Try looking at grammar as something that helps you to translate sentences, more like a reference guide. Don't try to memorize it, that won't give you the kind of understanding you want. Maybe memorize or study the example sentences, but not the rules. You need intuitive understanding, not rational understanding.

But again, it's useful for translating things you don't understand.

Last edited by Zlarp (2012 December 22, 2:21 am)

So, basically you're saying you're having trouble "memorizing" connotations, nuances and the like, am I right? If I understand correctly, the problem you're having is this: If you don't fully understand finer differences between similar words and phrases, often the time you can still follow what a native speaker's saying because you have context to infer the intended meaning. But without mastering finer points, you can't express yourself correctly and efficiently because the wrong expression carries a slightly different meaning than what you intended. So you feel like your output sucks compared to your passive skills like listening and reading. But you're overwhelmed by the sheer amount of explanations of the differences that are subtle to nonnative speakers but are clear to native speakers.

If this is the case, you don't need to do anything about it. Just see language acquisition the other way around. You don't learn a language from reading up on minute differences. It's more like you read an explanation and you go, "Ooh, that's genius. This word works just like this explanation." But you're also like, "But wait. You say,'XXX' if you're in a situation like YYY. You also say 'ZZZ,' and this is definitely what a native speaker would say. Hmm. These examples don't follow the explanation." So, you should be able to feel what's grammatical and what's not, and you should be able to come up with some exceptions to general rules on your own.

If you're wondering how you can develop such intuition, read the first paragraph of this post again. When you communicate with native speakers, often the contextual clue you need to infer subtler differences is right there. Of course, context is not always enough, and you may get it wrong. But as long as you have a solid foundation, you should be able to correctly guess the intended meaning often enough. So with a large amount of input, you'll eventually figure out those elusive grammar points, often unconsciously but sometimes consciously. So even if you're really proficient in a language, you may not be able to verbally explain all the grammar points in a sentence you understand. But you're sure your interpretation is correct.

With that all said, reading explanations may help your learning as well because that way you know what you should look for. It may be necessary to achieve really high proficiency; even native speakers need education to polish their mother tongues. But that's optional and not essential. So, stop treating explanations as an extremely important learning tool because they're not. You don't need to memorize them. They may help a bit, but not much.

By the way, I'm not sure if translation helps a lot when it comes to output. I've done absolutely zero translation in my head to write this post. At least there was no conscious translation. If anything, I'd have trouble translating this post into my native language. Of course, your brain may function a bit differently than mine because you were already multilingual when you were a kid and said you hear translation when you listen to someone speaking in your second language, which to me was very surprising and nearly unbelievable. But I kind of feel like translation doesn't work well if two languages are drastically different and you're learning a foreign language as an adult.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure you'll be speaking Japanese fluently before you know it as long as you don't quit. So just relax and have fun.

Last edited by magamo (2012 December 21, 4:54 pm)

Zlarp wrote:

Maybe memorize or study the example sentences, but not the rules. You need intuitive understanding, not rational understanding.

This works really well for me.  If you're going to memorize anything at all, memorize example sentences using that grammar pattern.

Also, keep in mind that you don't need to actively use "advanced" (N1) grammar patterns that often.  Just make sure you understand them when you hear/read them.  Memorizing an example sentence using them is often more than enough for this.

Zlarp wrote:

To the people saying translation isn't important: I technically agree with this, but sometimes when you read or hear something it seems really important and you'll want to understand it *right now* and become frustrated. That's when I resort to explicit grammar and dictionary lookups to satisfy my curiosity. I don't do it often, but I find it good to have the option because it reassures me that I won't be missing anything vital to my enjoyment of a text.

(I think I'm good enough by now to be able to discern when something is vital and when it isn't, but that's an intuition thing. I don't know if this part works the same way for other people, but I know something's important when my brain starts telling me "I really, really want to know what this means!")

I really, really understand what you mean here. Quite often, if I am watching an anime, for example, I will hear a line and have an intuitive "feel" for what was said, but there is a little tingle in the back of my mind which wants to "understand it" in the same sense in which I understand this English language.  This often means I find myself translating in my head what the phrase would mean in English, and find myself falling behind the conversation.

I know it will take much more time, input and time, and input, and a little more on top of that, before Japanese stops becoming something "I want to understand in English", but it's a little frustrating sometimes. The whole being an adult and understanding the world (as little as I do) as an adult is difficult when dealing with a second language, as a lot of the process is (in my opinion) impeded by the lack of "letting go" of acute temporary comprehension in favour of a more child-like acceptance and moving on to the next thing.

The fact that there are so many people on these forums alone whom speak multiple languages blows my mind.

One thing you should also not forget is that it's easy to think you understand something when you actually don't.  You can misinterpret a surprising amount of a text or show and still make general sense of it.  So don't discard the dictionaries and grammar books completely just because you think you're getting the hang of it.

I've been watching a subtitled anime series, and while the subtitles are mostly OK, there are some patterns that the translator consistently gets wrong -- one of the big ones is Xといい.  This means "I hope that X", "It would be nice if X", etc.  But the translator, every time, translates it as "X is good" or "It's Xing well" (i.e. "it's working well" rather than "I hope this works").  That is, he's not picking up on the difference between Xはいい and Xといい.

