Hi everyone, first post here.
I tried searching the forums for something like this but i must just suck at forum searching or something; because i couldn't find anything.

I am currently working through RTK 1 and have almost reached the first milestone, that is the 1/4 mark.
But I was just wondering, after RTK 1 and 3 how do you learn to read?

Most of us, if I may be so bold, use our own variations of a 'sentence method' or All Japanese All the Time (AJATT): http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog

I have not finished RTK1 yet but there seems to be a variety of ways to learn the readings:

- RTK2 (which a lot of people dislike)

- 2001.Kanji.Odyssey: http://www.coscom.co.jp/ebook/e-2001kanji.html

- Kanji In Context: http://bookclub.japantimes.co.jp/act/en/...=2&c2id=18

- Sentence mining / AJATT: http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blo...tences-why

- iKnow courses: http://www.iknow.co.jp/lists/19053-japan...000-step-1

etc.

Whatever you do, use a spaced repetition software:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaced_repe...repetition

Most people on here use Anki:

http://ichi2.net/anki/

Good luck!

Thankyou for your replies.

I have been going by the AJATT method anyway so i will probably stick to sentences in Anki, i just wasn't completely sure how to go about reading since he doesn't really mention it much on his site (Or atleast from the parts i read, his posts get so long-winded sometimes that i just skip parts)

I will also check out some of those other links.

Once again thankyou for your help.

It also helps to study grammar. Kanji is important, but it isn't everything. If you can't understand all the various conjugations, you're going to be confused a lot.

Thankyou, it looks like i forgot to mention i am also working through Tae Kims grammar guide as i go through heisig, i read parts of it everyday to try and imprint each conjugation into my brain

What happened to just reading books and comics? That's what I did, I read stuff and put sentences in to Anki. You'll learn the readings pretty easily this way. I also didn't bother to learn the conjugations or grammar, either, and I can read most things without too much trouble.

I wrote more tips for beginners on my website under my name, if you're interested.

I learned explicit grammar rules. It helped, but because I never tried it any other way I can't give useful feedback as to whether it was more valuable than just spending that time reading simple material.

~J

I thought i replied to this again, obviously not.
Anyway, thankyou once again for your replies and alyks i'll check out your site too.

Hey 十九, what did you mean about trying to imprint the conjugations in your brain? Instead of doing that, maybe try just getting a feel from the explanations about how/why the words change, when studying the example sentences in Anki and 'reverse engineering' them. Just follow that process and it'll become second nature rather quickly. Unless that's what you meant, already.

I wouldn't worry about conjugations of verbs in Japanese. They are easy. You basically have just two tenses: present and past. There is not 1st, 2nd, 3rd person, singular or plural. That's it. OK there is some conditional, etc. but you will pick that up through natural acquisition. Even if you study it, it probably won't come out right. Reading, watching TV, real conversations will give you a sense for those kinds of things, e.g. tara and nara, etc.; I couldn't explain the rules but I have a natural sense for what is correct.

If you like studying grammar go ahead but I would suggest reading first and if you don't get something grammar take that point up.

日本語の動詞は簡単だよ、文法も。心配しなくて。。。

musigny Wrote:I wouldn't worry about conjugations of verbs in Japanese. They are easy. You basically have just two tenses: present and past. There is not 1st, 2nd, 3rd person, singular or plural. That's it. OK there is some conditional, etc. but you will pick that up through natural acquisition. Even if you study it, it probably won't come out right. Reading, watching TV, real conversations will give you a sense for those kinds of things, e.g. tara and nara, etc.; I couldn't explain the rules but I have a natural sense for what is correct.

If you like studying grammar go ahead but I would suggest reading first and if you don't get something grammar take that point up.

日本語の動詞は簡単だよ、文法も。心配しなくて。。。

Whut? There's two tenses yes, there's tons of conjugations however.

It's not just several conditionals, there's also potential, ukemi, causative, te-form etc. And that is just the names of several conjugations, you still have to actually learn to conjugate the verbs which differs depending on group, ichidan and the several godan. There's loads to learn.

AND LEARNING IS POWER!

Ah i didn't mean much by saying that, i guess i didn't think about how it could be read when i posted.
I don't really read the grammar explanations as such, just skip straight to the example sentences and read and try to understand, sometimes i look at the rough translations to give hints etc. (I'll be honest i didn't even know what a conjugation was for a while, until i actually read one of Tae kims explanations, which just confused me so i stopped doing that)
I will start to use anki for sentences once i have completed RTK 1 but for now i will just read sentences as i come across them in my spare time since it takes up enough of my time keeping up with the RTK reviews.
It's taken roughly a week for me to reach kanji 500 in RTK so i should be onto sentences very soon.
Another thing i like to do is try to read through the サムライ・チャンプルー manga, although i can't understand much of it at this time ive quite enjoyed flicking through the pages and taking things as they come.

Juukyuu Wrote:Ah i didn't mean much by saying that, i guess i didn't think about how it could be read when i posted.
I don't really read the grammar explanations as such, just skip straight to the example sentences and read and try to understand, sometimes i look at the rough translations to give hints etc. (I'll be honest i didn't even know what a conjugation was for a while, until i actually read one of Tae kims explanations, which just confused me so i stopped doing that)
I will start to use anki for sentences once i have completed RTK 1 but for now i will just read sentences as i come across them in my spare time since it takes up enough of my time keeping up with the RTK reviews.
It's taken roughly a week for me to reach kanji 500 in RTK so i should be onto sentences very soon.
Another thing i like to do is try to read through the サムライ・チャンプルー manga, although i can't understand much of it at this time ive quite enjoyed flicking through the pages and taking things as they come.

