A small rant about Tae Kim's Guide

[Jonapedia]

I’m just gonna respond to a few things in the interest of fairness. I don’t particularly like Tae Kim’s Guide myself, and I frankly never use it. I think I found his explanations too wordy (ironic for someone who writes as much as me), and that it was a little too clear that it was his understanding of Japanese, as opposed to something that might be widely accepted by native speakers, especially specialists. I do think that Imabi is significantly better and more thorough, but I don’t know where the information is from (perhaps because I just don’t use the site enough to know where to look), and so I’m never sure how much to trust the author even though he’s clearly knowledgeable. Finally, I’d just like to make it clear that I prefer to use native specialist sources for understanding how natives see grammar regardless of what language I’m studying (provided I’m proficient enough to read them, of course), so that might make me biased.

@MegaZeroX

There is more for him not taking critcism well, like when he appeared in the comments here on an r/badlinguistics post pointing out his mistakes.

This is sad, but given what appears in post #2, I’m very much inclined to believe this is real. His articles feel relatively unresearched anyway.

@MegaZeroX

Instead, I call it the identifier particle because the particle indicates that the speaker wants to identify something unspecified.

This, naturally doesn’t make any sense.

Actually, it does make sense when you consider that one of the possible motivations for using が is introducing ‘new information’. Also, it’s not wrong that が tends to strongly ‘point’ towards a particular person or thing within a relatively short part of a sentence. Here’s a post in which I summarise the five major differences that I’m referring to, which were apparently compiled by a Japanese grammarian in 1996: Short Grammar Questions (Part 1) - #6135 by Jonapedia

However, I think the bit about ‘subject’ being ‘different’ in English is disingenuous, especially since I believe many of the technical terms used to describe Japanese grammar are words that can and have been translated across many languages. ‘Subject’ is also the English concept that covers the most of what が does in Japanese anyway, so it’s not a good idea to leave it out. Even Japanese dictionaries list ‘expressing/marking the nominative’ i.e. ‘subject case’ as one of its most important functions.

@MegaZeroX

You can also think about the 「が」 particle as always answering a silent question. The second sentence might be answering a question, “Who is the student?”

This is actually a common explanation. Tae Kim isn’t the only one who uses it, and I think it’s true to an extent given that が does identify the person or thing responsible for a particular action, among other functions.

@MegaZeroX

Generally, if one wanted to highlight the difference in oversimplified terms, just say that は is kind of like “the” and が is like “a.”

I wouldn’t explain it this way, but perhaps I just don’t understand how you draw relevant analogies between ‘the’, ‘a’ and the two particles. I agree that が tends to be used when something is presented for the first time, whereas は isn’t, and perhaps I haven’t quite mastered は vs が, but given that が does have a tendency to point something out very specifically and tie it to an action or quality, I’d say I see it as closer to ‘the’ than ‘a’. However, I know this isn’t your main point, and I agree that ‘answering a silent question’ is a gross oversimplification that’s even less helpful than the (more common) ‘が emphasises what comes before it, and は what comes after it.’ It’s not a very good explanation. Also, yes, constantly using ‘as for’ to explain は is only good for beginners in the earliest stages. It’s extremely unnatural beyond a certain point.

@MegaZeroX

The main thing here is he gives ないとならない as a valid way of saying “have to.”

Thing is, when I googled, I couldn’t find any sources explicitly saying it was bad/wrong aside from Imabi and the Chiebukuro Q&A you linked to. Furthermore, there was a very severe lack of explanation as to why it was wrong. Sure, one of the Chiebukuro answers said that there’s a mismatch of formality levels, but I don’t find that particularly convincing since they’re used fairly similarly with practically every other structure expressing obligation. On Google, ‘ないとならない’ is one-third as common as ‘ないといけない’, but it still brings up about 40 million hits. That doesn’t mean all these hits are grammatically correct or that they’re all using it as a structure indicating obligation, but it’s not that rare. Many HiNative answers tackling the difference between various obligation structures also say that they all mean roughly the same thing, with no special correction directed as ないとならない.

