When will it come? Today I encountered someone replying to a comment I made with Japanese. With Rikai-chan I could read all it fine, no problems, nothing hard. It was actually really simple stuff.

But, I noticed something. I don't know how to reply back. My head can not think in Japanese, like that.


So, when will that spark come? When will I be able to think in Japanese or respond in it. I'm not the only one that's gone through this, right?

It seems like you're going off of what AJATT talks about which is that enough input will eventually equal output (or some bs like that). Everybody has the frustration of not being able to produce output. It's not some magical spark that will magically appear. Good output will come when you start practicing output. Writing Lang-8 articles, actively trying to speak in Japanese, etc. etc.

I wouldn't say I have THAT good of an input. I'm still in the early stages of doing core 2k/6k on anki. I've read tae kim a while back and have been going through tDoBJG book/deck on anki as well. I can understand very simple, simple things, but even certain things will be confusing to me. (Some of the n4 chocho reading stuff.)

I have a long way to go, and I'm wondering if it's my grammar that is lacking, or if it's because I have such a limited vocabulary. (under a 100 words, I'd say.)

There's always suggestions of "Read more" but, reading is such a draining challenge. I guess I could do more reading though; but I'm not sure of what.

Well knowing only about 100 words will certainly limit anyone :> I wouldn't worry about it at all at this point. Just keep going with the Core 2000/6000 and studying grammar. What you may want to do at some point is once you have some more vocabulary under your belt, switch a certain number of cards to production mode. And then write the words out the first time you encounter then in Anki in a session. For grammar, I would do the exercises in textbooks, etc. Just reading the grammar form may not be enough for production. There are nuances on the many ways you can create the form that can only be practiced by writing (or speaking it). There is a lot of grammar. After you finish your basic level grammar like found in Genki I and II textbooks (or probably Tae Kim's free guide as well), there are N2 and N1 work books which have a couple hundred addition forms in each. But just take it one step at a time and work with a basic textbook first. I've been concentrating on reading and haven't done much full sentence writing either.

I read a lot now but my output is still very weak. You can know a wide range of grammar and vocabulary and still be bad at Japanese. Even with your limited knowledge you should try to take a few of those grammar points or vocabulary words and maybe try to actively use it (maybe daily or whatever). For that Lang-8 is probably good and you can then ask people to maybe give you quick translations as to what you want to say.

Starting out reading is definitely tough. You'll spend an hour reading and accomplish almost nothing at first. Try to segment it over an entire day so it doesn't tire you out so much. Oftentimes I use to read around 3PM and I just became very sleepy because of the frustration... if that makes sense. If you do want to start out reading there are obviously lots of options but for a beginner maybe I'll recommend 'The Magic Tree House' to you. As a fellow American you may have read this in school when you were younger as I did. They've translated 30+ of the books into Japanese and it provides a nice bit of vocabulary and grammar.

Don't have to take my word for it, or just disregard this in it's entirely.

When I first started, reading was completely useless to me, no matter how much I wanted to read. The hours I spent trying to read a couple of pages, could've been spent learning more vocabulary and grammar.

After I finished Genki 1 and had about 1k words, I moved onto songs for more vocabulary and reinforcement for the grammar I knew. Now I read manga, and get the gist of it, just mark down the words that pop up a lot so you can use a dictionary. However, I never stop learning plenty of words everyday! I'm really excited to start Genki 2 next week, I just have a very busy schedule at the moment so I'm just studying vocabulary for the time being.

When will it "click"...not anytime soon I'll tell you that.

TheVinster Wrote:I read a lot now but my output is still very weak. You can know a wide range of grammar and vocabulary and still be bad at Japanese. Even with your limited knowledge you should try to take a few of those grammar points or vocabulary words and maybe try to actively use it (maybe daily or whatever). For that Lang-8 is probably good and you can then ask people to maybe give you quick translations as to what you want to say.

Starting out reading is definitely tough. You'll spend an hour reading and accomplish almost nothing at first. Try to segment it over an entire day so it doesn't tire you out so much. Oftentimes I use to read around 3PM and I just became very sleepy because of the frustration... if that makes sense. If you do want to start out reading there are obviously lots of options but for a beginner maybe I'll recommend 'The Magic Tree House' to you. As a fellow American you may have read this in school when you were younger as I did. They've translated 30+ of the books into Japanese and it provides a nice bit of vocabulary and grammar.

