Hi guys.

I'm about halfways through Japanese the Manga Way and was wondering around what JLPT level it would put me grammar-wise once I make it through the whole thing? What would be a good grammar resource to continue with afterwards?

I hope to finish mining the whole thing in a month or two, so just trying to think ahead. Working on KO2001 for vocab along with yomichan.

I would say it would be insignifacant. That book doesn't teach much grammar, it's just fun light introduction. Maybe you could use dictionary of basic Japanese grammar, or Tae Kim's grammar guide.

SheekuAltair Wrote:insignifacant.

Insignificant.

Anyways. Mm...I'd say it's loads ahead of Tae Kim, and explains things better, too. Have you seen/used the book at all (the Manga way one)? Definitely below DOBJG, but that book is massive and while interesting to read, boring as heck to SRS. (I have all three dictionaries). I was originally reading those until I was so bored I almost chopped my head off.

And it does teach grammar. At least as much as Tae Kim, if not more.

Well, yes, DOJG are reference books, they are not designed to be read from cover to cover.
You'll probably have to wait for nest0r to materialize to get a consistent answer... ;P
But isn't that something mentionned somewhere in the beginning of the book?
Probably at least JLPT3... (JLPT4?)

EratiK Wrote:Well, yes, DOJG are reference books, they are not designed to be read from cover to cover.
You'll probably have to wait for nest0r to materialize to get a consistent answer... ;P
But isn't that something mentionned somewhere in the beginning of the book?
Probably at least JLPT3... (JLPT4?)

I actually enjoy reading the entries - SRSing the sentences, however, when they're practically the same thing over and over...is not quite the same.

I was thinking JLPT3, but I wasn't 100% sure. I think JtMW gives a very wide overview of tons of different grammar, enough to understand it. The nit-picky stuff is probably found more DOxJG style (whichever book is needed).

I would've asked Nestor directly, but I have no idea how to.

In my opinion, it is not worth your time attempting to 'nail down' grammar, via sentence mining, srsing and so on. Just read through a grammar explanation or two that explains the main points briefly with plenty of examples, and then start reading a lot and listening a lot, starting with material that you can get transcripts/translations for. Audiobooks are good. Phrasebooks are good. Pimsleur is good.
I don't think any beginner grammar textbook will prepare you for any level of the JLPT, because what you need is vocabulary.

From the contents it looks about N4, the old 3.

As for progression I think the easiest way is by JLPT level as there are loads of resources to do it this way. Maybe get an N4 book to review the JTMW stuff, then an N3 book, N2 book etc

nadiatims Wrote:I don't think any beginner grammar textbook will prepare you for any level of the JLPT, because what you need is vocabulary.

+ grammar + kanji

nadiatims Wrote:In my opinion, it is not worth your time attempting to 'nail down' grammar, via sentence mining, srsing and so on. Just read through a grammar explanation or two that explains the main points briefly with plenty of examples, and then start reading a lot and listening a lot, starting with material that you can get transcripts/translations for. Audiobooks are good. Phrasebooks are good. Pimsleur is good.
I don't think any beginner grammar textbook will prepare you for any level of the JLPT, because what you need is vocabulary.

Nah, I don't plan to take the JLPT at all. Was just wondering what a good source to study next, and since most people measure approximately by JLPT level, I figured I'd base it on that. I know it sounds silly, but I like grammar - it's interesting to me. Plus that's one thing I run into reading a lot is all the particle combinations or word combos that mean XYZ because they're in PRN context. Blergh. Learning them, I'll at least be able to recognize (if not remember) what they are.

I know all the basics - I've been studying on and off for years. I can read simple stuff within my vocab pretty easily (my vocab is about 1k words right now). It's mostly grammar that trips me up anymore, and "parsing" the whole sentence within a sentence thing that (to me, anyways) Japanese is infamous for. I may not be able to say exactly why the sentence goes the way it does, but I can (generally) understand it. JtMW does a good job (in my opinion) of introducing grammar in a fun, memorable way.

@Caivano - What book would you recommend next? I may just suck it up and go for N3 afterwards.

nohika Wrote:@Caivano - What book would you recommend next? I may just suck it up and go for N3 afterwards.

For 3, now N4 I used Kanzen Master level 3 - 完全マスター3級
http://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/4883193543

For N3 I used N3 文のルール
http://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/4896894693

Now for N2 I'm nearly through 完全マスター2級

I basically add 1 or 2 sentences from these to anki, and then more from books when I come across something interesting.

caivano Wrote:

nohika Wrote:@Caivano - What book would you recommend next? I may just suck it up and go for N3 afterwards.

