Tae Kim's Grammar Guide And The Yet Unfulfilled Need For Exercises For It (+ rambling)

[Zakamutt]

Learning a foreign language will never be easy, but there are certainly ways of making it easier. When it comes to Japanese, there are two main recommended resources for the VN community: the Genki textbooks, and Tae Kim's guide to Japanese grammar. In this thread, I'll be talking about the latter, and some of the problems and advantages to learning with it. Oh, and the actual reason for this thread: it doesn't have a lot of exercises for repetition.

While you can get by through just reading the guide and kinda fuzzily remembering where to look up concepts when you encounter them, I know people who had serious trouble learning much since it would just slip their mind. The exercises could potentially help these people out a lot, but I think they could benefit most people that don't have reals good memory faculties. It'll also feel nostalgic for >20-year-old neets who enjoyed school, a demographic that may or may not be overrepresented in the VN fandom. I may be projecting.

Tae Kim, as you'll hear the guide called, is not without its flaws. However, its pure focus on grammar drew me to it far more than the Genki series of textbooks which has a more general approach. Also, you can get it without either paying for or pirating it, which may be relevant to some of you.

Here's a sample of some stuff I actually wrote to help my own studies this one time when I really wanted to tryhard whilst studying:

Spoiler

 

Using 方 and より for comparisonish stuff + other uses

1.(a) What is 方's reading when used for comparison?

2.(a) How do you use 方 with nouns?
  (b) TL: 学生じゃない方がいいよ。
  (c) TL: 赤ちゃんは、静かな方が好き。
 
3.(a) How do you use 方 with verbs? What do you need to watch out for?
  (b) There is a way to modify 方 w/ verbs a bit extra for a certain purpose. Which and how? What are the limitations to it?
  (c) TL: こちらから行った方が早かった。
 
4.(a) What other uses does 方 have?
  (b) Write a sentence using each other meaning, and the reading of 方 when using it.

5.(a) How do you use より for comparisons?
  (b) TL: はなよりだんご (also write out the kanji b/c cool saying).
  (c) TL: ご飯の方が、パンよりおいしい。
  (d) What other uses does より have?
  (e) Write a sentence using より for comparison.
 
6.(a) What other uses do より have?
  (b) TL: この仕事は誰よりも早くできます
  (b) Write a sentence using each other meaning.
 
7. LAZY EDITION
    (a) かた 方 way of doing something how, to stem of verbs, becomes noun
    (b) によって
    (c) によると
 
KEY
 
1.(a) ほう

2.(a) Attach with の. Usually you just yolo and don't say it's [thing] /than/ anything; basically
      [thing] の方 is [thingier].
  (b) "It's better not being a student."
  (c) "Like quiet babies more."
 
3.(a) Treat it like a noun, so な after na adj, nothing special after verb...
  (b) "For non-negative verbs, you can also use the past tense to add more certainty and confidence,
       particularly when making suggestions. The same thing does /not/ apply for negative tense verbs; in that case, past tense is only used for... past tense."
  (c) "It was faster to go from this way." (made more certain / confident by past tense)

5.(a) [x]より[y] means y is preferred to x. "rather than".
  (b) 花より団子, "rather than flowers, dango." Saying, people like snacks rather than watching the sakura
      petals basically"
  (c) I was too lazy to fill this one in and (7.) in, RIP

6.(a) You can also use 「より」 with question words such as 「誰」、「何」、or 「どこ」 to make a superlative by comparing with everything or everybody else. In this case, though not required, it is common to include the 「も」 particle.

 

If it seems a bit barebones that's because it is; nicking some exercises from Imabi might be viable, though that's even more #effort and the guy who wrote the (somewhat overly inclusive) Imabi lessons might object. I wouldn't really care about that, but I'm sure some of you will. However, I think it's quite possible to write more general questions on the grammar concepts present in Tae Kim. Do feel free to post any complaints below; after all, I'm very open to any suggestion that work may not be required of me.

I'm pretty bad at following through with anything requiring effort (actually writing this thing would take like an hour or more per lesson for me. I could be reading VNs or translating porn or something during that time!), so me actually completing this kind of project is extremely unlikely. With that said, it's 5am here and I felt like writing this shit anyway, so why the hell not? Maybe I'll spark something. With that said...

