- Removed -

I'm not familiar with the book you're talking about, but 1000 kanji and only 1500 vocab seems very unbalanced. I think KO2001 was up past 4000 vocabulary words and only 1000 kanji (somebody will have to confirm/correct this). Also there's a *lot* more words that use those kanji than is covered in KO2001.

Just food for thought. I'll let somebody who's familiar with the materials you're talking about (and textbooks in general) comment for real.

You seem to misunderstand the purpose of the SRS. You don't LEARN anything from it. You use it to retain the information that you have learned. You should still learn by whatever means you like, be it textbooks, television shows, or daily life experiences.
And besides, KO.2001 *IS* a textbook, pretty much.

If you think textbooks will work better for you, then go ahead and use them -- of course there are many people who have learned without SRSing sentences (I have never used SRS in my life).

I think I sorta agree with you. My issue with textbooks is that they are boring. I don't care about Mr. Smith ordering a coffee or introducing himself to Mr. Tanaka. Boring content can interfere with learning since it can be a big demotivator. But I think a textbook can potentially introduce the language better than a kanji book combined with a grammar guide and a bunch of random sentences(sentence mining, smart.fm, KO2001, etc). SRSing words and sentences from exposure might be better once you're upper beginner/early intermediate.

The only reason I would ever recommend that someone avoid textbooks or classes is if they find them so boring and demotivating that they will not study Japanese instead of using them.

I always felt that textbooks, while certainly boring to a certain extent, were much less boring and frustrating than trying to decode some native material at a page every 30 minutes with 60% comprehension.

Your argument doesn't make any sense to me. First your talking about doing KO2001, which is NOT an SRS system, but then you break down the pros and cons of SRS stating that you don't "learn" grammar or reading comprehension from an SRS?

SRS is a tool to effectively schedule review cycles for material you have already learned. Period. Saying that "you'd have to SRS something extra to learn thing X" makes no sense at all as you are free to put in whatever you want into your SRS.

You want to remember a useful sentence from a textbook you put it in the SRS.
You want to remember a useful vocabulary word you put it in the SRS.

There is no comparison to be made between an SRS and a textbook because an SRS is not anything until you put something in it.

But there is one argument I can definitely make and that is an SRS is a FAR more effective tool then simply trying to re-read textbook material for repetition based on some random "estimate" of when you think you should do so.

Well, Just today I found myself thinking about this matter. Are sentences really that great over textbooks? I think they are for vocabulary, though I personally like to repeat the word a few times and after a while repeat it again. About grammar I don't know, I don't have much experience with the sentence method to know that.

I have been learning from sentences for a few days (with a 2 week break due to the final of the semester - lots of tests...). But I must have used it for a week. Yeah, It's effective, if I use really simple sentences. If I find a sentences with 3 or 4 + new words I struggle a lot and loose motivation.

What I 'm thinking about doing is learning from a textbook (Genki, Minna no Nihongo, AIATIJ and Tae Kim) and at the same time use the SRS for sentences with new vocabulary. Simple sentences, or at least sentences with grammar I know.
In college I'm using Minna no Nihongo at a really slow pace (1 lesson per week), at home I have that one and Genki.

I think the sentence method is great, and I was just beggining, but I'd rather spend my time learning grammar and vocabulary through exercises (though I find some of them to be boring). Ok, as for vocabulary I want to learn I will continue srsing it.

My biggest problem is the lack of time. I'm a mandarin major and my tests are, well, dictations (and I hate that, I'd rather have tests to test our grammar skills) and most of the time I find myself writing the same text over and over, for hours, to learn the vocabulary, understand the grammar and tranlate it. And that kills time, I have no time to srs sentences whatsoever, and SRSing means find sentences, understand them bla bla bla. And I never failed a single day of RTK's reviews in months. While with texxtbooks everything is written there, you don't have to look for stuff.

So, I'll use textbooks + Tae Kim alongside with Anki. I soooo hope this will work better for me.

If you want to learn grammar, I think there is no better way to do so than to read an explanation from a textbook or something similar. I mainly use sentences to learn new vocabulary, or for interesting sentence patterns that I never came across in standard textbooks.
One thing about most of the textbooks I have used, they tend to try to stick with "perfect" and polite sentences. Most of the real Japanese that you encounter wont be so polite, and will be far from "perfect".

I think that whatever you do that makes you better at Japanese is good. Whether that be learning from textbooks, reading manga, watching TV, or whatever is a good way to expose you to Japanese ( obviously ). You don't have to use an SRS. If it doesn't work for you then it doesn't work. Everybody has different ways of doing things. So to talk about it is interesting but also kind of a waste of time. You can get tips from people on how they went about doing things but it all comes down to how you want to get things done in the end.

