I completed RTK. I read the BASIC Tae Kim Guide. I searched for many methods. After tons and tons of experimenting I found a perfect match for me. Can this work in the long run? . Can you guys give any comments? What am I doing wrong?

I use MAINLY JapanesePod101 (Nihongo Dojo Series)[~Three Lessons/Day] + Tae Kim (Reference). Sometimes I use my Textfugu too. Here is what I do. I am repeating that I atleast did the Basic Tae Kim before starting all of this.

WHAT I DO :

1. Lets suppose I am at Beginner Season 4 , and planning to do chapter 43/44/45. I go here http://www.japanesepod101.com/japanesepo...urriculum/ , check what is going to be taught in 43/44/45. Here its 'Potential Form'.

2. The next day, I go to Tae Kim, read the contents of ONLY the 'Potential Form', and listen to 3 lessons (while commuting) , then listen to the 'Dialog' once again.

3. Then I SRS all the new Vocab & Phrases (without the grammar) to Anki, at home. I add average of 30 words/day using Rikaisama. I only do recognition. Is it alright? I do from KANJI-> Hiragana & English Meaning. I also am stubborn to do EVERYTHING in Kanji, even those which are not commonly used.

4. After a small break I repeat step 1. for the next day and that's it for a day. It takes about 2 hours to read the grammar and internalize it, listen to audios and Add to vocab. Another 1.5 hours for my Anki Reviews. So about 3.5 hours each day. On the semester exams (like 20 days an year) , I stop listening to new Audio and just do reviews.

5. I spend 5-10 minutes reading "Making Sense Of Japanese Grammer" . Though this book is for Intermediates, I quite like it.

5. After completing each season ( I have completed 3 so far) , I review the grammar points + extras from Tae Kim. So I have a mix of Essential Grammar and Special Expressions. The lessons also review content from time to time, but its more of a "Hey, remember,I taught you this. Now onto the next topic...."

I figured that there are 1020 lessons in JapanesePod which takes people to at least Intermediate, if not Upper Intermediate, in terms of Grammar and maybe Vocab. [Nihongo Dojo + Intermediate + Advanced Audio Blogs]. So I would take about an year to complete them all.

Also I add 30 words/day. I only add 'counters' and not their application if you were wondering. Like I would add 歳 only and not 1歳 2歳 3歳 sand so on. A different pronunciation is an exception like in case of 20歳 (hatachi) [Sorry for Roumaji] In an year from now, I would probably have 10000 words in 'passive' vocab which might rival the Core 10k decks.

The main benefit of listening is that after hearing the words so many times during the course of the lesson, I could retain the pronunciation and meaning for 1-2 days, enough to begin the SRS, which is the hardest part imo.


WHAT I DONT DO :

1. SRS sentences for grammar.
2. Watch anything in Japanese.
3. Do Vocab "Lists". Doing Vocab without context doesn't resonate with me.
Whenever I see an unfamiliar word, I try to recall which lessons was it present in, and boom I imagine the scene happening. I remember exactle what was happening, how the characters would have reacted, and the meaning automatically comes to me.
4. Like AJATT's Kaz said, immerse yourself and do not read grammar. I think it is, pardon my language, BULLSHIT. I live with Chinese people. They speak chinese. I did not pick it up (Or, maybe I am just dumb... ).

Please suggest some changes if applicable.

Naturally, no one can confirm that your way of studying is 'right' and anyone that does is full of it.

You forgot to give the most important piece of information: is what you are currently doing helping? Can you understand more (native) Japanese than you could a month ago? Six months ago? Do you feel like you're going around in circles, or is progress steady and efficient?
From that you should be able to work out perfectly well if what you're doing is 'right' for you.

(and just because I can't help it: you've misunderstood what AJATT actually advocates, which is using your immersion environment to find sentences that you can put into your SRS, which is perfectly reasonable. Not to say that there's no bullshit on AJATT, but it's not just a magic-osmosis method of doing things (though the same might not be able to said for Neutrino or whatever snake oil he's selling these days))

There are lots of ways to learn Japanese. Nothing in what you're doing seems like it would be a waste of time. If it feels like it's working for you it probably is.

