So you have finished Rtk1 and started to do sentences in Anki. For those of you that are doing this or already went through, please, share your experience and insight on how your Japanese improves as you hit 100, 250, 500, 1000, 2000, 4000, etc., sentences.

The reason I ask is because before I started RevTK I could somehow imagine what it would feel to put all the Kanji in my pocket but for this next phase I am not sure what to expect and look forward.

Better than than, create your own blog specially for it:
http://onhowtolearn.blogspot.com/

Sorry buddies, but I couldn't resist.

I second this request... we all know how Heisig works, and both AJATT and antimoon show what's possible at the end of the tunnel, but there's scant data on what happens in between...

I progress linear? exponential? plateau? How many sentences (past tae kim) does it take to be able to say, give/receive directions? make small talk? understand/take part in casual conversation? do business?

I know these things depend very much on listening exposure and output practice (understanding of course the dangers of early practice of output). But if enough people shared their experiences we might be able to develop a common pool of knowledge and reasonable milestones..

I remember when I first started sentences, I had similar questions and whenever I saw people attempting to answer them, they were always very vague. I realized there was probably a reason for that. After 4000 sentences I know exactly why. We only add one sentence at a time, right? How much of your own growth can you realize when you're learning things one by one? This is why I can't easily trace back how I was doing at sentence 100, sentence 250, sentence 100, sentence 200. But I know exactly how it feels to want to look into the future and know how how 上手 you may possibly be at a certain point in sentence count.

Although I said all that, it doesn't mean I won't try to give you an estimate.

100 - At around this point I was just starting to speed up with adding sentences. My reading speed was still kind of slow.
250 - By around here I became more selective with sentence picking and definitely becoming more comfortable with it.
500 - By here I remember noticing some major reading speed increases. When seeing simple, commonly words like "時間," it took no thinking to recognize the word.
1000 - By here I knew I definitely had the hang of it. For example, words like: 間違える、帰る、変わる　＜ーーI began to sense that it was 間違える instead of the incorrect 間違る、帰る is more conventional than 帰える、変わる instead of 変る。I didn't think I would get the hang of this so quickly. At around 1500 I felt I was speed-reading through SRS content.
2000 - By this time or perhaps earlier I could automatically come up with the readings for kanji when I saw them. When seeing　低, for example, my brain could register the "てい” reading like that. This is all thanks for the SRS.
4000 - Just recently I noticed an increase in "comfort" while listening to Japanese. I can understand many things just listening passively. At the 3000 point and before, while listening I'd have to pause here and there to think about what was said if I was really curious.
And I feel like I can zoom through even non-SRS content, given they are all words I know.

(...that was actually easier to explain than I thought)

However, many other factors play into this. I estimated my listening hours are in the 5500-6000 range. Reading hours aside from the SRS are hard to calculate but I felt like I've done way more reading than SRSing. And also, my language exchange partner taught me a lot as well.

You will only know how it works out for you when you do it yourself! You'll probably see better results やってみなきゃわかない！

It's hard to describe. Things start making more and more sense when you read manga, books and various sources. I realized that as I put in more grammar and vocabulary sentences then the reading became even easier.

It was this that makes me think you can be a bit more "systematic" on how you add material. This in turn makes the material you're reading or watching become more and more understandable.

RTK Lite, Core2k Steps 1 and 2, Basic Grammar Sentences can gets you into basic manga I think. As I did not go this route I can't be sure but it makes sense.

RTK Full, Core2k upto Step 6, Essential Grammar Sentences has gotten me able to comprehend j-dramas with japanese subtitles. I've been able to follow manga without furigana.

RTK 3 (well, add as you encounter), Core 2k complete, Special and Advanced grammar sentences. I haven't gotten to this just yet, but by this point you may wonder should you stay systematic or go off mining sources you're enjoying.

Others mentioned great success just doing regular mining after basic grammar sentences such as AAP or UBJG sentences.

Guess you could say, it's exponential at first as everything builds off each other. At a point, the learning plateaus off so your knowledge is being smoothed out by all your reading and listening.

Nukemarine's expected results seem incredibly optimistic. Smart.fm Core2k is very basic and is only 2000 words. Even completed it's not nearly enough for manga. Steps 1 & 2 will only get you to the "yay, I recognized a word!" phase.