For 3, now N4 I used Kanzen Master level 3 - 完全マスター3級
http://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/4883193543

For N3 I used N3 文のルール
http://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/4896894693

Now for N2 I'm nearly through 完全マスター2級

I basically add 1 or 2 sentences from these to anki, and then more from books when I come across something interesting.

I'm (hopefully) going to Uwajimaya tomorrow, and I'll see about picking up the Kanzen Master 3kyuu if it's not too expensive. Otherwise I think I'll pick up Kino no Tabi.

If your vocabulary is only 1k then I don't believe it's only grammar that is tripping you up or that it is your biggest barrier to comprehension. What kind of material is tripping you up exactly? 1k vocab is nowhere near enough to enjoy the vast bulk of native materials (try multiplying that number by at least 5-10 and eventually much higher). Is grammar tripping you up in textbooks? Then I'd say your textbook isn't doing a particularly good job. I suspect trouble parsing longer sentences comes simply from lack of practice, particularly listening practice which forces you to process the stream of language at much faster speeds. You say you know all the basic grammar but still get tripped up by sentences within sentences. These exist in English too (they're called clauses) and are actually simpler in Japanese. If you are able to translate simple japanese texts but longer sentences trip you up it may be the case that your reading speed is too slow, or are encountering too many unknown words, which then puts a huge burden on your working memory.

nohika Wrote:

SheekuAltair Wrote:insignifacant.

Insignificant.

Anyways. Mm...I'd say it's loads ahead of Tae Kim, and explains things better, too. Have you seen/used the book at all (thehl Manga way one)? Definitely below DOBJG, but that book is massive and while interesting to read, boring as heck to SRS. (I have all three dictionaries). I was originally reading those until I was so bored I almost chopped my head off.

And it does teach grammar. At least as much as Tae Kim, if not more.

I didn't know you have read all of those already. It was a long time since I've read this book, but I don't remember it teaching verb conjugations for example. I hope we are talking about the book, not the magazines.

@nadiatims

Nah, I know vocab is my "biggest" problem - but it's easier to fix than grammar is. Vocab I can look up, but grammar is harder. It's more...I'm getting a lot better at it (I can figure them out now, I just read really slowly), but sometimes it takes me walking through a sentence slowly figuring out what part of the sentence applies to what part of the sentence. I guess they do apply in English, but since it's my native language, I really don't stumble over it. Native material in general trips me up - a lot of the time because of vocab, and once I understand the vocab, there are still things I can't understand because it uses a grammar trick I don't know. I figure if I can get my grammar up to par, the vocab will follow at a different pace (learning from grammar sentences, or pulled from native sources [Yomichan]). Grammar is interesting to me and I kind of soak it up, so that helps. Vocab I learn from the sentences and from a separate deck I have that I pull directly from native stuff. I also do KO2001.

@Sheeku - it does teach verb conjugation, adjective conjugation, etc. Like the first or second lesson.

SheekuAltair Wrote:

nohika Wrote:And it does teach grammar. At least as much as Tae Kim, if not more.

I didn't know you have read all of those already. It was a long time since I've read this book, but I don't remember it teaching verb conjugations for example. I hope we are talking about the book, not the magazines.

I'm wondering if perhaps you're confusing _Japanese the Manga Way_ with the two older books based on the Mangajin magazine (_Mangajin's Basic Japanese Through Comics_)? I have the latter and I think they about match your assessment (basically interesting fluff) but it looks like JtMW is trying to be a more systematic introduction to basic grammar. (The contents are available via amazon.com's "look inside".)

pm215 Wrote:I'm wondering if perhaps you're confusing _Japanese the Manga Way_ with the two older books based on the Mangajin magazine (_Mangajin's Basic Japanese Through Comics_)?

I think I'm confusing them both. Sorry about that. Maybe I should look into the other one.

UBJG
JSPEC

are what i recommend.

Don't forget Japanese in Mangaland (JiM). That's another series that uses "manga" (sort of) to teach Japanese. That said, I don't like JiM. I don't like the Mangajin book either, TBH. I think they're both a waste of money.

JTMW is an excellent resource book to use with a textbook. It does a really good job of explaining things, and provides good examples of colloquial grammar, which you may/may not find in other books.

But as a textbook by itself, you're in for a world of hurt. There aren't a whole lot of examples, there's no audio, there aren't any exercises, and there's not much in the way of hand-holding. You need to be an advanced beginner to get the most out of it.

Use it with a textbook, though, and it would be really useful, because it does a really good job of explaining things in a different way than Genki, Minna no Nihongo, and the other J-textbooks do.

