Study Tips?

[Applestar]

How do you study Japanese?

I find that I think I know the material but when I test myself (i.e. through the Genki Workbook and book), I discover I hadn't learned it. Anyone else feeling as down as I am on this?

For example: the vocabulary list in Genki I: Lesson 1. I read through them, practice writing them as I say them aloud, and can understand most by ear (since I'm familiar with the majority of the words from various Anime and T.V. dramas). But I've also myself struggling through Smart.FM's Genki I Vocabulary Goal. It's similar with the grammar.

Should I continue writing as I say them aloud? Work with flashcards? Or is it about repetition?

Any study tips or techniques you would recommend on how to learn them (vocabulary and grammar) would greatly be appreciated!

Thank you!

EDIT: I'm taking Japanese 1 at my University this fall, but I wanted to get a head start on the lesson(s).

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by Applestar

How do you study Japanese?

I find that I think I know the material but when I test myself (i.e. through the Genki Workbook and book), I discover I hadn't learned it. Anyone else feeling as down as I am on this?

For example: the vocabulary list in Genki I: Lesson 1. I read through them, practice writing them as I say them aloud, and can understand most by ear (since I'm familiar with the majority of the words from various Anime and T.V. dramas). But I've also myself struggling through Smart.FM's Genki I Vocabulary Goal. It's similar with the grammar.

Should I continue writing as I say them aloud? Work with flashcards? Or is it about repetition?

Any study tips or techniques you would recommend on how to learn them (vocabulary and grammar) would greatly be appreciated!

Thank you!

EDIT: I'm taking Japanese 1 at my University this fall, but I wanted to get a head start on the lesson(s).

In my experience, vocab and kanji are 99% repetition and 1% something else.

[Applestar]

Originally Posted by KyleGoetz

In my experience, vocab and kanji are 99% repetition and 1% something else.

Haha.. that makes it sound easier. Looks like repetition is the way to go!

[Akihiko]

Originally Posted by KyleGoetz

In my experience, vocab and kanji are 99% repetition and 1% something else.

Haha how true.

[Sashimister]

Originally Posted by Akihiko

Haha how true.

What do you know when you are an addicted online translation user yourself?

[steven]

I'd say just study the words you're studying enough to get by with decent grades. In the mean time, try watching as much Japanese television as you can. I'm sure some of the words you study will come up, and when they do it's important to listen to them spoken in the middle of real Japanese phrases, and not what the book has to offer.

I've studied with Genki before, but personally found it kind of boring. Some people really liked it. I remember showing it to Japanese people and them laughing at it. My opinion on textbooks is that you should do what you gotta do to get passing grades on whatever tests or homework you've got. Otherwise, if you are extremely dedicated, you can learn the language by intense listening and observing of native speakers.

I think a good grammar book would help to suplement whatever you study in Genki, though. For example, a thick yellow book entitled "Basic Japanese Grammar". This book will pretty much be all you need for everyday communication. I have all three of them and don't find myself using (or frankly hearing) much of the grammar in the more advanced books. If you have a Japanese friend, maybe ask him or her to help you mark the grammar that is used the most often. This is kind of what I did. There are also examples of bad grammar usage in the book, which might be confusing at first, but will help you avoid those mistakes.

I used to lay out in my back yard in the sun reading that book during college. I've probably read it front to back twice. During that time I was hanging out a lot with study abroad students from Japan, thus being able to slowly pick out certain phrases and then being able to look them up later as I remembered them-- I would remember stuff after I'd heard it enough times which usually signified those phrases' importance.

If you have the ability to make study abroad friends, this method will be great. The more you meet, the better. Going out in groups allows you to listen in on their conversations. It took me about half a year to go from the head teacher telling me to quit Japanese to being able to understand and communicate with my new Japanese friends in Japanese.

[Cypsis]

I am learning with Genki book too! ^^ I like it! but at the same time I have "Hajime no ippo - first steps in Japanese", "Japanese is possible", "Japanese for busy people" (+ whole punch of reviews about grammar and phrases). I am thinking about getting "Minna no Nihongo" too, because I have heard it is good. beside that I am listening Japanese radio at least twice a week and watch Japanese TV and dramas/ animes.