Be patient, don't have unrealistic expectations of great results. Learning Japanese is a marathon just keep going and you'll get there eventually (well, at least I hope we will ).

I'm sort of with Codexus on this one but since I knew a lot of Japanese before starting to use the sentence method, I can't really speak for the early stages.

At JLPT2 level using the sentence method, I'm simply noticing how much easier it has become to read. Vocabulary has always been my weak point (with reading comprehension following since comprehension is impossible if I don't know the words) but since the sentence method is the ultimate way to improve vocabulary, it's becoming less of a problem. The Kanzen master book I found hard to understand when I studied in Japan is too easy for me now, I rarely run into new vocabulary in it.

I believe that your experience of sentence mining will depend greatly upon how and what you mine. If you go with structured mining such as tae kim, minna no nihongo or genki textbooks, smart.fm etc, you will probably notice a decently linear and nice progression where you slowly grasp the basics as you go. If you mine randomly, I think you will notice way less of an increase in skill until you've added tons of sentence and the basics have been puzzled together, where you will jump into a pretty high degree of comprehension. I would recommend structured learning since I'm a firm believer in i + 1 learning.

I must say I'm getting pretty disheartened with how little progress I am making. After 4500 sentences I still can't really read anything and my output is completely nonexistent.
When I try reading something it just seems like I have never encountered 95% of the nouns and verbs, which is true. It's not like I'm entering sentences with the same words over and over again either.

I still keep pushing through though. Right now, I'm having a lot of fun mining from the first Harry Potter book (and audiobook). After a month I am about 10% through it, SRSing almost literally everything.

I'm curious grulul, how are your sentences?
What are the sources?
Have you mined from textbooks or from media?

I'm soon hitting 1 year since I started sentence mining.
I have now exactly 3444 cards in my deck and I can read pretty much every news article I find.
There are always some words I did not knew and different readings.
Sometimes even unseen Kanji.

I have to say that while sentence mining was primordial in the beginning, it has been neglected over the last months. I spend sometimes a week without adding anything.

What I do is to read at least 3-4 news articles _everyday_, a few pages of my haruhi novels, blogs from lang-8, youtube comments + random stuff.

@Tobberoth
What you say is more or less true.
The development of my Japanese was very erratic.
But there was something that never changed. I knew from the beginning that I was going to reach my goal: I am going for native fluency.
When what I did showed no signs of progress, I stopped and tried something else.

What I disagree with you is about the textbooks. I think they are bad resources to mine from. They are weak, boring and unchallenging. You need to strain yourself everyday. Comfort is just an illusion.

mentat_kgs Wrote:I'm curious grulul, how are your sentences?
What are the sources?
Have you mined from textbooks or from media?

I started out mining from yahoo dictionary very slowly for a few months, then I did iKnow Core 2000, and a bit of Core 6000 which I dropped because it was boring. After that I started mining at random from manga, anime and that list of Japanese audiobooks.

grulul, how much other exposure do you get to japanese? do you read? watch raw television? live in japan?

mentat_kgs Wrote:What I disagree with you is about the textbooks. I think they are bad resources to mine from. They are weak, boring and unchallenging. You need to strain yourself everyday. Comfort is just an illusion.

Weak? I don't understand.
Boring? That's an opinion, people here seem to love the Mangaland textbooks.
Unchallenging? Certainly not for a beginner.

I mean, if I went back to Minna no nihongo now, I would be bored to death, but I certainly didn't feel that way when everything was new and every chapter opened new possibilities. It's i + 1 learning, and the stability is really useful, especially for people who need to use the Japanese they are learning, if they are living in Japan or has Japanese friends etc.

I don't think textbooks are the only way. You had the determination to keep going even though you sometimes had erratic progress and that worked really well for you. I however think Textbooks are an awesome, challenging and interesting source for people who want stable and guaranteed progress. It's really up to personality. If you take a new chapter every day from Minna no Nihongo and you're a complete beginner, trust me, it's straining.

But straining is bad, challenging is good.

It is straining because it is minna no nihongo. If it was a script from a dorama, your favorite manga or light novel, it would be challenging.

@Nuriko
Thanks for your overview, did you use any special sources to get sentences? Especially in the beginning to middle game?

