Brief thought, I am about to finish Tae Kim completely tomorrow or the day after, and I already find myself able to hold basic conversation(I already have a lot of basic vocabulary from about 200 sentences in the KO2001, Core2000, plus an year of misguided study, or rather, occasional once a month study,きゃあ！ふふ） But guys I am already finding my self comfortable with grammar, like no sweat, I go to a japanese site, see grammar I don't know do a couple web searches find some explanation and I tend to understand the sentence no prob.

My hypothesis: The majority of my stresses with Japanese before could be attributed to never tackling grammar at the level I needed to. OR I just might want to try my experiment.

Experiment: I have all the Dictionaries of Japanese grammar, Basic through Advanced.
WHat do you guys think would happen if I only studied grammar!? haha I mean only learning the vocabulary included in the grammar sentences?

I don't know if I will do this or not but, That might be fun, just knowing loads of grammar structures, I would only put maybe 3 examples per grammar point, and those I didn't understand I would just come back and pick up more examples later on, Starting from the Basic Dictionary, and picking up everything not included in Tae Kim, then move on to the intermediate, then Advanced. What do you figure would happen if I did that? I mean at the most I would say there would be like 2000 or 3000 sentences from those sources, but I think I would skim it more so there would be closer to 2000. But those 2000 could be completed in about 1 month, and supposedly, If you understand all the dictionaries wouldn't you have not only passed JLPT1 grammar?, but also the vast majority of grammar structures in common use? I think going through the vocabulary on core6000, and ko2001, would be much more fulfilling after that, knowing that my grammar is for the most part complete. That I won't really have to worry about it, and the rest I can just pick up on my own. Also, picking up vocabulary from native media, would probably be tremendously easier, if I saw where all the pieces fit.


OPINIONS!

Do it. At any rate, just getting through the first two dictionaries will get you pretty much everything that occurs in day-to-day speech. Not to mention, the second dictionary uses a pretty wide range of vocabulary, so you'll actually be quite good in that department. Both books have great example sentences.

The only thing I would add to it is a lot of listening practice in some form, along with some pronunciation practice. It'd be an interesting thing to try. I personally find knowing most grammar very fulfilling.

Tzadeck Wrote:Do it. At any rate, just getting through the first two dictionaries will get you pretty much everything that occurs in day-to-day speech. Not to mention, the second dictionary uses a pretty wide range of vocabulary, so you'll actually be quite good in that department. Both books have great example sentences.

The only thing I would add to it is a lot of listening practice in some form, along with some pronunciation practice. It'd be an interesting thing to try. I personally find knowing most grammar very fulfilling.

That is what I am thinking, I mean, I think I would understand a lot more of my media learning grammar, then vocabulary, because even the words I know tend to be used in ways I am completely "WTF is going on" about.

I think I would shoot myself out of boredom going through those dictionaries- you do mean the "Dictionary of Basic/Intermediate/Advanced Grammar" right?. They're freaking tomes.

On the other hand, I'm also finishing Tae Kim (tomorrow) and I plan to go continue on and complete KM 2kyuu and KM 1kyuu grammar books sequentially. Same idea as you, but I prefer the KM books because their thickness is less suicide-causing and I think they're probably better. And, same as you, I plan to be through with them in a month or so.

I like the Coscom １・２級 grammar book as the print isn't tiny and there's lots of spacing and open space on the pages. It's so easy on the eyes, I think I'm always relaxed while reading it.

blackmacros Wrote:I think I would shoot myself out of boredom going through those dictionaries- you do mean the "Dictionary of Basic/Intermediate/Advanced Grammar" right?. They're freaking tomes.

On the other hand, I'm also finishing Tae Kim (tomorrow) and I plan to go continue on and complete KM 2kyuu and KM 1kyuu grammar books sequentially. Same idea as you, but I prefer the KM books because their thickness is less suicide-causing and I think they're probably better. And, same as you, I plan to be through with them in a month or so.

Didn't you already do the KO2001 though? I am not set in the vocab department to do KM yet, I need my english crutch a little while longer. For grammar anyways, I am moving to monodic vocab look-ups very soon here. I seem to be just moving right along? is this an illusion? Or am I really going to fluency? and it's this easy?. Because if it really is true, and it is this easy... then wow. I am more than a bit surprised, but the Chinese is lacking and calls!

Yonosa Wrote:

blackmacros Wrote:I think I would shoot myself out of boredom going through those dictionaries- you do mean the "Dictionary of Basic/Intermediate/Advanced Grammar" right?. They're freaking tomes.

On the other hand, I'm also finishing Tae Kim (tomorrow) and I plan to go continue on and complete KM 2kyuu and KM 1kyuu grammar books sequentially. Same idea as you, but I prefer the KM books because their thickness is less suicide-causing and I think they're probably better. And, same as you, I plan to be through with them in a month or so.

