皆さんこんにちは、

I passed ３級 last December and am challenging myself to ２級 this year, though I think it will most likely be the summer of next year before I can expect to pass. Nevertheless, I plan on giving it my best shot this time 'round.

I am well on my way with RTK, and feel like I'm making good progress.
For reading, I am doing couple of readings from 完全マスター読解 ２級 ever day, and finding them very doable. I do not understand everything, but can get the answer right 90% of the time (on a sidenote, does anyone know if these readings are somewhat similar in level to those that appear in the real test?)

For listening, I am mainly just trying to expose myself to as much native content as possible through podcasts, T.V shows, music, etc. Have tried some of the 2級 listenings on the JLPT website and had no big issues.

For grammar, I am currently using 日本語そまとめ and going through it a page a day. I know this is at quite a basic level, and plan on moving onto the 完全マスター　grammar book once I finish.
My main problem is that I do not really know how to go about studying grammar with this book. At the moment, I read the sentences, look at the grammar notes in the sidebox, then try to learn the sentences off by heart. I then create Anki flashcards to test myself. For example, if the grammar point was っぽい　I would write っぽい　on one side of the flashcard, then the two example sentences from the book on the other side. I just feel like this might not be the most effective way of learning. If anyone has another method, I would love to hear.

The same goes for vocabulary. I was using English-Japanese flashcards, with the word in English on one side and the word in Japanese plus an example sentence on the back. However, I don't know if trying to make myself learn the entire sentence off by heart is a good idea, or if I should just try and learn the word and use the sentence as a reference.

Any advice or suggestions greatly appreciated. よろしくお願いします。

First, you need to work on recognition, then production. Recognition means being able to understand the meaning of the grammar point, and production means being able to correctly use the grammar point. Both of these skills can be trained via flashcards, but recognition is much more well-suited to the flashcard format.

For recognition:
- Front of the card: a sentence containing the target grammar point
- Back: translation or a simplified explanation of the meaning in Japanese
- Evaluation: whether and how quickly you understood how the grammar point is used

For production:
- Front: a sentence with the target grammar point cloze-deleted and 3-4 answer choices
- Back: correct answer
- Evaluation: whether and how quickly you choose the correct answer

Recognition cards are most useful for only becoming familiar with a grammar point. Seeing and understanding how it's used in multiple contexts is needed for true mastery, and that, unfortunately, is ill-suited to SRS.

As for production cards, I personally avoid them. It's too easy to memorize the answers and deceive yourself into believing that you actually understand the grammar. Here's what I suggest instead:

1. Use drill books, but write the answers in a separate notebook
2. Once finished with the book, study the questions you got wrong
3. Start over, answer all of the questions again, and see how much you remember
3. Study the questions you answered incorrectly
4. Start from the beginning one last time (after 3 times, you'll begin to memorize most of the answers)
5. Begin with a new book if you think you need more practice

Everyone here seems to hate this, and I will probably get bashed for saying it, but I recommend doing English>Japanese sentences in SRS (that is, English sentence on front, Japanese sentence on back). A few days after starting (and hopefully mastering) the Jap>Eng sentence card for recognition, add the Eng>Jap for the same sentence for production. Be aware that there are multiple correct translations (maybe even include some underneath the main answer). Keep sentences short and use easy vocab so you can focus on grammar points and go quickly. If you can, use multiple, distinct sentences for the same grammar point.

In some cases (namely, Jap>Eng), it's bad that you recognize certain aspects a card and have the whole answer memorized because you could be skipping over the actual grammar point (as vileru pointed out). But if you have Eng>Jap, and you have the answer memorized, that's great! (Again, given you're aware there are multiple correct answers).

If you're against using English like this, maybe try Jap>Jap in the same way, where the front side prompts you in some way to produce a given grammar point without explicitly saying that point, if that makes sense. I haven't tried this yet.

So is learning off sentences related to a grammar point not particularly effective? Would I be better off just seeing that I understand the meaning of the sentences?

@somstuff: Native -> J is indeed the way to go, but shush, you can't write it in this
forum.

Why Native -> J?

Because you want to be able to speak in the foreign language (after all, I want to be able to seduce Buonaparte's granny if I meet her), and you need to develop automatisms. The best way to develop them is to think about something you want to say in your native tongue, and then say it in the foreign tongue, repeat patterns to death in the process, until they become fully automatic (say, spending less than 1/2 second thinking about it).

Don't listen to people who say you shouldn't "translate" - it's bullshit. Once you build an automatism, you are not translating anymore. You may have to "translate" the first couple of hundred times you drill the automatism in production, though, but then eventually you just "know" how to say something in the foreign language.

