I am having huge issues forming my own Japanese sentences and working around grammar. I thought by this point, I would have picked up a good amount of it, but am I still tripping over very basic sentences and questions. My request is can anyone please advise me on some good material to start learning every basic sentence structure & grammar? I need to start from the beginning! Anything within Anki or websites or books? I would greatly prefer kanji + kana.

What I have done so far:
Finish RTK1
about 400 cards into JapaneseCore Plus anki deck

Issues:
incorrect japanese sentence structures
speaking correctly [writing is a lot easier for me]

Ok, I will try in Japanese now....
こんにちは、皆さん。私の日本語の文と文法はとっても難しいです。今、私は少し日本語の文と文法を分かりました、しかし易しい文はとっても難しいです。何いいアンキのデッキとホームパージと本を有りますか。私は最初をしたいです。私は漢字と平仮名が好きです。これは易しいです。

勉強しました：
RTKを終わった
JapaneseCore Plusに４００カードを読んでいました

「見って、これはとってもとっても難しいです。」

Are you studying spoken material, like Japanesepod101.com

Tae Kim's Guide to Japanese
Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar

SomeCallMeChris Wrote:Tae Kim's Guide to Japanese
Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar

+1

[I'm not used to SomeCallMeChrisさん being so succinct. ]

The 完全マスター文法 series seems pretty good to me. I think Tae Kim is perfect for beginners but if you know enough to understand 完全マスター, which relies mostly on examples, it will take you through things much quicker.

JGram - extremely underrated grammar lookup that is most useful on the go. When I need a quick grammar lookup on the go, I don't have time to search through Tae Kim and the DoJG series is impractical for a quick search, especially in public.

I would recommend "Japanese Sentences Patterns for Effective Communication".
One of the best grammar books in my collection.

Sometimes we call it JSPEC on these forums.

Teaches you all the sentences patterns you need to speak effectively.

I have tried going the non-textbook path and the textbook path, and I found that I learned faster with a textbook and a teacher of some kind (can be a tutor, doesn't have to be formal), vs. just a book full of sentence patterns and going it alone.

The textbook we used at Yamasa for Intermediate/Upper Intermediate is terribad if you're doing it by yourself. But the teachers made that book look like a masterpiece through the use of excellent handouts. (And we got *lots* of handouts.)

Teachers are great because they can correct you right then and there, and push your knowledge and understanding of the material. They also have some kind of training or experience in teaching people the L2 you want to learn, unlike random person on the intertubes. Also, a *good* textbook (like Minna no Nihongo) paired with a good teacher will get you more depth than just the book itself.

In my case, before I went to Yamasa last fall, time and again, I would pass all sorts of cards in Anki about giving and receiving-- cloze cards, regular sentences, multiple choice-- you name it-- heck, it's basic stuff, right? So when I got to Yamasa, I decided to take a few private lessons before my 11-week class started. And my first private lesson was all about fixing my "Problem with understanding giving and receiving."

It's one thing to do it Anki, but it's entirely different to try to do it in order to communicate with another human being who happens to be a native speaker of L2.

Even if you only meet up once a week, or once every two weeks, I think it could make a big difference for you.

Also, there's this:
http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?p...#pid164203
The online group classes look pretty inexpensive at JOI.

If you don't have the money, there's always language exchange: (none of those people are teachers... but talking to native speakers is better than mumbling to your Anki deck.)
http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=8343

rich_f Wrote:Teachers are great because they can correct you right then and there, and push your knowledge and understanding of the material. They also have some kind of training or experience in teaching people the L2 you want to learn

+1. I'm attending a language school right now and I've made rapid improvements in listening and speaking in particular. The biggest payoff for me has been the constant stream of comprehensible input. The teachers have years of experience and are unbelievably skilled at speaking at an i+1 level. It reinforces vocab and grammar I already know, but I'm still able to learn new things as well. I'm able to easily retain what I learn in this controlled environment compared to the overwhelming input I encounter "in the wild".

Yeah, I did just 3 months at Yamasa, and it made a big difference in my abilities... and it pointed out some glaring weaknesses I had glossed over because I didn't know I was weak in those areas until the teachers ganged up on me, one after another.

It also helped that the only surefire way I had to communicate with my fellow students was in Japanese. I talked to people from all over the world, and about 95% of the time, we spoke in Japanese, because that's the language we all knew everyone spoke. (It was great practice.) And naturally, the faculty and staff weren't going to cut us any slack, either. It was tough at first, but I got used to it soon enough.

SomeCallMeChris Wrote:Tae Kim's Guide to Japanese
Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar

I really like the shared Anki deck of the DO(BIA)JG series (type in the name in japanese).
I think I saw a Tae Kim deck too.