Looking for some advice. I finished RTK1, I have about 5000 words in my 'vocab deck' in Anki.
Only problem is, all that vocab doesn't actually help me read sentences. I tried looking up the grammar of the sentences I don't understand on Tae Kim's. But Tae Kim only covers the most essential stuff which I am already competent in. The sentences I get stuck on, most of them have strange structures and strange expressions. Perhaps they are not grammar related at all, I can't fully tell. I had a lot of trouble reading the demo of Rewrite (visual novel) for example but I have no trouble reading some other visual novels that use simple language.
Any tips?

I've found this page from halvsie useful. http://www.halvsie.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=4633

Maybe you should try JSPEC (Japanese Sentence Patterns for Effective Communication).

There's even a link google spreadsheet for JSPEC somewhere in these forums (I don't remember where).

Also, "All About Particles" is another good book.

One thing you might try is just asking here about stuff you don't know; it may be that once you ask some questions about some recurring things that you can't find in the grammar books your comprehension will go up a lot. I know that when I was at the stage you are, asking people's help on sci.lang.japan was vital.

First, Go to anki, download the Dictionary of Japanese Grammar deck (title is like 8500 japanese sentences)

Second, Get Kanzen Master 2 - don't use the book itself but instead search all of the individual grammar points the book lists and unsuspend them in DOJG deck. (saves you having to data entry and works damn well)

Third, Make your way through all that you've unsuspended (I unsuspended about 800 sentences)

Fourth, Enjoy enough grammar ability to be able to pick up a novel and get whats going on.

Fifth, whenever you come across a grammar point you don't know just try search it in that deck and unsuspend as you go.

This will seriously level you up in terms of reading comprehension.

I don't think flash cards of sentences from the Dictionary of Japanese Grammar series are in any way a replacement for the books. The sentences are meant to illustrate all the grammatical depth explained in the book, and in isolation are rendered generic simple sentences.

Cosign, could you give examples of things you've had trouble deciphering? Phrases and idioms simply have to learned one by one as you encounter them, and in those cases either researching them or (more easily) asking someone are usually the only solutions. If you're having trouble understanding sentences in which you know all the vocabulary, then is it because you don't know the grammar being used, or are you having trouble even in situations where you understand all the grammar and vocabulary, but can't make sense what the sentence properly means?

Aijin Wrote:I don't think flash cards of sentences from the Dictionary of Japanese Grammar series are in any way a replacement for the books. The sentences are meant to illustrate all the grammatical depth explained in the book, and in isolation are rendered generic simple sentences.

I agree with this. It's a great book for reference but I wouldn't wanna study the sentences as they seem very simple/unnatural with no context.

I think you're better off looking the stuff up from the visual novel you dont understand, working it out and then adding that to anki (if you use anki at all)

Have you done anything besides 5,000 sentences, RTK, and Tae Kim? If so, it's kind of no wonder that you have some trouble with grammar. I think a textbook could actually be really helpful. The problem with Tae Kim and sentences is that it's all 100% passive learning, and personally I find it really hard to learn grammar that way.

One good resource is the 'Read Real Japanese' series. There's both a book of essays and short stories. It comes with a dictionary, notes, and if you really need it, translation of individual phrases. The nice thing about it is that the notes cover anything that wouldn't really know out of a grammar book. Another good part about it is that it comes with a CD of the all the stories or essays.

However, I'm worried that if you've only done Tae Kim your grammar might not quite be advanced enough for that sort of thing. There's another book called 'Reading Japanese With a Smile' that is similar. However, it's much easier. I also think that in general it's not as good a book, since it doesn't come with a CD and is not is in depth, but it's an easier option.

My advice would be to look at these before you buy them.

Also, please make use of the 'What's this word/phrase' (it's title is something like this) thread on this forum. If you don't understand something because it's not the type of word or grammar that you would normally find in a learner's resources, some of the more advanced people or native speakers on this forum will be able to help you.

@Tzadeck

How much grammar/vocab study is reasonable to begin reading Japanese? I was under the impression that Core2k+6k and Tae Kim is enough to begin reading manga and some light novels, but I'm now beginning to have doubts. I'm almost at the end of both Core2k and Tae Kim. Can I realistically expect to be able to read at least low level manga once I complete Core2k and Tae Kim, or do I still have a long way to go?

Thanks for the tips Mezbup. I looked at the index page of this book, Kanzen Master 2 and it appears to have 173 entries. A search through something common like によって gives about 40 results. Do I just unsuspend all 40 of them?