Didn't you already do the KO2001 though? I am not set in the vocab department to do KM yet, I need my english crutch a little while longer. For grammar anyways, I am moving to monodic vocab look-ups very soon here. I seem to be just moving right along? is this an illusion? Or am I really going to fluency? and it's this easy?. Because if it really is true, and it is this easy... then wow. I am more than a bit surprised, but the Chinese is lacking and calls!

Yeah I've already done KO2001, so there is that. KM will probably be too hard for you in the vocab-department, I didn't realise that. Good luck though. As I said before, those dictionaries are depressingly heavy...

If you can get through them in a month though, why not do KO2001 first in the same amount of time? I mean you're doing it anyway. And if you've finished Tae Kim then you know everything you need grammar-wise for KO. I finished it and I'd only done half of Tae Kim. After that, then you can tackle the less-depressing KM series (or anything except those concrete blocks) Have I mentioned I find the mere thought of mining them utterly depressing?

blackmacros Wrote:

Yonosa Wrote:

blackmacros Wrote:I think I would shoot myself out of boredom going through those dictionaries- you do mean the "Dictionary of Basic/Intermediate/Advanced Grammar" right?. They're freaking tomes.

On the other hand, I'm also finishing Tae Kim (tomorrow) and I plan to go continue on and complete KM 2kyuu and KM 1kyuu grammar books sequentially. Same idea as you, but I prefer the KM books because their thickness is less suicide-causing and I think they're probably better. And, same as you, I plan to be through with them in a month or so.

Didn't you already do the KO2001 though? I am not set in the vocab department to do KM yet, I need my english crutch a little while longer. For grammar anyways, I am moving to monodic vocab look-ups very soon here. I seem to be just moving right along? is this an illusion? Or am I really going to fluency? and it's this easy?. Because if it really is true, and it is this easy... then wow. I am more than a bit surprised, but the Chinese is lacking and calls!

Yeah I've already done KO2001, so there is that. KM will probably be too hard for you in the vocab-department, I didn't realise that. Good luck though. As I said before, those dictionaries are depressingly heavy...

Nah, I mean I feel they are heavy too, but, if I only take a few sentences per point I think that will eliminate that never ending vastness feel that they have.

blackmacros Wrote:

Yonosa Wrote:

blackmacros Wrote:I think I would shoot myself out of boredom going through those dictionaries- you do mean the "Dictionary of Basic/Intermediate/Advanced Grammar" right?. They're freaking tomes.

On the other hand, I'm also finishing Tae Kim (tomorrow) and I plan to go continue on and complete KM 2kyuu and KM 1kyuu grammar books sequentially. Same idea as you, but I prefer the KM books because their thickness is less suicide-causing and I think they're probably better. And, same as you, I plan to be through with them in a month or so.

Didn't you already do the KO2001 though? I am not set in the vocab department to do KM yet, I need my english crutch a little while longer. For grammar anyways, I am moving to monodic vocab look-ups very soon here. I seem to be just moving right along? is this an illusion? Or am I really going to fluency? and it's this easy?. Because if it really is true, and it is this easy... then wow. I am more than a bit surprised, but the Chinese is lacking and calls!

Yeah I've already done KO2001, so there is that. KM will probably be too hard for you in the vocab-department, I didn't realise that. Good luck though. As I said before, those dictionaries are depressingly heavy...

If you can get through them in a month though, why not do KO2001 first in the same amount of time? I mean you're doing it anyway. And if you've finished Tae Kim then you know everything you need grammar-wise for KO. I finished it and I'd only done half of Tae Kim. After that, then you can tackle the less-depressing KM series (or anything except those concrete blocks) Have I mentioned I find the mere thought of mining them utterly depressing?

I really am actually considering just adding maybe 3 grammar points a day from the DOJG's because I so want to do KO2001, I have previewed the sentences and I was really happy at the site of the wide variety of Vocab., while Tae Kim on the other Hand is killing me with the lack of new words, but grammar wise it's pretty solid, albeit at times the sentences can be quite dumb, but at least I'm to the point where I understand they are, haha.

Hey I was to as Blackmacros, how was it going through those books that quickly, did you write each sentence as you went as well? With Tae Kim, I rarely write anything because and just do the typing recognition, but I am thinking to write for KO2001, but I want to know how you did it and how solid your grasp of the content is and adjust my method accordingly.

When you say "write it out" do you mean when I was entering them into the SRS? If so, then no- I just used the community spreadsheet and copy and pasted the sentences into Anki.

If you meant whether I did 'production' cards (kana-->kanji) in addition to normal recognition cards (kanji-->kana) then the answer is also no. I just did plain old kanji-->reading + meaning.

