Does reading textbooks do more harm than good?

Does reading textbooks do more harm than good? - Printable Version

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Does reading textbooks do more harm than good? - murtada - 2014-07-07

Everything I've learned up to now has been through textbooks but i'm starting to suspect that i'm wasting my time. I casually go through a book not taking it too seriously, maybe learning only 70% of what the book has to offer. Then i get another book and do the same, what i only vaguely understand sticks after seeing it again over and over in different books. I've been through 7 different books so far in about 2 months, average about 350 pages. Should i just drop the books and just dedicate all my time into RTK or continue reading books until i'm comfortable enough with the language to start RTK? According to the books i'm advanced but i know that's horseshit, any advice?

Does reading textbooks do more harm than good? - Fillanzea - 2014-07-07

Which books?

Textbooks really don't offer enough exposure to get you comfortable with the language. You might see an advanced grammar point, and three examples, but it takes longer than that to really start to integrate it into your mental model of the language. That's that feeling of vaguely understanding. I don't have any opinions on whether or when you should start RTK, but try to get some exposure to easy reading materials.

Does reading textbooks do more harm than good? - Tzadeck - 2014-07-07

There's no way you can really go through seven textbooks in two months, which tells me that your read-throughs are indeed way too casual. When learning anything complex (like a language), if you don't really put a lot of concentration and work into it, you don't really get anything out of it.

Does reading textbooks do more harm than good? - Kuzunoha13 - 2014-07-07

I don't think so.
I don't really understand why people say "Don't study grammar, learning it deliberately is useless because you'll pick it up as you learn or whatever"
Learning grammar basically gives you a shortcut to comprehension. However, that doesn't mean you'll always understand it when you read in a book, or even the same topic in several different books. But it primes your brain to get used to seeing at, and learning how it's used, and that's not definitely not a bad thing.
The only point I'd say "stop studying grammar" is when you're ready for books like the Dictionary of Advanced Japanese Grammar. I still haven't seen over half the entries in the book, which means it's better served as a "as needed reference" rather than a textbook. So at that point, just start looking stuff up individually, rather than going through it cover to cover.

Does reading textbooks do more harm than good? - EratiK - 2014-07-07

I'm with Tzadeck here: textbooks are meant to be used in a certain way. If you're not serious about it and use them differently, then of course you'll yield few results. And the textbooks wouldn't be at fault. That said some textbooks are better than others, what were the 7 titles?

Does reading textbooks do more harm than good? - Aikynaro - 2014-07-07

Well, I doubt textbooks do any harm, as such - unless maybe to your motivation given their general dullness.

But yeah, if you want to ditch them and try a different way, go for it. I think in a lot of ways 'picking up' grammar (via anki-ing sentences or whatever) is much easier than specifically studying it. After you know the grammar/language through studying elsewhere you can always go back to the textbooks - they'll probably clear some things up and be a bit 'stickier' then.

As for RTK - if you're going that route, you should probably just start it. It's largely unrelated to learning Japanese itself - you don't need to be comfortable with the language to start it (and arguably if you're comfortable with the language you can find better ways of learning kanji).

Does reading textbooks do more harm than good? - RawToast - 2014-07-07

murtada Wrote:Everything I've learned up to now has been through textbooks but i'm starting to suspect that i'm wasting my time. I casually go through a book not taking it too seriously, maybe learning only 70% of what the book has to offer. Then i get another book and do the same, what i only vaguely understand sticks after seeing it again over and over in different books. I've been through 7 different books so far in about 2 months, average about 350 pages. Should i just drop the books and just dedicate all my time into RTK or continue reading books until i'm comfortable enough with the language to start RTK? According to the books i'm advanced but i know that's horseshit, any advice?

Sounds like you're not putting in enough time per book. This may sound a little patronising, but try doing something like this:

1. Read the chapter.
2. Try to answer the questions, if the book has any.
3. Re read anything you didn't understand or check in another book/resource if you struggle to understand.
4. If you use Anki, put in a few example sentences with notes. Try not to use the same ones as in the book.

