Senence mining: what to take?

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Reply #1 - January 11, 10:03 am
cophnia61 Member
Registered: 2014-01-11 Posts: 198

Hi! I'm new here and I'm excited to open my first thread :D In truth I read already so many posts and they have all been very useful to me, but I was not able to find an answer to this specific question, so here it is:

while I'm learning kanji I am thinking to start studying also some vocabulary and grammar. I have Genki books so I was thinking about to take sentences from it while I'm studying. The fact is not all the words in the vocabulary list are used in the dialogs, so I don't know what to do. I have to take every sentence from the dialogs and put it in anki? Or I have to take every single word in the vocabulary list and search an example sentence from, say, jisho or another vocabulary? Consider that I'll follow the japanese level up method so my purpose is to reach 1000 J-E sentences and if ignore the words in the vocabulary list which don't appear in dialogs and grammar notes, at the end of Genki I & II I'll reach a maximum of 500 sentences.

I know I can take sentences from other sources but since I'm going to study from Genki, I prefer to follow the same words and grammar points I'm going to encounter there... clearly as long as grammar and words are the same I can take sentences which contain them from other sources.

I do have also a couple grammar books that I've already started to read and I've the intent to use it together with Genki, and I've seen they have pretty good and simple sentences, but obviusly they use other vocabulary in respect to Genki. So do you think I can take some sentences from Genki dialogues and grammar notes, and some other from those grammar books, to reach 1000 sentences when I'll end Genki II?

I know it seems I'm in hurry but it's only becouse I want to start in a good way so I won't get in trouble in the future.

What do you suggest to me? What would you do in my place, with the same resources as mine? Thank you in advance for your help and excuse me for my bad english ._.

Reply #2 - January 11, 10:50 am
Fillanzea Member
From: New York, NY Registered: 2009-10-02 Posts: 534 Website

In your place I would consider taking the sentences from the dialogues plus any words from the additional vocabulary list *that are immediately relevant to you.*

For example, I don't have a copy of Genki to hand but I think some of the first things you learn include how to say what country you're from and what you're studying. So you don't need to hurry up and learn to say England and France and Russia and India, and engineering and math and literature and physics, but do pull out how to say "I'm Canadian" or "I'm studying psychology" if that applies to you. You can search for an example sentence if you can find one that's easy for you to understand and doesn't pull in a million new vocabulary words, but you could also just use it in one of the sentences in the dialog -- find the sentence that says "I'm American" and just substitute in "I'm Canadian."

And yeah, it seems fine to take sentences from grammar books as well as from Genki.

Reply #3 - January 11, 8:35 pm
Aikynaro Member
From: Tokyo Registered: 2012-07-26 Posts: 266

Take whatever's a) easy, or b) interesting. Ignore the rest - if it's really so important, you'll run into it multiple times in the future anyway and you get another chance to add it then if you don't already understand it. Looking up example sentences doesn't necessarily sound either interesting or easy, so I wouldn't bother.

Or, well, that's what I would do. But you should do whatever you think is a good idea. If you think it's important that you know all those words now, by all means go for it.

Is 1000 sentences the magical point where you're meant to start adding everything in J-J according to Japanese level up?

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Reply #4 - January 12, 1:53 am
tokyostyle Member
From: Tokyo Registered: 2008-04-11 Posts: 720

You are thinking about things backwards.  You don't open up Genki and try to pull out enough sentences to reach 1000 sentences.  You open it up to pull out sentences that help you study and learn Japanese.  Eventually this process, including using more sources, will lead you to have 1000 cards but merely reaching that point doesn't guarantee anything about your ability to properly absorb and process that information.

The point isn't to get to a particular number of sentences in your Anki deck; it's to understand those sentences and become familiar with the grammar and vocabulary.  Focus on getting understandable sentences in to your deck even if it means a small amount of vocabulary.  Later you can use subs2srs sentences to boost your vocabulary.

Reply #5 - January 12, 10:44 am
cophnia61 Member
Registered: 2014-01-11 Posts: 198

Thank you very much for your advices, they made me reflect! smile I think if I follow them, then I will have no issues smile I think you can understand me, when you start studying you are assailed by dubts but now thank to your advices it is all clearer!

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