/jp/ - Otaku Culture

[Anonymous No.]

I've been using anki for quite a while. What are some other tools for helping me learn, besides the occasional read of course. I want to try and develop my vocabulary still, but grammar is also becoming a must, as my sentence forming is still quite rudimentary and reductive caveman-tier.

How have you handled learning another language like Japanese? Would you choose another path if you had the chance in regards to learning methods?

[Anonymous No.]

Don't learn grammar before knowing the onyomi and the kunyomi of all kanji + common trapfalls. Grammar is for astroturfers and turbonerds.

[Anonymous No.]

anki

[Anonymous No.]

>occasional read
>not daily or as much as humanly possible
instead of making shit threads go read some japanese faggot

[Anonymous No.]

>>11219903
I would if i could, but i just stated my sentence forming is still weak, and anki packs i've found haven't resolved this, unless you have one in mind that helped you.

[Totally not OP No.]

>>11219903
At least OP is making an effort.

Agree that it's a shit thread that belongs on another board but you don't have to be so mean about it.

Makes me uncomfortable

[Anonymous No.]

>>11219928
I'm not trying to shitpost, but i figured that asking about jap on /jp/ would be better than on /adv/. I value the rules, but the results are more important.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11219944
>/jp/ - Otaku Culture

[Anonymous No.]

>>11219944
>I'm not trying to shitpost
Must come natural then.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11219950
Again, I'm aware of the rules and where i am, but there are daily rep threads here, so surely some of you have jap in your repertoire.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11219953
wow you really wrecked me

[Anonymous No.]

>>11219921
Get a grammar dictionary. Then read. You're done.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11219956
>surely some of you have jap in your repertoire.

I also piss several times a day but I'm not going to make a thread about it.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11219963
I meant that there are threads for anki here, so I'm asking about methods for Japanese learning since that thread isn't around atm. Where does did you make the relation to urinating?

[Anonymous No.]

>>11219964
Do you have on in mind? I have searched for grammar books but always ended up with vocab studies.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11219981
https://www.google.com/search?q=japanese+grammar
https://www.google.com/search?q=japanese+grammar+book
https://www.google.com/search?q=japanese+grammar+dictionary

[Anonymous No.]

>>11219894

Here's what you do:

>grab Kanji damage or /a/'s daily kanji deck on anki and start to work through that
>after you're maybe 100 - 200 kanji deep, grab the core 2k and 6k vocab deck and start that as well
>spend some time studing vocab
>tae kim's book is the best source for clear explanations of japanese grammar. start with this to learn sentence structure
>do genki if you want
>start reading basic manga for children or fire up old nes/snes games to practice on
>you should always be exposing yourself to japanese media, listen to j-pop, play the news in the background while you do daily activities

>The most important part is that you don't fucking skip any days on anki. If you're serious about learning nihongo, you need to be dedicated.

this is official guide

good luck jaypee

[Anonymous No.]

I don't like how people praise Tae Kim like it's the second coming of Jesus when it comes to grammar. I imagine there must be an SRS sort of way to learn grammar which would actually work better for some people who don't like the textbook pen-and-paper approach of learning.

But most of all, I don't like how people praise Tae Kim like it's the second coming of Jesus when it comes to grammar.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11220129
>SRS sort of way to learn grammar
Well, SRS works for memorization. In grammar you don't really have to memorize anything but understand how to use things and practice them. Kind of like algebra.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11220129

>I imagine there must be an SRS sort of way to learn grammar

If you get the core 2k+6k deck I mentioned above, each vocab word comes with a sentence you can read. This is as close as you're going to get for an SRS approach to grammar.

>I don't like how people praise Tae Kim

His book is just a good reference for studying... it's also free, which is nice. You also don't have to use tae kim, genki is another popular option. Or there's that barron's guide to grammar which uses romaji, but is still a decent book.

Not using tae kim just because it's a popular grammar guide is stupid.

Take what works and discard what doesn't.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11220129
Get a grammar dictionary and make flashcards out of it. Obviously you will need the very basics down first but that's not hard.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11220132
I guess it's just something that didn't really work for me in particular. I like learning more by example than instruction.