I know some textbooks for the JLPT contain minimal explanations. For those you really want to find the entry in the DoJG or somewhere online.

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The only issue with just using cards is that you may not pickup the fine points of some of the grammar points. If the cards contain some notes though, you'll be fine.

Quote:After you know the grammar/language through studying elsewhere you can always go back to the textbooks - they'll probably clear some things up and be a bit 'stickier' then.

I've had this experience when going back to textbooks after just using flashcards.

Does reading textbooks do more harm than good? - murtada - 2014-07-07

I don't think you quite understand, since i have read all these books i could breeze past a new one since i already know most of whats in it. If anything, I only read the sentences and ignore the grammar explanations. So at the moment i can go through a intermediate book in about 3 days. My goal is to continue doing this until i can pick up an intermediate book and know absolutely everything including the vocab. Now is this a good idea or should I just jump in the RTK boat? Sorry for not being specific.

Does reading textbooks do more harm than good? - murtada - 2014-07-07

To those who've asked the titles are: Complete Japanese, Japanese for Dummies, Take off in Japanese, Ultimate Japanese-Intermediate, Colloquial Japanese(green cover), Japanese Grammar, and Making sense of Japanese.
Now i did read these books seriously, it was only at the end where i already knew most of the stuff that i began to read casually. I'm still a teenager so i have a loot of time on my hands and spend it all studying . I'd say i got about 85% of all these books in my brain. Now the question here is should i be dedicating all this time and energy towards RTK? Am i wasting my time?

Does reading textbooks do more harm than good? - Helena4 - 2014-07-07

No. You are not wasting your time. RTK cannot teach you Japanese so spending the time on getting a more holistic basis in both kanji and grammar is better than just doing RTK. But, if you feel you've got the grasp of the basics through reading those books so thoroughly, I think it's time to cut down on the grammar book blasting a little and start watching dramas more and reading more manga (shonen manga that has furigana so your incomplete RTK won't hinder you) to review those important grammar points in context, and pick up some more vocab at the same time, because if you continue reading more grammar books so thoroughly I think the law of diminishing returns will catch up with you.

Does reading textbooks do more harm than good? - Vempele - 2014-07-07

Quote:Now the question here is should i be dedicating all this time and energy towards RTK? Am i wasting my time?

Do you have problems remembering the kanji? If not, you don't need RTK unless you want to be able to write them.

Quote:If anything, I only read the sentences and ignore the grammar explanations.

...If you're not using them as textbooks, why are you reading textbooks instead of native materials?

Does reading textbooks do more harm than good? - Aikynaro - 2014-07-07

murtada Wrote:I don't think you quite understand, since i have read all these books i could breeze past a new one since i already know most of whats in it. If anything, I only read the sentences and ignore the grammar explanations. So at the moment i can go through a intermediate book in about 3 days. My goal is to continue doing this until i can pick up an intermediate book and know absolutely everything including the vocab. Now is this a good idea or should I just jump in the RTK boat? Sorry for not being specific.

I think it's a fairly poor idea, but the RTK boat might not be what you want either.
There are much better ways to learn vocabulary than reading example sentences from textbooks. As I'm sure you've seen from lurking, Anki-based methods are pretty popular here. At lower-levels it's certainly much more efficient. There are other efficient ways of learning vocab but I'm pretty sure learning from reading textbooks is not one of them.

RTK isn't going to do anything for your vocabulary - it's for learning to write kanji in isolation. If that's what you think you need to reach your immediate goals - go for it.

Does reading textbooks do more harm than good? - jimeux - 2014-07-07

There's an argument to be made for fully committing time to RTK before you even learn a word of Japanese, but once you've started, I don't think you should be fully committed to any one thing, including textbooks.