So, when I read up in grammar points , should I just switch out words and make my own sentences? I wouldn't mind doing that.

Xanpakuto Wrote:After I finished Genki 1 and had about 1k words, I moved onto songs for more vocabulary and reinforcement for the grammar I knew. Now I read manga, and get the gist of it, just mark down the words that pop up a lot so you can use a dictionary. However, I never stop learning plenty of words everyday! I'm really excited to start Genki 2 next week, I just have a very busy schedule at the moment so I'm just studying vocabulary for the time being.

Holy, that's still a lot. I've read Genki 1 and still, my vocab is very small. I'm not very good at using anki every day. (I'm now just trying to get it in daily.)

Output is not some "magic spark" that comes after you know a certain number of words, or grammar points. Output is something that you must do right from the very beginning, whether you know 10 words, or 1000. Without output, you will never really be able to communicate in a foreign language properly, because output causes your thoughts in the foreign language to speed up, and leads to automaticity of language production, which is essential.

It's painful at first, and you may make many mistakes, but there really is nothing for it but to dive in and start.

Start with simple things you can talk about, and don't try anything too complicated. Then slowly work your way up.

MelonBerry Wrote:

TheVinster Wrote:I read a lot now but my output is still very weak. You can know a wide range of grammar and vocabulary and still be bad at Japanese. Even with your limited knowledge you should try to take a few of those grammar points or vocabulary words and maybe try to actively use it (maybe daily or whatever). For that Lang-8 is probably good and you can then ask people to maybe give you quick translations as to what you want to say.

Starting out reading is definitely tough. You'll spend an hour reading and accomplish almost nothing at first. Try to segment it over an entire day so it doesn't tire you out so much. Oftentimes I use to read around 3PM and I just became very sleepy because of the frustration... if that makes sense. If you do want to start out reading there are obviously lots of options but for a beginner maybe I'll recommend 'The Magic Tree House' to you. As a fellow American you may have read this in school when you were younger as I did. They've translated 30+ of the books into Japanese and it provides a nice bit of vocabulary and grammar.

So, when I read up in grammar points , should I just switch out words and make my own sentences? I wouldn't mind doing that.

Xanpakuto Wrote:After I finished Genki 1 and had about 1k words, I moved onto songs for more vocabulary and reinforcement for the grammar I knew. Now I read manga, and get the gist of it, just mark down the words that pop up a lot so you can use a dictionary. However, I never stop learning plenty of words everyday! I'm really excited to start Genki 2 next week, I just have a very busy schedule at the moment so I'm just studying vocabulary for the time being.

Holy, that's still a lot. I've read Genki 1 and still, my vocab is very small. I'm not very good at using anki every day. (I'm now just trying to get it in daily.)

When you look up grammar points, no you absolutely do not switch out words and make your own sentences (yet), you must absorb it more. This will make you create unnatural sentences.

I would try to make a little schedule on how many words you add a day, start small and keep going up until you have a breakpoint where it would be too much of a struggle to continue. On my peak days I do 100+ words a day, bare minimum amount of words learnt a day is 50. This makes anki very important, unless of course you will be reading native material all the time reinforcing it that way.

Quote:When you look up grammar points, no you absolutely do not switch out words and make your own sentences (yet), you must absorb it more. This will make you create unnatural sentences.

You're currently going through the Genki textbooks. How do you know whether this is true or not?

Making unnatural sentences do not cause any sort of irreversible damage.

Xanpakuto Wrote:When you look up grammar points, no you absolutely do not switch out words and make your own sentences (yet), you must absorb it more. This will make you create unnatural sentences.

That depends, really though. Textbooks often provide sentence patterns along with a selection of words and invite you to switch them in and out. You can certainly do it in that case and be assured that you're creating correct sentences.

You can also easily switch and out certain classes of words - colors, size adjectives, simple nouns that describe everyday objects found on store shelves. It's not too hard to switch up colors and nouns in a sentence like 赤いスカーフを見せて下さい.