If you want to learn Japanese through manga, go buy manga you like in Japanese, and learn how to read it by learning Japanese. Most of the manga in these "learn Japanese through Manga" books is crappy old manga you've probably never heard of, never will hear of, and/or don't care about. (There's no Naruto or Bleach in here.)

Start out with Shounen/Shoujo manga, depending on which flips your switch, because both will (usually, not always) have easier language and furigana (the little text over the kanji) to make it easier to look up kanji.

Hayate no Gotoku is pretty easy. (After you've finished a good textbook, and got some kanji under your belt, of course.) Not a lot of jargon to get in the way, either.

Doraemon is something Japanese teachers always recommend for being really easy, too. I can't stand it. I always have the urge to punch the main character for being dumber than a bag of hammers. But whatever floats your boat.

Seinen/Jousei manga won't have furigana, and will require lots of trips to grammar dictionaries and other dictionaries to look up stuff.

Tankubons are cheaper than translated manga, too, and directly support the authors. (And you can use a magnifying glass on furigana.)

nohika Wrote:Hi guys.

I'm about halfways through Japanese the Manga Way and was wondering around what JLPT level it would put me grammar-wise once I make it through the whole thing? What would be a good grammar resource to continue with afterwards?

I hope to finish mining the whole thing in a month or two, so just trying to think ahead. Working on KO2001 for vocab along with yomichan.

Japanese the Manga Way was the only grammar book I read and mined examples from when I finished RTK. I consulted the random occasional reference, such as stuff in DOBJG that expanded on any fuzzy concepts from JMW, or random stuff that I'd look up in Google. 98% of my zero-to-foundational grammar came from JMW. It's a fantastically easy and comprehensive guide that needs no support in order to establish basic grammar foundations alongside familiarity with both formal and slangy Japanese that gets you used to deconstructing sentences and using native sources.

Anyway, I did KO2001 and Core 2000 during JMW but found KO2001 useful only for occasional words and mostly focused on Core 2000 after JMW. JMW gave me enough grammatical knowledge to deconstruct every sentence in Core 2000, with few exceptions. Ditto for many KO2001 sentences, though those tend to be long and dry so I started just doing words only, as mentioned.

Throw in continued references to volumes of DOJG and Google, and this applies to Core 6000 also.

Afterwards, I don't think any particular consultation in a continuous fashion from a single book is necessary. I just use a bevy of texts and Google as a kind of vague corpus for looking up grammar when I'm stuck on any given sentence.

Thanks, guys! I'm mostly an upper-beginner (I think? Dunno how the labels work). I think I'll probably end up doing sections out of DOJGs for whatever I run into that I don't know.　I think I may switch to Kore over KO2001, simply because it's easier/more convenient. IE, I can do it on the go.

I was originally SRSing the DOBJG, but the sentences were making me cry...so I'm trying to figure out how to remedy that one.

For the shared 8555 DOJG Anki deck, you could just suspend them all, then unsuspend whatever's relevant to something you read in the text (there are searchable versions of all 3 volumes floating about online such as at scribd, I think.)

As for grading those, I think simply paying attention to the associated grammatical construction the sentence is an example for, and just grading on whether you recognize/understand how that section of the sentence fits, is good enough. Leave the other grammar constructions, words, etc., in each sentence for other types of cards/decks to reduce overhead.

nest0r Wrote:For the shared 8555 DOJG Anki deck, you could just suspend them all, then unsuspend whatever's relevant to something you read in the text (there are searchable versions of all 3 volumes floating about online such as at scribd, I think.)

As for grading those, I think simply paying attention to the associated grammatical construction the sentence is an example for, and just grading on whether you recognize/understand how that section of the sentence fits, is good enough. Leave the other grammar constructions, words, etc., in each sentence for other types of cards/decks to reduce overhead.

That's what I was doing - reading sections, unsuspending the sentences. Now that I have a variety of native sources to play with, I think I may use the sentences I find "in the wild" with a grammar explanation instead, since at least those have some semblance of context. I guess it sounds silly, but I like JtMW since I can recall the panel when I read the sentence and sometimes it even makes me laugh.

Thank you, though. I really appreciate it - you're the one here that knows the most about the book!

If someone ever makes a JMW deck it could be cool to have those panels on the cards. In fact, in terms of pure example sentences broken down with manga panels accompanying them, all of Mangajin might make for useful decks.

nest0r Wrote:If someone ever makes a JMW deck it could be cool to have those panels on the cards. In fact, in terms of pure example sentences broken down with manga panels accompanying them, all of Mangajin might make for useful decks.

Definitely! I browsed a copy of Kanzen Master 3kyuu at Uwajimaya and thought it was pretty cool...so maybe I'll look at that. Hrm. I have another 13 lessons to go, I think? So I have a while to think about it.