Again it seems as people are confusing various methods or resources with the SRS.

Mining sentences is not an SRS. If you find a sentence difficult because it has 3-4 hard compounds in it what does that have to do with using an SRS lol? If you put that sentence into the SRS before you understand it then that's your fault, not the SRS's.

SRS is a form of support not the main way to learn. I have atleast 4 textbook, 3 study sites (including this one), anki with KO2001 and lots of japanese programs and radio to listen to in the mean time. A language is a massive massive undertaking, thinking that just 1 program or even 2, can get you to a good understanding of Japanese is just plain naive.

I often start my day with SRS, then work a bit through text books to get a bit more of understanding of all those sentence ive seen in the SRS. Go through my sites which I guess are various forms of SRS. Then I watch/listen to Japanese stuff trying to pinpoint words that I cant understand and write them down, then add them to the SRS. After all that I try and write down what im thinking in Japanese. These all adds together and nearly covers all aspects of a language for me, except speaking ofcouse.

And I bet this is nothing compared to some people on this site.

Personally text books bore me to demotivation so much that my study grinds to a halt. An SRS is so versatile you can mould It to suit your purpose. Who says you can't SRS your whole text book? I think when it comes down to the wire if you make your whole way through the text book and don't SRS any of it you will retain considerably than if you SRSed it as you were making your way through it. It's a tool designed to save you the time and frustration of forgetting things aswell as to speed up the acquisition of things like vocabulary.

Obviously SRSing your whole textbook is additional work but the extra work is DEFINATELY not without reward!! Whether you use a traditional textbook is a question of balance. Your example is an intermediate textbook standing alone vs ko2001 with an SRS. What you have to take into account is that to complete ur intermediate textbook you first have to do the entire begginers one as a prerequisite so I'd add that into the time estimate. On top of that you can't gaurantee retention of anything but it should be ok as long as you use what you know all the time. The pros are a far more balanced approach in terms of rounding out all skills and I thinks this is perhaps ur main concern. KO2001 on the other hand, with an SRS can bestow upon you a decent reading ability with roughly the same effort, I'd say something like Tae Kim being a prerequisite. So that's 1110 kanji plus 3000 ~ 4000 vocab but I think the difference is in reading style.

Textbooks are very sumisu San this and tanaka San that and that's perfect for the ground up approach with a strong focus on speaking. I think a lot of the time this community has a slight bias on reading/writing skills instead of training verbal output.

Realistically the average textbook user in a class room setting will work through the textbook at a slow pace. This gives them a good amount of time to master what they learn as they learn it. An SRSer using native stuff or precooked decks can gain 1000 vocab very realistically a month (I know I do). This means 10,000 ~ 12,000 vocab in 1 year vs 1500 in a textbook. Give the SRS a second year and you could be reading 15,000 ~ 20,000 words and OVER 3000 kanji. By the 3rd/4th year I can only imagine a native level vocab. A textbooker in a classroom setting would fall WELL below after the same period of time. The point there is the advantages of such an approach aren't short term, they are long term. I don't know whether to call it a shortcut or a longcut but they say "A shortcut is always the longest way".

If they stick to it, both students can reach fluency of the spoken language. If we say it took 5 years for both students to absolutely MASTER the spoken language, the SRSer would have triple the reading ability of the textbooker I think. The textbooker would be out in front in terms of speaking ablity for the first year or two but once the SRSers conversational skills catch up he's on the same footing with a way bigger vocab.

If you combine both approaches you can rock at speaking, reading and have a huge vocab. There's no reason you can't cross from one camp to the other.

No way is wrong, but each has it's pros and cons. I say pick a method you know you can stick with and apply yourself every day until fluency and you can't help but get there.

Fluent comprehension of written materials? I never normally read a self introduction by スミスさん in the news nor do I hear about his wife or which desk is his and he and I definitely never go to a restaurant and order the さしみ and then have it published in the newspaper.

KO actually covers a tonne of news specific vocabulary but it's naive to think that after you finish KO (or a textbook) that you can pick up a newspaper and have no troubles at all. After I finished KO I had a wicked footing when reading anything (news included). It's been nearly 2 months since I finished KO and i've been vocab harvesting (not sentence mining, I don't care for it) and my reading ability has increased in leaps and bounds. I still have to look up plenty of vocab per article (though lately I've definitely noticed my level has increased, yay!)

