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+--- Thread: Totally lost (/thread-12320.html)
Totally lost - frosty_rain - 2014-11-08
Sorry if this is an innapropriate topic for these boards...this may end up coming off as just a big whiny rant, but I would like any advice that can be given, provided there is any to be had. ...That made almost no sense. I'll just go ahead and post my thing.
Back when I was little, I had major problems with English. No matter what the teachers or my parents said or did, nothing helped. Until I started reading, and then boom, my vocabulary, grammar...everything excelled far and above my peers. (Although the internet has ruined me, so excuse my crappy writing style) Although as good as I am with English, I could never make heads or tails of what they were talking about when it came to stuff like Noun phrases, the subject, the object, passives, causatives...you know, the academic parts of language. I understand English perfectly well, and short of lawyer contracts or quantum physics explanations I'd be hard pressed to find any English paper I couldn't understand perfectly. But even simple academic concepts like the subject and the object, although I understand the dictionary definition of them, I never could seem to wrap my head around them in practice. Never really thought, "oh, that word is the subject" or whatever while I was reading.
Learning Japanese has been, well, god awful. I'm not in college or anything, but I've been doing self-study for probably about a year and have been enrolled in a Japanese "school" for the last three months; yet I feel like I've made almost no progress whatsoever. I have a minimal vocabulary at best, know maybe a handful of Kanji, and Japanese sentence structure and grammar is totally alien to me - I can't make sense of anything beyond the basic "A wa equals B desu" construction. Which means that Japanese reading practice is near impossible, and when I try to write it (like on Lang-8) I'm basically just guessing.
I've tried Anki, Jpod101 podcasts, Lang-8, Tae Kim's grammar guide, a Japanese grammar dictionary, "Making sense of Japanese" by that one guy, japaneseclass.com, different graded reader sites (which, by the way, aren't "graded" very well), and the old school textbooks. Most stuff involving plain memorization (like Anki) bore me to tears and are very hard to continue, and when I do learn a new word or grammar point, mnemonics or not, it seems to slip out of my memory faster than I can put it in.
I used to do about an hour of Japanese practice a day, switching it up between reading, writing, and listening, but I've been gradually starting to avoid it because I've come to associate it with disappointment and frustration.
I'm getting pretty discouraged, I guess is what I want to say.
So...some questions:
1. I temporarily quit my Japanese class, since it's pretty expensive and winter is coming up, meaning I'll likely miss half my classes anyway. My grandmother (dunno how) managed to find a student at a local college from Japan who would be willing to tutor me 1 on 1. But with my Japanese level as abysmally low as it is, do you think I'd even gain anything from it?
2. It seems I've tried everything, but nothing really seems to be working. Do you think I should just pick one thing and stick with it really hardcore, or try something new? And what would that one thing (or new thing) be?
3. Any other advice of where to go from here would be great. Even though I want to learn this language and I believe I can, I'm still on the verge of throwing in the towel.
If nothing else, thanks for letting me vent. Nobody else I know has ever even attempted to learn a foreign language, so they don't know the struggle and I've got nobody to talk to about it.
Totally lost - john555 - 2014-11-08
Try the book I used to teach myself Japanese:
http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=dunn+yanada&bi=0&bx=off&ds=30&recentlyadded=all&sortby=17&sts=t&tn=teach+yourself+japanese&x=75&y=8
I like it because there are plenty of exercises, extensive dialogues, answer key, etc. It's old school but does the job really well.
It's in romaji, it's true, but it's probably better to learn spoken Japanese first anyway.
Totally lost - Arupan - 2014-11-08
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Totally lost - john555 - 2014-11-09
Arupan Wrote:>> OPIt's a great book. It was written by two university professors with extensive teaching experience and was in print for many years. I taught myself the nuts and bolts of the language with this book and have zero problems dealing with other textbooks. Take a look and judge for your self.
