Meh, there goes my dream of becoming a writer.

Yo, to snispilbor's advice, I'd just add: Listen Japanese during at least 30% of your wake time.

alyks Wrote:

mentat_kgs Wrote:Well, Some japanese know how to explain their language very well. Definetly add this blog to your blogroll: http://nihongodaybyday.blogspot.com/

Ah, I've found the really cool thing about reading her blog is not that it teaches me new things, but that it explains things I've seen a million times and have worked out my own. I get to go "Aha! That makes sense".

That's great Alyks. That's a perfect example of a way in which natural input and grammar can complement each other. That "Aha!" moment really solidifies things and will sometimes clarify or add nuance to vague assumptions.

Thanks for the link Mentat. (I notice her links are your and Alyks' websites. Blogging is a small world.)

Thora Wrote:

alyks Wrote:

mentat_kgs Wrote:Well, Some japanese know how to explain their language very well. Definetly add this blog to your blogroll: http://nihongodaybyday.blogspot.com/

Ah, I've found the really cool thing about reading her blog is not that it teaches me new things, but that it explains things I've seen a million times and have worked out my own. I get to go "Aha! That makes sense".

That's great Alyks. That's a perfect example of a way in which natural input and grammar can complement each other. That "Aha!" moment really solidifies things and will sometimes clarify or add nuance to vague assumptions.

Thanks for the link Mentat. (I notice her links are your and Alyks' websites. Blogging is a small world.)

I like to think of it as, if you don't understand it already you're not ready to learn it. When I read her articles I understand her explanations only because I already know what she's talking about in the first place.

mentat_kgs Wrote:Yo, to snispilbor's advice, I'd just add: Listen Japanese during at least 30% of your wake time.

Like here, that "L" in "Listen" shouldn't be capitalized

It's exactly that kind of thing that's subtle enough that even native speakers often don't pick up on it without some explicit training.

Not to pick on you or anything, you just dropped an example too good to ignore into my lap

~J, who promises not to talk about mentat_kgs's quite decent if not perfect English anymore.

Edit: pm215: punctuation is not actually a purely written-form issue; it mirrors the flow of spoken language. It's certainly possible to make errors in one without the other, but they're far from unconnected. I wrote that semicolon up there because that's how it sounds when I say it, whereas the comma just now is how I want that pause to sound when I say it. You get the idea.

Double-edit: also consider common native-English mistakes like "Joe and me went to the store" which are completely divorced from written concerns.

I teach reading to Japanese university students. In my opinion, reading a bunch of sentences plucked from here and there, which seems to be a method used by many on this site, is not an efficient way to learn to read fluently. In order to do that in any language you need to read continuously, i.e. read passages with thematically connected sentences (ummm, a story more or less) and to be able to do so without constantly stopping to look up words/meanings/grammatical constructs (note: I'm not saying that intensively reading--for complete understanding, checking everything, etc. is not useful for some purposes, it just isn't useful for learning to read). If your Japanese language ability is not up to reading authentic materials you want to find simplified materials. One option is graded readers. I am a big proponent of these for my students to improve their reading and vocabulary and there are some available in Japanese http://www.nihongo-yomu.jp/ . They have a limited selection but it's a good start.

I believe the idea is to continuously review "a bunch of sentences", but those being selected portions of larger texts that one encounters. I read all of a book, but only a few lines go into the SRS for repeated exposure and practice.

At least, that's my take on the method; it may or may not be part of how it is commonly used here.

~J

markal Wrote:I teach reading to Japanese university students. In my opinion, reading a bunch of sentences plucked from here and there, which seems to be a method used by many on this site, is not an efficient way to learn to read fluently. In order to do that in any language you need to read continuously, i.e. read passages with thematically connected sentences (ummm, a story more or less) and to be able to do so without constantly stopping to look up words/meanings/grammatical constructs (note: I'm not saying that intensively reading--for complete understanding, checking everything, etc. is not useful for some purposes, it just isn't useful for learning to read). If your Japanese language ability is not up to reading authentic materials you want to find simplified materials. One option is graded readers. I am a big proponent of these for my students to improve their reading and vocabulary and there are some available in Japanese http://www.nihongo-yomu.jp/ . They have a limited selection but it's a good start.

My thoughts exactly. You should be reading a whole lot before you even think about sentences. In my opinion collecting sentences is purely for memory and not for learning.

woodwojr Wrote:I believe the idea is to continuously review "a bunch of sentences", but those being selected portions of larger texts that one encounters. I read all of a book, but only a few lines go into the SRS for repeated exposure and practice.

At least, that's my take on the method; it may or may not be part of how it is commonly used here.

~J

I have to admit that I have not looked very deeply into the method but what you wrote sounds right according to my understanding. Doing that will help you learn vocabulary and perhaps some grammar, but it is not an efficient nor effective way to learn to read. I was assuming that the original poster wanted to learn to read in Japanese more than concentrating on learning new words and/or grammar.

If you can read an entire book of any length, particularly one that is unsimplified, you are improving your reading fluency with every additional long passage or book you read but at the same time you would be well beyond the level of what I would consider a beginning reader.

Tobberoth Wrote:You learn [grammatical terms] to be able to discuss a language as a science. If you want to discuss and compare languages, you need a vocabulary framework.

I agree. You need that to discuss a language as a science.

I think the rest of what you wrote is a bit rude and naively presumptive. I won't continue on this thread.

Markal Wrote:I was assuming that the original poster wanted to learn to read in Japanese more than concentrating on learning new words and/or grammar.

I wasn't certain, but my interpretation was that the OP is more interested in what steps to take after RTK (eg. how to start reading kanji/words and how they fit together), rather than reading fluency (as a separate skill).

I agree that only reading improves reading fluency (with added benefit of learning some new stuff). The frequent debate around here, however, seems to be whether reading alone is the best way for a beginner to learn vocab, grammar, etc.

It's funny how many interpretations of the term 'reading' there are. ^_-

I tried some graded readers when i first started RTK but found them incredibly boring, so for me i think authentic materials are the way to go, even if i don't completely understand it. (Pretty much what khatz says on AJATT, go with your interests rather than your so-called "level")

After reading everyones opinions on reading/grammar etc. I've decided to learn by using authentic materials, regardless of level, and when i come across sentences in authentic materials that i do understand and that i think are useful, ie. i haven't seen the structure before or something like that, then i put it into anki, so that i can review it at a later time.

I'm learning vocab mainly from context, I really under-estimated my ability to just figure words out on my own here, it's amazing how accurate you can be if you just stop and think about what people are talking about, like the other day i learned the word for sunflower just by listening to the tv, and all i knew is that people were talking about flowers. So i imagine with reading that the kanji will help even further with that.

I've also thrown away my English to Japanese dictionary in favour of going monolingual.

Grammar i am learning through example sentences and not by reading the rules for it, so nothing has changed here.

The blogs and everything that people have linked too here have all been very interesting too.

I'm glad there have been so many responses and opinions in this thread, it's really helped me alot.

woodwojr Wrote:

mentat_kgs Wrote:Yo, to snispilbor's advice, I'd just add: Listen Japanese during at least 30% of your wake time.

Like here, that "L" in "Listen" shouldn't be capitalized

It's exactly that kind of thing that's subtle enough that even native speakers often don't pick up on it without some explicit training.

Not to pick on you or anything, you just dropped an example too good to ignore into my lap

The thing is, that is true for all languages using the latin alphabet and has nothing to do with English in particular and certainly not grammar. We use , : and ; in Swedish and Portugese as well and in all probability, mentat would have written a capital letter in Portugese as well in that situation.