Does there already exist something like this (for Tae Kim specifically)? There's not much point in making something that already exists, though obviously my version would be better because I'm super good at everything :makina:. Oh, and would you actually use it? Kinda pointless otherwise.

Replies to Anticipated Responses

[Things actually relevant to the thread]

Can't actually think of anything, but I'm passable at the fine art of editing my own posts.

[Shitposts]

Well, as long as they're quality shitposts...

[Shitposts by FSJPG circlejerk]

シットポーストに逢うてはシットポーストを切る。多分。かもしれない。その。。。うち。。。に。。。。。。。
^let the Fapanese memes flow through you

[Unrelated questions as to why I'm great]

I have an Ask.fm account gathering dust; you can find it linked in my signature. Ask me about why Utena is 5/10!

Since you're never going to write this anyways, what can I use to learn in the meantime? I'm looking for a bit more meat than what you've linked already.

A somewhat relevant post is literally stickied in this very forum section.

Why'd you use "Fapanese" up there?

I've been forcing this meme (that I made!) for so long that it's become part of my idio(t)lect. I even made some other people start using it. You should, too!

I'm completely uninterested in this subject but your writing mesmerised me and I must have more!

Read my VNTS commentaries on the Fuwazette. When I write them, that is; I didn't do anything for this last one as of 22/06. Also, I hope using that date format triggered some of you USians.

tl;dr

I felt like writing an overly long post about the need for exercises for Tae Kim's guide to Japanese grammar and asked whether anyone would be interested in having some written, and whether there would be a point to doing so. This is the result.

[Asonn]

[Zalor]

Coincidentally enough, I've been thinking about Tae Kim's guide  a lot recently, as well as self-studying Japanese in general. Since its summer and classes are over, that means I have to self-study until classes start up again in the fall. Personally I used Tae Kim for my first 4 months or so of studying Japanese, and then I had the privilege of taking actual classes at my University, where we used Genki, and now I am back to using Tae Kim (until the semester starts, when I will be using Genki 2).

I read through Tae Kim's basic, essential, and special expressions sections each around 3 times when I first started learning. I feel that tackling up to 2 - 3  lessons a day is a good amount, and then reviewing those respective lessons after was a good day of learning and practice. And then once I finished the whole section, I would reread it again. Work through it slowly again, and once I finished, would go through that process one last time before finally moving on to the next section. With the lack of practice material, I felt this helped drill in the key concepts to me.

Once I finished through special expressions, I finally started reading VNs with the help of dictionaries and consulting grammatical reference when I needed it. I read 2 moeges (that I hated) in this way. By the time I finished the second moege, University started, and I quit studying this way (with VNs) and simply studied for my class instead. Contrary to what many people in the VN community advocate (and I think often exaggerate), I don't think you can learn Japanese simply by learning grammar, and then reading with dictionaries. I suppose if you do this method long enough, eventually a decent amount of vocabulary and grammatical comprehension ability will get stuck to in your head. But even then, all this will accomplish is an ability to roughly comprehend the written language. And I emphasize the word roughly. Without formal training, you will mostly be interpreting Japanese rather than actually really understanding it. Just because you understand how to comprehend grammar, does not mean you understand how to use it properly. I remember running across this problem when I started classes, since I knew grammar that was above my level, but only on a comprehensive scale. When I tried using it, I usually used it wrong.     

That said, I think that reading VNs, manga, etc, is really good practice for formal study. It will help you hone in concepts that you learned, and see how you can use them in ways out side of your textbook's rigid usage. Or rather, your text book's rigid usage, is a good starting point, and reading native material is the next step to further those concepts. 