As strange as it sounds, there's no real definition for "subject" in Japanese and anyone who claims otherwise doesn't really know what he is talking about ^^; So, you don't actually need to remember those things if you don't want to. It would be easier, however, if you know what simple stuff, such as adjectives and particles, are, for example. Just my guess but you are probably not very suited for both self-studying and the methods they are using at the said school. My best advice is to find a private teacher with the same native language and who's extremely good at explaining things. Such people are rare but you might be lucky if you ask around a little (hiring a highly competent Japanese language student might be a good idea, for instance). I don't think hiring a Japanese native right from the start is very wise, cause they don't study grammar as we do.
Also, I'd advise you not to buy the book @john555 recommended you since I've already seen some of the example sentences inside it (he posted some of them here in this forum) and I have my doubts about it (most of the examples' Japanese version sounded very weird).
Totally lost - Stansfield123 - 2014-11-09
Check out the AJATT blog. It's not for everybody, but I think it might just benefit you. Don't follow it as gospel, of course. But read some of it. Don't worry about the for pay stuff that's on there, or the stuff that requires membership, just read the older posts that come up (the site's layout changed since I read it, but there's a "best of AJATT" section that seems to have the articles I've read back in the day).
Most interesting part of it is his 10,000 sentence theory http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/10000-sentences-why (don't worry about the stuff in red at the beginning, that's just the blog author trying to re-direct you to a pay section - just because he decided to change his methods to allow him to make some money, doesn't mean his earlier methods, which are what made him well known among Japanese self learners, aren't interesting).
Then, check out Anki, especially this deck: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1269450669 , for some intermediate level material to learn with. I would suggest SRS-ing that deck with Anki, specifically the sentences in it, with both the audio and the sentence in the question. But of course you can adapt it to whatever works for you, there are many ways to use Anki and the resources people share on its site. If you're technically inclined, I also suggest looking into something called Morphman (there's a thread about it on this forum) to optimize the sentence order in that deck.
Totally lost - Arupan - 2014-11-09
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Totally lost - RandomQuotes - 2014-11-09
If your looking for a less grammar intensive manner, then I would suggest the Assimil series. It's basically a bilingual text with accompanying audio in the target language. There are 100 lessons and every 7th lesson is a slight minor grammar lesson. I haven't looked at the Japanese one in particular but the rest of them are fantastic, so i reckon it should be of a similar quality.
Totally lost - frosty_rain - 2014-11-09
Thanks for the answers guys, although I think you might be overestimating my ability a tad. For example, I can't read any of the example sentences for that Anki deck. When I said I know a handful of Kanji, it's probably close to a dozen, maybe two dozen that I know well, maybe a dozen or two more than that that I can recognize but don't really know.
As far as John's book goes, there's no need to argue about it cuz I'm not interested in romaji. I can read kana just fine, I'm just seriously lacking in the grammar/vocab department. I dunno if it's because I'm not studying enough (probably not), not studying correctly or my memory is just plain shot. Dunno. It certainly doesn't help that this language is uber confusing so I'm not even sure what to study or how anymore. I dunno...it seems like I'm just memorizing a whole bunch of random items that aren't connected, I just can't seem to really connect the dots and make it flow.
I will definitely have to give those blogs you guys mentioned a look-see. Although it's not so much that I need something less grammar intensive, it's more that I need a good way to understand it. Tae Kim and my Dictionary of Japanese Grammar are very academic focused and everything seems very...isolated. When it says something like, "こと is a nominalizer and is used to create a noun phrase" or whatever...that's great and all but I have no idea what the heck that means.
It's like I have roadblocks in the way of my learning that I can't figure out how to overcome. Lots of them. I dunno if I should just try plowing through and memorizing a bunch of separate items (like vocab words) or just flail around trying to read/write until things start clicking at least a bit.
It's been a year already and you'd think I'd have something to show for it. About a week ago my friend asked me to say something in Japanese and I just drew a blank. So he gave me an example sentence: how do you say, "This is a good TV show" in Japanese. When I thought about it, I realized that not only did I not know a few of the Japanese words I needed for that sentence, but I had no idea how to structure the sentence if I even did know all of the words.
And probably the worst problem is I have no idea where I should be at this point, if I should be like N4 level by now or if my progress is pretty average.
