If you actually make it through this wall of text and help me out, thank you so much. If you aren't willing to read everything (which is entirely okay with me), you can just read the first part of this and skip to the bottom of the post.

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Hi everyone, I've been studying Japanese for about six months now and I need some advice or help with how I should be studying Japanese. Perhaps, it's not really that I need help with studying, but rather how to improve and comprehend better. I've started to become really frustrated with my inability to understand grammar no matter how hard I try... Honestly, I'm not particularly worried about vocabulary or kanji since they can be memorized with time. I've done a lot of research on study methods and I'm still unsure as to what's the best method for me personally.

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This is what I've currently been doing:

*'d entries are reoccurring resources that I've notice in researching.

*Core 2k/6k (50 words a day, I hit my first 1000 tomorrow): I actually don't remember how many cards a day I started with when I found 2k/6k.

*Lang-8: I try to post and learn from my grammar mistakes here, but it's tough.

*Tae Kim's Grammar Guide: This is more or less self explanatory I think. I read the grammar points and then practice them.

*RTK 1: This is currently on hold, but will start it again shortly after first 1000 words. I've only learned 86 kanji so far. I decided that it would be better to finish RTK or at least do a good amount of it before I speed through the rest of vocabulary because it's starting to get harder to visually memorize the kanji.

*Listening to Japanese: I don't listen to anything, but Japanese music, so I've been doing this for years already. Recently, I've started listening to podcasts when I'm doing daily chores or before bed. I'm not really at the level that I can understand anything, but I try to pick up things I do know and if I don't I try to repeat what is being said as fast as I can to improve my listening skills.

*Clozed Sentences/MCD: Okay, this one is a bit iffy because I don't really understand the concept behind these or if I'm even doing them correctly for that matter. Basically, what I'M doing is taking sentences (that have English translations) and on the back of my cards, I put definitions, grammar points, and the reading. I'm at a loss for how the clozed part helps me because, I end up memorizing what the sentence is anyways... It does help with learning new words, what contexts the words should be placed in, and grammar, but it's hard to find sentences on my level, so I tend to have a ton of notes on the back of my cards...

*Subs2SRS/Sentences: I figured out how to do this recently so I haven't done much, but I have my card templates and an idea of how I'll be doing this ready to go. Basically I just try to understand the sentence. This one is kind of in the same boat as Clozed Sentences/MCD though... My cards are setup so that I have grammar points, definitions, and the English translation on the back. (and since most of them aren't on my level, there's tons of notes on the back)

Skype/LINE Chat with Natives: This is somewhat similar to Lang-8, but I don't really like to count this as studying sometimes, however it does help with grammar and with getting my brain up to speed with trying to create sentences.

Niconico Broadcasting: I don't do this as much as I used to in the beginning, but basically, I broadcast while studying and I try to interact with the natives I guess.


Things I plan to do:

Anime/Dramas w/ Subs Off: This is for listening skills mainly.
Play Imported Games w/o Walkthroughs: This is for reading and listening skills mainly.
Talk to more natives: This is for sentence construction and grammar.
Find things to read: This is for reading skills mainly.

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When it comes down to it though, I just really have a hard time with grammar. I misuse a lot of particles, conjugations, and even words. When I'm reading, I sometimes know basically every word in the sentence, but because of my comprehension, they just stay as words. How should I be studying and practicing grammar? Do you have any recommendations on study resources or methods? I'm not asking for freebies, I know there isn't going to be an end all magic resource or method, I'm willing to work hard, but what I'm doing definitely isn't working.

I think I'm probably doing MCDs/Sentences wrong though so if you can fill me in on how I should be doing them or give me an example deck that'd be great. The other problem I have this is where I should be getting the sentences from. I mean, I'm not at the point where I can do it without translations and a lot of material is still a bit too complicated for me.

That's all I can think about for now, I'll probably think of other things to ask if any of you reply, but I really have a lot on my mind with Japanese right now. I'd just like to note that I'm homeschooled at the moment so all I do is study Japanese from morning until night.

I didn't read everything but definitely don't do MCDs. your japanese is not good enough. you can always start MCDs whenever you feel like it but right now is more a time-killer than helpful. as for examples use the search button

Alright, I'll stop doing MCDs for now, what do you think about sentences? Should I stop sentences as well for now or should I keep doing them? I'm going through the forums for some opinions on grammar at the moment. As for those examples, I had been going by this.

http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blo...d-examples

I think my next goal is probably to do most of RTK. I'll put my new vocab cards to a halt for awhile and focus on RTK/grammar.

Get someone who can explain Japanese grammar to you. A teacher, tutor, w/e. Online or IRL. Random person on Skype *may* be able to explain it, or they may be completely wrong. Find someone who has done it before and knows what they're doing.

