6 ms·

A Japanese language guide for analytical thinkers

82 points by mbrubeck 17y ago

mbrubeck 17y ago
This is the reference I wish I had when I was learning Japanese. I tend to learn natural languages a lot like I learn programming languages: I get a lot faster at learning once someone explains the underlying rules and how they combine and interact.
keyist 17y ago
Thanks mbrubeck, great reference. I highly recommend this book: http://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Step-Innovative-Approach-Speaking/dp/0658014900 http://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Step-Innovative-Approach-Spea... as another excellent resource. Written by an engineer for engineers, with detailed flow charts for the various conjugation rules and other aspects of the grammar. The book lists the various common sentence structures then teaches you how to expand the various fragments to construct more complex sentences. Somewhat similar to learning via a CFG and deriving a parse tree. if you want to absolutely nail your Japanese grammar, this is a solid logical way to go about it. Book's biggest drawback is that it is rather dry. You will need to complement it with a book that focuses on vocabulary, idioms, and colloquialisms so that you don't sound like a robot.
- altxwally 17y ago
  The best books I've read regarding learning japaenese are 'Making Sense of Japanese Grammar'. I recommend it a lot. http://www.amazon.com/Making-Sense-Japanese-Grammar-Paper/dp/0824825837 http://www.amazon.com/Making-Sense-Japanese-Grammar-Paper/dp... If it weren't for that book I would have never understood why there are so many exceptions with verbs regarding the whole intransitive and transitive thing.
- rwmj 17y ago
  I once got some way through writing a program which turned OCaml variants into Japanese sentences. So you'd write something along the lines of: `IsIn (`Noun "neko", `Noun "uchi") (except usually far more complex) and it would generate the Japanese sentence, working out is "neko" is animate or not and so how to translate `IsIn correctly.
caffeine 17y ago
Brilliant! Where was this all my life? I only wish he would deconstruct Kanji and the resulting combinatorial explosion in the same way...
- mullr 17y ago
  Use this: http://www.amazon.com/Remembering-Kanji-Complete-Japanese-Characters/dp/4889960759 http://www.amazon.com/Remembering-Kanji-Complete-Japanese-Ch... And this: http://kanji.koohii.com/ http://kanji.koohii.com/ The problem becomes tractable, and maybe even a little friendly. Fwiw, the explosion isn't really combinatorial. It'd better if it was, because at least that would be predictable. No, it's best though of as entirely irregular combinations of a medium-sized number of components. But the aforementioned resources help you deal with it.
  - brianobush 17y ago
    I can't upvote this enough. I went from 200-300 Kanji characters that I acquired painfully to now 2053 Kanji characters using RTK in about four months. I use Anki (http://ichi2.net/anki/ http://ichi2.net/anki/) to do reviews, but the Kanji koohii site is awesome for stories and has a nice active forum. I keep track of my progress here: http://kd7yhr.blogspot.com/ http://kd7yhr.blogspot.com/
    - mullr 17y ago
      I actually use Anki now as well. Fantastic software, that.
    - donw 17y ago
      Are you learning just the meanings, or the meanings, kunyomi, and onyomi? I ask, because I'm somewhere in between ２級 and １級 with the JLPT, and since I've only spent a collective six months in Japan, it's a bit of a struggle sometimes to retain vocabulary. I'm finding that I have a very easy time with the meanings, and so I can figure out new compounds pretty easily. For example, in the novel I'm reading last night, 脱皮 came up, and although I figured out the meaning (a snake shedding its skin, a crab moulting, etc.), I still had to look at the dictionary because I couldn't remember the onyomi for the first character, even though it's very common. Reading out loud has helped a lot, and I'm going to start blogging in Japanese about starting a company, but I'm always looking for tips on improving. :) Newspapers still send me running for the dictionary, but I think that's because I read a lot of articles about politics and business, which are very kanji-heavy.
rgrieselhuber 17y ago
Reminds me of Japanese: The Spoken Language, which is what I used to learn Japanese. It's quite challenging at first but I can't think of a better way for an adult to learn the language well.
- brianobush 17y ago
  I am going to knock this because I used it. Problem: the written part of Japanese. You read this book and learn how to talk a bit, take a plane to Japan, then bam - surrounded by the visually amazing, but daunting Kanji. The Jorden school of thought totally disregards the written and focuses on the spoken. That is fine, but the wrong path to real Japanese fluency. The best way to start learning Japanese is to get into the writing system (hiragana), Kanji (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remembering_the_Kanji http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remembering_the_Kanji), grammar and start reading real Japanese. がんばって！
  - rgrieselhuber 17y ago
    This is a long-standing debate. :-) I do agree that people who use this approach are behind others in reading / writing performance. Indeed, it took me awhile to catch up. But fortunately this is something you can pick up on your own fairly well. On the flip side, to be brutally honest, 99% of the people (that I've met anyway) who come through programs that focus on reading / writing sound horrible when they speak. They tend to suck at grammar, their intonation is all wrong and have a very hard time creating complex sentences. It could just be the sampling that I've interacted with but I can always tell the difference immediately between a JSL student and someone who focused on reading / writing. Why is this important? It depends on your job / life but I personally spend my most important moments interacting with people via speech, not text. I'd much rather create a strong impression in person up front. It makes all the difference.
    - brianobush 17y ago
      Agreed and yes, you must focus on the language as a spoken form and written form. So I am not advocating reading only, but Kanji must be overcome and the best time to do it is NOW. I studied Japanese for many years and always had the Kanji wall. It was daunting and hindered my progress. In the end, it made Japanese seem mysterious and not really possible for western-minds to grasp. I used RTK and got through Kanji in four months, now I focus on sentences and reading wherein I speak out loud while reading. I also speak with my family in Japanese as much as possible (this is my primary reason for studying). In the end, you must treat the language as a living language and understand all forms it is presented in. But, you already get this point, just saying it for others. :)
joeminkie 17y ago
Thanks for this link. I took ~3 years of Japanese (using Japanese for Busy People I - III) but I'm definitely not as far along as I'd like to be. This is the best replacement for a ~$300 electronic dictionary on the iPhone I've found so far: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=290664053&mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftwa... (iTunes link). As it's been said, learning to speak vs. learning to read is a whole different story.
known 17y ago
afaik japanese language = japanese culture
ersi 17y ago
This reminds me of my Japanese classes in high school, my/our teacher had made his own litterature for the class and we constantly played our scenarios/theater/sketches. Trained Japanese "thinking", grammar, writing, talking, interacting.. all at the same time. Landed me at "little of everything".. I wish I paid more attention now!