They say that learning this language has some frustrating moments and some moments where things start clicking a bit and you make good progress. Highs and lows. Thing is...it's pretty much been all lows so far. -_-"
*Sorry if this is coming off as disconnected, it's late and I'm pretty tired.
Totally lost - RandomQuotes - 2014-11-09
When I say less grammar intensive, I mean that it aims to teach grammar in a more implicit fashion.
An example page from Google image search: http://www.goddesscarlie.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/assimil_lesson.jpg
Totally lost - Splatted - 2014-11-09
Disclaimer: My Japanese is still pretty bad so bear that in mind when considering my advice.
Can you expand a bit on what you do when you're reading? What did the actual process involve? How much did you do for how long before giving up and moving on to something else? How much material did you get through in that amount of time? Honestly I doubt I'll be more helpful than the professional teachers at your language school, but if reading was just something extra you did on your own then perhaps I can make some suggestions. There aren't many wrong ways to do it but if you've been sticking to just one then there are definitely some options to explore.
Not knowing anything about what you've been doing the advice I'd give would be to try and work through lots of bilingual texts. Look up words as you go and try and match what's in the Japanese sentence to what's in the English one. You don't need to understand all the little details or work out why the Japanese is written the way it is. If a sentence is too difficult move on to the next.
You can also probably cut out the writing practice at this stage if you have no immediate use for it. Either that or switch over to doing focused drills instead of trying to write what you want to write. Some people find it helpful for practicing what they've been learning but if you feel the need to guess how to say things then you'd probably be better off spending your time learning how other people do it. I guess it's helpful in a classroom situation where it allows a teacher to see what students know, but now that you're studying on your own I'm not sure how worthwhile it is.
Totally lost - ktcgx - 2014-11-09
I don't know if this will be of any help (or will just come across as patronising, which I promise I am not trying to be), but a really basic explanation for parts of speech is that a noun is a thing, like a dog, or a cat. An adjective describes it, like red or brown. A verb is an action word like run or play. An adverb tells you how something is done, like quickly or slowly (hint, they often end in ly, and if it ends in ly it's definitely an adverb).
Any of the other bits, you don't really need to worry about right now.
As for Japanese word order, it's generally the opposite of English, as in whatever comes after ~は is generally backwards when compared to English. For example, English is 'John walked a dog', Japanese is 'John dog walked'.
My advice for your study, based on what you have said, is to forget RTK for the moment, and do Core500 or whatever the lowest one is (unless it's 200, don't do that, it'll be too small). You said you got good at English through reading, and you don't seem to be able to sort your English knowledge in terms of academic terms, so I think it's better for you to get your vocab to the level where you can start reading Japanese books. You might want to buy some graded readers, or, um, search for them, but don't start with the lowest level, because they're full of onomatopoeia which won't be of much use to you right now. Start with like 4 levels up, I think. This would be after you've done your Core500 or Core1k. Every time you come to a grammatical structure which is not A-ha B-desu you should look it up on Tae Kim and try to translate the sentence.
And then basically just keep reading up the levels, branching out into books you actually want to read, going through the Core decks (2k, 5k, 6k, 10k) as you feel you need the vocab until you feel like you have same grasp on Japanese as you do English.
Also, don't think things like "It's been a year and I have nothing to show for it" Things just take longer for some people. I've been at it for 15 years, and I still feel like I'm crap, and I had a friend who went to Japan and after 3-4 months was at N2 level. Kinda disheartening right? But seriously, people learn in different ways, and at different speeds. Japanese makes more sense to him, German makes more sense to me. Pretty sure if I went to Germany for 3 months, I'd see the same kind of progress with my German as he got with his Japanese. Comparing yourself to others is like comparing apples and oranges, and just gets you nowhere. ^_^
Totally lost - frosty_rain - 2014-11-09
Quote:Can you expand a bit on what you do when you're reading? What did the actual process involve? How much did you do for how long before giving up and moving on to something else? How much material did you get through in that amount of time?Basically, just reading. I'd read what I knew and when I came to a Kanji or word I didn't know, I'd use Raikachan or Denshi Jisho to look it up, and keep going. Problem is, that's only so helpful. They're not really good for different conjugations, especially the ん conjugation. Even with bilingual, pre-translated texts the result I got often didn't match the translation and/or context. Although the only bilingual text I've found so far is Japanese children's stories, like Momotarou, which probably have a lot of onomatopoeia, slang and archaic language.