I think it is a mixture of both. After reading non-stop for about a year, I felt like I hit a steep curve where I am no longer learning the meaning of the sentences anymore. I couldnt "work out" the sentences like I could previously. More correctly, I can read anything but harder stuff because harder sentences are more fanciful or use expressions I am unfamiliar with, etc. It was All for vocab, and that wasn't good.

vileru Wrote:@Tzadeck

How much grammar/vocab study is reasonable to begin reading Japanese? I was under the impression that Core2k+6k and Tae Kim is enough to begin reading manga and some light novels, but I'm now beginning to have doubts. I'm almost at the end of both Core2k and Tae Kim. Can I realistically expect to be able to read at least low level manga once I complete Core2k and Tae Kim, or do I still have a long way to go?

I think it just depends on how you're going to define "begin reading." I think that no matter how much preparation you do, when you actually encounter real Japanese in a nondomesticated context it's going to be messier and stranger than that. Can you start reading manga? Certainly! Can you expect to understand everything? No. When you start reading Japanese you have to be very comfortable with ambiguity at first, and with guessing enough from context to bridge the gaps.

I think you might be at a stage where you need to start doing more listening as well as continuing your reading. The problem just with reading a lot is it's easy to fall into the decoding trap. What I mean is you've learned a lot grammar and despite having a rapidly expanding vocabulary, you are still not reading like a native reads, you go much slower, have trouble processing long sentences and unknown words trip you up and destroy your flow, reading becomes unfocused and inefficient. Focusing on listening will force you to process sentences much much faster. Leveling up your speed of comprehension in this way will improve your reading speed, enjoyment and ultimately comprehension. Sometimes texts are easier to understand when read quickly because when a text is read too slowly, the benefit of context (earlier sentences) is lessened and inherent ambiguity in language can become problematic.

Fillanzea Wrote:I think it just depends on how you're going to define "begin reading." I think that no matter how much preparation you do, when you actually encounter real Japanese in a nondomesticated context it's going to be messier and stranger than that. Can you start reading manga? Certainly! Can you expect to understand everything? No. When you start reading Japanese you have to be very comfortable with ambiguity at first, and with guessing enough from context to bridge the gaps.

My apologies, I should have been more specific in my post. What I asking is: what should my level of comprehension be once I'm done with Core2k and Tae Kim? For example, should I be able to read a simple manga like Yotsuba, and only need to look up a grammar point or definition once or twice a page? I'm curious to know what level one stands at after completing these supposed milestones.

vileru Wrote:What I asking is: what should my level of comprehension be once I'm done with Core2k and Tae Kim? For example, should I be able to read a simple manga like Yotsuba, and only need to look up a grammar point or definition once or twice a page? I'm curious to know what level one stands at after completing these supposed milestones.

Somewhere between JLPT N4 and N3.

From my experience you can go ahead with Yotsuba but you will definitely find a lot of words you don't know but still should be able to get thru it. Words like:
望遠鏡 telescope 風船 balloon, etc are just a few I remember but after a couple reads thru should get easier. I actually find the kids newspaper easier than a lot of the manga's because they spend the whole article talking about one topic.... http://www.asagaku.com/ but the kanji is around jlpt2 level/maybe core 6000, but definitely not as fun as a manga.

Death Note is another good intermediate manga but again there will be a lot of unknown words the first time around.

I would say try not to get too caught up in fully understanding the difficult sentences, and just focus on the easier ones. Eventually you'll understand those difficult ones even if you're not very sure how. Grammar that used to give me so much problems gradually felt more natural, and I don't even know how, I just kept reading. Do look up new grammar points you've never seen before though, as it will make things much quicker (rikaichan can be very good for parsing text to sort out what's grammar/nouns/okurigana/etc).

Knowledge of 2,000 words, and the most basic grammar, will likely allow you to read the simplest of materials as long as you have strong context. In other words, you should be able to understand simple manga with the aid of the images for context. I don't read much manga or light novels myself, so I can't really offer too much insight, but I can tell you how it is for my students: students with intermediate grammar knowledge (all of the grammar in the Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar, and a chunk of the Intermediate book) and a vocabulary of about 5,000-10,000 words can usually follow manga well if it's material their vocabularies match up with.
IE: A student who is very familiar with all the classical music terminology will be able to read manga about that, but if they tried to pick up a manga about cooking, or an action adventure, they would be absolutely lost. Completely different types of vocabulary in all the different genres.
I only have a few students who can read material like light novels, and their vocabulary is probably between 10,000-13,000 I think.