Where you get into trouble with simple substitution is really when you get into titles for people (president of a company, and organization, and a nation are not all the same word in Japanese), more abstract terms (relative means 'a person in the same extended family' towards people, and 'comparatively' when used for objects. Not the same word in Japanese).
You get the idea. Try not to use a word you haven't seen in a sentence in general, and -especially- don't use an unfamiliar word when you only have a one-word English equivalent that could be ambiguous.

When you're sure you have the right word, simple switching in sentence patterns is -usually- safe although some words do change with politeness levels.

There is an entire system of study around 'pattern sentences' or 文型 (ぶんけい), although it's not so popular anymore. I'm not sure why, I don't believe it's ineffective.

Stian Wrote:

Quote:When you look up grammar points, no you absolutely do not switch out words and make your own sentences (yet), you must absorb it more. This will make you create unnatural sentences.

You're currently going through the Genki textbooks. How do you know whether this is true or not?

Making unnatural sentences do not cause any sort of irreversible damage.

Corrections from native speakers. Well it's my own fault due to word choice. I know I'm in no position to give advice, I'm just stating the mistakes I made.

Xanpakuto Wrote:

Stian Wrote:

Quote:When you look up grammar points, no you absolutely do not switch out words and make your own sentences (yet), you must absorb it more. This will make you create unnatural sentences.

You're currently going through the Genki textbooks. How do you know whether this is true or not?

Making unnatural sentences do not cause any sort of irreversible damage.

Corrections from native speakers. Well it's my own fault due to word choice. I know I'm in no position to give advice, I'm just stating the mistakes I made.

It's still good to make mistakes. To me personally after addressing the issue it engraves the associated words and grammar even moreso into my mind. Also, OP can use Lang-8 and easily get corrections on any sentences that may be of concern. How will you grow without trying to step outside the boundaries of your limitations?

I would use lang-8 more; but like I said previous in my first post, I have a hard time of thinking of words/sentences or even forming one. I'll post journals that do involve the word swapping though.

I've been making mistakes for months for the "first couple months of studying." Not real study, only just mistakes on figuring out how to learn this language. Now I'm trying to limit the mistakes, it's quite impossible for there to be no mistakes to be made. I just like absorbing content, and than produce it. By all means no one has to follow me.

*Mistakes are needed to learn. Making mistakes are good ^^. But falling into mistakes are are avoidable is just plain stupid to me.

Xanpakuto Wrote:Now I'm trying to limit the mistakes, it's quite impossible for there to be no mistakes to be made. I just like absorbing content, and than produce it. By all means no one has to follow me.

*Mistakes are needed to learn. Making mistakes are good ^^. But falling into mistakes that are avoidable is just plain stupid to me.

This. There's no reason to output early on when it's not required. A select few just like to disagree with Khatz because they don't personally like him.

ryuudou Wrote:This. There's no reason to output early on when it's not required. A select few just like to disagree with Khatz because they don't personally like him.

Heh, I think its more the exact opposite. Plenty of people take his word at gospel without any thought of their own.

Anyway, the more you practice speaking the better at speaking you will be. Yes you will make more mistakes but they can still be repaired later, its not a problem.

NightSky Wrote:

ryuudou Wrote:This. There's no reason to output early on when it's not required. A select few just like to disagree with Khatz because they don't personally like him.

Heh, I think its more the exact opposite. Plenty of people take his word at gospel without any thought of their own.

Anyway, the more you practice speaking the better at speaking you will be. Yes you will make more mistakes but they can still be repaired later, its not a problem.

I have no idea who Khatz is, I speak purely from my own experience. My honest and personal opinion is that production, especially verbal production, is essential in language learning.

NightSky Wrote:

ryuudou Wrote:This. There's no reason to output early on when it's not required. A select few just like to disagree with Khatz because they don't personally like him.

Heh, I think its more the exact opposite. Plenty of people take his word at gospel without any thought of their own.

Anyway, the more you practice speaking the better at speaking you will be. Yes you will make more mistakes but they can still be repaired later, its not a problem.

This viewpoint has already been addressed. Mistakes are great, but falling into mistakes that are avoidable for an arbitrary "I feel like I'm doing more" feeling is nonsensical. Production can be practiced in your SRS, and there's no reason for a beginner to be speaking outside of the context of a session with a tutor. Your logic is common and is also the reason why people who have lived in countries for double digit years and still sound unnatural are relatively common too.