At first I would write down the word I didn't know, but had to stop because I'd end up filling up a notebook page too fast. Too many for me to remember at once anyways.
I worked through most of the Chokoko Wordpress N4 articles, but there's only like 6. Then I tried to move onto other sites, but they're either fairy tale stuff which has all that onomatopoeia and archaic stuff; then I tried TIU library, but that's very kanji heavy and has a lot of conjugations I'm unfamiliar with. Also the context of the articles is weird, so it's difficult to even guess what's going on paragraph to paragraph.
Quote:but a really basic explanation for parts of speech is that a noun is a thing, like a dog, or a cat.Yeah, I get that...it's difficult to explain. I understand it what they mean definition wise, but it's just not something I've ever thought about or tried to identify in practice, being a native speaker of English. Also I'm more referring to the really academic parts of a sentence, like the causative passive, independent/dependent clauses, the passive imperative, etc.
Quote:As for Japanese word order, it's generally the opposite of English, as in whatever comes after ~は is generally backwards when compared to English. For example, English is 'John walked a dog', Japanese is 'John dog walked'.Yeah...but it doesn't really seem to work like that in practice. Some sentences don't even use は, some sentences end in a seemingly random particle like の instead of with a verb, adjective or copula, and sometimes the order seems totally random for whatever reason. Especially in longer, complex sentences.
That's another thing I don't get though. Particles. I've read and reread all kinds of different explanations on particles, but they each seem to have 5 different meanings applied in totally arbitrary ways that don't make any sense. I never know which particle to put where, or even when to use a particle and when to omit it.
Quote:My advice for your study, based on what you have said, is to forget RTK for the moment, and do Core500 or whatever the lowest one is (unless it's 200, don't do that, it'll be too small). You said you got good at English through reading, and you don't seem to be able to sort your English knowledge in terms of academic terms, so I think it's better for you to get your vocab to the level where you can start reading Japanese books. You might want to buy some graded readers, or, um, search for them, but don't start with the lowest level, because they're full of onomatopoeia which won't be of much use to you right now. Start with like 4 levels up, I think. This would be after you've done your Core500 or Core1k. Every time you come to a grammatical structure which is not A-ha B-desu you should look it up on Tae Kim and try to translate the sentence.This seems fairly logical, I was doing Core... something or other, but moved on for several reasons. #1 - Anki is boring as hell. I don't know how you guys do it. #2 - it takes me far too long to get through just 20 cards. #3 - I forget them as fast as I learn them it seems. #4 - I really wanted to know how to read all the kanji in the Core sentences, so in light of the former reasons, I decided to try my hand at learning some kanji. It didn't go well.
I suppose the most prudent option would be to go back to vocabulary study. It just seems like such an awfully boring grind though.
Totally lost - ktcgx - 2014-11-09
Having read what you said,
1. Don't worry too much about particles right now. But here's the basic run down of what you need to know as a beginner. ha/ga topic/subject markers. It takes many years for English speakers to figure out the difference, so don't worry that you won't understand when to use each one. ni = to (as in ~ to school, ~ to work, give to ~). de = at. o = object marker. kara = from/after. made = to. to = and/with/quoting speech/thoughts.
Don't over complicate it. I suppose that's one useful thing about going to classes, is the focus on the beginner level of meaning of the particles first.
2.anki
For me, I changed my anki default settings from 1 minute 10 minute for new cards to a 1 5 10 schedule. I found that helped a lot. And for me I'm not too harsh. I find I get overwhelmed having to remember more than one piece of information about a vocab at a time. So I'll do a new card like this: 空 pass 1 min if I didn't know it, pass 5 mins if I either knew the definition or the reading, pass one day if I knew both. If I passed a card at 1 min and saw it again, but forgot it, I'd still pass it 5 mins the next time, because there's the 10 min and then the one day options still coming up, so I will see it at least twice more if I need to.
