This forum is probably the greatest forum I have even been in but sometimes, or more recently, I am totally embarrassed to ask for help because everyone around here seems to be kicking ass at Japanese, everyone is got their own method, are already reading novels, N1 is a waste of time to them, it's intimidating.

I recently posted asking about my frustration with Core, basically I can't get myself motivated enough to do Core because is too boring. On the other hand, I enjoy extracting content from books and making my own cards. The problem is I can't quite decide what to use as my source of sentences.

My most recent plan is mining Kodansha's Furigana Japanese Dictionary and I would appreciate if your people could give me your best advice and opinions.

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Another thing, maybe someone can explain it to me. I went to the bookstore to check the JLPT books and they are all in Japanese. I do realize I need to start swiming in full Japanese waters but it doesn't make sense that the text is all in Japanese, how am I suppose to use it? What am I missing? I looked at the exercises in the first pages and I could easily guess what I had to do and actually did them, but at some point I will run into more advanced topics and I will have no idea to how to make head from tails.

The JLPT material are designed specifically for preparing for the Japanese proficiency test. They help you recognize what aspects that you need more work on. It is common for some people use the JLPT test material to learning Japanese. One reason for this is that they seem concise, and allow a person to focus on a specific goal.

There are many books written specially for learning Japanese, like Genki Japanese, or Mina Nihongo.

Kodansha's Essential Kanji Dictionary is on book that you could consider. It list the meaning of the Kanji, and Kanji includes compounds with the English translations.

It would be best to have two sets. One set that would be Kanji withsimple sentences. Another, Kanji with its definitions (or English translations). Spending the time and making your card is good way to learn.

What makes RTK and Anki great is that they are something that you do regularly. I think it maybe time to design a study plan.

bcrAn Wrote:I went to the bookstore to check the JLPT books and they are all in Japanese.

I had the opposite problem today. I was browsing the 仏検 materials, and all of the prep books, including the official 1級 books, were about 2/3 Japanese. What a waste of paper!

Sorry for the off topic rant.

Quote:I do realize I need to start swiming in full Japanese waters but it doesn't make sense that the text is all in Japanese, how am I suppose to use it?

The books are intended for people who are at a sufficient level to make use of them.

Not everyone who takes the JLPT is a native speaker of English. I don't know the exact statistics, but there are probably more native speakers of Chinese than of English who take the test. There's not enough money in publishing separate editions in English, Chinese, Korean, and so on... so it makes more sense to publish one book in the common language shared by all JLPT takers, Japanese. Don't worry about the JLPT prep books until you're at a level to take the exam; they're too specialized to work as general textbooks.

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As for your source of sentences, I'm afraid you might get bored of the dictionary as quickly as you got bored of Core. If you like extracting sentences from books, extract sentences from books. Books you enjoy, books at your level. Blogs. Newspapers. Advertising. In the aggregate, you're going to hit the vocabulary and the sentence constructions that you need to hit. I like taking sentences from novels because the act of picturing what I'm reading as I'm reading it helps me to remember the words, but that can be true of almost any kind of narrative.

Fillanzea Wrote:Don't worry about the JLPT prep books until you're at a level to take the exam; they're too specialized to work as general textbooks.

Can't really agree on that. I used Kanzen Master JLPT3 and JLPT2 grammar in conjunction with japanese grammar dicts and that worked pretty well~

If you are going to use a reference work for SRS sentences, I'd use A Basic Dictionary of Japanese Grammar, personally... but you could start with the Furigana dictionary. It's been a good while now since I cracked it open (my electronic dictionary has totally displaced all my paper ones and the Furigana dictionary was displaced before that by the Shogakukan Progressive... ahem.)

Anyway, -if- I recall correctly, the Furigana dictionary had many easily understood examples. Which also means they use pretty basic and pretty similar grammar over and over, which means they don't really stretch you that way, they only stretch your vocabulary.

Of course, if you're doing sentences to the exclusion of grammar, that's just what you need, but if you have a vocab deck as well as a sentence deck, then you want your sentences to exercise your grammar sense rather than your vocabulary knowledge.