I think the sort of sentences you mine makes some difference. A lot of people (me included) seem use smartfm for convenience. Its cool with audio and all but I have the feeling the sentence are not always that useful and natural and don't have that much variation. I pray for every new sentence not to start with 彼は... or 彼女は... .

mentat_kgs Wrote:But straining is bad, challenging is good.

It is straining because it is minna no nihongo. If it was a script from a dorama, your favorite manga or light novel, it would be challenging.

That's just your opinions speaking. If it's a drama, you're just going to be bored because you're understanding 0% and making no progress. The word 無駄 comes to mind.

i + 1 is more fun because you're constantly understanding and enjoying yourself. You aren't forcing it down, you're picking it up as you go.

If you can compare Minna no Nihongo to reading a script to a drama, you're comparing to completely different levels of Japanese. That's like saying learning English from Academic papers is more fun that learning it from Simple English wikipedia. It's a completely different level of skill and those two sources aren't supposed to be used at the same time.

That's what I'm talking about.

Japanese from doramas is real Japanese. Minna no nihongo is dumbed down Japanese.
Of course minna no nihongo is easier.

You are right when you say they are of totally different levels.

Btw, academic papers can be a lot of fun, if it is in the area of your interest. I have about 10 of then on my table now. One of them I wrote.

mentat_kgs Wrote:That's what I'm talking about.

Japanese from doramas is real Japanese. Minna no nihongo is dumbed down Japanese.
Of course minna no nihongo is easier.

It is a totally different level.

It isn't dumped down, it's scaled to fit. Anything you see in Minna no nihongo is natural and correct Japanese, it's Japanese you will hear every day if you live in Japan. That's how it was created to be and that's why it's so useful. I'd say it's more important to know the word for train than the word for magic, but that's me being a practical realist.

When you're a beginner, that's a good thing. You aren't going to tell a n00b who has just learned to read the latin alphabet to learn English from formal texts and modern movies like the matrix. It would take them ages to learn anything and it what they would learn wouldn't be useful. What good is it to be able to talk about being plugged into a virtual world when you aren't even good enough to ask where the nearest train station is?

If you're agreeing that it's a different level, I don't see your argument. The point is to use textbooks until you're good enough to approach manga, light novels and eventually what ever you want. Instead of jumping into the middle of the ocean, you learn to swim in a pool first. No one would use Minna no Nihongo when they are good enough to properly read a drama script, just like no one would read a Math book for 1st graders when they are learning exponential functions.

EDIT: I agree Academic papers are fun, I'm writing one myself. That was kinda my point. You WANT to read Academic papers, but when you're a complete beginner you should probably stick to Simple English wikipedia until you've grasped the basics.

Thank you for that overview, Nuriko; it was very informative. It's very encouraging to people who are still at the lower end of the sentence spectrum (I'm only at 400-ish ).

Personally, I'm thinking about completely leaving learning resources after I finish Tae Kim. It's just that the repetitiveness of some of the vocabulary and structures are boring me to death. I think...maybe mining stuff from real resources like manga and other stuff will be more useful anyways. Once a certain thing starts to get too easy, move to something else that's a little more difficult, and then repeat the process until your japanese = major ownage. Plus, if you do it this way, I'm thinking it'll be easier to look back at your natural progression as it pertains to ownage of Japanese.

thorstenu Wrote:@Nuriko
Thanks for your overview, did you use any special sources to get sentences? Especially in the beginning to middle game?

I think the sort of sentences you mine makes some difference. A lot of people (me included) seem use smartfm for convenience. Its cool with audio and all but I have the feeling the sentence are not always that useful and natural and don't have that much variation. I pray for every new sentence not to start with 彼は... or 彼女は... .

You're very welcome n_n

The very first thing I used to find sentences were manga chapter titles from Fushigi Yuugi manga. After about 10-15 chapter titles (ones that feel really easy now, like ”伝説の少女” but at the time I couldn't remember that it was the 伝 kanji that was used, etc) I wanted to get into the actual manga, which I went through with extreme slowness. But it was worth it because of my interest in the series. By the time I hit the second volume I noticed a huge difference in speed with reading and adding sentences. Also, I used Khatzumoto's sentence starter packs (not every sentence though. Ones with long numbers, for example, were hard for me to follow back then).

I also read Marmalade Boy at that time, which introduced a ton of vocabulary that I see every day now.