I found that I not only got through my reviews much faster this way, but I also seem to have increased my ability to remember vocab by not being as harsh. So it's given me much more motivation to study with anki. And given I'm trying to get my vocab up to JLPT N2 level for the test in December, that's kinda important
3. That's why I said to keep looking up the grammar in Tae Kim. Also, I might recommend a grammar deck from anki too, a basic one, to help you get into reading.
4. unfortunately, with all skills, there is a bit of grind, the trick is to make it feel like all carrot and no stick, I guess. Most people do this by watching anime/dramas/variety shows/reading what they are interested in. It really helps if you're not basing your study off something that you're totally uninterested in.
Totally lost - ktcgx - 2014-11-09
This looks like it's probably a good place to start:
https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/735547011
It only has 193 cards, so it shouldn't take too long to get though.
Totally lost - RandomQuotes - 2014-11-09
frosty_rain Wrote:Yeah, I get that...it's difficult to explain. I understand it what they mean definition wise, but it's just not something I've ever thought about or tried to identify in practice, being a native speaker of English. Also I'm more referring to the really academic parts of a sentence, like the causative passive, independent/dependent clauses, the passive imperative, etc.In this case, I would suggest taking a linguistics 101 course or reading a basic linguistics 101 text book. Or, if your up to it reading the Wikipedia articles on linguistics and cross referencing them.
mit open courseware for intro to lingustics: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/linguistics-and-philosophy/24-900-introduction-to-linguistics-fall-2012/
That would be a good start. Studying basic linguistics is what gave me a good idea of what those terms meant in any real sense.
Totally lost - anotherjohn - 2014-11-09
frosty_rain Wrote:For example, I can't read any of the example sentences for that Anki deck.You can always edit the card template to put furigana on the front if you fancy a gentler introduction. I did this with the Core6k, but Nayr's deck is better by all accounts.
You may find it helpful to thoroughly acquaint yourself with the tools of the trade (to wit, Anki) instead of relying on the default settings for everything - something I wish I had done sooner myself.
Useful things to know about re Anki:
- Editing card templates
- 'Ease' and 'steps' settings
- Searching in the browser (e.g. using is
uspended, wildcards, etc)- Browsing ahead to selectively un-suspend the easiest cards, rather than adding them in deck order.
- etc
As far as grammar goes, I would recommend studying a good chunk of sentences (~2000) before even bothering with it. By that stage the basic stuff will be self evident, and you will know enough words to learn the rest by example from a grammar guide instead of picking through the jargon-laden explanations.
Totally lost - frosty_rain - 2014-11-09
Downloaded that grammar deck, since it's small and seems like it wouldn't be too hard to get through.
Definitely going to look into Nayr's deck.
One of my biggest failures with Anki, is that I really don't know how to use it. I've messed with the settings a bit, but there seems to be many, many facets to it that would require a lot of trial and error. I'll try some of the settings ktcgx mentioned. Most of the settings anotherjohn mentioned are above my head.
You guys have been really helpful, it's good to know that I still have options, different paths yet to take. It seems that the consensus is I should be focusing mainly on vocab, and after that, sentences. So tha's what I'll do.
By the by, someone mentioned bilingual...stuff to read. Japanese with English translations. Anyone know of any good sites? I've had a heck of a time trying to find any useful reading material.
Oh, and about the anime/manga/variety show thing. I watch anime...quite a bit haha. That's pretty much my reason for wanting to learn Japanese. I watched a lot of anime without ever wanting to learn the language, until I saw Lucky Star. Not sure how many of you have seen it, but it incorporates a lot of pop culture references and wordplay jokes that the Japanese are so fond of. It made me realize just how much of the show I was truly missing out on because so much of the original meaning was lost in translation. Then I became interested in becoming a translator, and actually had a pretty lengthy discussion about what it takes/means to be a translator with one of Yen Press' editors at this years' past New York Comic Con.