Furthermore output (writing and speaking), also known as production, are fundamentally products of recognition (can't produce what you haven't observed directly or indirectly). Not only is outputting early on outside of the context of study highly failure and bad-habit-instilling prone, but it offers less bang for you time in that passive vocabulary is much more important than active vocabulary in language.

Beginners shouldn't be misled. The reason OP "can't think in Japanese" is because his vocabulary is 100 words not because he's not practicing speaking. He should be reading to fix that and not running around doing the equivalent of OhaarrryouGOzaimaSU waTashi sumisu desu.

ryuudou Wrote:The reason OP "can't think in Japanese" is because his vocabulary is 100 words not because he's not practicing speaking. He should be reading to fix that and not running around doing the equivalent of OhaarrryouGOzaimaSU waTashi sumisu desu.

I have a large enough vocabulary (acquired entirely through reading) to comfortably pass the JLPT N2 and I can't think in Japanese either. How much more reading will it take to "fix that"?

Vempele Wrote:

ryuudou Wrote:The reason OP "can't think in Japanese" is because his vocabulary is 100 words not because he's not practicing speaking. He should be reading to fix that and not running around doing the equivalent of OhaarrryouGOzaimaSU waTashi sumisu desu.

I have a large enough vocabulary (acquired entirely through reading) to comfortably pass the JLPT N2 and I can't think in Japanese either. How much more reading will it take to "fix that"?

I'm in the same position as Vempele (having passed the N2 and reading a lot over the past year). I don't think it's definitive one way or the other as to the 2 sides that are being taken. Perhaps practicing speaking shouldn't be the forefront of OP's studying but I think it's fine if there's extra time that needs to be filled. Nobody is saying for OP to go into public and be all weeaboo about it. I agree that reading is very important.

But we're all different and whatever works should be practiced. When I think about how I got to the proficiency that I'm at it was at first a jumbled mess of bad ideas and wasted time trying to find a personal strategy.

First of all, this thread was pretty good. If you're gonna argue, do everyone a solid and have a sense of humor about it.

In retrospect, I think the idea of beginners practicing too early leading to them falling into bad habits is a load of arse gravy.

The other canard of being able to input your way into speaking like a native... similarly foul grundle-curry.

I am a firm believer in the tenets of AJATT being a very effective way for SOME people to learn languages. So this is not coming from a hater. This is coming from someone who used that man's method to something pretty close to fluency... I can speak comfortablely in Japanese now. But there are holes in his system that one needs to beware of.

Beginning production is a messy messy business and god bless whoever is willing to put up with you and interact with you during that time because they have a gift of patience.
It doesn't matter when you do it... you will suck and continue to suck for a long time, so you may as well start as soon as you feel comfortable in my opinion.

Vempele Wrote:

ryuudou Wrote:The reason OP "can't think in Japanese" is because his vocabulary is 100 words not because he's not practicing speaking. He should be reading to fix that and not running around doing the equivalent of OhaarrryouGOzaimaSU waTashi sumisu desu.

I have a large enough vocabulary (acquired entirely through reading) to comfortably pass the JLPT N2 and I can't think in Japanese either. How much more reading will it take to "fix that"?

( I don't want to be the person to point this out but I'm not a guy so..using male pronouns is kind of weird.)
Anyways; I'm aware that my limited vocabulary is what's the cause. And to be honest; no , I don't have any intention of speaking verbally to someone. I have no plans in my head to go to Japan(atm) or whatsoever, and this whole question arose because someone started talking to me in very basic Japanese. And, while I could understand it fine, I felt weird that I couldn't come up with a reply.

Yeah, but um, back onto the real topic. Could I get some suggestions? I'm going through "Dictionary Of Basic Japanese Grammar" little by little, but how should I be using 'production' with it? The page has the term, English equivalents and example sentences. Should I be writing these all out by hand and hope that when I read more, I'll come across it? (To have it really re-enforce in my head.) Which leads me to this, what should I be reading? I have a few raw manga downloaded; along with light novels and visual novels as well. (Yotsubato!, Dragon Ball Z, To Love Ru, Crayon Shin-Chan, Doraemon, Oreimo, Hotch Kiss, ect.) Should I be reading things such as novels? Or childrens books and simple manga? Yotsubato is pretty easy, sometimes I'll come across a few things I won't know, but it's nothing I can't guess form context. My main challenge right now is actually with Doraemon/DBZ/ect and the kanji. I never did RTK; tried many times but just couldn't do it. Doing the core 2k/6k deck and writing the vocabulary out , I've been hoping that I can pick the Kanji up as I go.