Around the middle I went through Tae Kim and put in probably about 50 sentences with grammar patterns I didn't understand yet. Without Tae Kim the whole process would have been way slower.

Around the 2000/3000 area I found iKnow and added sentences that had a word I wanted a pronunciation for right there in the SRS. Now each day I'm looking down the 6000 list for words I don't know, and am adding three sentences per day from iKnow. As I go down the lists, I skip a great deal of words because I know them already, thanks to tons of listening and memorizing with SRS.

And I know how you feel with the 彼／彼女 thing XD

igordesu Wrote:Thank you for that overview, Nuriko; it was very informative. It's very encouraging to people who are still at the lower end of the sentence spectrum (I'm only at 400-ish ).

Personally, I'm thinking about completely leaving learning resources after I finish Tae Kim. It's just that the repetitiveness of some of the vocabulary and structures are boring me to death. I think...maybe mining stuff from real resources like manga and other stuff will be more useful anyways. Once a certain thing starts to get too easy, move to something else that's a little more difficult, and then repeat the process until your japanese = major ownage. Plus, if you do it this way, I'm thinking it'll be easier to look back at your natural progression as it pertains to ownage of Japanese.

I agree - I don't think there are many learning resources that are worth the time once you're finished with Tae Kim. The biggest boost in comprehension (in the shortest amount of time) I've ever had was a four month period of 12-16 volumes of manga around the beginning area (sentence 1-800 or so). If that was spent by going through grammar websites... well, it's needless to say where I would be at that point.

However just recently, iKnow is really helping me understand the news a lot more. It's hard to go find words you don't know without something that lists them like iKnow, and with sentence examples that have audio.

I think I've forgotten one of the most important things! Looking up words in a Japanese to Japanese dictionary. This was extremely instrumental in building comprehension. You really see how the language works this way. I don't even want to think about where I'd be without it! At first I wrestled with it for awhile (around 1000 sentence point); looked up one definition in a Japanese dictionary, stumbled over it, went back to Japanese to English Denshi Jisho. I kept looking for dictionaries that made reading seem the smoothest, and finally realized it was Goo: http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/ I used this in combination with Denshi Jisho. First I looked up the word in Goo, then, using the "Denshi Jisho Bookmarklet," I highlighed words in the definition I didn't know, clicked the button I made for the Denshi Jisho Bookmarklet in my toolbar and went directly to the English definition. There were many times I gave up in the middle of the definition and just went directly to the English definition of the word I wanted to know in the first place and actually had forgetton about because of all these other definitions that were making me go in circles... (<-- going in circles once again here)

Anyway, it's just like having trouble getting used to a new mangaka's writing style. It one point it may feel like it's impossible to master the J-J dictionary but all it took for me was one word at a time, and not even understanding the full definition. At first it feels like you're lost in a sea of kanji but once you get lost, just go back to English for a little bit. With every time you get lost, it'll take longer to become lost and pretty soon, you won't even find yourself retreating to an Japanese-English dictionary.

mentat_kgs Wrote:You need to strain yourself everyday.

mentat_kgs Wrote:But straining is bad, challenging is good.

???????????????????????

Flamebait!

LOL

mentat_kgs Wrote:Flamebait!

LOL

You got me.

Anyways, I think structured sentences are a really good place to start. Smart.fm was a huge boost for me. Besides that though, one thing you can do is follow a certain writer and learn the words they use a lot. A basic vocab from something like Smart.fm plus the writer's favorite vocabulary will make reading his/her work a breeze.

I have just started on Harry Potter using the audiobook and the actual hard copy of the book. I have used Harry Potter to help with my Spanish, French, Dutch and now I hope to use this simple story with my SRS to help me with Japanese. Unfortunately, my bookscanner software does not have a Japanese OCR. I participated in the putting together of the Kanji Odyssey sentences with a group of users from this site. However, I am not able to get much value from the file since I have no accompanying audio and I really need sound. I don't live in Japan and the hiragana does not really give me the feel for how it should really sound! I would love to cooperate with anyone who is interested in capturing the sentences from ハリー ポッターと賢者の石. I am using audacity to capture the audio and I just started trying to type in the text. This of course is gruelling without a digitized version, trying to figure out the reading for kanji wothout furigana is extremely time consuming! Hey Grulul, want a partner?