It all depends upon the material though, like I mentioned. Usually the first few thousand words learned are in regards to daily life, so reading manga that sticks to that will probably be easiest

My thanks to everyone for the timely feedback. It's reassuring to have a somewhat objective measure of where I stand.

If you guys can entertain one more question, I'd like to ask: what level of grammar comprehension is attained after completing Tae Kim? I'd like to gather some opinions, so I can prepare accordingly for the next step. So, in terms of JLPT grammar, how comprehensive is Tae Kim? And in terms of reading ability, what sort of material can be read after internalizing Tae Kim and acquiring the appropriate vocabulary? I will appreciate any help that can be provided!

vileru Wrote:@Tzadeck

How much grammar/vocab study is reasonable to begin reading Japanese? I was under the impression that Core2k+6k and Tae Kim is enough to begin reading manga and some light novels, but I'm now beginning to have doubts. I'm almost at the end of both Core2k and Tae Kim. Can I realistically expect to be able to read at least low level manga once I complete Core2k and Tae Kim, or do I still have a long way to go?

To a certain extent I can't really talk about how much you can learn based on Tae Kim and the Core series. Although I'm doing Core 6000 these days, the vast majority of my five years of study was through textbooks and living in Japan for two years.

I'd say that at 9,000-10,000 words you can start to enjoy novels written for Japanese adults without being too annoyed by how much you need to look up and how much you fail to understand. That is, assuming that you have JLPT2 level grammar. (I'm not quite at that level myself, I think I know something like 6,000-7,000 words. I don't study very hard at all, and I'm very lazy with my SRSing. Though, my grammar is great.)

I also think that somewhere around 3,000 words you can start to enjoy things like manga, provided you get the context. If you watch an anime or something, and then read the manga, it will be thousands of times easier than if you didn't watch the anime first. A lot of manga uses a lot of words very specific to the manga, often completely bullshit terms, and knowing them ahead of time makes it not so much of a problem. Or, for example, I watched Evangelion maybe 11 years ago for the first time, and when I first read the manga I knew that I could pretty much ignore everything that was said in a battle. Most of it is talking about Sync Ratios, and stuff like that, and it really doesn't matter at all. So, there's other ways that being somewhat aware of the material can help. If I didn't know that all the stuff said during Eva battles is bullshit, I might have worried about the fact that I didn't really understand the majority of the words.

Cultural things matter a lot too. If you know that in Japan it's considered a bit rude to put on make-up in public, but a lot of girls do it anyway, if a situation comes up in a book or manga in which a girl is being judged for doing that, it's way easier to understand and read quickly if you're already aware of that cultural fact. Even if you don't know a few words, it'll be way easier to assume what they are or get the overall meaning.

vileru Wrote:My thanks to everyone for the timely feedback. It's reassuring to have a somewhat objective measure of where I stand.

If you guys can entertain one more question, I'd like to ask: what level of grammar comprehension is attained after completing Tae Kim? I'd like to gather some opinions, so I can prepare accordingly for the next step. So, in terms of JLPT grammar, how comprehensive is Tae Kim? And in terms of reading ability, what sort of material can be read after internalizing Tae Kim and acquiring the appropriate vocabulary? I will appreciate any help that can be provided!

I already answered this. Somewhere between JLPT N4 and N3. Mostly leaning towards N4. Tae Kim just doesn't go very far in terms of grammar coverage. It's a good foundation in basic Japanese but you need to really break into intermediate level grammar before you can accurately read. Anything beyond an elementary school 3rd grade level is going to swamp you in grammar beyond your level.

Womacks23 Wrote:I already answered this. Somewhere between JLPT N4 and N3. Mostly leaning towards N4.

Okay, that's what I initially suspected. However, you responded to what someone's level would be after completing both Tae Kim and Core2k, which left the possibility that their level in both would be between N4 and N3 at a minimum, but that either vocab or grammar might exceed the N3 level (i.e. the average of the two would between N4 and N3, but one of the two might be past that level). Since it's a common method to do Tae Kim followed by Kanzen Master for JLPT2, I suppose I wrongly assumed that Tae Kim gives a firm grammar base and Kanzen Master simply softens the edges. At any rate, you have my apology for making you repeat yourself and my thanks for clearing up the matter and for the information you provided.

