Recently, I have been feeling that I took to much on when it comes to Japanese. I have this feeling that Japanese is to hard for me to understand and learn. When I watch an or anime/drama I get overwhelmed. "Am I really going to be able to understand what they are saying?" I have gotten book after book hoping that it will help me understand but it just does not work. I am kind of clueless on where to go next. I know that you guys have felt like this. Any suggestions of get over this hump in my Japanese?

What's your level? What textbooks have you already finished? My level is quite low, but in any random anime/dorama there are things I understand. Take a slight break, and identify the problem. If it's vocab, focus on learning more vocab for awhile. If it's grammar, focus on grammar. What is throwing you off? The speed? Do more listenning: books with audio and parallel text is great in that case.

I level is no that high borrow genki 1 from a friend I finished up to chapter 10 before I had to return it. I think the problem is vocab and grammar. Wrapping my head around some of the grammar points can get annoying.

jordan3311 Wrote:I level is no that high borrow genki 1 from a friend I finished up to chapter 10 before I had to return it. I think the problem is vocab and grammar. Wrapping my head around some of the grammar points can get annoying.

You're really, really early into learning, then. Cut yourself some slack. Japanese grammar is pretty different from English grammar, and can take a while to sink in.

Have you drilled an Anki deck like Core 2K/6K yet? Using this in conjunction with the Tae Kim guide online could be beneficial, as all of the sentences in Core (that I can remember) are pretty gramatically straightforward. The more sentences you read and attempt to interpret, the easier it gets. View it like practicing chords or licks on a guitar; the only way to get better at it is to practice. Core 2K will also give you audio, and will help you build up your vocab. Alternatively, you could use nukemarine's Tae Kim Anki deck to grill yourself on grammar directly.

Japanese is not too hard for you. You don't need any special intelligence to learn another language. All it takes is time and persistence.

@gaiaslastlaugh
I am doing the core deck as we speak. Also, when you say use Tai kim do you mean read it as well as doing the core sentences?

There are Tae Kim Anki decks you can use to review what you learned from the Tae Kim grammar site. I think that's what he meant. Right?

jordan3311 Wrote:@gaiaslastlaugh
I am doing the core deck as we speak. Also, when you say use Tai kim do you mean read it as well as doing the core sentences?

Coolness. Keep on truckin'.

I think reading grammar guides straight through is really boring (and not very productive). I'd use it more as a reference when you need it, or to clarify what you already know. But there's also a Shared Anki deck that you can download that tests your knowledge of the Tae Kim guide using clozed deletion cards - i.e., it gives you part of a sentence, and prompts you to complete it with the correct particle or verb suffix. You may or may not find that useful.

Look into free tofugu stuff like wani Kani if you're level isn't above that.

I guess you could say I am looking for something to put the fun back in too learning Japanese. Something that will help restore my drive and bring back my motivation.

jordan3311 Wrote:I guess you could say I am looking for something to put the fun back in too learning Japanese. Something that will help restore my drive and bring back my motivation.

I understand that. Sometimes it's hard to stay engaged day after day.

When I first started studying again in May, I only remembered some grammar, a couple hundred kanji and maybe some few hundred words. It was hard at first remaining motivated when it felt like I couldn't understand anything. What was worse was realizing that I already knew a lot, but still had a TON to learn to get anywhere near the people on this forum who have stuck with it for years.

Some things I've done to stay motivated:

* Work on understanding one thing. For me, it was a story (花坂じいさん） on the 童話 Web site (http://hukumusume.com/douwa/betu/index.html). It tooks weeks, but by the end, it left me feeling like I accomplished something. I found this more motivational than working through Anki decks.

Maybe this will work for you. You can choose something simple - even a children's story written in kana. Or just concentrate on understanding x number of sentences in the Core deck. Everyone starts somewhere.

* Lower my expectations. If I'm watching an anime and most of the dialogue is whizzing by me, I concentrate on trying to understand just a few sentences here and there. That's more Japanese than most non-Japanese can understand!

* If something feels too hard, or leaves me feeling miserable about my Japanese skills, I put it aside. If it's a book or video, I just abandon it; if it's an article, I bookmark it for later. I have a pile of material that I come back to every month or so to see if I can comprehend it better than I did when I set it aside. Usually, when I come back to such material, I find it's at least a little bit more comprehensible after a month of vocab and grammar study.

* Just study. Sometimes I can be frustrated, and study anyway. The feeling of frustration usually disappears after a day or so.

Not sure any of that helps. Hope it does.

頑張ってろ！

I heard Japanese the Manga Way is quite good, you should try it out.