I do prefer flashcards that have context sentences, personally. Not having a context makes the cards quicker, certainly, but a usage example gives a stronger sense of, well, how to use the word. (There is a pitfall that you're already avoiding, in that standalone words can be learned with the wrong meaning if the English translation can be interpreted more than one way. Since you're learning the words in context first and then adding them, that's not really a concern unless you completely forget the original context you learned them in.) Some people prefer strongly to have the context sentence on the back of the card so that they won't learn pick up on cues other than the word itself, but I haven't found that to be a problem and like my sentence on the front. I do prefer short example sentences that don't give away the meaning of the word (and don't take too long to read when trying to flip through cards quickly!)

One of my card fronts looks like,
聴衆は演説者を罵声を浴びせた

I have to type in ばせい - I find requiring a typed answer helps ensure exactness in learning the mora of the word and no sloppiness with long/short vowels etc. The back tells me that the sentence means 'The audience booed (hissed / jeered at) the speaker', and that the word means '(n) boos; jeers'

This sentence shows the context of the word nicely. It doesn't give away the meaning of the word entirely ("The audience _ the speaker" could be lots of things. Even with 浴びせた giving away a bit, it still could mean quite a few things.) That's a pretty decent example of my preferred kind of context sentence.

As I mentioned, some others would put the word alone on the front and the sentence on the back.

I also have a kana card for every word, so the same Anki 'note' also creates another card,
聴衆は演説者をばせいを浴びせた

I find that it really helps when encountering a word without kanji (whether in audio or spelled in kana) if I've studied the word in the kana->meaning format.

Anyway, it's something for you to consider.

I think you should also take a look at https://www.erin.ne.jp/ , which is a site that provides video skits for learning from (and some other learning materials around those skits). The grammar instruction is pretty weak, but it makes a good supplement to a textbook course (or Tae Kim as the case seems to be).

You could also consider picking up a cheap used copy of Genki or Minna no Nihongo; I like the Tae Kim site and went through it after Minna and learned a lot, not really because anything was missing in Minna, but just from having it explained a different way some things that had been vague became clear. On the other hand, some things may be clearer from the traditional textbook explanation, and in any case textbooks (at least Genki and Minna) have sample dialogues and companion CDs so that you can listen to as well as read the dialogues. They are kind of dull and artificial naturally (textbooks have a limited vocabulary to work within to remain beginner-friendly, after all, and they want to provide examples that look like the real world so they are often about very ordinary mundane things.) However they are useful for practicing Japanese in context.

manman2a Wrote:I completed RTK. I read the BASIC Tae Kim Guide. I searched for many methods. After tons and tons of experimenting I found a perfect match for me. Can this work in the long run? . Can you guys give any comments? What am I doing wrong?

I use MAINLY JapanesePod101 (Nihongo Dojo Series)[~Three Lessons/Day] +(...).

Using J-Pod 101 definitely counts as "doing something wrong", at least in my book. My advice regarding that "study method" would be: run as fast as you can, as far as you can. (Away from it, that is...) Before you end up paying for faulty material and wasting lots of time trying to get their support staff to correct the many mistakes in the material and to answer any questions you might (and probably *will*...) have. That's my opinion, at least.

I have found their "lessons" to be riddled with mistakes. They even admit to how many things they did wrong in the great many posts on their own site where they apologize every time they have had to correct things after being called on it by users. Assuming they even bother to respond to the many requests for correction or clarification made by many users through the years, that is. It doesn't even seem to bother them that their comment sections provide an archive of all their many mistakes and instances of being unhelpful or unresponsive through the years. Perhaps some day all the many examples listed there will be used in a textbook called "How NOT to bother with customer satisfaction".

Even basic stuff like synchronizing the numbering of sentences between the English/Kanji+kana/romaji sections is something they very often got wrong. (Not to imply that their grammar points, English translations and kana transcriptions were any better, which unfortunately they weren't.) At least in the First Beginners Season, or whatever they called it, which I tried to make use of for about two months after which I applied for a refund. Perhaps later seasons are of a better quality, but them not even bothering to get the very first season they offer on their website right did not seem to bode well at all, I felt.

