grammar excercises

ivoSF Member

From: The Netherlands Registered: 2005-11-29 Posts: 144

for a long time now i have trouble learning japanese grammar.
at first it was becouse i thought i sucked at understanding all the theoretical explanations trough english grammar rules i do not know and had to look up.
.
i have given up hope that there is a format out there that suits me, so instead of wasting more time looking for that dream i think mine best course of action is to re-enforce what i learn with a lot of drills, sadly i cant find those either.

so in short, after i learn what a transitive verb is and what the difference is with an intransitive verb is i want to practice that a few hunderds times ovr a few days and look up the answers and see what i got wrong and why.

practice sheets and answer sheets like those i used when i learned english at school.
does anyone know where to buy or download/print this kind of sheets?

Jarvik7 Member

From: 名古屋 Registered: 2007-03-05 Posts: 3946

It looks like you are working on pretty basic grammar, so I might recommend getting the workbook from an entry level text like Genki.

usis35 Member

From: Buenos Aires Registered: 2007-03-31 Posts: 205

Here you can find a lot of free material to practice:

http://www.mlcjapanese.co.jp/Download.htm

Regarding trans / intrans verbs:

http://www.mlcjapanese.co.jp/DownloadF/Kyouzai/ViVt.pdf

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playadom Member

Registered: 2007-06-29 Posts: 468

http://www014.upp.so-net.ne.jp/nbunka/jun.htm

Has the strangest romanization I've ever seen[on the other pages, not the transitivity pairs page]

Last edited by playadom (2008 November 26, 7:10 pm)

kazelee Rater Mode

From: ohlrite Registered: 2008-06-18 Posts: 2132 Website

playadom wrote:
http://www014.upp.so-net.ne.jp/nbunka/jun.htm

Has the strangest romanization I've ever seen[on the other pages, not the transitivity pairs page]

That's a good resource. The romaji started to wear me out after a while, though.

ivoSF Member

From: The Netherlands Registered: 2005-11-29 Posts: 144

thanks for the links so far.
they will be helpfull especialy the pdf file.
what i am looking for are practice sheets where you have to put in the right form in a sentence or where you just have to get the right form without a sentence.
and answers so i can check myelf.
just like how they did it at school when i was learning english.

Tobberoth Member

From: Sweden Registered: 2008-08-25 Posts: 3364

You can probably make your own. Take a native sentence you understand and simply remove the part you need to train.

One way of doing it:
ドアが(close)
and what you need to do is insert the right verb. Since it's ga, you know it's intransitive. Thus, ドアが閉まる。
The other one would be:
ドアを(close)
And the answer: ドアを閉める。

ivoSF Member

From: The Netherlands Registered: 2005-11-29 Posts: 144

sorry tobberoth, but if i can make mine own practice materials without errors i have no need to make this post in the first place.

by now i have found out what works and what does not work for me.
grammar books with explanations that uses english grammar i have tried and failed.

i know i will forget those explanations of japanese grammer that uses english grammar rules i only understand when i look them up.
mine way to beat that is to practice after i have read the rules, see where i mess up, form conclusions from that and let it stick with mine own definitions, some time later repeat.

so i do not need advice however good it is intended.
i need practice sheets for japanese grammer , just like they hand out at school and the teacher correct.
i am sure at japanese schools they also give you tests where you have to fill in 50 answers about a certain grammar topic.
something like that i need and i do not mind to buy it.

any help would be apriciated.

Last edited by ivoSF (2008 November 27, 12:40 pm)

Tobberoth Member

From: Sweden Registered: 2008-08-25 Posts: 3364

How can you make an error, you simply take a sentence written by a native and exclude the part you need to train. You aren't doing anything yourself, just trying to replicate it. Just take all the example sentences from Kim Tae and start with those.

It's like when people learn particles. Read a line. Put it into your SRS but delete the particles. When the sentence comes up in the SRS, put the particles in yourself. See if you did it right.

I mean, these kind of practice materials you're talking about don't actually teach you anything, they don't teach you why a particle should be somewhere, why a verb should be transitive or intransitive, they just let you review and test the knowledge you already have.

ivoSF Member

From: The Netherlands Registered: 2005-11-29 Posts: 144

it will help me to reformulate the grammar rules in a way that make sense in mine mind.

perhaps it will help to imagine i keep getting stuck trying to learn the grammar rules of mine 3rd language explained with the barely understood grammar rules of mine second language and translate that back into mine first language.
to me that is hard.

anyway i did not start this thread to argue with people if mine idea is good or bad, to me it seems like the best idea i have had so far about learning japanese grammar.

this did make me think about the jplt, i have the idea that a few years of exams should have put together a big pile of practice materials.