This process of acquiring automatisms takes time and like love, can't be hurried: the road to fluency takes years, not months. Anyone pretending being fluent after two years (5 to 10 years is a better estimate - assuming one works hard during that time - some people never become fluent ever) or "finishing" RTK after 15 days is either a fraud, or is very adept at self-deception.

Production cards are necessary at the beginning because you want to build a *repertoire* of phrases and patterns, which will serve as building blocks of longer sentences down the road. Start small, and soon enough, you'll see yourself being able to say more complicated sentences.

Recognition is taken care of automatically if you can produce grammar patterns. Having recognition cards in a SRS is a waste of time, because as Heisig writes, "production takes care of recognition".

Another thing that I find totally ridiculous is people suggesting that one should listen non-stop to Japanese even if one understands nothing - or one word every 30 minutes. It is a waste of time, and good luck to keep your sanity if you really do that.

Instead of that madness, I suggest you mine expressions from native sources; for instance, "Breaking in Japanese Literature", with texts from Sooseki and Akutagawa - is awesome. You start at page 1 - which should take you more time than you will want to admit - and you pick up your vocabulary and grammar from there. Everything is put in your production deck, and it is your main work every day.

Then the next day, you read the text again, starting from the beginning, reminding yourself of what you already know, up to where you were the day before. Reading the text is recognition, but you don't need an SRS for that. Production takes care of recognition, and this is why I recommend skipping recognition cards altogether.

Thank you very much for your reply.

If I am going English-Japanese for grammar sentences, how would I go about laying out the flashcard?

For example, my grammar point is っぽい and my example sentences are 年を取ると忘れっぽくなる and このコート、デザインはいいけれど、生地が安っぽいね.
Should I have the English on the front and the Japanese on the back, or would I be better to include the grammar point っぽい with the English?

I would also be really interested to know how other people go about learning vocabulary. Do you try to just read a lot and hope the words will 'stick', do you read and then learn off any new words you encounter, or learn through some other method?

fishhead Wrote:I would also be really interested to know how other people go about learning vocabulary. Do you try to just read a lot and hope the words will 'stick', do you read and then learn off any new words you encounter, or learn through some other method?

I guess most people here use premade vocabulary decks in Anki, like the Core, and either learn by chunks or unsuspend words as they encounter them. You can make your own deck, but it's time consuming, and people usually do that after 6-10k words, when the premade ressources (based on frequency lists) stop being relevant to your field/interests.

fishhead Wrote:I would also be really interested to know how other people go about learning vocabulary. Do you try to just read a lot and hope the words will 'stick', do you read and then learn off any new words you encounter, or learn through some other method?

for now...I learn words from reading and watching..
I read the same book many times ( because I like them )
the words that I hear or read a lot stick.

Thanks for backing me up, louischa . I agree with most everything you wrote.

For Eng>Jap sentences, I just do English sentence on front, Japanese sentence on back, maybe with the grammar point bolded on the back. Maybe try experimenting yourself with putting the grammar point on the front and stuff. This gets said a lot, but there isn't necessarily a correct way of learning Japanese, just try a lot of stuff (at first) and try to narrow down what works for you.

For vocab, in the beginning you can't really just pick up something and use context/dictionary and such and hope that words stick. Sure, maybe you'll get a couple words here and there, but it's really inefficient, in my opinion. Download some decks (Genki, Core 2k/6k), do whatever you can to memorize them (mnemonics, repetition over increasing time periods, etc.), maybe experiment with the intervals in Anki under Advanced Options, and keep repeating them in Anki for the long term. Right now, I do Jap>Eng, then Eng>Jap for the same words starting a few days later, and listening (audio>Eng); all for single words and then those same words in sentences, to help with the nuances and proper usage of the word. That'd be 6 decks total, though I haven't gotten really into the sentence and listening parts yet heh.

louischa Wrote:fountain of bullsh*t

I swear this guy is a schill for Berlitz.

Maybe your antediluvian methods are the reason why it will take 5-10 years. There are plenty of people on this forum who have passed N1 in three years using (among others) the techniques you described.

louischa Wrote:Then the next day, you read the text again, starting from the beginning, reminding yourself of what you already know, up to where you were the day before. Reading the text is recognition, but you don't need an SRS for that. Production takes care of recognition, and this is why I recommend skipping recognition cards altogether.

Thank you very much for your response.

Can I ask how you go about making and using a "production deck"?

EratiK Wrote:

fishhead Wrote:I would also be really interested to know how other people go about learning vocabulary. Do you try to just read a lot and hope the words will 'stick', do you read and then learn off any new words you encounter, or learn through some other method?