I have a solid grasp of being able to read any kanji I now encounter, because thats what I was practicing. Since finishing KO I've been playing through Chrono Trigger in Japanese quite easily and haven't needed to look anything up yet.

Production, on the other hand, is something I am currently weak at. By this I mean, by hearing べんきょう I am not able to write 勉強. This is simply because my cards didn't test this type of knowledge.

I do believe, however, that this is just a matter of time and immersion. Even now I'm increasingly able to start writing kanji. For example I can write 戦争 from hearing せんそう because it appears a hell of a lot in KO2001. This, combined with the fact that production takes AGES to do, means I'll be sticking with recognition only.

blackmacros Wrote:When you say "write it out" do you mean when I was entering them into the SRS? If so, then no- I just used the community spreadsheet and copy and pasted the sentences into Anki.

If you meant whether I did 'production' cards (kana-->kanji) in addition to normal recognition cards (kanji-->kana) then the answer is also no. I just did plain old kanji-->reading + meaning.

I have a solid grasp of being able to read any kanji I now encounter, because thats what I was practicing. Since finishing KO I've been playing through Chrono Trigger in Japanese quite easily and haven't needed to look anything up yet.

Production, on the other hand, is something I am currently weak at. By this I mean, by hearing べんきょう I am not able to write 勉強. This is simply because my cards didn't test this type of knowledge.

I do believe, however, that this is just a matter of time and immersion. Even now I'm increasingly able to start writing kanji. For example I can write 戦争 from hearing せんそう because it appears a hell of a lot in KO2001. This, combined with the fact that production takes AGES to do, means I'll be sticking with recognition only.

YAY for chrono trigger, can't wait to do that and Dragonquest 9 on my ds, already have the games ready to go for when the time comes too!haha

No I didn't mean production, I just meant did you read and understand, and then copy the sentence by hand one time?

Also, I agree with you on the production, I don't plan on studying production for Japanese ever since I don't need Japanese for 3 or 4 years later in life, at which point in Graduate school I should already have naturally acquired production skills by exposure.

On the other hand, I must pass the HSK(chinese language proficiency test) in 1 year to enter the University I plan to in CHina, also for my language classes I will have to produces I am sure... So I'll have to toss some production into my chinese decks, I am thinking to do just vocab production for that, Like pinyin and meaning, and produce the hanzi, I think that will work well, as long as I have those vocab words also in recognition sentences. Even now, I am so much more worried about Chinese that I regularly spend my japanese SRS time listening to Chinese TV, since I am so far behind on my listening skills... It's getting better though now.

But yeah did you write it out by hand once after reading and understanding the sentence?

I would focus more on the vocab. DO*JG are dictionaries. You wouldn't learn the words in a language by opening a dictionary and starting at A and working through to Z would you? Use something systematic. DO*JG is for reference use.

KM is hard because you don't have enough vocab; once you do most of the grammar is a piece of cake. I recommend doing 2001KO, or if you want to go at a faster (but harder) pace then go for 例文で学ぶ漢字と言葉 (there's no English in this one). If you do about 25 chapters of the latter (about 1000 sentences) you will have no trouble diving into KM. And the rate you study, that's like what 1-2 weeks for you? .

vosmiura Wrote:I would focus more on the vocab. DO*JG are dictionaries. You wouldn't learn the words in a language by opening a dictionary and starting at A and working through to Z would you? Use something systematic. DO*JG is for reference use.

KM is hard because you don't have enough vocab; once you do most of the grammar is a piece of cake. I recommend doing 2001KO, or if you want to go at a faster (but harder) pace then go for 例文で学ぶ漢字と言葉 (there's no English in this one). If you do about 25 chapters of the latter (about 1000 sentences) you will have no trouble diving into KM. And the rate you study, that's like what 1-2 weeks for you? .

Is japanese easy or is it just me?

と言うか、この言語の勉強の方法は易しいだなあ！

Yonosa Wrote:No I didn't mean production, I just meant did you read and understand, and then copy the sentence by hand one time?

What I did was:

Copy and paste sentence, kana reading and meaning into Anki.

I would then read it over once, and colour the target compound(s) plus any words that were new to me. Then I would look up the new words and put quick definitions of them in my meaning field. Then I would add the audio to the sentence and listen to it while re-reading the sentence. Then I would add it.

So it was an actual learning process, not just dump-and-run.

Quote:But yeah did you write it out by hand once after reading and understanding the sentence?

No, I've never written out any of the sentences in any form.

Yonosa Wrote:Is japanese easy or is it just me?

と言うか、この言語の勉強の方法は易しいだなあ！

そうだなぁ。2001KOなど資料がまとめておいたのが本当に役に立つ。

blackmacros Wrote:

Yonosa Wrote:No I didn't mean production, I just meant did you read and understand, and then copy the sentence by hand one time?