I could only find one source in Japanese that provided something which I felt was convincing: a historical usage argument. I think that’s a better explanation since grammatically speaking, there doesn’t seem to be any justification one can provide for why it’s wrong. Here’s the link: 『「なければならない」と「ないといけない」について』. I haven’t read everything, so I might be misrepresenting the author’s position, but it seems the essence is the 〜と as a conditional structure dates from the Muromachi period and is thus relatively recent, whereas ならない dates from the Heian period and is really well anchored in Japanese usage. In essence, there’s resistance to using the two structures together, and it seems it’s because they’re from two completely different eras. That’s why it feels strange.

My point is though… I’m just rather disappointed when sources state something is ungrammatical or wrong without any justifications even when there’s no rule the reader can refer to for easy fact-checking. Imabi may say it ‘doesn’t exist’, and that seems to be the majority position, but no one seems to explain why, and it doesn’t seem all that rare, so I don’t think Tae Kim was entirely unjustified in saying it’s valid. However, should it have been in a guide for beginners? No, I don’t think so. I didn’t even know 〜ないと obligation structures existed until I stumbled upon them. I learnt なければ and なくては first, and they seemed quite sufficient.

@MegaZeroX

And of course, he gives all of these patterns, but fails to actually convey any of the nuance between them as well.

This is bad. I agree. No point spamming readers with information that adds no value.

@MegaZeroX

Which is super misleading. やる and てやる are both used in other contexts. It generally has a vulgar feel to it (not just rude), so you typically mainly see it in media with action and stuff.

I don’t know… I honestly only hear やる in anime, and it usually has an unpleasant/casual feel, so if this is a guide for beginners, I think it’s justified to tell them not to use it when giving/doing something to/for other people. It’s not ‘normal’ in that sense. However, OK, seeing as you had someone tell you they were confused by this, I see where you’re coming from.

@MegaZeroX

Imabi, Maggie Sensei, The Dictionary of Japanese Grammar series

These are the three I’m relatively familiar with, and I agree that they’re much better, at least based on what I’ve seen so far.

All in all, I just wanted to say that I feel Tae Kim isn’t entirely wrong in these examples. I’m pretty sure you’ve raised at least one other example at some other point in another thread which quite frankly shocked me, so I hardly think Tae Kim is perfect, but there’s some truth to what he said. However, these are definitely not the explanations I would have liked to have as a beginner, and I think there are far better explanations of the basics in many other resources. That’s why I rapidly dropped Tae Kim’s Guide as a beginner: I just felt it didn’t suit me, and I wouldn’t recommend it.

[Jonapedia]

@alo

That was posted 20m ago.

@Jonapedia all in good fun, mate. I really do like the comprehensiveness of your posts.

Hahaha. It took much longer than expected. That’s all.

@MegaZeroX

Edit: Uhoh, @Jonapedia is typing and hasn’t liked the OP, so I’m afraid of getting a 2000 word post that is going to get me BTFOed

Don’t worry about it. In summary, I just felt that it wasn’t entirely fair to say Tae Kim was completely wrong, and I wanted to provide some counter-examples/clarifications. However, as I said in my full-length post… I don’t really like Tae Kim’s Guide. I can’t really put my finger on why, but I think it’s just that it doesn’t feel authoritative or convincing. It’s more like ‘one man’s view on Japanese’ without much sourcing, and I was quite disappointed by what I saw @I-am-ice-cream post. Goodness, one shouldn’t say such things.

[MegaZeroX]

@Jonapedia

Thing is, when I googled, I couldn’t find any sources explicitly saying it was bad/wrong aside from Imabi and the Chiebukuro Q&A you linked to

I didn’t mention it, but it is also listed as ungrammatical explicitly by the Japanese Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar, but I didn’t want to include it since it was published in the 80’s, and wouldn’t be evidence that the grammaticalness of it changed.

@Jonapedia

I didn’t even know 〜ないと obligation structures existed until I stumbled upon them

Huh, that is interesting. They are actually the first ones I saw in native material, but that is also largely from the fact that I tend to be looking at stuff that is going to trend to casual contexts (manga, visual novels, etc).

@Jonapedia

I don’t know… I honestly only hear やる in anime, and it usually has an unpleasant/casual feel, so if this is a guide for beginners, I think it’s justified to tell them not to use it when giving/doing something to/for other people. It’s not ‘normal’ in that sense. However, OK, seeing as you had someone tell you they were confused by this, I see where you’re coming from.