I didn't really know what the word 'conjugation' meant until recently (I think I've picked up lots of cool technical words like 'conditional' and 'conjugation' while being active on this forum, and passively picking stuff up in explanatory texts). I figured out through context it had something to do with how certain words changed depending on their use, but meh. I usually just skip past words like that and skim to understand how everything works in each sentence, and look for any easily assimilated pointers about frequent patterns.

Tobberoth Wrote:Whut? There's two tenses yes, there's tons of conjugations however.

It's not just several conditionals, there's also potential, ukemi, causative, te-form etc. And that is just the names of several conjugations, you still have to actually learn to conjugate the verbs which differs depending on group, ichidan and the several godan. There's loads to learn.

AND LEARNING IS POWER!

Tobberoth, one could run a list off like that for any language. There would be a lot more variations in French or heaven forbid German. I speak both Japanese and French fluently and have an elementary knowledge of Spanish and Chinese. IMHO, Japanese verbs are easy. This is not a knock on Japanese or anyone who is studying it. They are easy because they are logical. I used to be a grammar hack when studying French in college but I'm reformed. If I look at really how I got good at Japanese, it wasn't because I studied rareru, saseru, -te, etc.; it was because I was exposed to it. The fact that you can just list terms like "causitive" or "potential" says something. I had to reason through each one of those like "Oh potential that must mean rareru, causitive...oh saseru." I'm not sure even if I got those right. But I can communicate any of that in Japanese without a thought. The same would be true for a Japanese. If you asked a Japanese what godan was, they'd most likely have to reason it out.

Having lived on three continents, I've met lots of language learners and foreigners. Many learners like to think the language they are studying is difficult. If that works for them great. In my opinion, Japanese is logical and straightforward and easy to pick up through lots of exposure. It's monotone, pronunciation is consistent and there are fewer sounds than English. The word order is flexible. Verbs are always at the end of the sentence. Objects and Subjects are option if understood. There is no person, plural, singular...all that jazz. That all communicates little anyway. It is a cool language, no doubt.

My overall point is exposure to the language is where I believe you will acquire natural instincts in it.

**************************
As a point of comparison, there are technically 69 ways you can conjugate the verb to speak (parler) in French. ref: http://www.wordreference.com/conj/FRverbs.asp?v=parler

Well,

Some japanese know how to explain their language very well. Definetly add this blog to your blogroll:

http://nihongodaybyday.blogspot.com/

musigny Wrote:Tobberoth, one could run a list off like that for any language. There would be a lot more variations in French or heaven forbid German. I speak both Japanese and French fluently and have an elementary knowledge of Spanish and Chinese. IMHO, Japanese verbs are easy. This is not a knock on Japanese or anyone who is studying it. They are easy because they are logical.

Just because it is easy and logical(relatively), doesn't mean everyone can understand it without studying it. It just makes the studying easier.

It's pretty obvious that many in this topic has misunderstood what grammar is meant for. You don't learn the grammatical terms to ask Japanese people questions. You learn them to be able to discuss a language as a science. If you want to discuss and compare languages, you need a vocabulary framework. Introducing: Grammar.

"You know, I used that saseru form of that word used to indicate action to indicate that the person saying the sen"... no, let's not go there.

Musigny, I never said Japanese was hard. I said there's a lot to the grammar, and compared to tons of languages, in particular Chinese, there is. I've studied latin, I know about verb conjugation in French. It really doesn't affect what I wrote.

As for Japanese being monotone... I guess your exposure hasn't introduced you to pitch in Japanese, my textbooks did. If you speak Japanese words in a monotone way, you're pronouncing them wrong, pitch is important in Japanese. It's how you tell the difference between 雨 and 飴 for example. Not saying it's something you have to explicitly study, it comes naturally as you listen/speak a lot of Japanese. It's however a hard part of the language you're ignoring simply because you haven't been introduced to it.

I think Swedish, my native language, is easy as crap, I don't need any grammar. If YOU want to learn it however, you will quickly notice that pretty much all swedish words has several versions. a big house = ett stort hus. a big person = en stor person. Why en and not ett? Why a t after stor in one case, not the other? Can you learn this from exposure? Sure, I did. Is it faster to simply learn that there are two kinds of words (genus like in fench), Neuter and Common? Yeah, it certainly gives you a LOT more understanding for the language quickly. That doesn't mean you have to memorize it.

Well, you also learn it so that you don't sound silly to educated people. Consider the apostrophe hell people without explicit training in English grammar get into.

~J

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".

Good post Tobberoth.
carry on

woodwojr Wrote:Well, you also learn it so that you don't sound silly to educated people. Consider the apostrophe hell people without explicit training in English grammar get into.

~J

Is my english so bad?

Juukyuu Wrote:Hi everyone, first post here.
I tried searching the forums for something like this but i must just suck at forum searching or something; because i couldn't find anything.

I am currently working through RTK 1 and have almost reached the first milestone, that is the 1/4 mark.
But I was just wondering, after RTK 1 and 3 how do you learn to read?

In addition to the other great links people have posted, here are a couple articles of mine that I'll shamelessly promote.

Sentence Mining
Spaced Repetition Systems

Could be a great deal worse; I'm primarily thinking of horror stories from native speakers. You do have some issues related to punctuation use and sentence flow (from the few posts I've looked at, I don't have time to analyze your entire posting history or anything). I wouldn't call it "bad", but you're not going to win any prizes for writing style.

~J

Punctuation use is purely a written-language phenomenon, of course, so in some ways it shouldn't be lumped in with 'grammar' in the linguistics sense. Everybody masters the grammar of their native language (wolf children and genetic disorders aside), but obviously not every native speaker masters the formal requirements (like punctuation and spelling) of the standard written form...