How do you guys review grammar? I learn tons of grammar forms in class, but unlike vocab, where I can make english->japanese flashcards, making flashcards for grammar seems a bit difficult. I'm considering two options:
1. question: Ask myself to make a sentence using a grammar structure, i.e. "Make a sentence with まるで .... ように/みたい/etc."
answer: Give examples of the grammar structure, i.e. あのひとはまるでドイツ人のようにドイツ語を話す。 And also explain the meaning of the grammar and how to use it, i.e. Means "As if"

2. question: あのひとはまるでドイツ人のようにドイツ語を話す
answer: That person speaks German as if he were a German person.


1. seems very awkward, but 2. seems a bit too easy, i.e. I'll be able to easily from context figure out the meaning, but when it comes time to apply the grammar I'll probably forget how to use it. How do you guys drill grammar forms?

You're doing way too much production. Why english->japanese? That's extremely hard to review since any English word can have several Japanese ones. Besides, relying on translation when producing is not all that great.

Training grammar is just as easy as any other Japanese: Simply put sentences into an SRS and read them, making sure you understand them. "Make sentences using" is just forceful behavior You will learn to apply it simply by seeing it often, just like how you use English grammar automatically from exposure. For example, I have just 3 cards in my SRS with にこたえて and I can use it perfectly, without ever having had any exercise producing it.

When I review recognition sentences, though, it doesn't actually seem like I'm learning. For example, I can easily recognize the meaning of たたむ　in 帆をたため！ because 1. I've seen that sentence many times in my SRS and I remember the original context in which I read that sentence and 2. It's next to 帆, and you can only really do a couple of actions to the sail.

However, if I were conversing with someone and suddenly had to say "Fold the sail", I wouldn't be able to remember what the verb for fold is. Every word that I've drilled with production, though, I remember. Recognition just seems way too easy.

MeisterLlama Wrote:When I review recognition sentences, though, it doesn't actually seem like I'm learning. For example, I can easily recognize the meaning of たたむ　in 帆をたため！ because 1. I've seen that sentence many times in my SRS and I remember the original context in which I read that sentence and 2. It's next to 帆, and you can only really do a couple of actions to the sail.

However, if I were conversing with someone and suddenly had to say "Fold the sail", I wouldn't be able to remember what the verb for fold is. Every word that I've drilled with production, though, I remember. Recognition just seems way too easy.

The reason you can't think of the verb "fold" when you're conversing isn't because recognition is too easy. It's because of lack of exposure and internalization.

Even if you don't have 今 in your SRS or anything, you will be able to use it fine in a conversation. That one didn't need production, so why would any other word? The difference being that with just a tiny bit of exposure, 今 becomes second nature since it's used so often. How often would you really need to say "fold the sails" in a conversation though? Almost never. And THAT'S why you can't do it, because you never see or hear it used, only in your SRS. And fact is, that will be enough. If you're ever in a conversation where you need to use the phrase, the context will be there and you will remember it. That's why we use sentences in an SRS: There's always context. Learning a word without a context is needlessly hard, there's no situation (outside of a school test) where you will need to remember words outside of any context.

MeisterLlama Wrote:Recognition just seems way too easy.

So if it isn't painful, it's not real work. And if it's not real work you can't be learning anything, right?

This is a common fallacy when learning a language. Some people have to feel that they are "working". But fluency comes from frequent exposure not forceful work. By spending all this time forcing yourself you're not using that time for exposure to the language which makes it harder to internalize what you learn.

Also it's better to think long term, there is nothing wrong with not being able to use a new word right away. It's perfectly normal that it will take time and multiple exposures before it goes from passive to active vocabulary.

We don't review grammar ^_^. There's no need for it. Or better saying it, you review it unintentionally.

For me, I find that grammar is easily learned through SRS recognition. I didn't feel as if I was 'learning' them at first, just remembering what the sentence means, but as you add more sentences, and grammar points are reused, you get a much better feel for them. Plus, your SRS sentences shouldn't be the ONLY sentences you read. When you read stories and articles, you will come across grammar again and again, and you won't have these new sentences already in your memory - just the grammar.

However, I do have a small production deck on the side. I often stumble on conjugations. There are such a wide variety of conjugations, that I feel that I need a little extra help. I go to this deck, only every now and then to review some verbs conjugations.

Actually, there are ways to review grammar. One is called cloze deletion, and it's pretty straightforward. Just remove the chunks from the sentences you want to study, and make yourself fill in the blanks yourself.

I'm just grabbing a book off of a random shelf, but if you're studying one of the various uses of the particle に:

このケーキを三つに分けて下さい。
Please divide the cake into 3 parts.