That alone has saved me a ton of time, especially as I have gotten into upper intermediate/advanced stuff. I could look it up in 4 books and 3 websites, still not get it, then ask my tutor, and get it in 30 seconds.

Also, go read the Arcane Secrets thread by DrDunlap. Full of good advice.
http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=11247

Yaeha Wrote:I'm going through the forums for some opinions on grammar at the moment..

If I might be so bold, why not just study grammar? If that is the problem.

Core+MCDs+subs2srs? Choose one.
Personally I'm a subs2srs fan. But if you have a ton of notes on the back it's going to be painful. Ideally you just want one definition of something. Maybe two, if you expect one of the words to be repeated often or it's something you haven't fully internalised yet.
Also, what show you use is important. If the show is too hard and has too much new content per sentence it's not useful. Find something else. Heartcatch Precure is the easiest show I have in my subs2srs deck. If you like, here are the retimed subs from episodes 2-8.

I think that with subs2srs/sentences, grammar takes care of itself to a large extent. I've never seriously studied grammar, but I'll occasionally give a grammar book a scan and go 'oh, yeah, I knew that'.

And I agree with howtwosavealif3 on MCDs. I'm sure they're very useful, but I tried them at about the same level as you and it was awful.

Edit: Don't put vocabulary on hold for kanji! Vocabulary is far more important and there's a hell of a lot more of it that you need to learn, plus if you do your cards right you can pick up kanji by studying vocabulary anyway.

JunePin Wrote:If I might be so bold, why not just study grammar? If that is the problem.

It's more like... I'm not really understanding what I'm studying, which is really frustrating. This isn't even the kind of frustration where in school you have to study something you don't want to learn, but rather you study something you do want to learn, but you can't learn it!

@rich_f
I think I probably will have to find someone that can explain it to me at this rate! Also, Thank you for the article and advice!

@Aikynaro
Do you think it'd be bad to do both Core and subs2srs at the same time? On that topic though, I think I prefer SRS. Perhaps I'm trying to get too much out of one sentence? I guess I should try to understand the sentence without going too deep into it and just learn one thing at a time. I'll definitely drop MCDs though. Thanks for the subs also!

I've never done Core, but ... mm, well, it probably can't hurt to do them both at the same time if you have the time to do it.
Definitely aim for one thing at a time. I think it's even okay if you don't fully understand a sentence - if you're can get something from it, it's not a problem. You'll see the same grammar patterns a million times, so things that you don't understand to begin with will fall into place after you add more cards with the same elements.

Studying grammar is like reading about oil painting. Reading/Using grammar in a sentence is like practicing the actual painting itself. You see where I'm going here? They are two somewhat unrelated activities. You learn to understand grammar through thousands of examples in context. And in the beginning it's all really confusing and you have to just deal with it for a little while... and kind of fight your way through it using the simplest examples possible.

The best advice I have is to do cards with Japanese on the front and English sentences on the back, using sentences from dic.yahoo.jp. The point being to know what each word means and what the sentence means... and if you don't understand how the grammar works it's fine...later you will.

After about 1,000 cards of that, read Kanzen Master for N3 level grammar.

Then you should be good to go.

Get a textbook. Tae Kim is a good resource to look back on when you forget stuff, but I think it's a lot harder to understand the grammar explanations there compared with a good textbook. Maybe go with Genki?

Your personal learning style matters a lot here though. For example, dtcamero's advice about seeing it in context thousands of times would be bad advice for someone like myself--I definitely learn grammar through reading about it and thinking about it as a concept (or asking a tutor about it, as was suggested above). On the other hand, I'm still not very comfortable with grammar that I haven't really read about and I just learned through being around Japanese (I've lived in Japan for more than five years now so I've gotten lots of exposure).

@Aikynaro & @dtcamero
Thanks for the insight on sentences, you both seem to be pointing me in the same direction so I'll definitely try that with sentences. As far as sentences go, do either of you know anything about this deck?

https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/2032035930

I'll check out yahoo's dictionary though if this is no good.

@Tzadeck
I had read a lot about Genki and All About Particles recently. I was really considering All About Particles, but I wouldn't mind getting both if you recommend Genki as well. At first I thought Tae Kim's guide was all I needed to get started from other users, but I guess I'm just not suited to his guide as well as everyone else?

@Aikynaro
About the edit, I suppose I can just lower the amount of new vocab a day and do RTK at the same time. I'm sure I'll be learning a lot of vocab through subs2srs and sentences anyhow.

Anyways, thanks so much for all the advice everyone. Hopefully I can get this together and start understanding grammar. Other than that, I'm all ears for any general tips or resource recommendations.

He said he's gonna hit 1000 cards tomorrow, I just ask why not study grammar if he's having trouble with it. dtcamero throws out an Ajattism, then basically just says "after 1000 cards study some grammar" lmfao. Yes I agree with dtcamero!