If there's one thing I've found though and this is being straight up, the only thing that will get you understanding the news is to just read the news as much as you can. When I started doing it about a month ago I didn't know a lot of the terms that crop up every day nor was I all too familiar with some of the grammar patterns they use on a very consistent basis. Reading the news for a month at the rate of 1 - 2 (sometimes 3) articles a day has changed a hell of a lot of that. The main killer to comprehension is vocab, until you have at least 10,000 (even then) you're going to consistently run into words you don't know and thus comprehension suffers.

Lots of reading and vocab acquisition is what is required once you have learned the grammar required to read the given materials. Further than that you need to read lots of different styles from different sources. Fluent reading only comes when you can read uninterrupted by dictionary look ups at a decent speed. I think no matter who you are or how you learn that takes a long time for anyone and making your way through a textbook is about 1/5 of the process.

dennybritz Wrote:mezbup, thanks for your response. That was what I was looking for

mezbup Wrote:Who says you can't SRS your whole text book?

Yes, but that defeats the purpose of a textbook If I wanted to SRS my whole textbook I could just simply get a pre-SRSed one, like KO2001. That saves me the time of typing everything. Now, SRSing some difficult words/sentences during study is another thing which is certainly worth the effort.

mezbup Wrote:Your example is an intermediate textbook standing alone vs ko2001 with an SRS. What you have to take into account is that to complete ur intermediate textbook you first have to do the entire begginers one as a prerequisite so I'd add that into the time estimate.

Even KO2001 has prerequisites which we then should take into account as well. Personally I feel that both KO2001 and AIA2IJ are about the same level, that's why I chose them for comparison. I don't think the prerequisites are too different. Yes, AIA2IJ has more complex grammar but KO2001 assumes more vocaulary/Kanji knowledge to not frustrate you with every sentence.

mezbup Wrote:Realistically the average textbook user in a class room setting will work through the textbook at a slow pace. This gives them a good amount of time to master what they learn as they learn it. An SRSer using native stuff or precooked decks can gain 1000 vocab very realistically. This means 10,000 ~ 12,000 vocab in 1 year vs 1500 in a textbook. Give the SRS a second year and you could be reading 15,000 ~ 20,000 words and OVER 3000 kanji.

However, it is not fair to compare SRSing pre-made decks with a classroom setting. In a classroom setting you effectively spend 5-6 hours a week on studying Japanese. If you were put the same amount of time into studying textbooks by yourself than you are putting into SRSing to get ~12,00 vocab, then you will come out with just as many words and Kanjis. From my own experience it is possible to finish an average textbook in 1-2 months with good retention (2-3 hours per day). Thus, that are ~ 6 textbooks per year, or: Basic -> Basic -> Intermediate -> Advanced -> Whatever you want. I think this comes out much better than SRSing sentences for a year, both in terms of vocabulary and Kanji (plus grammar and reading comprehension).

mezbup Wrote:Fluent comprehension of written materials? I never normally read a self introduction by スミスさん in the news nor do I hear about his wife or which desk is his and he and I definitely never go to a restaurant and order the さしみ and then have it published in the newspaper.

Uh, this is true for absolute beginner's textbooks. Intermediate/Advanced textbooks have readings that are much more similar to "real" Japanese. In fact, they are often taken from real Japanese sources.

mezbup Wrote:KO actually covers a tonne of news specific vocabulary but it's naive to think that after you finish KO (or a textbook) that you can pick up a newspaper and have no troubles at all. After I finished KO I had a wicked footing when reading anything (news included). It's been nearly 2 months since I finished KO and i've been vocab harvesting (not sentence mining, I don't care for it) and my reading ability has increased in leaps and bounds. I still have to look up plenty of vocab per article (though lately I've definitely noticed my level has increased, yay!)

How long did it take you to finish KO?
Of course you won't be able to read a newspaper afterwards (there's still a big gap between KO and newspaper, same as there is between intermediate textbook and newspaper). I am not saying that KO is useless, but what if you had gone through 2 textbooks instead of KO? Do you think your level now would be much lower?

IceCream Wrote:Essentially, neither KO2001 or your textbook will get you very far, but they're not bad. Both of them are boring imo. And your better off SRSing from TV shows, or books / manga. The problem that yudantaiteki talks about doesn't really happen any more with english translations readily available...

Here I disagree with you. Manga's, TV shows, etc are a good source for speaking/listening retention (Goal: Fluent speaking/listening), but not for Kanji/Reading retetion (Goal: Fluent Reading/Writing). Both textbooks and pre-made decks won't get you fair in listening/speaking but are definitely more effective for reading materials than TV shows (and this is why my argument makes sense, since they both achieve the same goal). Also, I have other methods to learn listening/speaking.