Adding insult to injury, I found their staff to be extremely unhelpful and grouchy while their command of the English language was often painfully lacking as well. Even the fact that I was a "paying customer" who had coughed up two years' worth of subscription fees in advance did not exempt me from the oft-given answer "that they weren't giving anything away". Apparently doing the job they're paid to do counts as "giving something away", at least in the worldview of JP-101's support staff. Well, as a result of their attitude they ended up "giving away" the first two months of their "services" (for lack of a better word) to me, since I applied just in time for a full refund (even though I had offered that they could keep the first two months' worth of the fees I paid in advance, since they had invested some time in attempting to answer some of my questions). Perhaps the most galling example of their attitude was their claim that their site (or at least the first "Season" on it) wasn't really about learning Japanese at all, but merely about providing "funny conversations in Japanese". This went directly against the commercial claims on their websites about studying Japanese and "getting you ready for the JLPT".

My experiences with JP-101 gave me a whole new appreciation for "boring traditional grammar books". Investing a modest amount of time into slicing one of those grammar books up into practical sentence fragments and organizing these into theme-based Anki-sets (like basic grammar, verb conjugation, kinship terms, personal pronouns, phrases, particles, ko-so-a-do words) turned out to be really worth my while. Not only did I find that I started to recognize many grammatical aspects from spoken Japanese as a result, but using Anki-web made it possible to review these grammatical sentence fragments on my smartphone "on the go" just as easily (if not more so) as material made available by commercial websites.

As for the rest of your method, I agree with most of the other posters: if it works for you in terms of increasing your command of Japanese, then it must at least be *a* useful way of studying Japanese for you.

I mainly use JapanesePod101 for
1. Listening Practice (Its a bit slower than native. But that's how I learned English.)
2. Grammar (Just Enough to get me started)
3. Vocabulary in Context.
4. Fun. The Voice Acting is pretty good, and you get emotionally attached to the characters. I literally felt butterflies, when *Spoiler* Miyu's Father kind of accepted Haruya in his own 'Tsundere' Way *Spoilers*. I am able to get a basic 'Gist' of what's happening in several Japanese movies and differentiate the sounds, so I think its progress from can't even differentiate the sounds.

Can anyone here confirm Eminem2's Views? Thank You.

@Eminem2 : Well when I tried JPOD101 first (before RTK) the first season had a lot of mistakes (as evident from comments) So I dropped it., but now , they have an improved curriculum (at least I thing think that) . It's "Nihongo Dojo" and I have yet to encounter any mistakes. And the hosts are really NOT annoying. And IMO it's better than Beginner Season 1.

Can you give any example that comes to your mind for the mistakes?

I don't use learning center and all (they are a gimmick imo), only the Podcasts and Lesson Transcript (to make Automatic Flashcards. This is the best thing. I could make quality anki flash cards in 1 minute/lesson!) . Are they at least 80% correct? In my experience with other languages, no resource is ever 100% correct, (also language keeps on evolving, and is subjective) but that doesn't matter, until its more than 20% wrong (*cough* "Science for Christians 4"*cough*).

The Pdf Notes are not the greatest. But like I said, Tae Kim compensates for any problems.Although I use Tae Kim also and till now I haven't met any contradictions, If I meet, I'll try to ask the here. For Grammar I am planning TextFugu too after it is reworked.
Well their translations are 'non-literal'. They give you the literal meaning the first time, then just use the non-literal ones from there on. I think its clever.

Backup Plan - After I have a basic grasp at grammar , I'll start reading 'Visual Novels' in Japanese and Anki the Vocab Words.

PS - Does anyone know a good book for practicing Japanese Grammar?

Regarding the concepts of active or passive listening used by immersion proponents, active listening is comprehension, passive listening is something you use to convince yourself you're studying Japanese all the time (placebo affect?). With successful comprehension the learner is either familiar with what he hears / has heard it before / or deliberately learned it at one point. Maybe a mix of entertaining input and purposeful learning would work for you (immersion is more like a motivational technique to keep you constantly semi-engaged with the language and never back out, at any time/second in your life -- a bit hyped but that's what makes the idea appealing. Immersion is awesome, experiencing Japanese is exhilarating, etc. All a part of the "AJATT mindset". You have to experience Japanese culture to truly love the language.)

Whatever methods you apply they're merely means to become "fluent".
From a more hollistic point of view the means should not be used merely to reach an end, the means should be enjoyable and would make you want to use them, just because (immersion). If you prefer a purely structured foundation over arbitrary fun experiences I'm sure there's a way to mix the two. Perhaps by listening to fairly enjoyable input frequently and consistently reviewing the fundamentals of the language, gradually building upon current skills and knowledge.

