Contents

Introduction

Foundation

Core

Setup Guides

FAQ

Introduction

This is a concise guide on how to learn Japanese. If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the Void Shrine Discord server. This guide was last updated 2026-07-09.

Foundation

Kana

Hiragana and Katakana are the 2 basic "alphabets" used in Japanese. You can learn them here.

Kanji

Kanji is another writing system used in Japanese. ~3000 characters are regularly used, and each kanji represents a meaning. However, the pronunciation ("reading") of a kanji changes depending on the word it is used in. For example:

• 一 (いち) "one"
• 一つ (ひとつ) "one thing"
• 日 (ひ) "day" or "sun"
• 一日 (いちにち) "one day"

Unlike kana, it doesn't make sense to learn kanji or their readings in isolation. Instead, learn words directly.

Basic Vocabulary

Memorise ~1000 common words. I recommend you do this with Anki and the Kaishi 1.5k deck. We have an Anki setup guide here.

Basic Grammar

Read through the Yokubi Grammar Guide.

Core

Once you've got a foundation, you can do whatever you like. This could be reading visual novels, watching anime, conversing with natives, or anything else.

You can grow your vocabulary by looking up unknown words until they stick (and optionally making Anki cards out of them). You can acquire grammar just by consuming media.

Resources

General:

• Yomitan, a popup dictionary to quickly lookup unknown words. See also the Yomitan Setup section of this guide.
• Anki, a spaced repetition flashcard app to help with remembering vocabulary. See also the Anki Setup section of this guide.
• meikipop, an OCR popup dictionary.
• GameSentenceMiner, a tool that allows for Yomitan lookups and Anki card creation with OCR.
• Kuri's media recommendations sheet lists media of various types with difficulty levels and short descriptions. Anything rated Medium or below is suitable for beginners.
• Jiten has statistical information on various media.

Visual Novels:

• vndb, the visual novel database. Useful for browsing, information and tracking.
• Textractor, a texthooker. See also VN Club's Textractor Setup Guide.
• Agent, a script-based texthooker. Only works for a limited set of VNs / games, but usually works in cases where Textractor doesn't.
• Lap Clipboard Inserter (Firefox) or Clipboard Inserter (Chrome) copies hooked text to your clipboard.
• Kuuuube's Clipboard Insertion Page allows you to scan text from your clipboard with Yomitan.
• tsukiweb, a free browser-based version of 月姫 (Tsukihime), an easy visual novel. You can change the language to Japanese via Config > Advanced > Language > 日本語.
• Fate/stay night web, a free browser-based version of Fate/stay night, a harder visual novel. You can change the language to Japanese by pressing Esc and selecting 日本語.
• VN Club has guides, resources, and a Discord community dedicated to visual novels.

Novels:

• 読書メーター, a novel database. Useful for browsing, information and tracking.
• ッツ Reader, a tool to read novels (as epub files) in your browser.
• 青空文庫 is a digital library for out-of-copyright Japanese literature. This MEGA folder has most of the library available as epub files.

Manga:

• mokuro, a tool to convert manga (as image folders) into mokuro files, which have Yomitan-scannable text.
• Mokuro Catalog has a library of mokuro files.
• Mokuro Reader can be used to read mokuro files.

Anime:

• AniList, an anime database. Useful for browsing, information and tracking.
• MyAnimeList, another anime database.
• EverythingMoe's anime section, an index of anime streaming sites.
• asbplayer, a browser-based media player where you can upload subtitle files and scan them with Yomitan as you watch anime.
• Jimaku, a site where you can download anime subtitles.

Writing:

• QM's Jouyou Writing Deck, an Anki deck that teaches you how to write the 2,136 常用漢字 (Jouyou Kanji). Intended for advanced learners.
• kankenbros, a list of resources for the Kanji Kentei.

How to Read

Mindset:

• The first thing you read will be extremely difficult, no matter what it is or how many words you've memorised. Vocabulary size and reading ability are not the same thing, so don't fall into the common trap of putting off reading by memorising more words instead. The only way to get better at reading is to read, and it will be much easier after you finish your first book.
• Why you can't understand sentences (even though you know all the words)
• Enjoyment always takes priority over efficiency. If you have a choice between something that is easy but boring or something that is interesting but hard, choose the hard one.
• DO NOT use machine translation (Google Translate, DeepL, ChatGPT etc), even if you are stuck! It will most likely be wrong, unnatural or misleading.

The reading process:

• Look up each unknown word/grammar in the sentence and try to memorise their meanings and readings.
• Try to understand what the sentence as a whole means. If you're struggling, try to identify the main structure of the sentence as explained in this video. If you still can't figure it out after a little while, just move on.
• Move on to the next sentence and repeat.

How to spend more time reading:

• Make reading into a small habit (e.g. 10 minutes every morning) then slowly increase it over time.
• Get rid of distractions. This could involve using something like Leechblock (Firefox, Chrome) to block social media for certain times of the day.

Setup Guides

Yomitan Setup

Install the following dictionaries and order them as shown:

1. JMdict (Legacy) for vocabulary
2. Dictionary of Japanese Grammar for grammar
3. 漢検漢字辞典　第二版 for concise vocab definitions and kanji information
4. 大辞泉 第二版 for more coverage
5. 実用日本語表現辞典 for expressions
6. PixivLight for cultural references
7. JMnedict for names
8. Jiten for frequency information

Some of these are monolingual (JA-JA) dictionaries, which provide more precise definitions and larger coverage of unknown words. You can look up unknown words within monolingual definitions by going to Yomitan settings > Popup Behavior and enabling "Allow scanning popup content".

You can find more dictionaries in Marv's collection.

To make sure results are sorted properly, go to Yomitan settings > Dictionaries and set "Frequency sorting dictionary" to Jiten.

You can also go to Yomitan Settings > Appearance > Configure custom CSS > Popup CSS to customize the styling and content of the popup. Personally I use this.

Anki Setup

Deck Options:

• New cards/day: 5-20
  • Try 5 to begin with. After 2 weeks the review workload should plateau and you can choose whether to increase this amount. The most important thing is to clear all of your Anki reviews each day, otherwise the workload from missed days will stack.
• Maximum reviews/day: 9999
• Learning steps: 2m 4m
• Relearning steps: 1m 5m
• Leech action: Suspend Card
• FSRS: on
• Desired retention: 85%

Add-ons:

• AnkiConnect is required for Yomitan-Anki integration.
• Pass/Fail changes Anki's buttons from Again/Hard/Good/Easy to Fail/Pass.
• Speed Focus Mode adds a time limit for answering cards before automatically failing.
• Kanji Grid Kuuube allows you to view grids of kanji across your decks, colored by memory strength and grouped by various presets.

Download the Lapis-Modified notetype and read the instructions to set it up. Now whenever you look up a word in Yomitan you can make it into an Anki card by pressing a green + button in the top right.

FAQ