>>11220137
I tried solely doing the core 2k for a while, and I actually got to the beginning of deck 3. Then the sentences started getting a little complicated and I figured I wasn't going to get much out of them without grinding some extra kanji.

The problem was that most kanji decks people recommend didn't really wet my beak. Too much information on a single card, I think. Nowadays I finally found something that works just right for me, but I won't go into details because people think it's stupid.

But Tae Kim. I've never really gotten too much into it, so you could say my complaints are invalid. This is just me riffing, but I don't like it because I feel like people blow it out of the water in praise. We've been having these threads weekly, and sometimes daily, and people always seem to break out in an argument for which sources work on the whole learning process, but nobody ever seems to have anything bad or different to say about Tae Kim. In a thread that disagrees and argues so much about everything else, it boggles my mind to see nobody touching on this.

Then again, I might not just be paying enough attention, or it might just be the rosetta stone for grammar and I'm in denial, in which case, nevermind!

[Anonymous No.]

>>11220148
People do disagree on it, though admittedly, there is comparatively less resistance to it than other topics.

[Anonymous No.]

Are there any alternatives to the Core 2k and 6k and the like? I'm not liking the way it works.

For one, the Core 2k deck I downloaded had two cards for each word. One card would have hiragana, katakana, and kanji, whereas the other card would have hiragana only, not even katakana. What the fuck is the point? Fortunately due to the way Anki and the deck works, I managed to make it so both the regular and hiragana-only vocab/sentences would show up on each card, and deleted half the deck. It worked, but still, why was it set up like that in the first place? Why would I have to make such an awkward step to make things less stupid?

For two, I don't like the way whoever designed the Core 2k deck handled things. He'd have some words list all their possible translations on a single card, and then there'd be situations where the same word would show up on multiple cards, each card having different translations of the word. Sometimes it's not even a matter of a word having a different meaning; it's just the same word/meaning being used in a different way, so to directly translate it in that context you might use different words. This does not help with my understanding at all, and it doesn't help me when I see the same word multiple times with each time having different translations.

For three,
>management, operation
>management, process
>management, administration
This Goddamn bullshit doesn't help me learn anything; what the fuck.

Are there alternatives to the Core 2k that avoid all this?

[Anonymous No.]

>>11220148
I mentioned I didn't like Tae Kim's style in a previous thread and a kind anon recommended the Japan Times' series of Japanese grammar dictionaries. They require an existing basic knowledge of grammar to use, though.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11220148

>Nowadays I finally found something that works just right for me, but I won't go into details because people think it's stupid.

I'm curious, I promise I won't laugh /jp/!

>But Tae Kim. I've never really gotten too much into...

I use tae kim mainly as a reference. If I need to figure out how to make comparisons, for example, I can simply pull up tae kim and have a clear explanation of what to do and why. It's good to clarify concepts.

Ultimately, the best way to learn grammar is by immersion and practice. Read as much as you can, listen to as much Japanese as you can and gradually you'll start to figure out the patterns.

I would say try genki if you haven't yet. You might like it better than TK.

>I figured I wasn't going to get much out of them without grinding some extra kanji.

Currently working through 6k+2k. I usually ignore the sentence and just learn the word itself. Otherwise it would be too big of an undertaking.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11220171
Well, when I kinda slumped away from the Core decks and couldn't get into Tae Kim, I kinda just strayed for a bit until I learned about WaniKani. I did the free levels and really liked them compared to the kanji decks on anki, and I decided to subscribe.

People think it's stupid because it's paid, and the owner of the site revolves around being a walking internet gimmick. It's understandable. To me, it feels like the lazy man's anki. It's a radical, vocabulary and kanji deck separated into levels, with mnemonics and only the readings considered to be essential on items. It took the work of setting up anki and looking for an appropriate deck, and worrying if I would be learning the correct reading for something off. I really like it!