Using cloze, you wind up with:

Q: このケーキを三つ__分けて下さい。(put whatever prompt you want here.)
A: このケーキを三つに分けて下さい。

That gives your brain something to do, if you don't like passive work.

Or, you can just dump a bunch of simple example sentences in that demonstrate the grammar point you want to learn, and highlight the bits you want to emphasize. I find it useful for remembering certain constructions that are always a pain to remember.

I find that the more that I see something, the more likely I am to remember it well enough to actually use it. Yeah, some people think that's SRS heresy, but the thing is, exposing yourself to an obscure (to you) grammatical construction JUST ONCE every few days and expecting it to somehow magically show up in your conversation is ludicrous.

I need to use a certain amount of overwhelming force in my deck for a while, then remove the extra sentences as the grammar becomes solidified in my knowledge of the language.

The job of the SRS, IMO, is to shove things you don't know under your nose until you know them. That's all. Nothing special. So if you don't know how to use に, shove a lot of examples of how に is used under your nose until you figure it out, then you can safely dump them from your deck.

What I did for basic grammar was scan in the Genki I & II answer key, and use a lot of the answers to the exercises as example sentences. Yes, they're dumbed down, but they're short, basic, and briefly illustrate basic grammar points until you get them, then they can be thrown away.

rich_f Wrote:I find that the more that I see something, the more likely I am to remember it well enough to actually use it. Yeah, some people think that's SRS heresy, but the thing is, exposing yourself to an obscure (to you) grammatical construction JUST ONCE every few days and expecting it to somehow magically show up in your conversation is ludicrous.

Well, I guess it's the same thing here. If you just run into something a few times a week/month, you're not ready to use it anyway/it isn't to be used. If you're a beginner, reading basic manga, you're not going to run into much JLPT2 grammar. Then again, why should you force-learn it when you're not ready to read JLPT2 material?

If you get 1-2 hours of Japanese exposure each day, you should run into most of the stuff you need to know for your level. There is certainly stuff you will want to know that you won't run into, even with high level exposure such as news and novels, but then again, that's the kind of stuff you aren't supposed to actively use yourself. If native Japanese people aren't using stuff, why should you, you know?

Forced learning is necessary when you're in a class that's going to test you on it.

The thing is, all an SRS really is for me is something to read when I'm not reading a book or something. It's just a pile of stuff saying, "Here, this is stuff you should know how to read. Do you remember what all of this means? Do you know how to process it?"

And you don't necessarily run into everything you're trying to learn if you only get 1-2 hours of exposure a day, even at the lower levels. It just depends on what you're learning. There are times when I'll bump into a lot of stuff I'm learning, but then there are times when I won't see or hear it for a day or two.

Languages are random like the people who use them. The SRS removes the randomness from the equation.

I've been doing the traditional method of having the english rule of the grammar point on the question side of the card, then the rule and example sentences on the back. I'd been considering eliminating everything except having the example sentence as the question, and maybe just some furigana for kanji I don't know as the answer. This forum has answered that query: yes, I will just switch to example sentences only. The old way takes far too long to type out as well...

rich_f Wrote:Forced learning is necessary when you're in a class that's going to test you on it.

The thing is, all an SRS really is for me is something to read when I'm not reading a book or something. It's just a pile of stuff saying, "Here, this is stuff you should know how to read. Do you remember what all of this means? Do you know how to process it?"

And you don't necessarily run into everything you're trying to learn if you only get 1-2 hours of exposure a day, even at the lower levels. It just depends on what you're learning. There are times when I'll bump into a lot of stuff I'm learning, but then there are times when I won't see or hear it for a day or two.

Languages are random like the people who use them. The SRS removes the randomness from the equation.

Nice point.

After finishing RTK1, then on-yomi, then KO2001 both books, I thought it's finally time for me to do grammar. I feel that it's neccessary.
I don't want to discuss if it's a good idea to specifically study grammar or not and I also don't want to open a new thread just for that.

I intend to go through "A dicitionary of basic Japanese grammar" and after that the "intermediate" one.
There are a lot of things I already know in the "basic" book, but it's good review and there are always some points you didn't know about yet.
After that I either move on to the "advance" book or switch over to JLPt2 or 1 grammar books.

I've been playing around with my grammar anki deck for a while now (although reading through a few grammar related threads here) and I'm still not sure what might be the best way to go about it.

Right now I have 3 fields in Anki:
Field 1: (Question) The Japanese sentence.
Field 2: The (German) translation of the sentence.
Field 3: Grammar explanation etc.

