Is there anyone who could enlighten me on the best way to use Tae Kim's Grammar Guide? I've heard of people using an SRS with a preloaded deck, adding sentences as they go (in which case, what would be a good way to format cards to test myself on grammar specifically?), and others who just read through the guide without the use of an SRS (I'm not sure how much would stick if I did it this way).

I think I'd like to test myself on grammar only and ignore readings and vocab until I start on core2000 and mining from native media.

I don't think you have to do all that much with it. Just read a chapter and put the sentences into your SRS. Reading the chapter will make sure you understand the sentences and the grammar involved, having it in the SRS should be enough for you not to forget it, you probably don't have to specifically test for the grammar. Make sure you understand the sentence. If you do, pass it. If you don't, fail it. Don't worry, understanding a sentence once you've learned it is extremely easy, the hard part is remembering the vocabulary, which I DO think you should spend time on.

Remember, most of the grammar on Tae Kim's site is basic, you will see it all the time when you read Japanese and when you go through KO and Smart.fm, the odds of you forgetting vital grammar simply because you didn't make special "grammar cards" is miniscule.

Tobberoth Wrote:I don't think you have to do all that much with it. Just read a chapter and put the sentences into your SRS. Reading the chapter will make sure you understand the sentences and the grammar involved, having it in the SRS should be enough for you not to forget it, you probably don't have to specifically test for the grammar. Make sure you understand the sentence. If you do, pass it. If you don't, fail it. Don't worry, understanding a sentence once you've learned it is extremely easy, the hard part is remembering the vocabulary, which I DO think you should spend time on.

Remember, most of the grammar on Tae Kim's site is basic, you will see it all the time when you read Japanese and when you go through KO and Smart.fm, the odds of you forgetting vital grammar simply because you didn't make special "grammar cards" is miniscule.

I don't know, I think it's best to keep grammar separate at the beginning (ie just study the grammar points for the sentences you add). I feel like I wasted a lot of time when I was going through my first grammar guide, trying to memorize the meanings/readings and learn new grammar points from the same sentences at the same time. Plus if you keep them separate, you can go ahead and pick up the grammar while still doing RTK so you'll be able to breeze through iKO + reinforce what you learned.

Personally I didn't bother learning vocabulary from Tae Kim when I first started. I concentrated on absorbing the grammar, because I knew that I was going to do KO2001 which would cover vocab.

nest0r Wrote:I feel like I wasted a lot of time when I was going through my first grammar guide, trying to memorize the meanings/readings and learn new grammar points from the same sentences at the same time. Plus if you keep them separate, you can go ahead and pick up the grammar while still doing RTK so you'll be able to breeze through iKO + reinforce what you learned.

I'm at frame 700 in RTK1. I'd like to start with Tae Kim for addind diversity when I start burning out. How should I proceed to do what you just describe, I mean, focusing on the grammar, not the meanings/readings. How can I use my SRS/Anki if with Tae Kim if I'm unable to understand the meanings/readings. Also, I'd like to use the pre-made deck, and not having to create my own cards in order to bypass that "meanings/readings" issue.
Thx

Im pretty sure you can dl the deck through Anki - download - shared decks.

I SRS'd bits of it but tbh just getting a general feel for all the level 3, 4 grammar is all you really need to do. It's so common and you see it so often that just reffering to the guide when you need to will soon reveal to you just how everything works.

OK, I just went through the first lesson of Tae Kim and had a look at the exercises. I'm not even at the half of RTK1 but I already wondered about certain things. Once you're done with RTK1, do you need to invent new stories to understand and remember words combining several kanji?

For example, how will you remember 先生? I understand that the first kanji qualifies the second, so it should litteraly mean "the LIFE of BEFORE/AHEAD". How do you guess that the LIFE of BEFORE acutally means TEACHER?

Actually, do you use raw memorization for words combining kanji or do you need to still use mnemonic stories? There seems to be no consistency/logics in the way some kanji are used with respect to the actual meaning of the word they are integrated into. I mean, it seems to be hard to derive the overall sense of a word from its several kanji component. Do you confirm?

In no particular order:

In my experience, most words do have a sense derivable from their component kanji. Exceptions fall into roughly two categories: idiomatic compounds (not always four-character; consider 沢山) and compounds chosen solely for their readings (亜米利加, say). 先生 is one of those that's probably borderline-idiomatic.

I do not recommend applying mnemonics to vocabulary acquisition; the meaning-reading-kanji trifecta in my experience provides a sufficient grounding for learning without additional help.

~J

I think for words that DO make sense, it's a good idea; and for words that don't make sense, it's a bad idea. That's what I think.