@manman2a

Well, it's good to hear that at least 1 later season of J-Pod101 is of a better quality than their very first. Still, the fact that their "Founder" Peter Galante was so heavily involved with exactly that first season hardly inspires confidence. Only if everyone involved in that first season had been given the boot, would I have considered giving their other seasons a chance.

I guess using their lessons as listening practice can't hurt. They certainly did include "slow" readings to make it easier to follow the spoken text. It's just when it came to transcribing the spoken text to kana and translating said text into acceptable English, that mistakes started to abound. I mean, when the English is so bad that you find yourself *guessing* what they're trying to express then you know you've come to the wrong place.

An example of a mistake I encountered back then? Aside from the many incorrect kana-transcriptions that were reported by other users, there is one thing that comes to mind. In the Japanese version of the phrase "quiet and convenient" (about the location of a house) they translated "quiet" in its て-form, so I guess as 静かて. In the grammar section they specifically commented that て was used here as a particle that denoted "a weak causal relationship". When I asked if this meant that the intended meaning was more like "quiet and therefore convenient" this was (after they discussed it with the rest of their team, so the answer wasn't very quick in coming) more or less acknowledged, while they grudgingly added that て wasn't actually a particle but that it was there to turn "quiet/静か" into its て-form. So, not only was て incorrectly labeled a particle here, but the translation "quiet and convenient" was misleading, since it should have read something like "quiet and therefore convenient".

As for your question about how much of what they post is correct (80% or 20% by way of extreme examples), I very much fear that they don't come close to 80%. Based on how often they had already admitted to having made mistakes in the comment sections (and how often they simply avoided answering questions that might have prompted them to make even more corrections), not to mention how often they made further corrections in response to my questions, I would be surprised if they got more than 50% right in that first Beginners Season. I personally find any score below 95% to be unacceptable in a commercial learning aid (that claims to have been made by no less than professional "translation and interpretation specialists", as Peter Galante always plugged that firm at the end of each lesson).

A different kind of "mistake" I remember encountering, is that far too often quite a few of the words that were "highlighted" in the audio lesson were simply missing in both the PDF and the flash cards. And while the support team would often add these to the PDF when requested, expanding the audio flashcards was not an option.

And last but not least: the so-called "Kanji Close-ups" that did nothing more than just list the translation of the component Kanji. I mean, these were little more than straight-up vocab lists. So what exactly did the "Close-Up" part entail?

@Aspiring : It has complete opposite affect on me ;_; . I used to watch anime subbed. After starting this plan, I can kind of understand the whole overview of the plot without the subs and recognize common expressions, but it just reminds me I have a REALLY long way to go. (It has been only 4months RTK + 27 days). Yes bit I listen to music. it is the only thing that doesn't give me complex.

@Eminem2 : Just so you do not get the wrong impression, I am not saying that JapanesePod101.com, 'The Site', is not flawed. The flash card system may be laughable and the constant spams and cheap self publicizing all are annoying. But I am definitely saying that 'JapanesePod101', 'The Podcast ', works for me and the lessons are great so far.
Well, Peter is also involved with 3/6 seasons of Nihongo Dojo. I like his (fake?) personality. He lightens up the mood and acts as a great student, making mistakes on purpose. Sometimes I do feel he's 'just there' to tell anecdotes and prevent the lessons from getting monotonous.
I use Rikai's automatic transcription, so incorrect transcription is not a problem for me. Nevertheless, I have only once encountered incorrect transcriptions while reading their Lesson Notes.

A side note -The new series,Nihongo Dojo, actually explained your doubt in detail. There was a episode which goes like this:
Lesson 21, Newbie Season 3 -> Nihongo Dojo 2
この階段は 長くて 有名 ですよ。
(This stairway is long and (therefore it's) famous.)
In this sentence 長い is the reason for the following 有名. In some sentences where adjective are combined, the first clause ending in the te -form of an adjective indicates a reason for the following clause.

(That should be 静かで, by the way.)

Any -te form can act as a weak causal relationship, but doesn't have to. It depends on the context.

Aspiring Wrote:Regarding the concepts of active or passive listening used by immersion proponents, active listening is comprehension, passive listening is something you use to convince yourself you're studying Japanese all the time (placebo affect?).

Ha. This.