Thanks for the help guys . I have another question what are you guys studying right now. I got two new books one is Japanese sentence patterns for effective communication and another is Understanding basic Japanese grammar.

jordan3311 Wrote:Thanks for the help guys . I have another question what are you guys studying right now. I got two new books one is Japanese sentence patterns for effective communication and another is Understanding basic Japanese grammar.

I have a lot of old issues of Mangajin downloaded, and I use those for a fair amount of my grammar instruction. You can find a number of them online here:

http://www.thespectrum.net/features/mangajin/

Wayne Lammers, who wrote Japanese the Manga Way, was translation editor at Mangajin. Japanese the Manga Way uses the same format that Mangajin did (from what I can tell of the previews on Amazon).

I also have Mangajin's Basic Japanese through Comics, which provide some great explanations of basic grammar:

http://www.amazon.com/Mangajins-Basic-Ja...ugh+comics

If I need to look up some grammar point on the fly, I typically use jgram.org or Tae Kim. I have Understanding Basic Japanese Grammar, but don't use it often.

Finishing Minna no Nihongo I, then I'll do the first workbook, then Minna no Nihongo II during September, then the second workbook. I'm not recommending them because they're kind of boring, but they're solid, and with an exceptional audio.

the beginning is the most boring part. build a solid foundation of grammar and basic words. then just start reading anything you like while adding new vocab you come across into anki. make sure whatever you read, it must be interesting! if you get bored of reading one thing, still review the words you learned so far in it in anki, but also move onto something more interesting.

jordan3311 Wrote:Thanks for the help guys . I have another question what are you guys studying right now. I got two new books one is Japanese sentence patterns for effective communication and another is Understanding basic Japanese grammar.

I just started using Japanese the Manga Way and I seem to like it. Much better than the textbook I have to use for college (Modern Japanese, Han 3rd Ed)

http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Japanese-3r...1878463098

It's riddled with romaji :/ I have to continue using this terrible book for my upcoming next level class next week. Most of the time if I have grammar concerns, like @gaiaslastlaugh, I look through Tae Kim. Not jgram though

RawrPk Wrote:http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Japanese-3r...1878463098

That looks truly terrible. I feel your pain.

Yea that book does look bad. I used to have teach yourself but once I learned kanji and kana I felt that there was no reason for me to back track. How is japanese the manga way it looks fun I kind of want to try it.

Don't fall into the trap of accumulating too much study material. A Textbook/Workbook that you read cover to cover WILL INEVITIBLY improve your Japanese. A mass of unused textbooks will de-motivate you and confuse you about your current level (i.e. "Well I do own a JLPT N2 textbook... :/)

And of course, がんばって！

I started out years ago with a series that relied heavily on ローマ字 (Learn Japanese: New College Text). It also used kanji/kana for the main reading text and 穴埋め questions, so it wasn't all bad. I might use Genki or Minna no Nihongo if I were starting from scratch.

I might go to B&N tomorrow and leaf through Japanese The Manga Way. I'm concentrating heavily on colloquial speech at the moment, and the book is supposed to cover that well.

I ordered JSPEC tonight after downloading the Excel spreadsheet. Looks fantastic!

Even if your Japanese is pretty much at nothing, there are still shows you should be able to watch without being overwhelmed. I'm watching my way through Cardcaptor Sakura at the moment - I can follow the gist of almost everything important and understand chunks of dialogue. It's pretty easy to think that I might be able to understand this more thoroughly in the near future. My Japanese is rubbish, but it's extremely motivating when you hit a word you just learnt and it helps you understand something you otherwise wouldn't have.

Soooo - watch easier things? Throwing textbooks at the problem doesn't feel like the answer to me.

Aikynaro Wrote:Even if your Japanese is pretty much at nothing, there are still shows you should be able to watch without being overwhelmed. I'm watching my way through Cardcaptor Sakura at the moment - I can follow the gist of almost everything important and understand chunks of dialogue. It's pretty easy to think that I might be able to understand this more thoroughly in the near future. My Japanese is rubbish, but it's extremely motivating when you hit a word you just learnt and it helps you understand something you otherwise wouldn't have.

Soooo - watch easier things? Throwing textbooks at the problem doesn't feel like the answer to me.

Curious what's your level?

Quote:Curious what's your level?

Looking at a CEFR chart - maybe A2? From what I hear/guess about it, I think I could pass N5 but not N4.

(I think you could follow the plot of some shows and enjoy them without any Japanese at all, just by guessing from context what's going on - so long as the show and characters are expressive, which kids shows usually are. The more Japanese you have the more you can fill in the details, but I think I could follow the general gist of Cardcaptor Sakura even if it was in Swedish or something. Knowing basic vocabulary goes a long way)