Sorry to hijack this thread, but my question is related to the subject at hand.

What I was wondering is how far will I be able to get by mastering Tae Kim's topics? It looks like there's quite a bit of stuff he goes through, but on the other hand some people here have said that it's a good site for mostly the beginners to make use of.

That said I'm at a loss as to what else outside Tae Kim I would have to look into and where to look for material going through such topics if I wanted to attain reasonable fluency (similar to my current English skills would do). It would help me if I could be able to draw a bigger picture and base my expectations on that I think.

That
http://www.amazon.com/Dictionary-Basic-J...4789004546

and that
http://www.amazon.com/Dictionary-Interme...B000PXM5LY

and that
http://www.amazon.com/Dictionary-Advance...B001GOVW4M

... and then yeeeears of actual immersion.

Depending on how you look at it, Tae Kim either covers all the grammar there is in modern Japanese, or almost none of it...

He does cover all of the points that really have to do with grammatical structure (not always to the extent you might want, but if you've been exposed to it then you'll know how well you understand it.)

There are, however, a lot of things that can be considered as either vocabulary or as grammar depending on how you look at it, words that mean things like 'at least', or 'at most', 'either', 'neither', 'however' ... words that can drastically change the meaning of other words fall into a place where there's elements of both grammar and vocabulary (hence the dictionaries of Japanese grammar, of course.)

I forget exactly how many of them are covered in Tae Kim but it's certainly not all of them that you'll come across. On the other hand, they do show up in regular dictionaries as well as the dictionaries of grammar.

I do recommend getting at least the Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar sooner rather than later.

Betelgeuzah Wrote:What I was wondering is how far will I be able to get by mastering Tae Kim's topics?

In terms of grammar, about JLPT N4 level plus or minus a few points, if that helps.

Thanks guys! I'll order the book right away.

Now, I wonder whether there is anything that Tae Kim covers but these books don't? If not I will focus on the book.

I can't honestly comprehend how the grammar topics need 3 many-hundred-page books to be covered. English wasn't like this.....

Betelgeuzah Wrote:That said I'm at a loss as to what else outside Tae Kim I would have to look into and where to look for material going through such topics if I wanted to attain reasonable fluency (similar to my current English skills would do). It would help me if I could be able to draw a bigger picture and base my expectations on that I think.

It is not really feasible to memorise all the grammar you'll eventually need as a series of patterns via learner materials filled with translated example sentences. The most important thing is to figure out how the particles are used and recognise how the different verb conjugations are used and how to get back to the dictionary form. I think Taekim does a pretty good job of that because he does a pretty good job of actually explaining how the japanese is working syntactically, going from Japanese > meaning + explanation. It's not the prescriptive how to say X in Y style you see in a lot of textbooks. Once you have that syntactical understanding pretty much down a lot of reading and listening with easy access to word definitions will get you far. You'll pretty much be able to translate anything (to meaning not english), it just becomes a matter increasing your speed and accuracy by accumulating practice and occasionally asking questions.

I do own one of those dictionaries of grammar (can't remember which one) and can't say I've ever actually used it.

Yeah I was thinking I could get pretty far by bouncing off Tae Kim to native material and figuring out meanings on the go. I would say that was a huge contributor to improving my English as well. I played games, watched series and movies, talked with people in English and as the result picked up a lot of grammar structures that were explained to me in school at some point but only became a natural process due to all the immersion. My sister hasn't done any of this and her grammar skills are pretty bad as the result, even though she knows enough vocab to get by and hasn't been asleep at lectures like me.

Betelgeuzah Wrote:Yeah I was thinking I could get pretty far by bouncing off Tae Kim to native material and figuring out meanings on the go. I would say that was a huge contributor to improving my English as well. I played games, watched series and movies, talked with people in English and as the result picked up a lot of grammar structures that were explained to me in school at some point but only became a natural process due to all the immersion. My sister hasn't done any of this and her grammar skills are pretty bad as the result, even though she knows enough vocab to get by and hasn't been asleep at lectures like me.

I'll just say that this is exactly what I did (read Tae Kim then straight into native material and figured it out as I went) and I improved really quickly. I just watched TV and movies, chatted on Japanese chatrooms/skype etc and naturally picked things up. If you did this with English and you prefer this kind of method I think it would be good^^

Betelgeuzah Wrote:Thanks guys! I'll order the book right away.

Now, I wonder whether there is anything that Tae Kim covers but these books don't? If not I will focus on the book.

I can't honestly comprehend how the grammar topics need 3 many-hundred-page books to be covered. English wasn't like this.....

Well you obviously haven't seen the English textbooks we were forced to use in my middle/high school. They exist, you just may not have seen them. Tae Kim covers relatively little - as someone pointed out, maybe up to the new JLPT 4.

A lot of Japanese grammar is word patterns, nuances, etc. I prefer to learn how they're used rather than figure them out on the go because I'd rather not train "bad" patterns and have to re-learn them later. But a lot of people don't share that preference. Btw, there's also points in grammar that aren't covered in these dictionaries, if that makes your head hurt worse. They're just slightly different types. Kanzen and the JLPT books cover them, but generally for reading normal materials, these books are sufficient. IMHO, as I haven't finished them yet.

I'm not sure what bad patterns could mean exactly in this context. What is appropriate and when?

