… Is it 1/4 of a chapter a month, or once every month you pick up your textbook and do about 1/4 of a chapter? Because those are two very different things
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Closer to this one. Finally got WK on a good schedule. Now I’m working on Genki.
Well, progress is progress. And good habits build slowly. Aaaaand I can’t think of any more generic encouragement, so 頑張って !!
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yeah sure, go ahead
I covered all of Genki I in college a decade ago.
Now that I’m re-reviewing, I blew through the first few chapters in a few weeks and very quickly became comfortable again with the grammar points.
I’ve been stuck on Chapter 5 and adjectives for WEEKS NOW. I’ll drill the vocab, read through the grammar points, do a little practice…
And a day or two later I’ll sit down with the same chapter and it’s like I’m reading all of the adjective stuff for the first time. Like it completely drained out of my head
Why am I finding adjectives so difficult?!?
I kinda want to cry
Can anyone recommend some good practice or drills?
This is exactly my problem! The polite forms seem to have a bit more flow, and this chapter is where I’m most getting tripped up now that I’m using the latest version of the book. I’m tempted to just drill using the polite forms until I feel comfortable with the ~flow~ of adjectives in sentences, then try to memorize the normal forms, but I’m worried I’ll shoot myself in the foot doing that.
I’m stuck
Honestly, in my experience it’s best to not dwell on a particular grammar point for too long - at least not to the point where it’s slowing down all your other studies. Some things (like te form, for example) will sink in better as you read more and become more familiar with the language in general.
If you’re completely lost on a certain point and simply cannot proceed without it, it helps to google it and read what other grammar sources have to say on it. Everybody teaches things slightly differently, and a different perspective can do wonders.
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さむいです さむくないです
さむくありません
さむかったです さむくなかったです
さむくありませんでした
元気です 元気じゃないです
元気じゃありません
元気でした 元気じゃなかったです
元気じゃありませんでした
Is it the forms in bold that are tripping you up? It might be helpful to remember that ない is the short form of ありません. Unless overanalyzation is part of the problem…
[Edit: fixed typo]
typo 
元気でした
I think that’s half of it; the other half is でした popping up in past-affirmative ‘na’ but です in past-affirmative ‘i’.
Then I trek over to Tae Kim to reinforce what I learned, but their conjugation table is one level more colloquial and drops the declarative “だ” for all i adjectives.
Anyway, I will sheepishly admit to having a lightbulb moment that they only conjugate past/present affirmative/negative when used like a verb… right? Otherwise if there’s a verb in the sentence, that’s what goes at the end and bears the brunt of all conjugating… right? At least as far as grammar up to Lesson 5 is concerned? I feel like that is implied in the resources I’ve read, but maybe that’s one of the parts I’m finding so confusing.
Edit: So to be as clear as possible, I mean “きのう、おもしろいえいがをみました” is fine just as it is, and “きのう、おもしろかったえいがをみました” would be wrong… yeah?
EDIT EDIT: Tae Kim DOES have examples where the adjective is modified mid-sentence instead of paired with desu at the end. But I can’t puzzle out if thats (a) a style choice (b) just because Tae Kim is using plain form and I’m studying polite form or (c) because the example they use is 好きな and that and kiraina are both kind of special cases? Examples from Tae Kim:
魚が好きな人。
Person that likes fish.
魚が好きじゃない人。
Person that does not like fish.
魚が好きだった人。
Person that liked fish.
魚が好きじゃなかった人。
Person that did not like fish.
EDIT EDIT EDIT: Sorry for all the edits. I think I’m on board here now. In English you can say “The person that did not like fish IS GOING to the store” or you can say “The person that did not like fish WENT to the store”. So I guess that verbs and adjectives should be able to conjugate separately in Japanese? Maybe it’s just less likely to come up (conjugating adjectives for tense or polarity in English probably sounds pretty poetical "the not-beautiful painting was stolen, the cat that was unenergetic took a nap)-- I’m just having a hard time tracking down examples to confirm I’m right. But it’s very possible I’m just being very, very dense 
embarassing
Joining back in. I’m finishing up 元気２第１３課 at the moment. Been posting my answers on Lang-8. Here’s my account if anyone wants to join in the fun: Profile: Aleithian | Lang-8: For learning foreign languages
I’m not following a regular pattern of study and posting, because my schedule doesn’t allow it. But I do try to post reasonably regularly.
