Beginner questions about emphasis and pacing, etc.

[swarmofseals1323]

Hi all -- I just started self-learning Japanese recently. I learned reading and writing hiragana from a different resource, and then decided to try this out. I did sign up for the $1 package. Even the very early (introduction) lessons contain quite a bit in them with vocab, some basic grammar, kana, and kanji (including multiple definitions and pronunciations, on'yomi and kun'yomi). The vocab, grammar and hiragana are not a problem for me. The study guide and flashcards include the kanji though, which is quite a bit more difficult given that there is basically no contextual information provided in the lessons, no stroke order etc. While I can figure some of this out myself, if I make sure to memorize all of the kanji, pronunciations and definitions, etc. for each lesson it will be very slow going. I have no doubt that there are much, much better ways to start with kanji out there.

So my questions are:

1. Should I just skim over the kanji parts of the review for now, or is the curriculum expecting me to slog through at the start? If I had not come into this already knowing hiragana then I'd be struggling with that too, I'm sure.

2. Will there be a clear point in the lessons where they start teaching kanji (including stroke order, giving tools to help with the learning process etc.)?

Also, an unrelated question:

1. I downloaded absolutely everything through Itunes, but I am unclear if I will lose access to the stuff that I downloaded if my premium subscription expires (IE: the files won't open anymore or what not). The files are just plain .mp3 and .pdf files and can be opened using other programs. If they do become unusable that's OK -- I'd just rather not put the effort into organizing everything if they are going to disappear after a month! There are so many files, and I'd like to group them by difficulty, season, lesson etc.


And lastly, an observation:

The banner ad with the woman listening to japanesepod101 while lying in the grass? I'm pretty sure they just photoshopped the grass around her head brown to look like hair, and I can't unsee it. Clearly she's cursed and causes plants that she touches to die instantly...

[mmmason8967]

1. Should I just skim over the kanji parts of the review for now, or is the curriculum expecting me to slog through at the start? If I had not come into this already knowing hiragana then I'd be struggling with that too, I'm sure.

When you're first starting it's probably better not to get too hung up about the kanji. Just by reading the lesson notes and using the flashcards you will pick quite a few kanji simply by osmosis. I suspect that trying to learn each kanji you encounter, the correct stroke order and all the on'yomi and kun'yomi readings would be a pretty soul-destroying undertaking.

2. Will there be a clear point in the lessons where they start teaching kanji (including stroke order, giving tools to help with the learning process etc.)?

JapanesePod101 is based around audio lessons, and trying to teach kanji in podcasts just isn't going to work. The main focus is on grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation and listening.

As far as I know, nobody has come up with a really good way of learning kanji. The best known method is "Remembering The Kanji" by James Heisig, which some people swear by while others　don't see the appeal. You'd think that by now somebody would have created a video course on YouTube but, as far as I know, nobody has (there are videos showing some kanji but none that I'm aware of that tackle the full standard set).

1. I downloaded absolutely everything through Itunes, but I am unclear if I will lose access to the stuff that I downloaded if my premium subscription expires (IE: the files won't open anymore or what not).

As you noted, they're just ordinary MP3 and PDF files. You won't lose access to them.

マイケル

[community.japanese]

swarmofseals1323-san, マイケルsan,
kon'nichiwa!
Thank you very much for your help, マイケルsan
I think all the questions were answered... Thanks for the interesting observation, swarmofseals-san
I'll ask about it to my tech team...

Natsuko(奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com