Do enough that you feel you are very comfortable using what you have learned. After you learn a new conjugation, can you make up sentences using various verbs with it, without having to spend several seconds thinking about it? That's how you know when you really know something or not.

Stian wrote:

I went through both the Genki books, and I basically read the dialogue and grammar parts and then copied the example sentences and dialogue parts into Anki (instead of doing anything like Core10k). I don't believe in doing those exercises...

I used to suck at -nai forms, and drills made me better. When self-studying, you don't get much chances to produce the target language (in most cases), and in that regard I prefer drills that make me generate new sentences over copying things into Anki.

My biggest self-studying tip would be to voice everything you read/write. If anything, it helps you with pronouncing things in a row and learning where to breathe. But I still feel it's not enough, and I plan to take an evening course just for speaking (2 hours a week). When I'm good enough, I'll probably switch to a conversation partner.

Concerning workbooks, I have the Japanese in Mangaland and the Minna no Nihongo workbooks, and I prefer the MNN ones, they're more contextual. Since they're "freely" available, you should check them out, they might be better than Genki's.

Last edited by EratiK (2012 September 02, 5:27 am)

Well theoretically I take classes, but really, I don't really keep to them(especially since I've gone way ahead of what we do in class), and pretty much 95% of what I know is from outside class.

Minna no Nihongo+Basic Kanji book+core 6k was my foundation. Tae Kim helped me understand certain things that textbooks could not. Lang8 is a great resource that I do not use enough. I basically did core 6k with iKnow (Took me forever for core 2k but I didn't keep to it, but I started studying seriously around core 3000k step 1 last September and I finished core 6k in June). I now switched to Anki, where I do a bit of everything (vocab decks, the corePlus deck, various sentence decks, +some decks with smaller priority like　人名用漢字、四字熟語、etc). I like using Kanjibox to practice things too . I've also use various websites over the year to help me with my grammar (visualizing Japanese grammar is an excellent site!), plus various resources from around here (buonaparte's links are awesome), and I also use Japanesepod101. Recently I've also started using renshuu for both vocab, kanji &grammar. I never actually finished RTK, but even using it for half its content greatly helped me with kanji.

Basically, you can tell from my resources that I put way too much emphasis on vocab and not enough on other important aspects . However, it works for me. It helps that I'm not at my first language so I am more familiar to most grammar points. So for example, say you're learning the causative. First you'd have to learn that the causative is, then you learn how it works, then you become familiar with it enough to really understand how it works to the point where it becomes natural to use it, then you memorize the conjugations. I can skip the first part and just memorize the conjugations (which are easy, really).

Well, that was a long one. tl;dr version is textbooks+core was enough to build my foundation, with a bit of help from here and there. Don't worry about it much . If for some reason your methods are not fruitful then just try something else.Time spent worrying about not learning enough is time spent not learning.

BTW: In Class we did minna no nihongo (MNN1 in year 1, MNN2 in year 2, I think we're going with the intermediate version this year but I don't know yet), Basic Kanji book (book 1 in year 1, book 2 in year 2, intermediate kanji book in year 3), with textbook practice in the seminar. We also had Tanoshiku Yomou in the seminar this year, and our teacher made us watch エリンが挑戦.  Erin ga Chousen is a really neat resource .

ok... so what I'm sort of gathering is that the textbook and its exercises will generally be enough to build a foundation and I shouldn't worry too much about it, yet I should also actively do my own drills and letting things sink in over time.  I do find the exercises useful in bringing to light some nuances of conversation and situation that I wouldn't otherwise have known if I didn't experience it first hand through the exercises.  i role play on my own being both person A and B .

@Eratik, what do you mean the minna no nihongo workbooks are 'freely' available..?  you mean they're 'FREEly' available? ? If so I"ll definitlely look in to that for some extra exercises. ^_^

@Zgarbas, did your class have a lot of extra exercises from handouts and not from the textbook?  Or was it pretty textbook centered and not much outside of that?  I'm just wondering how much extra courses offer outside of a textbook compared to self-studying just from genki and workbook.

