Alright, I have a few questions in regards to my method of learning. I would like some input/advice! Please go easy on me.

Some background:
I completed RTK a few years ago and I still remember most of them, and the ones I don't remember come back to me as soon as I look them up again. When I was studying, I was reading Tae Kim's grammar guide (not religiously, only when I came upon a grammar point I did not understand), + studying the core decks and I got about halfway through before life happened and I had to move. My motivation to study plummeted.

Fast forward to now, I'm trying to get back into the rhythm of things because Japanese is a thing that has always been in the back of my mind and won't go away... like, "study meeeee" etc etc. I have absolutely no clue what my level is, probably upper level beginner. I can read a few hundred words, my listening is not too bad if the speaker isn't talking ridiculously fast. Damn I am being vague as hell, I'm sorry.

ANYWAY. My method as of right now is trying to go strictly J-J in my anki decks, using example sentences with a particular word or grammar point I'd like to learn. Now, being away for a while I don't know which site is reliable and which would be detrimental to my learning... I don't want to pick up bad habits. Right now I'm using Tatoeba for my sentences, and using weblio/sanseido/goo for my definition needs.

On the front side of the card is the sentence, and if I can read every word and understand the whole sentence, I count it as good. On the back side I'll have the definition of the word I'm trying to learn. This is where my issue begins! Quite often the word is a lot easier to understand than the definition. I'll have to look up the definition of the word in the definition, and sometimes it's an endless cycle of looking up... and I have no clue if learning these words is even worth the headache.

In addition to that, I'm listening to as much as I can; mostly mucking around on niconico and watching streamers, dramas, movies, youtube, podcasts, also looking up Japanese subs, as I don't use English subtitles anymore (I'm not really that big into anime, but I do every so often). I write down every sentence as part of my review process, not just because I feel it helps me remember, but I enjoy the process of writing. I also try to read them aloud, to try and get used to speaking.

Now, my questions are: Am I trying to make things too difficult on myself by doing it this way?

Is Tatoeba a reliable source for Japanese sentences? I've read mixed reviews, but it seems the most negative are from back in 2010.

If you are J-J only, how do you learn new words?

Any advice is appreciative.

If you're having that much trouble with the Japanese definitions, translating them might be a better approach. You could leave both in the deck, and transition back to using the Japanese definitions when that's appropriate.

I don't know anything about Tatoeba.

I think your approach is a very good one. My own tendency would be to put more stress on watching things with Japanese subtitles and not to be too rigid about J-J. I prefer J-J definitions myself but will use English ones where I need to (essentially in the kind of situation where you are saying "how do you learn the word"). One can learn words by continual exposure from different angles, but it is a slow process.

Having said that I don't use the sentences method and have concentrated largely on learning through Japanese subtitled anime. You seem to be using the AJATT sentences approach and that works well for a lot of people. I use essentially the "core 4 plus 1" approach which classically involves a lot of anime but there is really no reason it should be anime. Any Japanese material with Japanese subtitles will work the same way.

Your approach seems to mix this with the AJATT Anki method, which is good because finding your own mix of what works for you is the best way to go. No two people work in exactly the same way.

I really understand your determination to go 100% J-J and I wouldn't want to dissuade you. I currently use a more hybrid approach, but I fully accept that it is corner-cutting. If you do opt for 100% J-J at this stage then I think the way it works is like this. In other words, you won't know what everything means right away. You need considerable "tolerance of ambiguity" for this approach, which is probably what I lack.

Dreambox Wrote:On the front side of the card is the sentence, and if I can read every word and understand the whole sentence, I count it as good. On the back side I'll have the definition of the word I'm trying to learn. This is where my issue begins! Quite often the word is a lot easier to understand than the definition. I'll have to look up the definition of the word in the definition, and sometimes it's an endless cycle of looking up... and I have no clue if learning these words is even worth the headache.

This does seem to be the crux of your problem and I do think it's huge inefficiency. IMO you need to have the information you need available at a glance, so you don't have to look things up and look up your lookups. If you're using anki, I would consider a hint field that has the information you need to makes sense of the words - probably an english translation, or more than one example sentence. Whatever helps you to understand what you're reading without lookups is ideal.

CureDolly Wrote:I think your approach is a very good one. My own tendency would be to put more stress on watching things with Japanese subtitles and not to be too rigid about J-J. I prefer J-J definitions myself but will use English ones where I need to (essentially in the kind of situation where you are saying "how do you learn the word"). One can learn words by continual exposure from different angles, but it is a slow process.

Having said that I don't use the sentences method and have concentrated largely on learning through Japanese subtitled anime. You seem to be using the AJATT sentences approach and that works well for a lot of people. I use essentially the "core 4 plus 1" approach which classically involves a lot of anime but there is really no reason it should be anime. Any Japanese material with Japanese subtitles will work the same way.