Vocab words I'm learning in my Japanese class now (Weather-related terms)
雨 - Rain -> Rain - All I need to remember is the reading!
雪 - Snow -> Snow - All I need to remember is the reading!
曇り - Cloudiness-Okurigana -> Cloudy - All I need to remember is the reading!
晴れ - Clear Up-Okurigana -> Sunny - Just memorize because it makes no sense!
北 - North -> North - All I need to remember is the reading!
北東 - North-East -> Northeast - All I need to remember is the reading!
台風 - Pedestal-Wind -> Typhoon (or hurricane) - Just memorize because it makes no sense!　　Some people might think it's like a "pedestal" but I don't think so.
天気 - Heavens-Spirit -> Weather
天気予報 - Weather-Beforehand-Report -> Weather forecast

I think ones that do make sense are especially easy to remember. I heard these in a song recently:
泣き虫 - Cry-Okurigana-Insect -> Crybaby
弱虫 - Weak-Insect -> Weakling/Coward
I thought むしあつい had something to do with insects, but I was wrong, it's
蒸し暑い - Steam-Okurigana-Sultry-Adjective Ending

jcdietz03 Wrote:台風 - Pedestal-Wind -> Typhoon (or hurricane) - Just memorize because it makes no sense!　　Some people might think it's like a "pedestal" but I don't think so.

Originally the たい was written as 颱; the 台 is just for sound and later apparently people just replaced that character with 台.

Quote:晴れ - Clear Up-Okurigana -> Sunny - Just memorize because it makes no sense!

Isn't a clear sky sunny? "The weather cleared up over the weekend", etc.

jcdietz03 Wrote:I think for words that DO make sense, it's a good idea; and for words that don't make sense, it's a bad idea. That's what I think.

Vocab words I'm learning in my Japanese class now (Weather-related terms)
雨 - Rain -> Rain - All I need to remember is the reading!
[etc]

We clearly have a different idea of what qualifies as "mnemonic". Or did I misunderstand what you meant by "it"?

Edit: or if you mean continuing to use the keyword, why? If you know what 泣く means and you've either looked up the phrase or seen it in context, 泣き虫 falls right out without having to detour through English. So on and soforth.

~J

It's hard to remember what words mean. I'm not being a 泣き虫 or anything. Knowing the key words helps me remember what 泣き虫 means. You might not call it a mnemonic device. I have seen both 泣く and 虫 before, but I never thought of trying to remember it like that.

It won't help in the reverse direction. Do you know what a cry-insect is? If you've looked up the word before, seeing the kanji will remind you of the word's meaning.

yudantaitekiさん, the phrase "The weather cleared up over the weekend" does not remind me of "sunny" very much. I will try to just memorize this word.

Just read it. Don't even worry about remembering things. Don't SRS anything. Just pay attention and absorb what is meaningful and accessible to you; then go back to what you were doing. Return to it in a few weeks; you'll learn something new. Repeat as necessary.

Mafried, I see "no big stress" in your way of doing it, almost as if you relied on an internalized, subconscious integration of Tae Kim, right?

I wouldn't say subconscious... you have to read with an active, critical mind. Maybe more like an intuitive recognition of what's important to learn at the moment, and just as importantly what's not. The most critical skills I've found in language learning are twofold: 1) being able to recognize what is just outside of your current understanding, and therefore accessible, and 2) identifying that which is beyond your level, moving past it, and without worrying too much about it. The latter is just as, if not more important.

The first time through Tae Kim it's not all going to stick. So just relax, take it easy, and learn what you can. The next time you'll be better prepared, and ready to learn something different.

woodwojr Wrote:In my experience, most words do have a sense derivable from their component kanji. Exceptions fall into roughly two categories: idiomatic compounds (not always four-character; consider 沢山) and compounds chosen solely for their readings (亜米利加, say). 先生 is one of those that's probably borderline-idiomatic.

Ateji are always chosen with some flavor of the chosen kanji added in. 沢山 was chosen for the readings, but when one has many たく and さん to choose from one tends to choose something with a little bit of a connection instead of something random. Idiomatic compounds use the meanings of the characters to tell a story, where the 'moral' of that story is the meaning of the word. As such it isn't clear what the compound means unless one knows that story. Idiomatic doesn't mean that the characters are "only kind of related to the meaning".

In any case, 先生 is not even remotely idiomatic, it means elder. Someone born before you has more experience and thus has things to teach you. Keep in mind that in a foreign language people don't just use different words, they use words differently. In this case, Japanese people call their teachers/doctors/lawyers "elders" since they rely on their wisdom gained through experience. The word for teacher as a profession is 教師.

泣き虫 is also not idiomatic, it's a pun of 鳴き虫, as in a cicada that is constantly chirping.

In the Anki Deck of Tae Kim, I noticed there is a "Sentence Audio" field on the cards. For example, on one card, I have the following text in that field: "[sound:Tae Kim - Basic Grammar_009.mp3]"

Are the MP3 automatically installed on your computer once you downloaded that shared deck? If not, where can I get those mp3 and do I need to install a specific pluggin or whatever to play them in Anki? Sorry for those basic questions.

I just read a lesson, added in a few example sentences from it to my deck, and let those reinforce the grammar I had learned to understand. Really, though, most of the grammar was reinforced quite sufficiently through regular reading of native materials. As someone else said above, Tae Kim's guide is really a solid solid foundation to help you get started reading more Japanese with a good level of comprehension.

I don't think you'd need to "do a Tae Kim's guide deck". You don't need all of those sentences. Just pick and choose.