Betelgeuzah Wrote:I'm not sure what bad patterns could mean exactly in this context. What is appropriate and when?

Yeah, mostly. Understanding all the nuances and not assuming definitions for things that don't actually work that way, etc.

nohika Wrote:

Betelgeuzah Wrote:I'm not sure what bad patterns could mean exactly in this context. What is appropriate and when?

Yeah, mostly. Understanding all the nuances and not assuming definitions for things that don't actually work that way, etc.

You have to start somewhere. I like short, simple sentences that demonstrate a grammar point with known vocabulary, or a new vocabulary phrase with known grammar. People seem to think dictionary and textbook sentences are boring, but I love them for being, well... illustrative of exactly what I want to learn.

No matter how thrilling a line is in context, as a line in an anki card out of its context they lose all their luster (well, ridiculously long sentences excepted, but those drive me crazy for other reasons.)

JE Dictionary sentences (and the Grammar Dictionary series sentences) also have the great advantage of coming with a reasonably reliable translation, which can not really be said of media that you might be enjoying.... fan translations are by fans of unknown skill levels, and pro translations are far too liberal to be a good learning resource.

Inny Jan Wrote:That
http://www.amazon.com/Dictionary-Basic-J...4789004546

and that
http://www.amazon.com/Dictionary-Interme...B000PXM5LY

and that
http://www.amazon.com/Dictionary-Advance...B001GOVW4M

Pages 612-618 of basic

and

Pages 55-77 of Intermediate

are AWESOME and I read them pretty much everyday. They helped me understand Japanese grammar like I do now.

HonyakuJoshua Wrote:Pages 612-618 of basic

and

Pages 55-77 of Intermediate

are AWESOME and I read them pretty much everyday. They helped me understand Japanese grammar like I do now.

What makes them so special?

pp. 612-618 are:
"Appendix 8, Improving Reading Skill by Identifying an 'Extended Sentential Unit'"

pp. 55-77 are:
"4. Toward Better Reading Comprehension: Analyzing Sentences Accurately"

I found a sample of the first book and it seems a bit confusing to be honest. All the abbreviations of words that I honestly don't know that well in English since they're so technical. In other words I find it hard to follow. Otherwise it seems comprehensive.

I'm seriously struggling with the "ni" particle. 80% of the time I get the meaning wrong because I can't wrap my head around all the possible meanings for it and use them in practice. Tae Kim's explanation feels way too simplistic for me to 'get it'. Does anyone have better sources to look at?

The "A dictionary of x Japanese Grammar" series (x= basic, intermediate, advanced).

I think I have found out why I have trouble with ni. Since Tae Kim's examples indicate that someone is moving TOwards a place, physical or imaginative, I counted 1+1 and assumed that ni always means something similar, while that doesn't seem to be the case. For example, if I'm not mistaken this sentence

人にもらう

would translate into something like "receive from a human". This example is a perfect one for pointing out my mistake, since earlier I figured that in this case, the human would be going towards the verb. In other words, "receive to human", but that's nonsense. However, if it said ageru, it would be easy for me to assume it to mean "give to human".

So now that I have found out the flaw in my thinking I need to figure out how to interpret the particle correctly. It certainly isn't always "TOwards", and takes the place of "kara" in this case (once again I figured that kara works fine as a general meaning for "from", but no).

A Japanese Grammar site said that it indicates a "point", and is also used often in passive and causative conjugations. However, going towards something and coming from something are pretty much have the opposite meaning, but ni particle indicates both events. How can I know?

I think the cases where に means "from" are clear from the context of the verb. It's like in English, if I say "I borrowed this ___ my friend", as long as this is an English native speaker you know what the meaning is even without anything in the blank. もらう, 借りる, and humble versions of those are the only words I know offhand where に is "from".

This goes deeper than just Japanese then... I can't see why you couldn't say "I borrowed this to my friend", or "I borrowed this from my friend".

It's good to hear the "from" meaning is so limited. Also 教わる

Here it's "to" again, right?

人にものをあげる

And here... 酒に酔う "because of"? I guess "from" could also apply...

This I don't understand at all 人に親切だ.　

Betelgeuzah Wrote:I can't see why you couldn't say "I borrowed this to my friend"

That flags all sorts of bright red buzzer "that's not english" alarms. "I borrowed this and gave it to my friend" makes sense, but the "to" in that sentence is paired with "gave" not "borrowed". If it's your friend you borrowed from, you pretty much have to use "from" for it to be valid english.

I'm surprised by this revelation. Would "I let my friend borrow this" work better? I think I'll just have to memorize this as a separate rule, because I have no trouble understanding it either way :/.

Betelgeuzah Wrote:This goes deeper than just Japanese then... I can't see why you couldn't say "I borrowed this to my friend", or "I borrowed this from my friend".

Borrow X from Y.
Lend X to Y.

"I let my friend borrow this" is fine because it's like "I let my friend borrow this (from me)"

I'm guessing Betelgeuzah's native language uses the same word for borrow/lend. You hear certain europeans make this mistake. Also learn/teach.

Well, we do have two different verbs with the other being more specific about lending X to Y but either can be used. it doesn't matter.. That's why I never thought about it in other languages. Good to know!

Could somebody translate this one for me: 人に親切だ.　This is the only sentence I still don't quite understand. The description is ③対象　「到着点」と同じ方向性がある