Though, when I mentioned it, someone greentexted me and called me stupid. That made me sad and I felt like never mentioning it again. I hope you're happy.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11220186

Don't be sad, anonymous. You should study in whatever way you like!

If I wasn't already so deep into Kanji damage and the core decks with anki, I probably would have signed up for WaniKani myself.

Also, if you're paying for your SRS system, you'll be more inclined to study anyway. Not a bad strategy.

I hope your nihongo studies go well, anon.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11220153
>For one, the Core 2k deck I downloaded had two cards for each word. One card would have hiragana, katakana, and kanji, whereas the other card would have hiragana only, not even katakana. What the fuck is the point?
I don't know. I just deleted the hiragana cards. Guess some people want to learn vocabulary by using hiragana only because they find kanji difficult.

For latter part, that's how Japanese works. They have lot of synonyms. Same thing with English and you just need to learn difference by experience. You can't avoid them if you want to study vocabulary. It's like English has words strand, coast, beach, shore and bank for same thing.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11220209
>Guess some people want to learn vocabulary by using hiragana only because they find kanji difficult.
It's for practice in recognizing words by sound alone, as you would have to do if you wanted to listen to anything. Nobody's retarded enough to use hiragana alone except me.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11220209
>Guess some people want to learn vocabulary by using hiragana only because they find kanji difficult.
Nobody's retarded enough to use hiragana alone. It's for practice in recognizing words by sound alone, as you would have to do if you wanted to listen to anything. Recognizing all the kanji in the world won't help you listen to a song.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11220228
The first thing that it brought to my mind was that it was for practice remembering kanji without needing to see them, but your point is even better.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11220153
Make your own deck. It's not a bother, in fact the time you spend adding words doubles as the learning phase. Which is something you should be doing anyway, since SRS by itself is not as much a learning tool as it is an aid to memorize and retain things you've already learned elsewhere.

It's particularly effective with words that have difficult-to-grasp nuances, since it causes you to do your own research before adding them. It's this entire research that you will later be recalling rather than some crude and vague definition someone else came up with.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11219981
I personally use A Dictionary of Basic/Intermediate/Advanced Japanese (after going through Tae Kim). It has by far the best explanations for grammar points I've seen, but it's mainly used as a reference. It helps me to get writing my own sentences and such which I find the most difficult thing.

Only problem is it's a bitch to navigate through a PDF, so I ended up buying them which turned out to be kinda expensive.

[Anonymous No.]

I would like to ask your opinions /jp/. Do you think one should study grammar or vocabulary first (or with higher priority)?

General argument for vocabulary:
It is boring and probably ineffective to read just grammar and you will probably forget everything soon after. It is much more effective to learn basic Japanese sentences (/phrases) first and after that read grammar book and understand how the grammar works when you are already familiar with the language.

General argument for grammar:
After you have studied grammar one can say he understands Japanese because it is the core of language. Learning new vocabulary will last rest of your life.

[Anonymous No.]

You losers should just fork up the $80/year for KaniWani. You won't regret it and the community is great.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11221061
Well, the grammar thing applies for most language. However due to the variety of readings of kanji (and the different kanji) grammar cannot _quite_ work as a skeleton where you just fill in the vocabulary as you go.

I'd say learn some grammar, learn enough kanji that you are able to read simple manga without relying too much on furigana and go from there.

[Anonymous No.]

It's simple
watch anime
play games
read manga
read books

One tip, there are shit many irregularities and quirks of kanji pronunciation.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11221083
waht the fuck

kaniwani is 80bux now?

I signed up for it weeks ago and it was free (never used it though)

[Anonymous No.]

>>11221196
I mean wanikani

I said kaniwani because you did

[Anonymous No.]

>>11221198

It's $8 a month but yeah.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11221083
>>11221220
pretty sure you just lied to me

[Anonymous No.]

I've been finding that while cooori is primarily vocab tester, all of its example sentences and parsing of said sentences has greatly improved my grammar comprehension.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11221226

[Anonymous No.]

