掲示板 Forums - Best schedules to learn in a month

Hi guys, i am new to renshuu and learning Japanese as a whole. I have a trip in a month or so to Japan and was wondering what are some good schedules to practice with so I am not completely lost out there. Since I am on a time crunch I was gonna focus on pronunciation, vocab, grammar, etc. (I have already learned hiragana and katakana) I would really appreciate the guidance!

Hmm, that's not a lot of time. Maybe something like the "The Basic 300" Sentences schedule? It's all sentences and you can listen to the pronunciation.

Resources > Community Lists

If you also want grammar, the "Japanese Basics" pair is probably the best option. It's also the standard / recommended progression after hiragana/katakana. If that's too easy, you can add the "Beginner Japanese/N5" pair instead.

(you get here from "Manage your schedules", which is located on your Dashboard below your schedules)

PS: And yeah, you can also browse Community Lists for some travel related lists like @梨茶 suggested. Once you've found something you like, you can hit "Schedule all" and "add to a new schedule". Keep in mind anything that isn't made by "renshuu" was put together by users.

If I had only one month, I wouldn't use a premade schedule or list and I wouldn't study grammar, words or kanji either.
First, because it will teach you too much stuff that you won't have the time to master and even if you did, I would not recommend to create your own sentences on the spot. Otherwise, you will observe the gap between theory, sentences/grammar learned in pedagogical context and have some japanese look with a blank face thinking "What the hell is that foreigner saying?" (very common even for intermediate learner that never practice speaking with natives). If your accent is too strong, same.

On the other hand, you could focus on a few sentences or specific situation only. And focus on the pronounciation of the whole sentence rather than individual words (because it not the same).
I would also avoid open questions with answers I can't handle. Like even asking for direction will be too much for you to handle. Because they may try to keep things simple but they may also use reference like the name of specialized shop, describe a building with multiple words more or less common that you didn't study, etc, etc.

Rather than that, I would watch a few vlog with JP-EN subtitles (there are tons of them on youtube), note a few sentences that I think may be useful in my specific case and focus on the natural pronounciation. I'm not even sure I would try to memorize those sentences. I would probably just write some of thoses sentences on a note (on my smartphone or something like that). Because even if you study them for while, that's not a guarantee that will not forget them when needed :D (the joy of learning and speaking with natives for the first time )

A simple example could be, in a restaurant, すみません。。。えっと、オススメありますか　("Excuse-me... um, do you have any recommendations?") along with a few sentences which are natural and don't need too much knowledge like "What is the name of that dish", etc.

Basically, think of few situations that will often happen or questions that you want or will ask and focus on that only. Become good at least a few things instead of not being good enough at everything to sum up.
And if you lack the inspiration, watch a few vlog from natives (which will allow you to practice natives pronounciation as opposed to textbook ones). That will also train your ear to be at least able to handle those answers. The pronounciation on renshuu is nice in learning context but not everyone speak/articulate that well in real conversation. So take a shorcut instead and focus on a few specific situations.

And same for kanji. You won't have the time to learn anything. Maybe focusing a few specific kanji/words like 駅?
But if I were you, I wouldn't bother too much (kanji just too much time and one month is far from being enough to achieve any significant progress). Just studying the pronounciation will also take a while.

Just a few mastered sentences/conversations will make that one month worthwhile. And after your trip, you may learn in a more "standard" way. Also, just a tip, but in renshuu, you can easily create custom lists or schedules. And once they're created, you can add any word or kanji you want in one click. Don't hesitate to use that feature a bit before going to japan and during your trip, collect as much words/kanji as you want. Studying those words after you trip will be much easier than other words simply because you will have some memory with them (like the name of a dish you tried for example).

Anyway, that's it for me. Hope that will help a bit and good luck/have fun :D

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