I know that beginning to learn a language is kinda scary. There's so much you can't penetrate... you find lots of stuff you don't know in every place you look. There are so many people saying their way is the way.

Honestly, it's really not very complicated. SRS, immerse as much as possible...after that all you need to do is wait.

It's like a plant... water and light over a period of time and you get this living creature, although it looks impossible in the beginning when you just have a seed.

Take a deep breath and go srs / watch something you like. 3 years from now you will be just fine.

dtcamero wrote:

I know that beginning to learn a language is kinda scary. There's so much you can't penetrate... you find lots of stuff you don't know in every place you look. There are so many people saying their way is the way.

Honestly, it's really not very complicated. SRS, immerse as much as possible...after that all you need to do is wait.

It's like a plant... water and light over a period of time and you get this living creature, although it looks impossible in the beginning when you just have a seed.

Take a deep breath and go srs / watch something you like. 3 years from now you will be just fine.

Mhmm, I couldn't have said it better myself. No matter what the method is... as long as you make sure you study every day you will be well on your way to knowing Japanese. SRS is a great tool but it is definitely not the only option... universally every method includes a lot of TIME put in.

There are sentence decks out there . And some people make decks for their textbooks, which include grammar points (grammar point+explanation+sentence). There's also a verb conjugation deck out there...but don't use it; it's full of mistakes.
I highly recommend the "Dictionary of basic Japanese grammar" book+deck. Don't know why I forgot to add that one.

Oooh, and while we're at it "All about particles" by Naiko Chino is a pretty good book for beginners, it also has a shared deck available, and unlike most Japanese learning resources it's really cheap (I got it for 8$).

Japanese Level Up also has a pretty detailed guide on sentence mining.
http://japaneselevelup.com/2011/02/01/h … ences-j-e/

I put the sentence on the front; using colors to highlight the primary (and sometimes secondary) grammar point. Grammar information and definitions of new words go on the back, along with Google TTS audio.

I have the Genki workbook too, but ended up not using it. I make production cards while following Tae Kim's guide. It's helped with creating an intuitive sense for verb conjugations, among other things.

I'd add Japanese Sentence Patterns for Effective Communication to the list. I just obtained (for real! on paper and everything) this one, and I really, really like it. Each example comes with exercises, and the vocab necessary for each exercise is listed above the questions. Great for practicing production using basic Japanese patterns.

There's an Excel s/s available for all the sentences, too - search the forum and you'll find it.

dtcamero, I love what you said. Probably the best advice anyone could give someone just starting out.

RawrPk wrote:

This made me lol for real xD Thanks for introducing another great resource!

LOL. You're welcome.

I seem to be awash in paper recently. I just discovered that the local library here has shelves upon shelves of Japanese language books and novels. I put 魔女の宅急便 on hold, and took out READ REAL JAPANESE - both the original, old Kodansha Int'l. version and the new nonfiction compilation w/ audio CD.

We really are blessed to have such an abundance of material available for learning 日本語. It's amazing.

hm thanks everyone! I just read about sentence SRSing via the links you provided.  Sounds like sentence mining and dissecting is faster at mastering japanese than just textbook work (katsuo was fluent in 18 months?).  So I'll work through the textbook exercises but wont' worry too much about getting enough of them and focus on vocab and sentence mining (iknow seems to do both of these). cool!

Last edited by Miyumera (2012 September 03, 12:20 pm)

RawrPk wrote:

Local libraries are great indeed. I use http://www.worldcat.org/ to find books in nearby libraries. If you want to see if there are 日本語 books available in other libraries, this is a good site! Most 日本語 books I want are at a farther library >_< I wish I had a car lol

Suckage. I'm fortunate to live in an area with a high Japanese expat population that also caters to a large number of 留学生 every year. It took me a shamefully long time to cotton on to that fact, and I spent a fair amount of money in the interim. :-(