I’ve done Japanese 1 & 2 twice and started Japanese 3 for the first time a week or so ago. I’m finding it really difficult. For one thing, I’ve for the first time had to “Ignore” a few sentences like, “Is it possible to try this on?” & “I need time to think.” LOL. It’ s just me no doubt, but the chances of needing to say these things in Japan about equal the square root of zero. For me.
But more importantly, I’m now finding verb conjugations I haven’t a clue about, and known particles are not making the slightest sense to me. I think I will have to give up on Japanese 3 for awhile and go to another source for grammar information. In my case I’ll go and start all over for the 3rd time the app/program “Human Japanese” Part I and then probably Part II.
I do, btw, Review Japanese 1 & 2 everyday.
I guess there are many others here who use other sources? Not just stuff on YouTube, but full courses? I guess it’s a no-brainer?
There are plenty of great user-made courses on Memrise which I use, such as Nukemarine’s SGJL, or Suggested Guide to Japanese Literacy. This might be helpful for grammar, since it includes Tae Kim’s guide to Japanese Grammar, a very popular resource in the Japanese learning community. Duolingo is a good resource for sentence mining, yet it remains very basic in terms of sentence structure and grammar. Additionally, it goes over individual words in the sentences. Anki is a great resource for sentence mining, as well. All of these resources are free (unless you use the pro plan for Memrise, but in my opinion that really isn’t necessary unless you’re studying for a big test or something like that).
There are also plenty of resources on the subreddit r/LearnJapanese, many of which are free.
(If you didn’t know, sentence mining is basically reviewing sentences and pulling vocab out of them using the Japanese you know; it’s supposed to give you a better grasp on memorization, as it puts the words into contextual situations.)
I do have no experience with Japanese nor do I have plans to start this language in the next 1-2 years but I know from the Duolingo community forums that the mobile app www.lingodeer.com was suggested.
You need to have an IOS or Android smartphone / tablet device to have it working (there is no desktop / webapp; Android emulators are not officially supported (I asked their support) and I could not get it really running on KOPlayer (Android V4.4) any stable).