I study words by writing and reading them through. It has helped me always ^^

[steven]

I'm just gonna say that buying a bunch of textbooks and expecting them to improve my Japanese never worked for me. The last textbook I bought cost quite a bit of money and I spent maybe an hour or two with it before I realized it was the same old thing and wasn't even touching the surface of the everyday phases my Japanese friends were using.

I had a couple of other textbooks that I used in some of my courses, but they were more geared towards reading comprehension for young Japanese. Needless to say that was a pain in the A to try to understand and I just barely got by... comparing those books with the textbooks I had used up till them was a laughable experience. It seemed like there was so much grammar and so many patterns that weren't in my other textbooks.

I haven't looked back after ditching textbooks... in my opinion, though, yuo need to find a way to study that really works for you (as in a type of studying that produces actual results... IE being able to communicate with natives). Being at a college with study abroad students from Japan gives you a great advantage. I say this because they obviously will know some English and you are obviously studying Japanese... this creates a situation in which something called interlanguage is used. I think that was the key for me in being able to speak Japanese. Intelanguage was in my experience the stepping stone to being able to speak Japanese. I can go on for hours on how I've realized it worked in my experience, but I'll save it for anyone who's interested.

Here is the wikipedia article:
Interlanguage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

My personal definition of interlanguage slightly differs from what is provided on wikipedia. When I say interlanguage, I am most certainly talking about what is on there, but I am also talking about using a mixture (almost like a pidgeon language) of Japanese and English. For instance, you might be using the Japanese grammar that you know, but you might not know all the words, so you'll say the Englsh words that you don't know in Japanese in hopes to keep the flow of the conversation going. It's very complicated to explain, but in practice it's quite simple and effective. For an example of this kind of "interlanguage", check out the M-flo song entitled "Miss You" (they have other songs like this as well). The PV should be on Youtube if you wanna check it out. I've talked to Japanese people, and they don't really udnerstand the lyrics in the song, I've talked to English speakers and they don't really understand the song. If the person is bilingual (or approximately bilingual), they usually understand it. Just for the record, I doubt they were thinking of linguistics when writing that song. However, their accents, intonation, and word stress is really phenomenal in both languages (and their usage of slang is really incredible).

[Applestar]

Wow, thanks Steven & Cypsis!

Yeah, I understand what you mean by not-relying-entirely on the textbooks but getting actual practice by speaking with others, esp. native speakers. I was actually hoping students from japan would take the class too haha xD; (though, I don't think that happens often since most living abroad from japan AND students from the USA are fluent enough to not take the class).

I'll definitely study the book to pass the college course, but will study outside of it too! I just wish there were drama series with Japanese subtitles (with english sub-sub-titles?) because I like to visually see the words as well.

Thank you for your advice! I will look into the various grammar structures! (:

[steven]

This is just my opinion, but I think that watching a Japanese show in Japanese without subtitles is the best. Chances are you will only understand a VERY small percentage of the language. This is more about picking up inflections, intonation, mannerisms, and junk like that.

In my experience, I was most comfortable with using English subtitles at first. That was good at first... but I started to see that I was paying less and less attention to the spoken language and more attention to the subtitles (once you get to a certain level though it doesn't matter too much as you can tell what they're saying). After a while I liked to watch stuff with Japanese subtitles. Then I would watch things with just the spoken Japanese. I had a couple of movies I really liked, and I would watch them over and over again in just Japanese. I would watch the news sometimes and watch variety shows and stuff like that.

As far as finding study abroad students at your school, just look/ask around. Sometimes schools have clubs for those things. If your school doesn't have a club, maybe there is a place where study abroad students have to be sometimes. Find them-- don't bug them, and if they don't want your company leave them alone. If they are friendly though, get to know them and start helping them out in exchange for their help. They need help with some of the official business they have to take care of and you will certainly need help with your Japanese courses. I know some teachers look down on getting natives to help you with your homework, but to be quite honest there is no better source of help to learn a language from than a native. I made a TON of friends doing this and have some of my favorite memories in college with study abroad students. I still keep in touch with a lot of them, too. Some people will just be acquaintances and some people can become long term friends.

If there is a club with study abroad students, get involved and help them out. They will likely get together and probably invite you after a while. That's where you'll get real and raw native language input (as in listening and observing their conversations). I'd say that is something to consider in about your second year of college level Japanese.