Last edited by yudantaiteki (2012 December 22, 3:39 am)

Don't worry so much about the understanding, it sounds like it must be scary in your head

I probably understand only 80% of what people say in my native language, probably even less in English, since I've acquired that one later in life, even though I consider myself rather proficient at it. If I sat down right now and tried to understand what I just wrote, I'd have a giant headache afterwards. Let's make the exercise, shall we?


"Don't worry so much about" - okay, I get it, that's a set expression. Good start! I am telling someone not to worry, meaning they shouldn't think too much about it. I don't really quite understand the word "worry", though. I've seen it in many different contexts... hmm... Anyway, I think I get the jist.

"the understanding" - can you even say that? "the understanding"? I think this only works if there has been previous context given, though I could see myself writing an article and starting off with this sentence. I don't really get the grammar of this. Did I nounify it? Eh? No clue, honest.

"it sounds like it must be scary in your head " - what am I refering to here? "in your head" is kind of a metaphor for thoughts, but... well, it's different. I don't know how to explain it. It has connotations of... sanity... or... something? going with it?... hmm...


Anyway, enough of this nonsense, you obviously see what I'm getting at. I'm picking apart every single little thing here, but I'm just trying to show you how little I (and hopefully others, because if everyone else totally gets these things I must be way behind the curve) actually understand.

Now, when I read Japanese, it's more obvious because of the glaring problem of never having seen the words before and not being used to them. Whether or not I "understand" them any better, though, is up for debate (a debate that would probably begin by defining the term "understand)

Another thing with Japanese is that since I'm just starting out, I'm a lot slower. This means that I'm actually looking at the sentences closer and for a longer amount of time. I think it's similar to the effect of saying a word again and again and the more you say it the more it loses its meaning. The more you split up the parts in a sentence and try to grasp every one, the more clear it gets how little you understand, it's just that in our native languages we've gotten so used to this that it doesn't bother us anymore.

- That or I'm full of crap. I dunno. I'm really just rambling. Please don't look at this as a strongly held opinion of mine or anything, I'll probably be spouting the complete opposite tomorrow

I'm too paranoid to use proxy servers. I mean, I don't know the people who offer them! They could do anything with my data!

Ahem...

And just to share some comraderie: I have my fair share of social phobias and oddities as well, though luckily the bipolarness passed me by (I think?). As for lobotomies curing madness... I think they invented guillotines first and those are more effective (though I didn't wiki it, so who knows, maybe the Greeks cut open each other's heads too, but I doubt it, looking at the weirdass way they practiced "medicine"... not that lobotomies aren't "weirdass medicine", of course)

---

Anyway, I think something I was trying to say pretty much went under in all my rambling. I think that the way I don't understand my own language and the way in which I don't understand Japanese are quite literally the same thing. I didn't pick apart these details just to start some discussion that would end up in two different definitions of the term "understand" where one definition would be the way we don't understand our native language and the other would be the way we understand don't understand a foreign language.

I have conflicting thoughts on the "feeling of understanding" that we have of language and what it actually "is". (Nooo, not Heidegger! I still haven't read that, keep it away! Keep it away!) 

My two hypotheses (though I probably have more, maybe? I'm making this up as I go along here):

1: All of language is nothing but rote learning and repeating what one heard. There is no creativity in language. Everything one says or writes is merely a combination of what came before, what one heard in certain situations and the context one happened upon them. There is no actual meaning anywhere, it's all mechanics, doing what we do because it works, imitation.

2: Language is the building block of consciousness and the reason why we don't remember our earliest years is because we haven't yet learned to think. The meaning of language is created by building uncountable amounts of neural pathways and is connected to everything we've ever seen or done, or heard. The more one learns, the more these meanings are solidified, the stronger and deeper they become, the more varied and complex they will be. Language therefore is infinitely creative and infinite meaning can be found in it.

- Now, you see, that's how I approach pretty much all the things that I think about (though not explicitly, that would be dumb). Whenever I try to figure something out, I end up with two completely opposite seeming trains of thought like these. And as always, they're both mutually exclusive and don't hold up to reality in the end. (1: How could language ever actually appear in the first place if nobody created it? 2: This is dumb. A rock is a rock and if I hit you with it you die and no amount of language is going to change that reality - the true meaning)

Now I have two options: I can go bipolar (hey, yay, I'm relevant, look at me!) and sort of swing back between these two. One day I'll believe everything has been done before, nothing I say has any meaning and what's the point anyway? - The other I'll be filled with - what, an inner fire? Please excuse the cheesiness of expression - and create meaning wherever I go and everything is awesome.

The other option is to do what I do, and it might be even more psychotic than being bipolar - I simply believe both of these things at the same time. I know it's a paradox, but then, it's not any more stupid than light being both a wave and a particle at the same time. The universe was created (*and* spontaneously came into existence in a way that doesn't make sense, so why should I?

...

I think everyone but uisukii probably stopped reading this by now because I'm sure I stopped making sense quite a long while ago.

Anyway, enough with this... mmmh...

- Oh, one more thing: there might be a lot of porn on the internet, but:  "This is my porn. There are many like it, but this one is mine."

Tori-kun wrote:

I feel using monolingual definitions on my anki cards might be extremely beneficial, but how to implement them? Any ideas?

I have both a vocab word and an example sentence on the front of all my cards.  On the back I have both a Japanese definition and an English translation.  I feel this works really well.  The English translation gives you something easy to memorize, while the example sentence and Japanese definition give you the necessary context.