82 points by mbrubeck 17y ago

This is the reference I wish I had when I was learning Japanese. I tend to learn natural languages a lot like I learn programming languages: I get a lot faster at learning once someone explains the underlying rules and how they combine and interact.

keyist 17y ago

Thanks mbrubeck, great reference. I highly recommend this book: http://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Step-Innovative-Approach-Speaking/dp/0658014900 http://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Step-Innovative-Approach-Spea... as another excellent resource. Written by an engineer for engineers, with detailed flow charts for the various conjugation rules and other aspects of the grammar. The book lists the various common sentence structures then teaches you how to expand the various fragments to construct more complex sentences. Somewhat similar to learning via a CFG and deriving a parse tree. if you want to absolutely nail your Japanese grammar, this is a solid logical way to go about it. Book's biggest drawback is that it is rather dry. You will need to complement it with a book that focuses on vocabulary, idioms, and colloquialisms so that you don't sound like a robot.

altxwally 17y ago
The best books I've read regarding learning japaenese are 'Making Sense of Japanese Grammar'. I recommend it a lot. http://www.amazon.com/Making-Sense-Japanese-Grammar-Paper/dp/0824825837 http://www.amazon.com/Making-Sense-Japanese-Grammar-Paper/dp... If it weren't for that book I would have never understood why there are so many exceptions with verbs regarding the whole intransitive and transitive thing.
rwmj 17y ago
I once got some way through writing a program which turned OCaml variants into Japanese sentences. So you'd write something along the lines of: `IsIn (`Noun "neko", `Noun "uchi") (except usually far more complex) and it would generate the Japanese sentence, working out is "neko" is animate or not and so how to translate `IsIn correctly.

caffeine 17y ago

Brilliant! Where was this all my life? I only wish he would deconstruct Kanji and the resulting combinatorial explosion in the same way...

