> can you read an article from https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/easy/ with ease, aside from vocab?
Nope. Perhaps you are right.
> I went through a few beginner grammar books/websites
Would you mind telling which ones you went through?
Nope. Perhaps you are right.
> I went through a few beginner grammar books/websites
Would you mind telling which ones you went through?
I used the following:
- Genki I, II
The classic Japanese textbooks. They're pretty good and have tons of exercises. Do the exercises!
- Tae Kim's Guide
http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar
Alternative guide written by one guy. Very good as reference or quick learning. Used it to review Genki material.
- Japanese: The Manga Way
I thought this would be stupid but in some ways I liked it more than the other resources. Every chapter goes through grammar/expressions and it uses real manga examples. Vocab is translated for you. Not necessary with the other two resources but if you like manga or want something different, it's fun.
- Japanese Ammo with Misa
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBSyd8tXJoEJKIXfrwkPdbA
Long (20+ mins) lectures on grammar with a lot of examples. Goes on tangents often and some videos are too long but a great source of vocab, native expressions, etc.
- Anki
You've probably heard of this. I currently use it for kanji but you can use it for whatever I prefer making my own flashcards but there's pre-made decks for vocab from Genki, Tae Kim, grammar etc. I'd link to some but they also include links to pirated PDFs so don't want to get the mods mad at me.
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With all of that said, the most helpful thing for me has been reading native content in Chrome with this extension -> https://foosoft.net/projects/yomichan/ if you don't read, write, etc. you will not retain stuff. You will start out not understanding anything but slowly you will start reading without even translating to English.
You will hit a wall with vocab without kanji study but you should be good to go for some time with this.
As next steps, I've installed Yomichan and I plan on purchasing a copy of Genki I.
Thank you very much for the pointers!