I’m pretty sure I’ve heard it in contexts outside of anime/manga and outside of use with pets. Certainly you would never hear it in anything not spoken or meant representing spoken Japanese. And anything involving generally polite or friendly speech would be out. This tends to push it into use in fiction, but you can hear it in real life as well, just like you can hear てめえ and 野郎 in real life (though やる is definitely less bad than either).

[Jonapedia]

@MegaZeroX

This tends to push it into use in fiction, but you can hear it in real life as well, just like you can hear てめえ and 野郎 in real life (though やる is definitely less bad than either).

Thanks for the link. That clearly sounded pretty violent and angry though, so I’d say that’s a clear use case for てめえ and 野郎. I agree that the words can be used, but whether or not you’d ever want to be in a situation to use them, especially when you shouldn’t use them with friends… you see what I mean? English is full of various vulgarities that are commonly used, and so is French, but you probably wouldn’t want to be in a situation where you can use them. (Granted, in the case of French, some vulgarities are so common you probably shouldn’t take offence at hearing them, but they’re still not ‘pleasant’ language.) I’m not so sure about やる, and I know it’s not purely rude, that’s for sure, but what are the use cases then? There isn’t much of a point to learning a word if you can’t use it, though it’s good to be able to understand it, and unfortunately, Tae Kim’s Guide doesn’t seem to cover use cases, though it explains that it can be used as a equivalent of あげる, albeit a less polite one.

@MegaZeroX

Huh, that is interesting. They are actually the first ones I saw in native material, but that is also largely from the fact that I tend to be looking at stuff that is going to trend to casual contexts (manga, visual novels, etc).

Hm… well, I mean, the first time I came across them in actual usage was definitely in anime, but なきゃ and なくちゃ were really, really common as well. Perhaps it’s a sort of confirmation bias, because back then, I wasn’t all that fluent, and I had already heard of なくちゃ and なきゃ, so I was bound to spot them while watching, say, Konosuba, whereas I might not have noticed ないと because it probably would have appeared in the middle of a sentence that I wasn’t advanced enough to parse back then. When I sift through my memories, I’m pretty sure the first time (or at least, the most memorable time) I heard ないと in an anime was in an episode of Akashic Records of Bastard Magic Instructor (ロクでなし魔術講師と禁忌教典). I’m not 100% sure, but I think the line went「…ないと、先生が！」(Sistine struggles to hold back tears) Point is though, I didn’t hear it much, and that particular instance probably stood out because 1. it was near the end of sentence 2. I was much more fluent at that point.

@MegaZeroX

I didn’t mention it, but it is also listed as ungrammatical explicitly by the Japanese Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar, but I didn’t want to include it since it was published in the 80’s, and wouldn’t be evidence that the grammaticalness of it changed.

Ah, I see. I think someone else mentioned the DoBJG as a source for that, come to think of it. Is there a reason given though? The reason I said it’s not clear why it’s wrong is that morphologically (i.e. when you look at the grammar bits used to form the phrase), there’s nothing particularly different between the version with ならない and the version with いけない. There’s also no semantic justification I can think of that wouldn’t result in the なくては and なければ structures being disqualified for one or the other. To put it another way, to me, something is ‘grammatically incorrect’ when I can come up with a justification for calling it a mistake that doesn’t require me to delve into meaning, and it’s usually justified by an incorrect ‘form’. Here, I see no difference in form, only a difference in meaning. I don’t believe anything can be ‘ungrammatical’ on authority alone. I know of a few structures in French that are commonly used but considered ungrammatical, and for almost all of them, I have a morphological justification. I can’t think of anything like that for ないとならない.

[MegaZeroX]

@Jonapedia

I’m not so sure about やる, and I know it’s not purely rude, that’s for sure, but what are the use cases then?

I would think the main use case for やる outside of punkish/rude/pet contexts would be more of a lighthearted put down sort of thing, in humor. Like, egging on your friend or something.

@Jonapedia

Ah, I see. I think someone else mentioned the DoBJG as a source for that, come to think of it. Is there a reason given though?

