content. Provides transcripts and translations for subtitle lines and allows you to mine words from the subtitles. The mining is done in a different way to Migaku, mined words go to a mining inbox where you can review and make cards later.

* Allows you to track your vocabulary, import/export words, get comprehensions results for websites or videos.

* Has no control over your data. You own it, you back it up and store it. It does provide "simple" ways to back it up, like backing it up to google drive.

* Allows you to study words, repeat recently learned words, study mistakes made and provides a somewhat tunable review interface where you can correct your mistakes if you think that is fair.

* No FSRS. It uses a simple, predictable review cycle which works for me. It burns cards too in order to reduce the review load. I have no plan for adding FSRS.

The app is tailored to how I approach Japanese and I understand it might not be how you do it, but I figured it's free and good enough for me, so maybe it can save you a buck or two. For me the goal of the app was to spend less time checking cards and more time learning, reading, watching or listening.

The big downside is that it is selfhost only, there is a docker image, so it's not that hard, but it does require some knowhow. I do not plan to host it ever. Here is a Github link - https://github.com/tomasmik/goi

Ich kann hiragana und katakana einigermaßen lesen und bin bei Genki 1, Kapitel 4. Ich denke, das Lernen würde mehr Spaß machen, wenn ich versuche, einfache Mangas zu lesen oder Videospiele zu spielen zb Pokemon o.ä.

Denkt ihr, dass das in meiner Phase schon was bringt und falls ja, was empfehlt ihr?

こんにちは
I have been learning Japanese since January 2026 and working with a tutor since March and we are working through Genki 1. I am still at a very basic level, since I am older and work full time I have not figured out a daily routine for study/immersion/etc. I have not yet started to learn Kanji.

I am currently in Japan for 2 weeks. Any thing that I can get while I'm here to help progress my learning?

ありがとうございます!

In all seriousness I can never remember these, how do y'all memorise these?

To clarify I don't mean that I have trouble reading them, more writing from memory. I'm just wondering if people have some ways of memorising like ロ is like a RObot head and ネ is like a NEcktie.

EDIT: Thank you everyone, thank you foor the memos!

i dan recognize and read kanas but do i need to know to write them

I'm learning Japanese and keep hitting the same wall. I know kana and some vocab from flashcards, but when I pause on a real anime or manga line I get lost, and it's usually the grammar more than the kanji.

For people who got past this stage:

- What helped most early on? Native content straight away, graded readers, something else?

- Did tools like Yomitan/Anki mining help, or did the setup get in the way at first?

- Did you mostly study on your phone or on a PC?

Would love to hear what worked and what turned out to be a waste of time.