When reading; what do most people do? (Let's make To Love Ru an example); I'll read a few pages first; go back; write/type all the sentences out and then try to pick out what I don't understand. Using an online dictionary; I'll find the unknown words. After, I'll try to have it make sense in my head. Which.. can get pretty boring and dull after a while. But that's apart of learning, yes?

And sorry for the long post. The majority of you guys here all seem so smart and I just feel, well, dumb that I can't figure everything out.

MelonBerry Wrote:And sorry for the long post. The majority of you guys here all seem so smart and I just feel, well, dumb that I can't figure everything out.

I think this is one of the key problems with online forums. There ARE a lot of smart and successful self studiers on this forum, however in the same breath you should be willing to take it all as a grain of salt. Not in a nasty way, it's just that if you get caught up feeling stupid and looking at the more "fluent" people, you're going to be forever trying to emulate instead of progress.

Your current study plan might be frustrating, but honestly, try keeping at it for another solid six months and if you haven't really noticed any differences in your language proficiency, then I would start to worry about it.

Output is messy, and does take a while to get used to. Novels, manga- any native media intended for native consumption- regardless of your perceived level of understanding, is going to take time to get used to, and it will likely be very frustrating at some point, for different reasons. There are a myriad of different approaches but the one aspect present in each one is at the end of the day, it involves interacting with the media of choice.

MelonBerry Wrote:

Vempele Wrote:

ryuudou Wrote:The reason OP "can't think in Japanese" is because his vocabulary is 100 words not because he's not practicing speaking. He should be reading to fix that and not running around doing the equivalent of OhaarrryouGOzaimaSU waTashi sumisu desu.

I have a large enough vocabulary (acquired entirely through reading) to comfortably pass the JLPT N2 and I can't think in Japanese either. How much more reading will it take to "fix that"?

( I don't want to be the person to point this out but I'm not a guy so..using male pronouns is kind of weird.)
Anyways; I'm aware that my limited vocabulary is what's the cause. And to be honest; no , I don't have any intention of speaking verbally to someone. I have no plans in my head to go to Japan(atm) or whatsoever, and this whole question arose because someone started talking to me in very basic Japanese. And, while I could understand it fine, I felt weird that I couldn't come up with a reply.

Yeah, but um, back onto the real topic. Could I get some suggestions? I'm going through "Dictionary Of Basic Japanese Grammar" little by little, but how should I be using 'production' with it? The page has the term, English equivalents and example sentences. Should I be writing these all out by hand and hope that when I read more, I'll come across it? (To have it really re-enforce in my head.) Which leads me to this, what should I be reading? I have a few raw manga downloaded; along with light novels and visual novels as well. (Yotsubato!, Dragon Ball Z, To Love Ru, Crayon Shin-Chan, Doraemon, Oreimo, Hotch Kiss, ect.) Should I be reading things such as novels? Or childrens books and simple manga? Yotsubato is pretty easy, sometimes I'll come across a few things I won't know, but it's nothing I can't guess form context. My main challenge right now is actually with Doraemon/DBZ/ect and the kanji. I never did RTK; tried many times but just couldn't do it. Doing the core 2k/6k deck and writing the vocabulary out , I've been hoping that I can pick the Kanji up as I go.

When reading; what do most people do? (Let's make To Love Ru an example); I'll read a few pages first; go back; write/type all the sentences out and then try to pick out what I don't understand. Using an online dictionary; I'll find the unknown words. After, I'll try to have it make sense in my head. Which.. can get pretty boring and dull after a while. But that's apart of learning, yes?

And sorry for the long post. The majority of you guys here all seem so smart and I just feel, well, dumb that I can't figure everything out.

Do RTK-lite while you finish DoBJG since you already started it.

http://www.supermemo.com/articles/20rules.htm indicates that you shouldn't be trying to learn words when you don't understand kanji, so it's up to you if you want to trade that efficiency away. There's a production-style deck for DoBJG by uisukki, but when you SRS vocab/sentences later on I recommend recognition-style for that.