(2016-04-09, 3:18 am)risu_ Wrote: Sorry, but I really can't see SRS as a viable option for input at all. If it works for you, that's good, but I find SRSing sentences, from textbooks no less, extremely counterintuitive. In my opinion you should really just read some real native material. If a VN is too long, you can read news articles or editorials instead since you listed them in your goals in the first post.
Quote: Tl;dr: Like I said before, I'm not looking for exercises. I just want to know which book would most help me understand the nuance of these grammar points while providing a handful of solid examples (sentences) for contrast.
Sou Matome and SKM should be right up your alley then. Both include several example sentences and give clear examples of how to differentiate between similar grammar structures. I personally recommend SKM but it doesn't have english translations if that's your kind of thing.
Alternatively since you don't want exercises there's this website. The downside is that it doesn't compare nuances among grammar structures or go as in depth as either of the abovementioned book sets. They are JLPT prep books, after all.
I can't stress this enough but you should really start getting some real input instead of SRSing sentences from textbooks. Firstly you're going to keep seeing the same sentences over and over again which doesn't help you. Secondly when you read native material your brain practises comprehending the same grammar structures in different contexts (sentences) which will solidify your understanding more than doing so with the same few example sentences. Lastly reading native material gives far more satisfaction from language learning than textbook example sentences.
Also, I'm not sure if I'm reading this right. Are you playing DS3 in Japanese?
Yeah, I understand what you're saying. But like I said before, there's no lack of input in my routine.
For instance, I've switched the language of a lot of the websites I visit daily to Japanese recently - facebook, reddit, steam, and gmail. I'll probably do the same with Anki, but it's a bit of a hassle so I haven't done it yet. I've already srs'd most of the vocabulary I'll ever see on the websites I mentioned as well as visual novel menu options.
I've also been reading visual novel, anime, and games news and websites whenever I find something interested, like this http://www.spike-chunsoft.co.jp/zeroescape/. In addition, I've been going over song lyrics as well every now. As for Dark Souls 3, I'll probably play the Japanese version since it's available, although it's still voiced in English. Not a bad thing though, because I'm not exactly ready to figure things out on the spot in a game you can't pause and die all the time!
These sentences are just a temporary step. I srsd a whole bunch of sentences at the end of January, but soon enough I didn't have to think to recall the meaning of these grammar points and suspend most of the sentences. At this point, I have no more than 0-5 sentences to review per day and soon enough this deck will be history.
It's like srsing vocabulary to remember the meaning of a word. As a matter of fact, it's pretty much the same with lots of grammar points - the only difference is that you need to see more examples to understand the different ways a given expression may be used in a sentence, which is what I'll be working on. For instance, yesterday I learned べく (which apparently is an N1 grammar point lol) while reading the ZE link I mentioned above. That's pretty much the same as learning vocabulary, except it's used after the dictionary form of verbs. On the other hand, regular words have several definitions, different nuances, collocations, and no clear-cut explanations like most grammar points. These things make it much harder to get a feel for how a word is used without seeing it a whole bunch examples. All I'm doing is commiting these expressions to memory to reduce the amount of time I'll spend looking things up later on.
English translations might be helpful, but it all depends on how clear the contrast and nuance is without the translation. But why do you think 新完全マスター is better? Is the contrast between the examples clearer or is it something else?