What I did was:

Copy and paste sentence, kana reading and meaning into Anki.

I would then read it over once, and colour the target compound(s) plus any words that were new to me. Then I would look up the new words and put quick definitions of them in my meaning field. Then I would add the audio to the sentence and listen to it while re-reading the sentence. Then I would add it.

So it was an actual learning process, not just dump-and-run.

Quote:But yeah did you write it out by hand once after reading and understanding the sentence?

No, I've never written out any of the sentences in any form.

Ｈａｈａ，　ｔｈｉｓ　ｉｓ　ａｌｍｏｓｔ　ｅｘａｃｔｌｙ　Ｗｈａｔ　Ｉ　ａｍ　ａｌｒｅａｄｙ　ｄｏｉｎｇ，　ｔｈａｔ’ｓ　ｐｒｅｔｔｙ　ｆｕｎｎｙ，　ｙｅａｈ　ｄｏｎ’ｔ　ｔｈｉｎｋ　ｗｒｉｔｉｎｇ　ｔｈｅｍ　ｏｕｔ　ｉｓ　ｔｈｅ　ｍｏｓｔ　ｅｆｆｅｃｔｉｖｅ　ｗａｙ，　ｂｅｃａｕｓｅ　Ｉ　ｃｏｕｌｄ　ｎｅｖｅｒ　ｇｅｔ　ｔｈｒｏｕｇｈ　ｔｈｅ　ｎｕｍｂｅｒ　ｏｆ　ｓｅｎｔｅｎｃｅｓ　Ｉ　ｄｏ　ｉｎ　ａ　ｄａｙ　ｅｓｐｅｃｉａｌｌｙ　ｎｏｔ　ｉｎ　ｔｗｏ　ｌａｎｇｕａｇｅｓ　ｉｆ　Ｉ　ｗｅｒｅ　ｄｏｉｎｇ　ｔｈａｔ．Ｔｈａｎｋｓ，　ｎｏｗ　Ｉ　ｄｏｎ’ｔ　ｐｌａｎ　ｏｎ　ｗｒｉｔｉｎｇ　ａｎｙｔｈｉｎｇ　ａｎｙｍｏｒｅ，　ｆｏｒ　ｊａｐａｎｅｓｅ　ａｔ　ｌｅａｓｔ，　ｆｏｒ　ｃｈｉｎｅｓｅ　Ｉ　ｍｕｓｔ！　ｂｅｃａｕｓｅ　ｃｌａｓｓｅｓ　ｄｉｃｔａｔｅ　ｉｔ　ｓｏ．．．

o.O

vosmiura Wrote:o.O

　Ｉ　ｓｔｉｌｌ　ｗｉｌｌ　ｄｏ　ＲＴＫ　ｒｅｖｉｅｗｓ　ｔｈｏｕｇｈ！，　ａｎｄ　Ｉ　ｋｎｏｗ　ｈｏｗ　ｔｏ　ｗｒｉｔｅ　Ｌｉｋｅ　３５００　ｃｈａｒａｃｔｅｒ　ｏｒ　ｓｏ，　Ｉｎ　ｃｈｉｎａ　Ｉ　ｗｉｌｌ　ｇｅｔ　ｐｌｅｎｔｙ　ｏｆ　ｗｒｉｔｉｎｇ　ｐｒａｃｔｉｃｅ．

Yonosa Wrote:

vosmiura Wrote:o.O

　Ｉ　ｓｔｉｌｌ　ｗｉｌｌ　ｄｏ　ＲＴＫ　ｒｅｖｉｅｗｓ　ｔｈｏｕｇｈ！，　ａｎｄ　Ｉ　ｋｎｏｗ　ｈｏｗ　ｔｏ　ｗｒｉｔｅ　Ｌｉｋｅ　３５００　ｃｈａｒａｃｔｅｒ　ｏｒ　ｓｏ，　Ｉｎ　ｃｈｉｎａ　Ｉ　ｗｉｌｌ　ｇｅｔ　ｐｌｅｎｔｙ　ｏｆ　ｗｒｉｔｉｎｇ　ｐｒａｃｔｉｃｅ．

/brainsplosion

Reading that is like reading all-kana sentences.

What the heck with writing like that?

vosmiura Wrote:What the heck with writing like that?

　 Does is matter so much, I was in the middle of japanese ime use.

Yonosa Wrote:

vosmiura Wrote:What the heck with writing like that?

　 Does is matter so much, I was in the middle of japanese ime use.

Err wouldn't it have been more efficient (less keystrokes) to disable IME, rather than type a space between each letter?

It doesn't have spaces, it's just kana-width letters. It just looks bad.