It is just listed as a * in it (the shorthand for it being ungrammatical). Generally, when I have asked natives about it, they generally say something like ないと sounds casual, and ならない sounds serious, so it sounds weird together.

[Jonapedia]

@MegaZeroX

I would think the main use case for やる outside of punkish/rude/pet contexts would be more of a lighthearted put down sort of thing, in humor. Like, egging on your friend or something.

I’ll probably look into it when I have extra time and it comes to mind. Personally, I think I’m just going to treat it as a relatively informal version of あげる for now (among other meanings) that you can probably get away with when speaking to close friends. But yes, I think the context you mentioned sounds possible, like ‘Yeah, yeah, 応援してやるよ’ (I’ll be cheering you on.)

@MegaZeroX

It is just listed as a * in it (the shorthand for it being ungrammatical). Generally, when I have asked natives about it, they generally say something like ないと sounds casual, and ならない sounds serious, so it sounds weird together.

OK, so it’s basically what appeared in the second answer on Chiebukuro. I’ll go read through the historical usage article I linked to earlier when I’m free then, because just a disparity in formality alone doesn’t fully convince me, even if it’s a good reason. I probably won’t use it myself though, since it’s so rare. I’ve never heard it in an anime, whereas I’ve definitely heard 〜ないといけない and all the other structures.

[alo]

@MegaZeroX

At least be aware of the other resources that exist, since sometimes it feels sometimes that resource recommendation hasn’t progressed since 2008.

While there is some inertia involved in moving past TK’s guide I think that alternate resources also have to provide an equivalent experience.

1. Maggie Sensei - The lessons are self contained articles so it’s not organized with any overarching structure.
2. Dictionary/Handbook of Japanese Grammar - Only available as paid books, and I don’t think the Handbook has a digital version at all.
3. Bunpro - It doesn’t have a lot of direct information, it just links to other resources.
4. Imabi - Organized by difficulty rather than by grammar and there’s no easy link to a downloadable pdf.
5. Wasabi’s Online Japanese Grammar Reference - This one is pretty close with the website layout and organization. There’s a Kindle version available, which I think is worth it for the embedded audio examples, but it’s still paid.
6. Pomax’s Grammar Guide - I think this comes the closest since the website is pretty slick and the information provided is really good. Although the PDF is harder to find and being on Github may scare away general learners who tend to look crosseyed at code pages.

[MegaZeroX]

Yeah, I recommend Wasabi’s guide as a replacement generally, Pomax’s as mainly a reference for a second time through to learn etymology, Imabi good for a second look in general for details and examples, Bunpro as a way to order for the first time through (well, maybe after you have learned the basics), Maggie Sensei as a reference for casual uses that confuse you, and the Diction/Handbook for being really good companions with Bunpro.

I just think people can link the web version of Wasabi and be good enough, since I doubt most people using Tae Kim use the book verison.

[alo]

I suppose the next step is to be active on the grammar questions thread and start linking.

I actually hadn’t even heard of Pomax until you brought it up and while I’d heard of Wasabi I don’t think I ever actually went to the page.

[I-am-ice-cream]

@Jonapedia

I was quite disappointed by what I saw @I-am-ice-cream post. Goodness, one shouldn’t say such things.

I’m here to disappoint!

There’s a lotta humorous statements to take in there, but one of my favourites probably has to be:

@tae-kim Reddit post

It’s actually a very civil and humble response.

Declaring your humility in a post where you remark another person’s language ability while boasting your own is the textbook definition of being humble and civil.

As funny as it is, try not to be too hard on their character, though. It was a reddit post, after all. We’re all human, after all.

Heheh, yes… We’re All human.

[Nemuitanuki]

Ah the mystery continues. I’m continuously learning and unlearning concepts. It’s kind of fun. I wrestle with the grammar armadillo, it beats me up, I try something else, it beats me up again.
Does that make sense?