In relation to the sentence about the movie: in the second example you gave I think (in my un-expert knowledge) that what you’re saying is “yesterday, I watched a movie that was interesting”, where the “was” implies that the movie is no longer interesting, but I think the rest of the sentence’s grammar would have to be changed to be correct and clear. An equivalent in English would be like saying “yesterday I watched a was interesting movie”
Also, do you have the workbook for Genki? My order now is dialogue + vocab + grammar reading → workbook exercises → textbook practice exercises → kanji stuff. I find that the workbook exercises are a nice bridge between straight drilling and the textbook’s exercises, because they involve a bit of application. I also try not to refer back to the grammar points when doing the main book exercises, but when I’m on the workbook I specifically open the textbook to the corresponding grammar point for regular referral.
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Don has made a conjugation drill website.
Search it in the API section. : D
I believe it has options for adjectives.
So you’re good on the simple sentences, now?
[noun]は[adj.] where [adj.] is conjugated for past/present and affirmative/negative
And then the question is about whether you would conjugate an adjective modifying a noun? It looks to me like in this chapter only present-affirmative adjectives are used to modify a noun:
[adj., present, affirmative][noun]
And then the modified noun can be used anywhere, just like in your example きのう、おもしろいえいがをみました。
If there’s more conjugation that can happen to the modifying adjective, I guess we’ll just have to wait to learn it later…
Also, after reading a grammar dictionary I think I understant those Tae Kim examples a little better. In those examples, everything before 人 is a full sentence in plain form, which means that it modifies the noun immediately following, so the whole thing is a modified noun that can be plugged in wherever a noun can go.
Ex. 魚が好きな人はたこ焼きを食べました。（さかながすきなひとはたこやきをたべました。）
The person who likes fish ate takoyaki.
魚が好きじゃない人はお好み焼きを食べました。（さかながすきじゃないひとはおこのみやきをたべました。）
The person who doesn’t like fish ate okonomiyaki.
Not sure if you would really ever use the other forms listed there… Maybe if you wanted to say something like “The person who did not like fish when they were a child now loves salmon.”
Fun with grammar 
Here’s Don’s conjugation site:
It’s not the most intuitive, but it’s good practice nonetheless.
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I finally think I got the chapter five conjugation patterns down, and I’ve been stuck on CH 6 for weeks now. I recently went on vacation so I think I have somewhere north of 200 reviews to do for WK as well @@. I forgot to put it on vacation mode, certain that I would be diligent enough to get through my reviews during vacation. What I didn’t account for was 0 signal and no wifi ><. Such a kick in the butt.
SO, now I am feeling super discouraged. Ch 6 is stressing me out because for some reason I am just not remembering the vocabulary. So, you really can’t conjugate words you can’t remember. I have been reviewing and reviewing, I have ANKI which I can’t seem to get used to and the Genki Apps which I do like, but ugh! I think part of my problem is I am using the old audio, so my husband just bought me a new second edition textbook so I can have the CD. I’m excited for it to arrive.
Next Monday will begin a new week and I plan to get cracking! Can you tell me, how much of your time to do you devote to vocab review? And what methods work best for you? I made myself flashcards a decade ago before we had fancy apps and such, and I guess that seems to be my method thus far. I wish there was a WK version of Genki though!
One day… one day eto eto will come.
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Well, for vocabulary from Genki at least, there is Hinekidori’s G-Anki deck I’ve linked in my OP up top…
It’s even skinned to look like (and have the same SRS) as WK.
I made this after seeing it written on this YouTube video: Learn Japanese verb conjugation: TE form (て形) - YouTube
For anybody who might be having a hard time (colors help me a lot!)
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