chamcham wrote:

Did you finish the intermediate/advanced textbook from Tobira?

http://www.amazon.com/Tobira-Advanced-J … 4874244475

I've never used the above textbooks.
But since you're moving towards advanced level, you should start to consider reading native material.

For example, you can find Japanese news broadcast with exact subtitles (the exact words the news anchor are speaking) at www.fnn-news.com

Articles are generally 1 or 2 paragraphs.
So it's not going to kill you.

No, I'm studying from Tobira now.  Will take at least a good number of weeks to go through it in the manner which I like to (taking notes, etc.).  I've already gone through Genki I & 2, Tae Kim, and finished adding cards to Core 6000 (so in review mode now).  I just want to have another text book at hand so that when I want it, I don't have to run out and look for it.  Going through the JLPT 2kyuu Kanzen Master book from front to back looks a bit boring to me.  So instead,  I thought I should take a look at some textbooks that are listed at around N2 level.  The ones I found on the wiki are those that I have listed above.  But while reading the textbook, I'll take a look at some native material (I'll check out the site you mentioned) and I also plan to start on a light novel.

Last edited by PotbellyPig (2012 December 12, 5:32 pm)

yep. move on to native sources.

For reading, internet news pages, blogs and comment sections and things. For listening, youtube, nico nico douga, podcasts and things.

You can use popup dictionaries to quickly check the meaning of unknown words. Google translate can be useful at times too. If there are specific grammatical things you're curious about you can consult google sensei, as there is plenty written on the web about japanese grammar, or you can ask on these boards.

Just keep on reading/listening and keep checking out the meaning of the words/phrases and grammar chunks that you don't understand. I would advise you to put up with a little uncertainty though because otherwise you'll spend all your time reading about grammar and small details that probably aren't that important (things that won't have that much of an impact on your level right now at this very moment) in English, and none of your time actually using the language (which is where the real learning takes place).

At this point a grammar reference like DO(B/I/A)J or どんな時どう使う日本語 combined with using native sources would be more beneficial to you.

The reason textbooks exist has generally more to do with forcing Japanese into something that can be taught in a classroom setting, and not actually very much to do with helping real Japanese proficiency. If you're working on your own then there's no reason to do things the same way you would in a classroom. Also, developing the skill of knowing whether or not you've understood something without going through comprehension-checking questions is very useful. You might feel slightly lost at first, but eventually you do get a sense for when you should keep pushing forward in something verus stopping to look up words.

Think about the types of things you like to do in your native language, and then start trying to do them in Japanese. At a certain point you might want a JLPT reading or grammar drill book to make sure you're not ignoring certain things you might be needing, but trying to make the jump to native sources is probably going to be the best bang for your buck.

A lot of us come to Japanese because we had an interest in an aspect of Japanese culture. At your level it sounds like you might be able to begin to start using Japanese for the reasons you started to learn it in the first place. It's exciting!

Last edited by erlog (2012 December 16, 5:13 am)

erlog wrote:

At this point a grammar reference like DO(B/I/A)J or どんな時どう使う日本語 combined with using native sources would be more beneficial to you.

I agree. If I may ask though, can anyone recommend any similar textbook/reference to complement the Dictionaries? I've seen books like "Making your Japanese flow" and "Japanese sentence patterns" but I'm not sure about them. I don't want just another book explaining to me that wa is a topic/contrast marker etc.

DoIJG had this nice appendix where the function of a lot of auxiliary verbs were explained. That kind of information, perhaps not really related to grammar per se but how certain words are used differently in the Japanese language as opposed to English, could possibly be a great help..

Last edited by Betelgeuzah (2012 December 16, 9:53 am)