TV drama can be good for kanji/vocab if you use Japanese subtitles.
I print them out and read them like I would any novel or manga.
Then I study the vocab/sentences I'm not familiar with.

Many practical kanji compounds come up that you'd never see
in a textbook or novel, since drama is often very casual and not
too formal (unless it is necessary).

I'm amazed at how many of the words that appear in drama
are used by my Japanese language partners in daily conversation.
It's happened SO many times already it's not even funny.

But yeah, in some ways, written Japanese may as well be another language on its own.

As always, diversity is key. Acquire vocab from as many different types of sources as you can (as long as it is still fun for you).

You need both. What will a "mined" sentence tell you? Well, if you can memorize it, you can possibly repeat that same grammatical structure if you ever have the chance to say that exact sentence in that exact situation. If you look at a lot of sentences, you will get some strong hints at the "what is going on" with the language, but if you don't interact with a native speaker, you have a high chance of deducing the grammar incorrectly. A textbook will tell it to you straight. You get a rule, and thus the ability, to create (and likewise understand) an infinite number of sentences that employ that rule. However, a textbook won't tell you about the very different (compared to English) ways that the Japanese employ their grammar in discourse. For this, you need mined sentences (or immersion).

Once you have an intuitive grasp of the grammar (by this I mean big picture stuff only, not literature-elegance), I wouldn't see why a textbook would be necessary anymore. However, if you're just starting out and don't know any Japanese beyond the kanji you learned from RTK and a handful of vocabulary words you learned from anime, jumping right into sentence mining (I'm just going to say it) is ***** retarded. Well- I'm not going to say you're wrong to have your own way, but if you at least skim Tae Kim's Guide before you start mining sentences and learning readings for kanji, you'll understand the purpose of sentence mining before you do it.

I personally prefer the mining approach because I've tried both ways and I feel like mining + SRS was faster, and lasted.

My problem with just studying textbooks and doing their exercises is that you study a chapter for 6 hours then move onto the next, and by the time a week or two passes, a lot of the details you learned are gone because they don't all get reinforced often enough. If you add examples of what you learn to an SRS then it will help to retain a lot more of what you learn. SRS helps whether you learn from textbooks or from mined sentences.

Then, the question of how to go about learning - doing exercises or mining sentences just depends on which you prefer and what you believe in.

I use a mix of both really - I like textbook explanations of grammar, plus I like to mine examples.

For learning vocab, I like to learn with context - hence SRSing sentences instead of individual words.

IceCream Wrote:Also, be careful of thinking that listening ability equates to speaking ability, and reading to writing though, because it simply doesn't.

Ain't that the truth... even though I'm a complete beginner I've already noticed this. Even though I do absolutely zero speaking practice atm, I can comprehend parts of many songs I hear but I'd be hardpressed to try and sing most of it even when singing along with the words

Same with reading > writing. I've noticed that even only 40-50ish sentences into KO I can usually read the sentences and new vocab without a problem. But when I switch over to my vocab deck and try to reproduce some of those words in my notebook... it's never instant reproduction. I usually have to think quite hard to remember most compounds or just flat out forget the kanji being used

vosmiura Wrote:I personally prefer the mining approach because I've tried both ways and I feel like mining + SRS was faster, and lasted.

My problem with just studying textbooks and doing their exercises is that you study a chapter for 6 hours then move onto the next, and by the time a week or two passes, a lot of the details you learned are gone because they don't all get reinforced often enough. If you add examples of what you learn to an SRS then it will help to retain a lot more of what you learn. SRS helps whether you learn from textbooks or from mined sentences.

Then, the question of how to go about learning - doing exercises or mining sentences just depends on which you prefer and what you believe in.

I use a mix of both really - I like textbook explanations of grammar, plus I like to mine examples.

For learning vocab, I like to learn with context - hence SRSing sentences instead of individual words.

Whoever said you have to do any exercises in a textbook to make good use of it??? This is a misconception if ever there was one! Just look at Tae Kim's Guide. There's a few exercises, but it's clearly not the aim of the lessons to prepare the student to perform a hundred routine drills before moving on. Even in a textbook with the most boring of drills, you can still read just the grammar sections and dialogue (as you see fit) and thus make progress in your studies.

I like to bring up Jordan's "Japanese The Spoken Language" when talking about textbooks because the grammar explanations are great and the dialogue is very natural compared to other textbooks I've seen, but God help the poor soul who tries to complete any of JSL's drills or exercises with the goal of finishing the book in mind. In fact I completed a total of zero exercises in JSL in the time I read all three volumes and don't regret it the least.