Your approach seems to mix this with the AJATT Anki method, which is good because finding your own mix of what works for you is the best way to go. No two people work in exactly the same way.

I really understand your determination to go 100% J-J and I wouldn't want to dissuade you. I currently use a more hybrid approach, but I fully accept that it is corner-cutting. If you do opt for 100% J-J at this stage then I think the way it works is like this. In other words, you won't know what everything means right away. You need considerable "tolerance of ambiguity" for this approach, which is probably what I lack.

Thank you for the insight! Your links are extremely helpful to me.

Dreambox Wrote:Is Tatoeba a reliable source for Japanese sentences? I've read mixed reviews, but it seems the most negative are from back in 2010.

The problem with Tatoeba's japanese sentences is that it contains the entirety of the Tanaka Corpus which is known to have problems. There was some talk a while back about removing it but it went nowhere.

However I do believe those sentences are now tagged so you can avoid them if you wish.

There is something to keep in mind about the "corpus" of any kind. No one is using these sentences except to study with. Imagine how unnatural "use it in a sentence" sentences were when you were in school, and that's what example sentences are.

There is a wealth of side by side actual translations to use, but unless you are going written hard copy they are all going to be home brew (some mix of badly translated by non-natives, spelling character errors, unclear writing, insufficient reference and context).

You simply cannot fully trust any Japanese on the internet as being written by a native speaker because the internet is full of Japanese studiers trying to see if they can pass as native Japanese speakers at different places, or practicing their Japanese doing edits at Wikipedia etc. This extends all the way to fully Japanese language sites that are frequently linked. But this in end is true for all dictionaries of any kind. Any reasonably comprehensive dictionary rarely can be edited to remove outdated references, *nor should it be* since it is for the outdated cases that native speakers need the dictionaries.

Add to the fact that on the internet, IMEs make ridiculous suggestions that are not caught and corrected.

Most importantly, in general writing is really only not horrible if edited/proofed by someone.

And then much fiction writing is intentionally inventive. Philip Dick is no way to way to learn English, but his difficult ideas might be fun to practice with.

So to get native Japanese, you need to read native non-fiction hard copy sources, or at least non artistic non stylized fiction. This is what was behind the idea of RTK to begin with reading detective novels in native languages to learn the language (actually RTH).

I find reading Japanese academic and training manuals to be a breeze, because anything edited and published is proofread, and edited. The fact that I stumble over J wikipedia usually comes down to the same reasons I stumble over English wikipedia: the writing is hilariously bad, editing is done for ideological reasons not to ensure effective communication, and non-natives are always doing edits.

Japanese people I know often come away from Japanese wikipedia with the same はてな、はてな looks on their faces in the same articles I do.

But the biggest problems with example sentence based training is that no natural language is used without context, and sentences that contain sufficient internal context are either completely un-natural, or completely simple.

The English pronouns, and the Japanese 'は', and ’が’ are perfect examples of things which are completely clear in context, and yet learners try to study them in isolation. Every time someone is having problems with these issues, it comes down to the fact that they are simply not being exposed to native non-fiction materials.

Dreambox Wrote:I can read a few hundred words, my listening is not too bad if the speaker isn't talking ridiculously fast. Damn I am being vague as hell, I'm sorry.



If you are J-J only, how do you learn new words?

Any advice is appreciative.

I wouldn't go to J-J until you've gotten a few thousand words under your belt - pushing N2 level. I wasn't able to make sense of all Japanese definitions consistently until I had not only passed N3 but made some progress towards N2. I'm not such a big fan of J-J mostly because I still get annoyed if I don't understand a definition right away. I agree it makes doing flashcard reviews a more immersive experience however so I do wonder about going back. But if you're not past N3 and moving in N2 territory then I think it would just drive you crazy.

Here's a site you might be interested in though. http://japaneselevelup.com

They offer some nice J-J anki decks there but they charge. It's a good site regardless if you get the decks however.

Thanks for all the advice, guys (or girls). After a bit of searching I decided to download Nayr's Core 5k deck. I've done about 50 cards and there's already some words I don't know. Having a native speaker read out the sentences on the back of the card is really helpful for practicing my speaking and hearing how the words should sound .. I think it's a lot better than fumbling around in the dark trying to make my own sentences (or taking possibly wrong ones from tatoeba), until I get a better foundation. Thanks for warning me about tatoeba; I wasn't sure about it before and now I don't think I'll risk it.

I was going to try and do the core 2k etc decks but they are so boring I know I won't be able to get through them. Nayr's deck is at least interesting and the voice is nice to listen to. I also love the fact that the English translation of the sentence is hidden unless you need it!

I've been stressing so much over the "right" way to learn that I forgot to have fun, which is supposed to be what I'm doing this for.