It may sound from my post that I don't believe that Japanese can be learned without the supplementation of classes, and this is not true. I think any language can be learned with both self study and with sufficient exposure from the actual language (and part of expose in my view, includes interacting with people irl in that language). But I think taking the latter route (solely self-study) is a lot harder than it is often given credit. Often in the VN community, especially on Fuwa, I will occasionally see these dumb posts that go along the line of "oh, I just read VNs with a dictionary, studied grammar, and I learned Japanese." This line of thinking, which I mostly associate with Aaeru's learn japanese guide, gives the terrible advice of studying grammar, and then moving on to reading VNs with dictionaries. The dangerous part of this, is the "and then" part. You should not stop studying (or under prioritize) hardcore study of grammar once you move on to native material! Rather, you should continue studying as your primary focus, and reading VNs in Japanese as "practice" to reinforce what you learned.  But you don't learn from reading VNs, it is just a means to reinforce material that you learn from either a textbook or a teacher. The moment somebody says something that suggests that they use VNs to learn, rather than as practice aided with serious study, I dismiss them as being full of shit.

 

With all that said. I think that serious practice material for Tae kim would be really really helpful. Currently Tae Kim's grammar is a great grammatical reference, and also great review, but not so great of a textbook in my view. And a big problem is that I don't think that it has good practice material aiding it. Rather, you can only really passively learn from Tae Kim, without being able to really actively practice what you learned (through writing, speaking, and listening). That said, I think practice problems should be made by somebody who fulfills these 2 requirements. 1) They know Tae Kim's guide well 2) Their Japanese is strong, at the very least N2 level, preferably N1.   

 

In any case, great post. I think you brought up an important issue.

[Chronopolis]

I switched to genki's grammar entries after tae kim got too hard to remember and review. I only studied the grammar entries though.

You can study just the grammar, though you have to review the grammar you read through once or twice in the following weeks. You can reinforce that grammar by reading VN's.

Quote

You should not stop studying (or under prioritize) hardcore study of grammar once you move on to native material! Rather, you should continue studying as your primary focus, and reading VNs in Japanese as "practice" to reinforce what you learned.

Yea... You shouldn't permanently formally studying grammar until you finish all of N2 grammar at least. After that, your 'studying' is googling or looking up the in the dictionary stuff you don't get.

Basically there's stuff you can pick up over time on the fly (lots), and there's stuff that's too unfamiliar, non-intuitive, complex, or nuanced so you can't really do so. If you never study those things you probably won't learn them no matter how much you read.

[Funnerific]

When I dug through Tae Kim's guide I wrote four A4 pages of a "short version" - with grammar rules and exception verbs. It was only for the first month that I used it though, didn't need it after that anymore.

[Vokoca]

2 hours ago, Zakamutt said:

シットポーストに逢うてはシットポーストを切る。多分。かもしれない。その。。。うち。。。に。。。。。。。

I was appalled by the quality and length of this post, until I saw this part. I'm proud of you, Zaka; グッジョブ！

On a more serious note, if actual exercises are what you're after, getting a textbook might be the fastest way to get these. Aside from the already mentioned Genki, Minna no Nihongo is also a popular choice amongst the Japanese-learning circles; but both of these have their faults. If practice is what you're after, however, there are plenty of sites to help you out. If writing exercise is what you're after, you can get your stuff checked by natives, and alternatively do the same for others with the languages you're familiar with yourself.  Want to practice your reading comprehension with something actually more applicable than porn games (oh no! (/ω＼))? NHK has you covered, providing daily news with simple wordings and in-built japanese definitions of the more complicated words.

Well anyone from FSJPG probably already knows these since I tend to throw them around at times, but others might perhaps find this useful.  

To add on the topic of studying after getting through the basic hurdles - that is to say, getting comfortable enough with the language: don't be afraid of using a Japanese-created dictionary. Jisho and Tangorin aren't the only useful resources out there (?! ). Give the, perhaps at first glance intimidating, Weblio a shot! The interface is in Japanese, but this particular section is a proper ja-en dictionary. From my experience, it comes in handy when looking up more specific expressions, and in general it just gives a much more... natural English counterparts to the Japanese inquiries compared to Jisho/Tangorin. It is also full of example sentences that it searches through too, so sometimes you might find things that don't even have a proper entry there either. The site also has a ja-ja section as well if you want to cut off the second language completely - and on that note, having at least one of the idiom dictionaries bookmarked is never a bad thing, either. 

And remember, the ultimate secret to learning Japanese - no matter what you are looking for, there will always be someone asking about the same thing on japanese Yahoo answers for you.