I did mention Tae Kim as a prerequisite to doing something like KO2001 so I know it's not without it's prerequisites. I finished it in about 2 months and was glad I made the effort. I guess to answer your question about my abilities if I had tried the same with intermediate textbooks is I think I would have shot myself. Haha.

When I said why couldn't you SRS your whole textbook I was referring to retaining knowledge (because no matter what, it slips, that's the nature of memory. "Use it or lose it".) and not the specific data entry task. It's a real pain having to do data entry and that's why pre-made stuff is really popular around here because it takes the grunt work out of it. The whole idea of the SRS regardless of what you use it for is retention of knowledge, a system to ensure what you've learned get's strengthened and doesn't slip away. That's all. My faith in the system always gets a +1 every time I've come across a word I've SRS'ed and months later in a different setting it pops up and I can remember what it is and how to read it

When I very first started listening to Japanese music I didn't have an SRS and some words I just kept on forgetting and often had to forget a word 3 - 5 times and look it up and eventually it just stuck. SRS just designs that flaw out of the system (not perfectly but it circumvents it 90% of the time). You can learn vocab without it but it's comparable to taking a boat instead of the plane. It is a phenomenally powerful tool.

Outside of a classroom you can work as fast or slow as you want with any given materials. I agree you could complete a textbook in 1 to 2 months, yes. In terms of vocab learning I think pre-made collections of sentences whether it's KO, Core or any textbook series are fantastic for the first 2000 - 3000 words and enough grammar to get you to a point where most stuff will be understandable if the vocab is known. I don't think it's important which materials are used here tbh so long as you learn what's required.

The idea really is to use "study materials" whatever form they come in until you reach a point where you can dive into the real language and let it be your teacher indefinitely. Which is the fastest way to get to that point? If only there we're Japanese learning drag races...

After I reached that point though I started a vocab only deck and add words to it as I come across them in real world reading, listening. It's blazingly fast to review, super effective in terms of passive vocab acquisition and without it I'd be learning at 1/4 the pace. Vocab is the real enemy of comprehension, not grammar.

dennybritz Wrote:However, I took quite a long break from studying Japanese and I don't remember everything

You should have SRSed the example sentences or explanations.

Why does it have to be "vs"?
How about textbooks AND SRS?

In my opinion textbooks are THE best way to start learning a language. When one outgrows them is up to the student. Currently I'm using textbooks, albeit ones made for native speakers (国語教科書).

jajaaan Wrote:Whoever said you have to do any exercises in a textbook to make good use of it??? This is a misconception if ever there was one!

Well, I thought the OP was talking about doing the exercises. I don't think anyone was saying that's the only way to make use of a textbook.

jajaaan Wrote:I like to bring up Jordan's "Japanese The Spoken Language" when talking about textbooks because the grammar explanations are great and the dialogue is very natural compared to other textbooks I've seen, but God help the poor soul who tries to complete any of JSL's drills or exercises with the goal of finishing the book in mind. In fact I completed a total of zero exercises in JSL in the time I read all three volumes and don't regret it the least.

For self-study, JSL really is only good for the grammar explanations and dialogues -- the drills are intended to develop automaticity in speaking and are considered to be preparation for in-class activities that apply the material to simulated real-life contexts.

I didn't know there was any debate about the effectiveness of SRSing? It is obvious that it is going to be better to read a textbook/manga/newspaper and then add the sentences/vocab/whatever into your SRS program and let that take care of the reviewing rather than going back over it yourself. This is a proven fact. It doesn't matter what kind of person you are, you will retain information better if you recall it over increasingly longer intervals.

The most effective way would be to read through whatever textbook you find suits you the best (whether that's KO or the one you were comparing it to) and then to add the new vocab and sentences you've just learnt into your SRS. You will then learn the textbook in the most efficient method possible, provided you use a good SRS program.

You can't really argue against SRSing because you choose what goes in. If you don't like a sentence then get rid of it from your SRS. You can use it to mine whatever you like, I even use it for Maths lectures to great effect. The key is to weed out the crappy sentences and only keep ones that are going to be useful to you.

I do understand what you mean about KO2001 though. I imported the first 300 into anki and tried to go through them finding it reasonably tough with all the new vocab and not really understanding how the sentences are composted. But you need to study the sentences, make sure you know what every part of the sentence means before you review it in your SRS. Don't look at is as 'words that I am never going to use again' because the whole idea of fluency is that you understand everything that is being said to you.