Help finding practice sentences

I’ve been really diving into grammar lately. I’m slowly but surely working through Tae Kim and LingoDeer, but I need more practice. I would like to find some sentences with basic English grammar that I could use to drill these grammar lessons. Is there a resource out there like that? I think I’m working too hard trying to find a good resource that I’m not getting any work done.

I’m gonna rant in here >I don’t mind buying a book but I’d rather have a place where I could just have a bunch of random English sentences of increasing difficulty grammatically. That being said, I feel like its crazy of me to ask for something like that. At the same time, I’m like “other people need that kind of practice too so I can’t be crazy right? right? :pleading_face:” I even thought about buying a children’s grammar book and using the sentences in there but then which grade do I start? :tired_face::weary:

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Would the Dictionary of Japanese Grammar series, or A Handbook of Japanese Grammar Patterns, be the kind of thing you’re looking for? They have like 5-15 example sentences per grammar point, depending on the grammar point.

I’m not sure what you mean by “children’s grammar book.” The kind of grammar that Japanese kids study at school (probably starting at like 5th grade or so) is not really going to be helpful to non-natives, because it doesn’t teach you Japanese. It’s just how to categorize the components of Japanese sentences, really. Like, what is a noun, what is a verb, what is a particle. And they have to know how to chop the sentences up into the various parts and label them. In high school, grammar studies tend to be of classical Japanese.

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I’ll look into it. Thanks for giving me a place to start!

I was thinking about getting like a 5th or 6th grade english grammar book hoping to get some sentences with simple structure (like maybe one or two clauses with less complex grammar points). That way I could translate them to Japanese for practice with those types of sentences. I looked at a couple books/workbooks but it seems like I might have to go to a higher grade. I mean the languages are completely different and how you teach to native speakers is of course going to be different but at one point in time I didn’t know how to speak with such complex sentences. Problem is, I’m so far removed now, I don’t remember when it was taught. I just need the practice.

I guess I just misinterpreted your post then. I just read “English sentences” and forced it to be “Japanese sentences” in my head, since I guess I didn’t grasp what you wanted to do.

So you want English sentences that aren’t related to Japanese studies at all, which you can just translate into Japanese using the basic grammar you’ve learned?

Yea that’s what I’m looking for. All the example sentences help me learn the concept but they’re already translated so I don’t get to practice it for myself.

I mean, that sounds like you want something like the Genki workbooks (or really any workbook for a textbook). They give you the things to work on, but also tell you the right answer in the back so you don’t have to ask someone if you understood it.

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A workbook would be fine. My fear is that I won’t get enough sentences in a workbook alone. So I was hoping to find a long list of sentences that I could use for practice. Most workbooks limit their practice sections. I’m willing to start there, I just know I’ll need more.

This is kind of the opposite of what you’re looking for, but it’s worth mentioning: Tofugu’s 4,500 Japanese Sentences.

(Personally, I think your energy might be better spent translating J>E rather than E>J. You won’t always know the exact Japanese equivalent of a seemingly simple English grammar point, and grammar points don’t always line up between the two languages.)

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You might want to look into Human Japanese with the ExtraCredit on Satori Reader

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@poiisons I didn’t know about Tofugu’s 4,500 Japanese Sentences. I could definitely use that practice too. You made a good point about the grammar point differences between the two languages. For now, everything I do is from English to Japanese so it’s something I’ll just have to work around until I have a better grasp of Japanese. I wanna start speaking more, so I need the practice working through sentence structure.

@Held I have the Human Japanese app but I didn’t know about the ExtraCredit. I can use this too.

It takes a bit of time up front, but you could try making your own examples. Take yhe grammar point you have in mind (for example にvsで), and just write a bunch out in English.

I was drinking coffee at a cafe.
At the next table there was a lady with a dog.
The cafe was in a mall.
I went shopping at the mall.
The pants I tried on at Uniqlo were too small.

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I saw the book Japanese Sentence Patterns for Effective Communication: A Self-Study Course and Reference by Taeko Kamiya on my shelf, after writing my reply, and I think it would work for you.

It has a short explanation of a grammar concept with increasing complexity and then gives one example with a few more English sentences that you can translate for practice. (It has translations, but not directly next to them, so you can cover the translations and make your own. I mean, otherwise, how would you know if your translation is right or wrong?)

There’s also Japanese Sentence Patterns for JLPT N5 : Training Book by Noboru Akuzawa which has a similar concept. You can look at the first pages of both at Amazon to check if that’s what you want.

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I really like the structure of Japanese Sentence Patterns for Effective Communication. I’m going to get that one and give it a try.

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I was about to ask if anyone knew of any books that went the other way, Japanese->English. :sleeping: Thankfully my brain decided to chime in…

These look like awesome resources! I’m definitely going to grab one for myself.

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I’m working on the app ‘Mirai Japanese’ and taking the sentences out of there. They do have a good concept, with lots of sentences. Unfortunately what is missing is an SRS in the background that lets you repeat the vocab and sentences.
I started building a deck in Kitsun.io but it isn’t nearly close to being finished.

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