Either way, I'd definitely move on to other sources as soon as you can comprehend them... even the dialogues in an average textbook have more context and dramatic memorability than a dictionary example sentence, and the sentences in works you enjoy much more than that. But of course, you have to start -somewhere-.

If you find the sentences in Core boring, then the sentences you pull out of Kodanshas furigana dictionary won't be any better.

Nor probably any beginning level resource for sentences. They're going to be boring sentences. That's the point, really -- the sentences are simple and intended to give context for a specific vocabulary or grammar point.

With Core, at least, you get sound, which is a huge plus.

Kanji Odyssey 2001 has audio and slightly better sentences than Core (slightly).

A sentence pattern book may be another place to get simple sentences from, still boring but better than a dictionary.

bcrAn Wrote:Another thing, maybe someone can explain it to me. I went to the bookstore to check the JLPT books and they are all in Japanese. I do realize I need to start swiming in full Japanese waters but it doesn't make sense that the text is all in Japanese, how am I suppose to use it? What am I missing? I looked at the exercises in the first pages and I could easily guess what I had to do and actually did them, but at some point I will run into more advanced topics and I will have no idea to how to make head from tails.

The lower levels JLPT books, 3 and 4 used to have English. 3 had the choice of English or Japanese.

The people now reading novels were probably studying core and those kinds of books once. Except the few geniuses who got there watching anime and using chopsticks

RE core, I would just get it done, not all study needs to be enjoyable. Maybe put on some good music to help you through. Also do the 2000 before the 6000, or get them ordered in a sensible way (I remember reading there is a anki deck like this).

bcrAn Wrote:I am totally embarrassed to ask for help because everyone around here seems to be kicking ass at Japanese, everyone is got their own method, are already reading novels, N1 is a waste of time to them, it's intimidating.

Don't be. While there are some here that are essentially functionally fluent, the majority of us are very much still learners. I passed N2 last year, but not by a huge margin. I'm currently slowly chipping away at N1. Anyway, clearly i don't consider N1 a waste of time.

My advice is pick one of the many good beginner textbooks and study from that through to N5 or N4 level. The first book of minna no nihongo is roughly N5 level and the second one is roughly N4 level. Not sure about books like genki, but someone here will know.

The reason i'm suggesting a beginner textbook is that they take the uncertainty out of it. With one book (or a set of them) you'll get to a certain basic proficiency. At around N4 level, i found native material somewhat approachable.

After that, ditch the integrated textbooks. In my experience, intermediate textbooks aren't worthwhile. Just start reading and looking up words you don't know. Manga is good for this.

I pretty much used JLPT prep books for learning grammar beyond N4 level and that seems to have worked ok. The advantage of the JLPT is that it gives you a more or less defined set of grammar, vocab and kanji to learn. I personally have found that, without that sort of focus, i just don't really get much done.

Oh and while i have no experience with that particular dictionary... don't, you'll get bored and frustrated fast.

I actually recommend using an intermediate textbook.

Genki 1 -> 2 -> integrated intermediate -> 中級から上級へ
is a very good prep for getting into native materials (it's basically what I used) and it shouldn't take more than 1-2 months outside of a classroom.

There are no good textbooks beyond the level that chuukyuukara gets you though.

Sure it might be more fulfilling to get into native material sooner, but having a solid foundation makes it easier & faster overall.

Jarvik7 Wrote:I actually recommend using an intermediate textbook.

Genki 1 -> 2 -> integrated intermediate -> 中級から上級へ
is a very good prep for getting into native materials (it's basically what I used) and it shouldn't take more than 1-2 months outside of a classroom.
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In terms of JLPT level, what Level would you place the grammar of Integrated Intermediate and 中級から上級へ　at?