I went through RTK while listening to JPod 101, reading Doraemon and referencing A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar. The biggest problem I see in your post is the word 'everything' at the very beginning of it.

Does reading textbooks do more harm than good? - Stansfield123 - 2014-07-08

murtada Wrote:Everything I've learned up to now has been through textbooks but i'm starting to suspect that i'm wasting my time. I casually go through a book not taking it too seriously, maybe learning only 70% of what the book has to offer. Then i get another book and do the same, what i only vaguely understand sticks after seeing it again over and over in different books. I've been through 7 different books so far in about 2 months, average about 350 pages. Should i just drop the books and just dedicate all my time into RTK or continue reading books until i'm comfortable enough with the language to start RTK? According to the books i'm advanced but i know that's horseshit, any advice?

Even if the books do help (which they do), dedicating all your time to RtK and getting it done quickly is a very good idea.

You don't need to be comfortable with the language to do RtK. In fact it makes no difference whatsoever, RtK has no Japanese in it. But knowing RtK will help with studying the language afterwards. So the smart thing to do is to do RtK first.

Does reading textbooks do more harm than good? - RawToast - 2014-07-08

Ah okay, at first it seemed like you'd just rushed through a ton of books without actually studying.

murtada Wrote:To those who've asked the titles are: Complete Japanese, Japanese for Dummies, Take off in Japanese, Ultimate Japanese-Intermediate, Colloquial Japanese(green cover), Japanese Grammar, and Making sense of Japanese.
Now i did read these books seriously, it was only at the end where i already knew most of the stuff that i began to read casually.

I'd be interested in the actual contents of "Ultimate Japanese-Intermediate" and the similar advanced book/cd set. I wouldn't be sure if it actually is intermediate level stuff or around Genki 2, but I'd assume the latter.

If you're studying well, but forgetting stuff by the time you open the next book it's probably worth looking into using some sort of SRS. Your problem seems to be retaining information and not actually learning. So I it might be worth rushing through a resource like Tae Kim's grammar guide and enabling the cards from the deck on ankiweb as you go along; although, you may wish to skip the basic section. You could do the same with your books, but you'd have to create the cards yourself (which can be beneficial).

You've got the time, so I'd do RTK 1 or RTK-lite, it will make studying vocab in particular much easier.

You didn't mention this, but spend some time with Japanese outside of the textbooks; it doesn't need to be 24/7 immersion, even an hour a day listening to music will help.

Does reading textbooks do more harm than good? - john555 - 2014-07-08

murtada Wrote:Everything I've learned up to now has been through textbooks but i'm starting to suspect that i'm wasting my time. I casually go through a book not taking it too seriously, maybe learning only 70% of what the book has to offer. Then i get another book and do the same, what i only vaguely understand sticks after seeing it again over and over in different books. I've been through 7 different books so far in about 2 months, average about 350 pages. Should i just drop the books and just dedicate all my time into RTK or continue reading books until i'm comfortable enough with the language to start RTK? According to the books i'm advanced but i know that's horseshit, any advice?

Here's what I did. I worked my way through an elementary textbook that covered the fundamentals of Japanese grammar and then I moved on to a book with reading passages made up of connected sentences. What I'm doing with the reader is mastering the contents, i.e., I keep re-reading the stories until I'm comfortable I remember all the vocabulary (each reading passage introduces about 75 new words).

You pick up a whole lot by re-reading the material. Sentences that I had to struggle with the first time flow more smoothly.

Once I'm done this reader I'm going to re-enroll in night school to practice my oral/aural skills with native Japanese speakers. I was taking night classes but dropped out because I didn't know enough grammar/vocabulary.

I did take a break for awhile to do RTK1. But I think if you're just starting out it's more critical to learn vocabulary and grammar at the beginning rather than spend all your free time memorizing kanji. Obviously therefore at the beginning stage you need a textbook and beginning reader that can be used without knowing any kanji (they do exist).