>>11221226
WaniKani is free for the first two levels. Subsequent levels require a monthly subscription of eight dollars. You may also get a yearly subscription for eighty dollars. This is a discounted value, when it comes out of beta, the monthly subscription will raise to ten dollars. The community isn't "great" or bad, it's a generic forum community with it's own goals and stereotypes, the happy-go-lucky people, the no-words men, the unrealistic expectations person, the "I sure wish I didn't have so many reps! >.<" sod (this one is absolutely everywhere), and so and such. You can ignore the forums section completely and it's still a perfectly serviceable program, though it's hard to ignore the quirky automated messages the owner of the site sends to people or peppers around his site regarding subscription fees or reviews or such.

Whether you think the whole paid thing is a curse or a blessing based on those things is entirely up to you. I'm the >>11220186 anon and I do think it has its caveats, but I sincerely think this is way better than anki if you just stick to reviews and lessons.

One thing that does bother me is that it takes a while to level. Whereas in Anki, you could take things at your own pace, here you're forced to work in the pace they want you to. It takes me around twenty days to level (though admittedly, I'm very lazy in my reviews). It's eight bucks for a month. Draw any conclusions you want from that.

[Anonymous No.]

Whatever you do, pick 2 sources max to learn your daily japanese. If it doesn't work, or it feels too confusing to your comprehension, leave it at there and pick another.

I repeat, 2 sources max, maybe 3. Trying to learn from 4 is crazy shit; you might as well want a brain stroke.

Write kanji stuff, as well word examples (basically I told you to practice with the KD deck). Eventually you'll get it.

Make tree diagrams for kanji formation & assembling (e.g., from 'water' to 'swimming'). It'll be ridiculous at first, but your brain may like it for remembering.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11220116
Why would I listen to jpop? I like j-hiphop, touhou music, and VGM.

Listen to whatever you want as long as it's in Japanese.

[Posthuman !4Pq7ZkSFpA No.]

[Anonymous No.]

>>11221083
How much are they paying you?

[Anonymous No.]

>>11225819
Writers from the blog are here probably trying to stealthily promote it.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11225785
The hiphop and some rap are the only thing with actual fucking full sentances and shit in it.

All the other fucking music is in weird ass poetic form and generally doesn't even make sense on its own.

[Anonymous No.]

What specific goal do you guys have to keep you plugging along? I bought all 10 LoGH novels that I plan on reading one day. The money I spent and my love of the show really motivates me to keep going.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11233147
It brings me a lot of pleasure to study foreign language. Studying kanji is like a slowly unravelling mystery that has rewards all along the way, the moment of elation when you comprehend the meaning and pronounciation of a new word after many hours of studying the kanji... It's almost addicting.

[Anonymous No.]

[Anonymous No.]

>>11220129
>I imagine there must be an SRS sort of way to learn grammar

There's an Anki deck of all the sentences in Tae Kim.

[Anonymous No.]

Does Anki SRS really work?

[Anonymous No.]

>>11237117
It doesn't for me at least. It's 90% frustration and 10% learning. I learn a lot more and quicker by reading VNs with MeCab. But it's still worth a try.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11219894
Skim you faggot. Find shit you can enjoy even at your current shitty level and don't worry about perfection. Skip if you get bored.
Eroge all day everyday=fluent in a year
Reading boring shit 15 minutes a day=youll still suck after five years.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11221083
So it's like Heisig through Anki but shitty and you cant download it for free? pass.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11233188
>don't learn Kanji individually
Top lel

[Anonymous No.]

>>11237181
Wanikani has basically everything. Still I think paying for studying is almost never worth of it. Unless you are person who wants to secure motivation by paying -> "Now I won't give up because I have paid for it. I won't waste my money!"

[Anonymous No.]

>>11237205
I hope you're being ironic because that picture isn't supposed to be taken seriously.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11237235
I paid for my textbooks because reading on a computer screen is bad and I'm delicate.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11237169
Sup Khatz.

[Anonymous No.]

Someone please help me

[Anonymous No.]

I'm copying entries out of a dictionary into a document.

One day I will finish copying the entire dictionary, and then I will know Japanese.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11239829
ur fug'd