mullr 17y ago
Use this: http://www.amazon.com/Remembering-Kanji-Complete-Japanese-Characters/dp/4889960759 http://www.amazon.com/Remembering-Kanji-Complete-Japanese-Ch... And this: http://kanji.koohii.com/ http://kanji.koohii.com/ The problem becomes tractable, and maybe even a little friendly. Fwiw, the explosion isn't really combinatorial. It'd better if it was, because at least that would be predictable. No, it's best though of as entirely irregular combinations of a medium-sized number of components. But the aforementioned resources help you deal with it.
- brianobush 17y ago
  I can't upvote this enough. I went from 200-300 Kanji characters that I acquired painfully to now 2053 Kanji characters using RTK in about four months. I use Anki (http://ichi2.net/anki/ http://ichi2.net/anki/) to do reviews, but the Kanji koohii site is awesome for stories and has a nice active forum. I keep track of my progress here: http://kd7yhr.blogspot.com/ http://kd7yhr.blogspot.com/
  - mullr 17y ago
    I actually use Anki now as well. Fantastic software, that.
  - donw 17y ago
    Are you learning just the meanings, or the meanings, kunyomi, and onyomi? I ask, because I'm somewhere in between ２級 and １級 with the JLPT, and since I've only spent a collective six months in Japan, it's a bit of a struggle sometimes to retain vocabulary. I'm finding that I have a very easy time with the meanings, and so I can figure out new compounds pretty easily. For example, in the novel I'm reading last night, 脱皮 came up, and although I figured out the meaning (a snake shedding its skin, a crab moulting, etc.), I still had to look at the dictionary because I couldn't remember the onyomi for the first character, even though it's very common. Reading out loud has helped a lot, and I'm going to start blogging in Japanese about starting a company, but I'm always looking for tips on improving. :) Newspapers still send me running for the dictionary, but I think that's because I read a lot of articles about politics and business, which are very kanji-heavy.

rgrieselhuber 17y ago

Reminds me of Japanese: The Spoken Language, which is what I used to learn Japanese. It's quite challenging at first but I can't think of a better way for an adult to learn the language well.

brianobush 17y ago
I am going to knock this because I used it. Problem: the written part of Japanese. You read this book and learn how to talk a bit, take a plane to Japan, then bam - surrounded by the visually amazing, but daunting Kanji. The Jorden school of thought totally disregards the written and focuses on the spoken. That is fine, but the wrong path to real Japanese fluency. The best way to start learning Japanese is to get into the writing system (hiragana), Kanji (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remembering_the_Kanji http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remembering_the_Kanji), grammar and start reading real Japanese. がんばって！
- rgrieselhuber 17y ago
  This is a long-standing debate. :-) I do agree that people who use this approach are behind others in reading / writing performance. Indeed, it took me awhile to catch up. But fortunately this is something you can pick up on your own fairly well. On the flip side, to be brutally honest, 99% of the people (that I've met anyway) who come through programs that focus on reading / writing sound horrible when they speak. They tend to suck at grammar, their intonation is all wrong and have a very hard time creating complex sentences. It could just be the sampling that I've interacted with but I can always tell the difference immediately between a JSL student and someone who focused on reading / writing. Why is this important? It depends on your job / life but I personally spend my most important moments interacting with people via speech, not text. I'd much rather create a strong impression in person up front. It makes all the difference.
  - brianobush 17y ago
    Agreed and yes, you must focus on the language as a spoken form and written form. So I am not advocating reading only, but Kanji must be overcome and the best time to do it is NOW. I studied Japanese for many years and always had the Kanji wall. It was daunting and hindered my progress. In the end, it made Japanese seem mysterious and not really possible for western-minds to grasp. I used RTK and got through Kanji in four months, now I focus on sentences and reading wherein I speak out loud while reading. I also speak with my family in Japanese as much as possible (this is my primary reason for studying). In the end, you must treat the language as a living language and understand all forms it is presented in. But, you already get this point, just saying it for others. :)

joeminkie 17y ago

Thanks for this link. I took ~3 years of Japanese (using Japanese for Busy People I - III) but I'm definitely not as far along as I'd like to be. This is the best replacement for a ~$300 electronic dictionary on the iPhone I've found so far: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=290664053&mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftwa... (iTunes link). As it's been said, learning to speak vs. learning to read is a whole different story.

known 17y ago

afaik japanese language = japanese culture

ersi 17y ago

This reminds me of my Japanese classes in high school, my/our teacher had made his own litterature for the class and we constantly played our scenarios/theater/sketches. Trained Japanese "thinking", grammar, writing, talking, interacting.. all at the same time. Landed me at "little of everything".. I wish I paid more attention now!