JunePin Wrote:He said he's gonna hit 1000 cards tomorrow, I just ask why not study grammar if he's having trouble with it. dtcamero throws out an Ajattism, then basically just says "after 1000 cards study some grammar" lmfao. Yes I agree with dtcamero!

That's after 1000 sentence cards though, my 1000 cards are vocab cards. I'm not quite sure how long it'd take to do 1000 sentence cards, but I'll be dumping more time into that and RTK I suppose (Maybe 10 new vocab cards a day?). After that I can take a crack at grammar again, but Tae Kim, MCDs, and my current sentences are definitely not working for me.

Ah, well you said you often understood all the words in a sentence just not the meaning so I assumed you were doing sentences. I probably didn't read as well as I should have, my bad. Anyway I personally don't think it'd hurt to look up stuff that confuses you. I don't get the "never look stuff up, just deal with it" crowd. Why torture yourself? I take a mixed approach of studying, immersion, srs, anything that will help. I don't ascribe to any religious methods that shun something that might be useful. However, don't take my word for it, I'm not as good as many of the people here. So maybe I'm wrong.

You'll eventually figure out what works best for you, and you are asking people for help so that is a good sign.

Cheers.

If you're talking about the don't learn grammar, rather acquire it through context AJATTism, that actually wasn't the point of my post at all. Rather I was explaining how I think it's better to get some experience under your belt before studying grammar in order to have it make more sense.

The irony is that, in saying I was just quoting other people without thinking critically, you sir, have in your hasty overreaction, done exactly that with regard to other peoples' posts in this forum.
how very meta.

I regretted my post a few minutes after sending it but when I came back it was quoted so I refrained from editing it since it wouldn't matter. I get rather annoyed by the way ajatt uses the "you don't need to know quantum physics to chew bubble gum, thus never study grammar" strawman and I overreacted that was my bad.

Ah, I also assumed you were studying sentences already. If it's a vocabulary deck with just single words then sure - ditch it. I see subs2srs/sentences primarily as vocabulary study but with helpful side-effects.
If they're recognition cards, doing sentences should take about as long as single word vocabulary cards anyway.

Ha sure no sweat.
By the way that was far too mature of a reply for the internet. We should go back to talking about each other's mothers or something.

I'm sorry guys, I should have stated it better, especially since it was in the skip section. Sentence-wise, I really have only started subs2srs recently. I tried to start MCDs recently as well and that obviously wasn't a good idea. Sometimes I do recognize almost every word in a given sentence, but I can't put it together.

rich_f Wrote:Get someone who can explain Japanese grammar to you. A teacher, tutor, w/e. Online or IRL. Random person on Skype *may* be able to explain it, or they may be completely wrong. Find someone who has done it before and knows what they're doing.

That alone has saved me a ton of time, especially as I have gotten into upper intermediate/advanced stuff. I could look it up in 4 books and 3 websites, still not get it, then ask my tutor, and get it in 30 seconds.

This. I've recently begun working JLPT problems as well as just plain hard to understand sentences from novels and other materials to my iTalki teachers. They can usually explain things with simple examples and easy Japanese far more insighfully than any of my textbooks or JLPT guides.

Yaeha Wrote:Sometimes I do recognize almost every word in a given sentence, but I can't put it together.

You probably aren't splitting your Japanese time well. It sounds like your balance is way too Anki/study heavy right now.

Sorry for the late reply, my Anki study time is pretty heavy, but I do study grammar as well. I think I just have a hard time understanding how to use it versus reading about it/reading a native's sentence. I suppose there's no real answer besides practice and maybe finding something or someone to explain it better.

Aside from that, do you guys suggest I study the Core included sentences? How's the grammar and the translations? I look at them for context of the vocab, but I don't analyze them closely. I think SRS sentences are good, but I'll try dictionary sentences as well.

Yaeha Wrote:Sorry for the late reply, my Anki study time is pretty heavy, but I do study grammar as well.

Like tokyostyle said, if you know the words/grammar but can't put it together what you need is less of that study thing and more of that native material thing.

Core sentences do not offer much complexity. You'd be better off reading native sources.

Just to throw in my two cents, I was just about at your level not too long ago, maybe a little over half a year.

If i were at your current position

1. Quit RTK (I realized it didn't help me really, only thing it did was make me think in English more than I was reading)
2. Genki 1+2 then tobira/genki 3 or something.
3. If your still into 50 words a day, I like that, I would bring the core words down to 20 a day but get 30 words from native sources.
4. Don't do subs2srs without doing step 2
5. I never did MCD, but I'm considering trying it.

Bonus: if your made out of time
1. Watch dramas, variety shows, and more things that you enjoy everyday.
2. Pump up words learned per day to 100, it's what I did during the summer.
(100 core or have a mix of words from native resources)
3. Read 1-3 nhk easy articles a day
4. If you have the money, perhaps a private tutor.