I guess most people here use premade vocabulary decks in Anki, like the Core, and either learn by chunks or unsuspend words as they encounter them. You can make your own deck, but it's time consuming, and people usually do that after 6-10k words, when the premade ressources (based on frequency lists) stop being relevant to your field/interests.

Thank you for your reply.

When you learn from Anki decks, do you just try to learn the word, or also the entire contextual sentence?

fishhead Wrote:When you learn from Anki decks, do you just try to learn the word, or also the entire contextual sentence?

FWIW, I have a custom vocab deck with sample sentences included for each word. I only focus on the sentence or Japanese definition if I failed a card. Unless you enjoy spending a lot of your Japanese study time in Anki (and most people don't), I'd recommend keeping the actual portion of information you *have* to read in a session small. You should be able to speed through most cards in a couple of seconds.

fishhead Wrote:When you learn from Anki decks, do you just try to learn the word, or also the entire contextual sentence?

My vocab deck doesn't have sentences. Anyway, it's the vocab word you should be learning, not the sentence. It's okay to understand the sentence of course, but not learn it (well you can, but it's not vocabulary learning any longer, and it's probably less useful since it's unlikely you'll ever be required to utter the exact same sentence you've learned).

Although I do agree with the view that in order to acquire grammar you need to produce grammar, I would advice you not to do E>J sentence cards. I was doing this for some time and have to admit that my progress was below my expectations.

To give you an idea of my production cards, here are some of them:

Q: If/after you have time please drop in to (my) home. [emphasis]
A: もし　じかん　が　あったら　うち　に　よって　ください。
-
Q: Japanese is difficult, do (you) think?
A: にほんご　が　むずかしい　と　おもいます　か。
-
Q: Please don't touch the vase, (he) said. [w te form]
A: かびん　に　さわらないで　ください　と　いいました。
-
Q: Don't touch the vase, (he) said. [wo te form]
A: かびん　に　さわらない　よう　に　いいました。
-
Q: When are (you) going? (I) asked (him).
A: いつ　いく　か　[と]　ききました。
-
Q: What should (I)/would be good to do? (I) don't know/understand. [wo(nani)]
A: どう　すれば　いい　か　[と]　わかりません。
-
Q: Are (you) going to see the film on Saturday night or not? (I) asked (him).
A: どようび　の　ばん　に　えいが　を　み　に　いく　か　どう　か　ききました。

As you can see, the questions are already “adjusted” (hints, broken English) to make the answers easier. Yet, doing reviews was taking long time and in the end they were difficult to handle. I attribute the difficulty mainly to the Japanese sentence structure that is completely different from English (or any Indo-European language for that matter - you will need to learn/acquire that structure). On top of that you will also need to remember new vocabulary and this doesn't help. (Are going to use/learn kanji as well?)

The other thing is that doing SRS, by definition, will make you remember the answers on the border of forgetting. It is difficult to develop automatisms with the stuff that you are about to forget, isn't it?

I can't offer you a specific way to learn Japanese but there are two approaches that in my opinion will not help you as much as some people claim. One is total disregard for grammar à la AJATT's “grammar doesn't exist” - grammar does exist and needs to be studied. The other is “grammar production will take care of recognition” - it will not, I can serve as an evidence for that.

Inny Jan Wrote:I can't offer you a specific way to learn Japanese but there are two approaches that in my opinion will not help you as much as some people claim. One is total disregard for grammar à la AJATT's “grammar doesn't exist” - grammar does exist and needs to be studied. The other is “grammar production will take care of recognition” - it will not, I can serve as an evidence for that.

There are really 2 kinds of grammar though. There's the grammar you learn in school, ie. patterns/rules based on other people's (hopefully) expert observation of how a language is used. And then there's whatever is actually going on inside peoples' heads when they speak a language fluently. They really aren't the same thing. The latter is what you need to acquire (at least if fluency is your end goal). The former is just a means to an end, not an end in itself. In other words, and I think a lot of people don't get this, you don't *need* grammar. It's just a tool that can be helpful while your language skills are still in their infancy. For example, when you're reading and aren't able to understand something, you can try applying some grammar observation you learned in the past in order to figure out what it means. Grammar is just what you fall back on when your intuition is under developed. To develop your intuition you just need to get a lot of practice comprehending your target language.

You can get away without studying grammar if your goal is just conversation, but grammar study is undeniably necessary for any formal writing. Is there anyone who learned comma usage, relative pronoun usage, how to avoid split infinitives, whom/who usage, etc. without studying grammar? I needn't explain more.

Honestly I don't recall ever learning rules for comma usage in English or Japanese. The split infinitive thing isn't a real grammar rule...

What is a split infinitive?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_infinitive