I think a lot of members of this forum are over reliant on completion of courses, core2000, tae kim, kanzen master and so on in order to master grammar and vocab. Mastering grammar in isolation of actual content is like wanting someone one to spoon feed you every possible sentence in the Japanese language along with a neat translation in English. This will not teach you how to read because reading is an act of interpretation into meaning. To get good at comprehending Japanese, you just need practice interpreting unknown sentences into meaning within a context. Courses can help you identify the basic elements of the language but the actual improvements in comprehension comes from applying this knowledge in real language situations. There will always be uncertainty when first diving into real content. The key is to accept this uncertainty and keep engaging with more content rather than fighting it and always reaching for a grammar reference or searching internet forums. If you keep engaging with real content things that confuse you now will become clear in due time without any effort. I'm not trying to put down grammar explanation or anything, just there comes a time when studying the language in the abstract starts offering seriously diminishing returns compared to real engagement with it. Maybe I think this time comes earlier than others on this forum, but there are plenty of successful language learners who largely ignore textbooks/grammar completely. In fact I'd argue this has been the dominant way people learn foreign languages for most of human history. Tae Kim (and presumably other guides) cover particles (albeit craply), all the verb tenses and a bunch of the most commonly used patterns. This should be enough. If you've ever looked in JLPT grammar guides, after around 2kyuu it's all just nuanced vocabulary anyway. You can get used to conversational forms, formal writing, slangy conjugations etc quite easily without ever having to study them.

vileru Wrote:My apologies, I should have been more specific in my post. What I asking is: what should my level of comprehension be once I'm done with Core2k and Tae Kim? For example, should I be able to read a simple manga like Yotsuba, and only need to look up a grammar point or definition once or twice a page? I'm curious to know what level one stands at after completing these supposed milestones.

I did Core2k+JLPT3&4 which gave me around 2.5k vocabulary, read Tae Kim twice with exercises, done 1.5year of Japanese classes like 7 years ago (really basic stuff) and self studied Dictionary of Basic Grammar for about a month and STILL I found Yotsuba too challenging/frustrating to read. I found Hikaru no Go much easier for me because I'm familiar with its topic, vocabulary, plot etc. but still it wasn't comfortable enough to enjoy it while learning some stuff.

What I found is that real Japanese is on completely different planet than Japanese in textbooks. I can read most textbooks without a problem, example sentences from DBG are trivial once I know the grammar, KM3 example sentences are also very simple but give me a native kids book and I'm left helpless & screaming.

I'm almost finishing my last vocabulary list and I'll test if its any better this time around but since there won't be anything else to do, I guess I'll have to endure it and just read, read & read.

At intermediate level, the best approach is just to read. Learning by sentences from books, you've learned how a japanese sentence can look and what it can mean, but you have no experience with bigger contexts, which a sentence often depends on. By reading manga, books and such, you get more experience with larger contexts and reading becomes easy.

It's also important to remember the following points:
* The start of something is always the hardest. Use a dictionary or ask questions to get through the first chapters of a book before you judge it, it will almost always get easier down the line.
* You won't understand everything, and you shouldn't. An unknown word here and there, an unclear sentence or two, no problem. Just read on and it will probably become clear in time.

search it in japanese like on yahoo co.jp dictionary or just immerse yourself more in japanese aka "have fun" instead of just "studying" japanaese.

That's all I needed to do...

nadiatims Wrote:Maybe I think this time comes earlier than others on this forum, but there are plenty of successful language learners who largely ignore textbooks/grammar completely. In fact I'd argue this has been the dominant way people learn foreign languages for most of human history. Tae Kim (and presumably other guides) cover particles (albeit craply), all the verb tenses and a bunch of the most commonly used patterns. This should be enough. If you've ever looked in JLPT grammar guides, after around 2kyuu it's all just nuanced vocabulary anyway. You can get used to conversational forms, formal writing, slangy conjugations etc quite easily without ever having to study them.

Ignoring grammar may work for basic comprehension alone, but for speaking and writing skills I'd say it's unwise. All the foreigners I've known who have been able to speak and write in Japanese incredibly well, were able to do so with a lot of grammatical knowledge, while those who make awkward and grammatically incorrect sentences usually do so because they haven't studied the grammar they're using in much depth. Japanese is a language with a lot of grammar that is very similar, but cannot be used interchangeably, and if one does not know how to use it properly they'll end up standing out as a foreigner immediately. ~ば, 〜たら、~なら, 〜と、or だけ, ばかり、and しか could be distinguished quickly if one read their differences in a grammar resource, for example, but if one just tries to use them without knowing them in depth, they'll end up using them incorrectly.
Politeness styles require reading about as well. Even Japanese people have to learn keigo formally to be able to use it properly, which is why it's so hard for a lot of natives; it's not a part of the language that is learned naturally in childhood.