My small sentences are still really off when I recheck them. Is it just a language gap that I haven’t reached yet, or am I just trying to do too much at this level?
Do you have an example of a sentence and how you’re checking it? Sometimes Google Translate can give odd translations, especially of the subject is omitted or when you haven’t understood the full meaning of the word. When I check mine and the translation is strange, sometimes I just keep my practice sentence hoping that at a future date I’ll figure it out.
Like if I want to say, “I like the blue sky” I would type 私わすきあおから. I have don’t have trouble understanding the writing and listening but I really struggle with writing
- The “wa” particle is invariably spelled は (that’s just a stupid quirk of the writing system).
- I think から should be ぞら instead?
- Your word order is … just not right. 私はあおぞらがすき (I think you can leave off the が in informal contexts)
- I think it would look weird almost all in Kana like that, but since you’re WK lvl 1, you’ll learn the Kanji at some point. It should be 私は青空が好き
- 私は is generally implied anyway and can often be dropped.
(If there are any mistakes in this - IANAN, I am not a Nihonjin)
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More to the point, OP, your word order is English. How much Japanese grammar have you studied?
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I’ve just learned how to use the particles わ and が and how to express likes and dislikes. But I’m still not getting hang of it when talking about myself
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The basic word order in Japanese is Subject-Object-Verb (whereas English is Subject-Verb-Object). The way Yoda speaks is a fair approximation. (To be fair, in this sentence, the main predicate is an adjective rather than a verb, but you get the idea.)
As @Fryie mentioned above, the particle “wa” is actually written は. Unfortunately, you need to remember to type it as “ha”.
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What resources are you using?
わ should be は
すき is a noun/adjectival noun. It can’t modify another noun without adding a な
から should be そら
The sentence should read 私は青空が好きだ。(わたしはあお ぞらがすきだ)
Would help to know what you’re using for grammar.
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The の after そら is grammatical, but changes the meaning beyond what the OP was trying to express.
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You are right. の would have only been required after a verb or adjective. What I get for trying to reply on the treadmill. Edited it
Thank you, I’m self studying so any recommendations would be helpful. I’m currently using the Japanese from zero workbook book 1
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I’m not familiar with that particular textbook. You might want to also consider checking out Japanese Ammo with Misa or Cure Dolly on YouTube. Although Cure Dolly is considered rather creepy by many (weird voice and avatar). BunPro is also a good grammar supplement. It’s SRS based like Wanikani and you can try the premium version for free for 30 days. There is a free version, but it looks rather stripped down. I’ve also heard the app is awful but the browser version works great on smartphone.
I’m sure if you keep reading and listening to Native speakers, you’ll eventually catch up to the rules of making your own sentences, if you’ve already heard common ones then it should be easy to put where things are. Try adjusting sentences you already know how to read and mix in different vocabulary bit by bit to make a total different sentence maybe?
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I started with Tae Kim’s guide and he dumps you in the deep end pretty fast, but you get some good building blocks right away if you’re really interested in writing. More fun might be the Tofugu grammar pages. As a native English speaker, there are many concepts that I need to hear from different perspectives to start to understand, because some of it seems very different. I’m still not completely sure what です means sometimes. I’ve made a first pass through of Genki I, but I made more progress due to BunPro. There’s plenty of threads on beginner resources here that are super helpful too. Self-learning is hard, but so fun when you figure something out. Good luck!
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Good source! Have you tried the yesjapan.com website? It is the web version of JFZ and has video lessons that go along with the book, games, quizzes, and more. It’s $99 USD a year, but well worth it.
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