[Zgarbas]

i can't watch unsubbed anime. Usually the audio is too uneven (explosions too loud and voice too soft), my speakers suck, and i don't like havibg to focus to catch all the fast speech or made-up jargon. I mean sure, if i'm at the movies it can't be helped, but even if i watch english movies I prefer subtitles/captions (i went to see edge of tomorrow and the audio was so annoying to keep up with that i just read the Japanese subtitles)... It's not a matter of fluency, per se, but of engagement and focus, and I prefer enjoying my media rather than trudging through it; that being said, I notice when subs are wrong quite often, so it's a listening/reading combo for me. I'm not saying that passively listening to anime was what got me to my level, but it must have played some sort of role as i never did listening exercises, didn't listen to much j-music etc but never had problems with listening irl.
My time studying was 50% flashcards and textboiks and 50% watching subbed anime to enjoy myself whilst not feeling guilty since it counted as studying; it made my study experience more pleasant, and though not my direct source of study material it was a vital part of the journey.

yudantaiteki Wrote:(That should be 静かで, by the way.)

Any -te form can act as a weak causal relationship, but doesn't have to. It depends on the context.

Interesting. I didn't know that. I've mostly studied て-forms of verbs. Do て-forms of adverbs/adjectives always appear as で, or is there a rule that decides (for adverbs, I do know for verbs) when they appear as で?

manman2a Wrote:@Eminem2 : Just so you do not get the wrong impression, I am not saying that JapanesePod101.com, 'The Site', is not flawed. The flash card system may be laughable and the constant spams and cheap self publicizing all are annoying. But I am definitely saying that 'JapanesePod101', 'The Podcast ', works for me and the lessons are great so far.
Well, Peter is also involved with 3/6 seasons of Nihongo Dojo. I like his (fake?) personality. He lightens up the mood and acts as a great student, making mistakes on purpose. Sometimes I do feel he's 'just there' to tell anecdotes and prevent the lessons from getting monotonous.

If you feel that just the audio pods are worth the price, then it sounds like a really good idea for you to continue making use of them. I'm just glad that you're aware of the many weaknesses of the other aspects of their site.

manman2a Wrote:A side note -The new series,Nihongo Dojo, actually explained your doubt in detail. There was a episode which goes like this:
Lesson 21, Newbie Season 3 -> Nihongo Dojo 2
この階段は 長くて 有名 ですよ。
(This stairway is long and (therefore it's) famous.)
In this sentence 長い is the reason for the following 有名. In some sentences where adjective are combined, the first clause ending in the te -form of an adjective indicates a reason for the following clause.

Interesting. Would you always translate the causality, or simply leave it out as they originally did with my example?

Eminem2 Wrote:Interesting. I didn't know that. I've mostly studied て-forms of verbs. Do て-forms of adverbs/adjectives always appear as で, or is there a rule that decides (for adverbs, I do know for verbs) when they appear as で?

http://www.punipunijapan.com/te-form-adjectives/

Basically na-adj are like nouns, which means when used (actualized) a form of the copula です/だ should be present, and the continuative form of the copula is で (and with na-adj the copula becomes な before nouns: 静かだ > 静かな人).

EratiK Wrote:Basically na-adj are like nouns, which means when used (actualized) a form of the copula です/だ should be present, and the continuative form of the copula is で (and with na-adj the copula becomes な before nouns: 静かだ > 静かな人).

Ah, I see. Now that you mention it, I do remember encountering a flash card just yesterday about the て-form of です being で (or でして in really formal writing). So that would mean that で more or less *is* a particle here after all? Or at least not technically part of 静か in this context?

Eminem2 Wrote:Ah, I see. Now that you mention it, I do remember encountering a flash card just yesterday about the て-form of です being で (or でして in really formal writing). So that would mean that で more or less *is* a particle here after all? Or at least not technically part of 静か in this context?

No to both. A particle is an invariable word you add to assign a specific grammatical function. Here the na-adj can't exist without being conjugated (and its conjugation is based on the copula's). It's more like a special use of "be" that has been aggregated into the morphology.

EratiK Wrote:

Eminem2 Wrote:Ah, I see. Now that you mention it, I do remember encountering a flash card just yesterday about the て-form of です being で (or でして in really formal writing). So that would mean that で more or less *is* a particle here after all? Or at least not technically part of 静か in this context?

No to both. A particle is an invariable word you add to assign a specific grammatical function. Here the na-adj can't exist without being conjugated (and its conjugation is based on the copula's). It's more like a special use of "be" that has been aggregated into the morphology.

I think I get it now. Thanks for your replies!