中級から上級へ should get you to around JLPT2. When I did JLPT2 after that textbook (2008) I never studied JLPT-focused grammar at all, just a vocab list and reading book. I did read a list of the grammar points the night before the test though

I passed with somewhere around 94% having never read any native material at all yet at that point.

i'd also recommend doing something fun alongside textbook study/sentence mining. graded readers, manga... at the beginning level, english subtitled japanese drama/anime is good too.

studying lists/sentences is boring but highly efficient and sometimes you need some external motivation to make it worth it.

If you want a reader, just stay FAR FAR away from "Breaking into Japanese Literature".
I bought it when I first started studying Japanese but never got around to reading it.
I'm reading it now so I can sell it and free up some bookshelf space (feels like a waste to sell if off never having read it) and it's utterly worthless as study material.

The subtitle says it's modern literature, but it's all pre-war stuff so far (almost done the book), some by authors known for making up words (only some of which have entered the lexicon). The parallel English translation is also awful in that it takes too many liberties, is extremely un-artful, and does not attempt to match the tone of the Japanese. I guess you can't expect good literary translations from someone who is a translator of material such as "Love Hina".

The stories within ARE good stories, but it's simply ridiculous to study the contents unless you're past N1 and want some dated vocabulary. The "breaking into" should be understood as an introduction to some famous classics, not an introduction to being able to read fiction. Pretty much any light novel is a much better way to get into reading literature.

What about All About Particles, Japanese Core Words and Phrases and that kind of books, I mean, mining the sentences in those books. @Jarvik7, did you ever use those? what did you use when you were in that liminal state between having completed RevTK and whatever comes next?

I never did RTK until I was already at an intermediate level (started about halfway through the 中級から上級へ book when I was an exchange student in Osaka).

Personally I don't think it's a good idea to start with RTK (or at least not RTK-only until the book is done), but that is just speaking from my personal experience & that of my friends. I don't personally know anyone who started with RTK (and gained fluency).

I suppose Genki1 + heavy vocab would be the best way to bootstrap. Having done RTK will make vocab aquisition faster and you can probably blast through the lower texts pretty quick. The heavy vocab supplementation (from either core or jlpt lists) is important since the textbooks will be light on kanji at first.

Other than the above textbooks, the only other books I strongly recommend are the "A Dictionary of _____ Japanese Grammar" series. I read the basic one cover to cover when starting out.

I agree with Jarvik; at first I recommend organized textbooks, and I think his progression is good. Basic Kanji Book and Kanji in Context are other good choices.

@yudantaiteki I haven't looked at those books but since I already finished RevTK, shouldn't I pass on to something like grammar or sentences?

I suppose. KiC is good regardless since it has a lot of example sentences.

I have the jlpt levels 2 and 3 grammar books. 3 has the guide in the beginning showing you how to use it in full english as well as jpnese... the rest of the book uses english topic headings and definitions. 2 is fully jpnese, but after doing 3 you know what's going on and how to read it.

the jplt 3 book was a pretty useful read and i still use it as a reference sometimes, but boy it was bloody boring... i barely finished it (even though they do put these cute drawings throughout it near the end).

at your point i would really suggest taking your favorite anime tv series/movie and making a subs2srs deck out of it. everything is really hard at your level so enjoying what you're doing is enormously helpful. it's like having a tv in front of you when you're running on a treadmill. (anime is great because the dialogue is spoken really clearly)

yudantaiteki Wrote:I agree with Jarvik; at first I recommend organized textbooks, and I think his progression is good. Basic Kanji Book and Kanji in Context are other good choices.

Same here. I could get Genki 1 and 2 in my book store easily, but since they cannot deliver the two other intermediate/advanced textbooks Jarvik7 mentioned, I was a bit disappointed and stopped in my learning process with textbooks, so I just took the Kanzen Grammar decks available for Anki since I could get these books easily.
Since some explanations on grammar in Genki 1 and 2 (f.e. ～そうだ、～ようだ、～らしい、～そうだ(hearsay)) are really confusing and irritating I suppose having a look into DoBJG and here into the explanations of magamo will not hurt.. Otherwise I really liked the progress from Genki and I regret not being able to get the other two (certainly great) books..

@dtcamero Would you please tell me the name of the book so I can search it on Amazon.