[Jonapedia]

Ok, to be honest, I took another look at the subreddit and I feel I was unfair to Tae Kim. I looked at the article he wrote, and I feel he was making sense, even if he wasn’t always technically correct. Also, the subreddit was actually really toxic and was picking on irrelevant technicalities while missing Tae Kim’s main point entirely, so while that comment looks ridiculous in isolation, it’s actually quite justifiable in context. There was also quite a lot of rubbish about stuff like である being unconjugated and whatnot, and therefore not qualifying as a verb, whereas I’d say that to a layperson, it behaves like a verb, albeit one without all possible inflections. Verbs like that exist in French and are simply called ‘defective verbs’, so it’s really a moot point. Given the fact that so much of the criticism was in English and failed to provide evidence that the commenters had substantial knowledge of Japanese, I can see why Tae Kim said that out of frustration. I think his point was that the people commenting on his blog post probably couldn’t speak much Japanese themselves, a sentiment which I’m actually inclined to agree with given the sort of criticism that was made. It’s not completely justifiable to say the criticism should be offered in Japanese, but I understand the feeling.

[rikaiwisdom]

I agree with the view of learning and “unlearning” things constantly, it tends to happen a lot in Japanese for me so far. I know for sure I’ve learned things that I ended up doing a 360 in my comprehension of them eventually, because you find a piece of the puzzle you were missing before; it is fine in that regard, to learn something in a simple or even “not precise” way just to make things move.

However, I also agree that the less you need to change your mind, the less confusing everything is, making you progress smoother. If a resource is found to contain multiple errors and never take feedback for them, it is best to find a better one. I have never used Tae Kim’s guide myself, so I can’t recommend it to people. But if there happens to be better resources, it is only natural that we start recommending those instead. I’m part of the “physical textbook squad” myself so that’s always my recommendation, just because the structured study has really worked for me. And even then, textbooks probably aren’t perfect either, so it’s probably best to mix multiple resources eventually. I find dictionaries to be best in this regard (I own both the Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar and the Handbook of Japanese Grammar Patterns), and both are amazing, although I would never recommend them to someone looking for a guide to learn Japanese from the beginning; only as reference material once you’ve learned the grammar points before or are in the process of comprehending one you’re currently learning.

I also didn’t know about Wasabi’s or Poxmax’s so thanks for pointing them out. I’ve used Imabi before and it seemed very fine, but I haven’t used it from the beginning as a grammar guide so I can’t tell either.

[ollylove]

@Belthazar

You know what I heard? I’ve heard rumours that he might be… sotto voce Korean

hahaha, sounds familiar

[virileboy]

i bought the yellow grammar book but i did keep thinking is it outdated? are there any other just as good updated accurate simple books on beginners grammar? i’m a super beginner just learning hiragana.

[Syphus]

The example they’re talking about ないとならない is very specific. By and large the fundamentals of Japanese grammar haven’t really changed. However, it is a dictionary, not a textbook, and shouldn’t be used as a textbook.

[Esceptico]

I feel people are being a bit harsh on Tae Kim and his guide. Maybe I’m wrong but presumably he invested a fair amount of time writing it and as it is free I assume it hasn’t made him rich.

I found it very helpful. My Japanese isn’t good enough to rate the accuracy but his explanations were different from the other source I was using (Genki). I always find it useful to go over material from different perspectives as that helps me learn and remember.

My goals are probably different from others. Although it would be nice to be able to speak and write grammatically perfect Japanese that isn’t realistic for me. I’m simply aiming to be able to understand (and make myself understood) plus be able to read without having to use a dictionary (at least not to the extent I currently do).

[MegaZeroX]

By “the yellow grammar book” do you mean the Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar? In which case, it isn’t really outdated, most basic grammar concepts remain the same (though やる/てやる is ruder now than it was then).

But if you want printed reference, I definitely recommend the Intermediate and Advanced versions eventually, along with the Handbook on Japanese Grammar patterns.

[emanone]

I absolutely hated grammar when I was a kid, first in my own language then later in English and Spanish in high school. Tae Kim succeeded in doing something I thought was undoable: He made grammar fun and light, I actually look forward to my daily hour of grammar. If a few things are too broad or even outright wrong in his guide I feel like it is for the sake of clarity and simplicity. I might regret this in the future but I will stick with it.

[virileboy]

Yep, that yellow book. I don’t like the Romaji in it though. Every time I come across Romaji I start pronouncing words wrong in my head as I read.

Is Grammar pattern book dense or will buying it now help me?