Tobberoth Member

From: Sweden Registered: 2008-08-25 Posts: 3364

Can't you find any textbooks and resources in Dutch? You're talking about pretty basic grammar, I'm sure it's covered in some localized book. Maybe you could go to some library where you live and ask?

ivoSF Member

From: The Netherlands Registered: 2005-11-29 Posts: 144

mine best change for that is asking a friend who goes to the leiden university.
it is certainly worth trying.

liveone New member

From: japan Registered: 2008-10-26 Posts: 6

A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar
by Seiichi Makino and Michio Tsutsui
published by The Japan Times
isbn: 4-7890-0456-6

is a good reference book.

Try not to compare English and Japanese grammar too tightly.
Grammars usually explain verbs in a more complicated way than necessary for beginers.

Japanese has 2 basic temporal tenses that indicate either a state of completion or incompletion. More importantly for Japanese are indicators of mood, and the speaker's relationship to other actors or events in the discourse.

Simply accepting the different world view that Japanese presents is one of the hardest things to do. We try to impose the view our native language grammar tells us is correct and quickly get confused.

Take it easy and let the language come to you. Don't try to chase it down so to speak.

ivoSF Member

From: The Netherlands Registered: 2005-11-29 Posts: 144

i do recall i made this topic with the title "GRAMMAR EXCERCISES"

i would apriciate if someone could just help me find what i am looking for instead of turning this in a thread of unwanted advice and sugestions what i should do instead.

i can read and understand intellectually what is explained, but knowing something in theory is not the same as applying it in practice without errors, that is the main reason i want to have practice materials.

to be specific:
i just finsished the kim tae webpage about na-adjective and i adjective and the pages about verbs.
it would be nice if there is material with something like 50-100 questions and answers.
maybe official practice materials for schools or commercial excercise books?

annabel398 Member

From: Austin TX Registered: 2008-08-04 Posts: 80

Not sure how far along you are in your studies, but perhaps something like the workbook portion of Yookoso 2 (Continuing) or Genki II is what you want...? Unfortunately, workbooks that accompany texts are (1) expensive, and (2) usually rely heavily on you having the accompanying audio, which is--guess what--(3) expensive. Oh, and don't expect the ANSWERS to be there! For that you must buy the answer key. It's (4) expensive and (5) usually hard to find.

Some of the Kodansha books have exercises (How to Tell the Difference between Japanese Particles, and The Handbook of Japanese Verbs, for example) but they usually quite short... maybe 4 or 5 questions per chapter. They do, however, have answers.

GoddessCarlie Member

From: Australia Registered: 2006-12-03 Posts: 29 Website

I would recommend Japanese For Everyone's workbook. It has some simple exercises and ones that really make you think. Over all it's a good workbook.

Thora Member

From: Canada Registered: 2007-02-23 Posts: 1691

IvoSF - Two grammar books with some exercises are mentioned in this thread, in case you missed it. I looked around a bit on the web for some non-book grammar exercises or tests without much success.

[Re #19: Ah... okay. just tried to help b/c you seemed frustrated. You know ... "sometimes 4 eyes are better than 2"....? ]

Last edited by Thora (2008 December 04, 6:36 am)

rich_f Member

From: north carolina Registered: 2007-07-12 Posts: 1708

Yes, if you want drills, then this is a good book to try:
短期集中初級日本語文法総まとめポイント２０
ISBN: 978-4-88319-328-8

It's only about 124 pages, but it's full of drills, and covers 20 major areas of introductory Japanese grammar. The explanations aren't great, but you don't want that, so it's not a big deal.

http://www.3anet.co.jp/english/books/te … int20.html

Click on the browse button on the lower right corner to look at a preview of the book.

If you're having trouble dealing with English in general, then maybe try the みんなの日本語 series. It's all in Japanese, and there are notes/translations as well you can buy separately (or just do it all in Japanese).

Here's a list of the languages they have translations for. (It's English, German, French, Russian, Chinese, Korean, Thai, Indonesian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Vietnamese.)

http://www.3anet.co.jp/english/books/te … trans.html

You buy the translations separately, so it's kind of a pain. BUT, they also sell workbooks, which is what I was getting at in the first place.

UNICOM also make good drill books for the JLPT, all levels. Those would work as well.

ivoSF Member

From: The Netherlands Registered: 2005-11-29 Posts: 144

thanks for the many responses.

thora, i also looked around without much succes that is why i decided to ask for help.

rich_f, i also have the feeling something like drill books for jlpt is what i need.
now i do remember one site that seem to sell such things, so i go check that out.
if you know of any please let me know.

rich_f Member

From: north carolina Registered: 2007-07-12 Posts: 1708

I buy all of my books from bk1.jp for a variety of reasons. (Point club, frequent coupons, many shipping options, no tax to the US, better prices than I'll get here, plus Japanese practice because there's no help in any other language on the site.)

The Japan Shop (thejapanshop.com) has a nice collection of review books, and provides small previews of a few pages of each book, to give you a (very basic) feel for the books, too. The prices are a little higher, because they have to have the books shipped to them from Japan in the first place, but they do a good job of explaining what you get. I sometimes buy from them as well if I find their advice helpful.

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