At first I had quite a bunch of sentences in field one at a time all showing the same grammar point, but I guess that's a bit too much.
Now I've reduced it to 1 sentence (sometimes 2).
At first I just read the sentence (the grammar point is color-marked) and tried to figure out why this is used, then I checked the grammar explanation and translation.
That was boring and I didn't feel like I was actually getting anything from it.

Now I've changed Filed 1 once again:
I have now gaps where the grammar point needs to be filled in. (mot of the time I have a hint in brackets, so I know what I need to fill in e.g. "while" if it's for "nagara" or "aida(ni)" etc.
In field 3 I give the whole Japanese sentence with the correct answer again plus neccessary explanations.
That's better than before but I'm still not sure if that will do.

I was also thinking about having just the English/German sentence as Q and then try to translate the whole thing using the grammar point, but that might be too much, especially with long sentences.

As for what I leave out in the Field 1 sentences with the style I use now is not only the grammar point itself, but sometimes also part of the verb that stands in front of the grammar point, because I often have problems remembering if it's 食べる、食べた、食べ、食べな.... etc., so I guess that's good practice as well.

Here a few expamples of my current deck:




I'm glad for any help, hints etc.
Thanks in advance

Field 1:
雪子はご飯を食べ__ ________テレビを見ていた。
(während, 2 Möglichkeiten = while, 2 possibilities)

Field 2: (Translation)
Yukiko hat ferngesehen, während sie ihr Essen aß.
Yukiko hat hauptsächlich ferngesehen, hat aber auch gleichzeitig noch was gegessen. => Yukiko aß etwas zu Essen, während sie ferngesehen hat.

Field 3:
雪子はご飯を食べる間テレビを見ていた。
雪子はご飯を食べながらテレビを見ていた。

間 kann durch ながら ersetzt werden, wenn:

- Subjekt in beiden Teilsätzen das gleiche ist
- es sich um Actionverben handelt



Field 1:
夏休みの________ラストランでアルバイトをしました。
夏休みの________ガールフレンドを出来ました。
(während = while, during)

Field 2: (Translation)
Während den Sommerferien habe ich gejobbt.
Während den Sommerferien hab ich eine Freundin gefunden.

Field 3:
夏休みの間ラストランでアルバイトをしました。
夏休みの間にガールフレンドを出来ました。


間　ｖｓ　間に:
1. Findet zur gleichen Zeit statt / gleiche Länge / etwa gleicher Anfang und gleiches Ende
2. Das eine lief schon, als das andere eingetreten ist



For the last card I might get rid of the "no" after "summer vacation" as well, so that I have additional practice and know that I have to use "no" if it's noun + aida(ni).

What do you think?

Well, it simulates what you'll see on a JLPT, that's for sure.

Personally, as these are rapid production cards of sorts (just the grammar section) there's no reason not to use two cards if you have two sentences. Since each offers a different flavor, it's good to test them separately anyway.

Great thread but I'm still not sure what the consensus is

one point of view seems to be: don't input grammar points, just put sentences in your SRS and test that you understand them. Grammar usage wil naturally flow from that. (if I got this wrong please correct me)

For that approach though it would seem difficult to stick to the n+1 principle, no? Also how do you rate yourself?

I'm in Tokyo for one year studying Japanese with the goal of bing fluent in daily conversation and being able to read a newspaper. My SRS has been great in getting me to finish RtK but from what's been written in this thread I'm still not clear on how to "properly" use it for grammar.

chochajin Wrote:What do you think?

I didn't read through your post, but I found typos:

夏休みの________ラストランでアルバイトをしました。should read "...レストランで..."
夏休みの________ガールフレンドを出来ました。should read "...ガールフレンドが..."

If your deck has the same typos, you might be learning the wrong grammar and spelling. Also, both 夏休みの間レストランでアルバイトをしました。and 夏休みの間にレストランでアルバイトをしました。are correct. There is a slight difference in nuance, though. I'm guessing the 間 vs. 間に explanation in your post is explaining this difference, but I wanted to make sure.

@magamo: Wah! Typos (O__O'')>
But don't worry I don't really "read" those words, because I already know them, so I won't learn anything wrong. I'll still modify that card, though. Thanks

Yes, I had both sentences as one fact to show the slight difference in nuance between aida and aida ni.

For what it's worth, these grammar threads have convinced me to go through my Tae Kim deck, rename it Grammar Sentences (as I'll be adding KM sentences), and pretty much cloze delete the entries.

Yo Nuke, I think you should pick another sentence pack to do that. Tae Kim's sentences are weird. They seem unnatural. What about that Kanzen Master book that everybody talks about?

What do you think the KM stands for on the sentences that I'll be adding (^_^)