Anywho...I have no idea how you'd use it to study though. Anime with subs I just end up reading the English sub and barely pay attention to the Japanese. I try to, but I read so fast it becomes a losing battle. I've tried watching it raw, but I don't understand probably 95% of it. Same with variety shows. I'm not as big into manga, I have a few but they're all English translated. I would get some in Japanese if I thought I could actually read any of it...
Totally lost - ktcgx - 2014-11-09
Yeah, it's taken me a while to starr to play with things... anki is very confusing to get the hang of, I think.
Totally lost - Katsuo - 2014-11-09
frosty_rain Wrote:Japanese sentence structure and grammar is totally alien to meI found the approach in this book “Japanese the Manga Way” helpful. It takes you from a Japanese phrase to English in stages, i.e. first a literal translation then a suitable equivalent along with detailed explanations.
Totally lost - Aikynaro - 2014-11-09
If you're primarily interested in anime, I strongly (strongly strongly strongly) recommend that you look into subs2srs. Find Nukemarine's videos on how to set up the cards in Anki. You can find Japanese subtitle tracks at kitsunekko.
I basically second Stansfield123 - AJATT is kind-of rubbish but without it I would never have gotten anywhere. The philosophy is useful even if some of the specific advice is dodgy. I can't stand textbook study and am allergic to grammar - your problems remind me of my problems when I was making false-starts.
Quote:It seems that the consensus is I should be focusing mainly on vocab, and after that, sentencesI think you should do vocab in sentences. You can pick up vocabulary and grammar at the same time with no extra effort. If you get your sentences via subs2srs you get a bunch of other good stuff too, like listening practice.
Totally lost - frosty_rain - 2014-11-09
Thanks for the advice, I'll look into subs2srs.
I also went ahead and read some of AJATT's blog posts. The philosophy written there has drastically changed my perspective of this whole language learning thing. Aiming to fail, the importance of frequency over quantity and my personal favorite, "strategic laziness" haha. I used to go all out with J-learning, basically trying to learn the whole language all in one sitting. If I didn't bust my hump studying hard for at least 2 hours a day then I didn't think I was doing it right. Makes sense that it burned me out and I ended up frustrated and would procrastinate studying.
I think doing little bits more often, and not trying to hammer every little piece of vocab in my head would be a lot more enjoyable and effective in the long run, even if it seems less productive. I'm also intrigued by the concept that simply listening to Japanese and not worrying about comprehension can do wonders for understanding. Mostly because the thought of simultaneously studying and playing Xbox seems like a rad idea ha.
Totally lost - Eminem2 - 2014-11-09
Aikynaro Wrote:I think you should do vocab in sentences. You can pick up vocabulary and grammar at the same time with no extra effort.My own experience has been that Japanese grammar is too extensive and refined to really pick up on "on the go", so to speak. Especially the way many different meanings can accumulate in verb endings is something that I really needed to have thoroughly explained to me, as in Lammers' "Japanese the Manga Way". I condensed most of that book's grammar points into Anki cards, because I found merely reading about grammar while thinking "yeah, this really makes sense, so I suppose that means I'll automatically remember it!" wasn't working for me at all.
I shared a few sets on AnkiWeb. Incidentally, I kept the academic language to a minimum, even though terms like "passive" and "causative" are pretty much unavoidable. But the "can / be able to" form sounds pretty straightforward, right? Anyhow, some of my sets that might just possibly be of use to the OP are:
- General Grammar: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/563967761 (updated)
- Verb Conjugations & Combinations: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1935090034 (updated).
Even though I do say so myself, I've found that this approach has helped me master a number of these grammar points. (I've only been using them for about a month.) When watching anime, I frequently find myself going "hey, I recognize and understand that verb-ending!".
Another idea that I've tried to convert into something practical is that of a basic digital "grammar dictionary". This is essentially a big table in a Word-document which alphabetically lists either the English translation of a Japanese verb ending or a more general grammar point, with the Japanese equivalent in the right column of the table. This makes it possible to use Word's "find" option (Ctrl-F) to quickly see what a certain Japanese verb ending, or particle, or other grammatical phenomenon (more or less) means in English. Conversely, it makes it possible to quickly find the Japanese equivalent of some standard grammatical constructs in English. So far I've found that I prefer using this document over running through the index of "Japanese the Manga Way", even though the digital file can't claim to cover the entirety of Japanese grammar. (But who knows, someday?) This "digital grammar dictionary" is a little over 25 pages long at present (and I'm still expanding it) and can be found here as a Google document (from which it should be possible to copy-paste the table to a Word document):
https://docs.google.com/document/d/14LumKZtd8sInxkydlqDZmPRt97xcQwfWGsdWYOXGGQo/pub
Anyhow, I really hope these practical files can be of some use to the OP!
Totally lost - rich_f - 2014-11-09
I'd second Japanese the Manga Way. It's an awesome book. I still go back to it every now and then when I want a really good easy-to-understand explanation about something.
Find some fun manga in this thread that's at your level. Probably one star ☆ stuff for now, and get the stuff with the furigana ふ next to it. There's not much at that level, but it's a place to start. Also have a look at this thread, because there's more useful feedback there, too.
Manga helps a lot when starting out, and visual cues are really useful early on. (It diminishes a bit over time, but at your level it should help a lot.)
Generally, I find it's better to read stuff I find interesting vs. stuff I don't. So even if it means stretching your level a bit to try slightly harder stuff, if it's interesting, you're more likely to try and read it.
Conversely, if it's too freaking hard, I find it's not motivating at all. It becomes slightly depressing.
Yeah, it's tricky.
But start off with some "easy wins" by reading stuff you know you can read, and build up some confidence while having fun. Fun. Fun. Fun. It's so important, because as soon as this becomes a chore, it gets MUCH easier to quit. And you don't want to quit, do you?
Totally lost - Stansfield123 - 2014-11-09
As far as not knowing how to use Anki, none of us knew how to use it at the beginning. But it has a great help section, and there are plenty of places (including this forum) with advice on how to best use it.
You should just jump into it and learn as you go. To start you out, I'll post a quick tutorial on how to set up Nayr's deck the way I have it set up (with the sentence and audio in the question - this way it doesn't really matter if you can't read the Kanji, since you have the audio to help you out).
1. Download and install Anki.
2. Download and open the deck.
3. Click on the deck, then Browse (this will open a new window), then select "current deck" from the left side panel, then click Cards...
4. You'll get another new window, with some boxes and some preview sections. Paste this into the first box, instead of what is there:
</br></br></br></br><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 30px; ">{{Expression}}</span>
{{Sound}}
This into the second box:
.card {
font-family: arial;
font-size: 20px;
text-align: center;
color: black;
background-color: white;
}
This into the third:
</br></br></br></br><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 30px; ">{{Expression}}</span>
</br>
<hr>
</br></br></br></br>
{{English Translation}}
5. That's it, you can start studying.
The above code is mostly html (first and third boxes) and css (second box). It is where you style your study window (just like you would a web page). Doesn't matter whether you're familiar with it or not, I think it's fairly self explanatory if you spend a little time looking at it. So you can fiddle around with it over time, adjust it to look the way you like it. Just make sure all your tags and parentheses are closed. That's pretty much the only rule of html and css.
One thing that is not html/css is the stuff in {{ }} brackets. Those are the field names. If you change them, you'll get whatever field you wish to have in your question and answer sections.
P.S. For those of you who are programmers, yes, that code is terrible in every way. In my defense, I didn't write it, I just copy/pasted it from some place and then tweaked it a little. What can I say, I'm lazy.
Totally lost - kameden - 2014-11-09
Honestly I don't think you're special. The resources you say don't work for you for whatever reason isn't because they don't work and probably just because you haven't put in any effort. I would say your main problem is just that you're not spending enough time learning (which you mentioned before). Languages are a massive time-sink, and the only way to make progress is to invest time into them. It's not the method. Some work better than others I guess, but any method posted on this forum is more or less a good enough way to learn. The problem is probably just a lack of effort or time investment. If you can't study at least 2 hours a day, I would say just forget about it because it will take you years to even get to the intermediate level.