Before he was talking about his background, I was sure he was someone who watched her videos, now feels “enlightened” and wanted to share that all the other textbooks etc. are so bad.
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Honestly, I tried to watch her video before but I don’t understand what is she talking about lol. I used more than 90％ of my brain power to understand what is she talking in her wanna be robot like accent. If any youtube video that could make me feel like I’m enlightened would be Kanji Link I watched months ago.
I don’t mean all text books are bad by any mean. I just feel like they should teach the structure of grammar like how Kanji-Link explain basic grammar.
I started my Japanese grammar learning with Duolingo. It more like a trial&error process it didn’t work for me so I gave up on it. Then I bought Minna no Nihongo and they started by teach you polite sentence structure I was so confused when I reach to the point that I need to use -te form. After that point, it was more and more confusing to me when I learn any new grammar.
The things that change my perspective is when I got introduced to Bunpro by a Wanikani forum as a tool to learn grammar. I read every resources Bunpro provided throughly and I think that was the moment you said I feel “enlightened”. I compare many resources teaching method and I found what works for me and what is not.
So I agree with what other people have said that getting the hang of SOV when coming from an SVO language is rough at first, so I think the kind of “break it up and translate” method has it’s uses at the very beginner Day 1 level. Once you get past that though, I think the method’s outlived it’s usefulness and it’s better to focus on thinking in the target language. Sure, explaining new grammar points by relating them to grammar points in your native language can be useful, but the grammar-translation method of translating sentences in parts is usually more of hindrance than a help imo.
What I think it most interesting though is labeling this as a “Western method,” because is it really? Sure yeah, Grammar-translation was super popular in Europe in the 19th century, but in my experience it’s not really used in modern Western language classrooms. For example, we didn’t use this method when I learned Spanish or Mandarin in my American high school/ university. You know where I do see this method A LOT though? The Japanese public Junior High School I work at. This is how English is taught to Japanese kids. I think pedagogy for teaching Japanese to English speakers is influenced WAY more by Japanese English pedagogy than it is actual modern Western language pedagogy. That could be why you see so many similarities with how you were (inefficiently) taught English as a child, OP
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Hmm that makes sense. That’s what I’m curious too. Usually English textbook on other subjects don’t teach this way (from my experience as a former engineering student). They usually teach you the root of formulars and theories, before presenting you the simplified equations. Unlike my country text books that just slap you with formular to remember without any context. (They just want to teach you to pass the test not but not teaching you to actually understand and be able to adapt them)
So I think you are right. This is probably my bad to assume they are “western method”
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There are various things I could respond to in your post, but if I do that, this post will get really long and go all over the place. All I want to say as a preamble is that I think you’re doing very well, and that having reached N3 grammar despite all the difficulties you’ve faced is admirable. N3 grammar may not be very advanced, but it’s the beginning of what you need to know for more advanced reading, and knowing all of N3 grammar should be enough to follow a basic conversation in an anime, for example. Well done.
I’m from a Southeast Asian country with a fairly mechanical education system too, where questions about how things work are rarely asked (Singapore), though this seems to be slowly improving. I also believe I know quite a number of people in Singapore who write in English like you (i.e. similar choice of words and phrasing, and also similar mistakes, even though you don’t make many of them). As such, I think I might be able to give you slightly more specific advice because I might be familiar with your perspective on grammar because I have a feeling the people around me in Singapore spoke similar languages. Would it be inconvenient for you to share what your native language is? I’m an English and Mandarin native speaker, if that helps.
Just to raise a few examples of how knowing your native language might help: Japanese and Korean apparently have very similar grammatical structures. English and Japanese have very different sentence structures, with Japanese having a preference for putting the verb right at the end, and putting circumstantial information before it. Mandarin is somewhere in between: the main verb usually appears in the middle, closer to the beginning of the sentence, like in English, but relative clauses (basically short phrases/sentences containing verbs and adjectives that modify/describe nouns) are always right in front of nouns, like in Japanese. I know you want to try to learn Japanese grammar directly, but I think you’ll spend less time studying if you already know exactly what features of your native language Japanese already has. That aside, while resources like the Dictionaries of Japanese Grammar (DoJGs) are very good, it’s rare to find a detailed discussion of Japanese usage that isn’t in Japanese, and even the DoJGs sometimes say things that can’t explain/clash with common Japanese usage, so it is sometimes better to start with what you already know and learn how Japanese is similar and different.
Ultimately, you know what’s best for you and it’s your choice how you want to learn, but I’m just sharing my perspective as someone who has studied six languages (in order of decreasing fluency: English, Mandarin, French, Japanese, German, Spanish) and who is fluent in three of them. If you’re willing to share your native language, I’ll try to see what I can come up with.
PS: Just a quick note: I did sort of translate bits of Japanese sentences into English at first, but that was more to be sure that I understood the entire sentence and that everything made sense. However, I always did this as literally as possible in order to preserve the function of all the particles and verb forms, and eventually, once my brain became comfortable with the new word order, I automatically stopped translating. That means that using translation isn’t necessarily going to affect your long-term fluency, as long as you do it right and don’t rely on it too much.
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Thanks for your constructive reply.
I’m Thai. It’s just my bad habit that I don’t like sharing my personal information unless asked. I’m ok with sharing them though, but I don’t know why I don’t like sharing them before anyone ask me. lol
I tried to find Thai Japanese learning resources but most of them just tell me to memorize the grammar structure. So I gave up on finding a good one, honestly
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I use English learning resources because they are abundant. Not a native speaker myself but I intuitively understand English on a decent level and still remember many of the grammar rules I studied back in school.
In the beginning I don’t think it really matters whether Japanese grammar is explained in a way natives would think about it. I wouldn’t be able to understand all the nuance of Japanese particles as a beginner. And frankly I only needed to understand how I can translate certain grammatical structures.
I’d focus on English level resources until I got to around JLPT N3. After that I felt relatively used to Japanese and I could start learning Japanese through Japanese. And when studying N2 and N1 grammar many grammar points are pretty much more nuanced ways to express something you could say using much simpler grammar. So to understand that nuance I was re-evaluating my knowledge of the N5-N3 grammar and getting a more native perspective on Japanese.
Also, knowing other languages helped me immensely despite me never using any Japanese learning materials in those languages. But just being familiar with verb/adjective conjugation and non-strict SVO sentence structure helped.
Anyway, when learning a language as an adult you’re not limited to using a specific textbook. It’s better to browse around and find resources that work best for you. And since there are so many study materials in English it’s possible to find an approach that works for you.
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I think the textbook series Minna no Nihongo has a translation book available in Thai? The main textbook for the series (as well as the workbooks) is in Japanese, and only the translation/grammar notes book is not in Japanese. If you work well with textbooks, that might be an option worth looking into, because you would not have to worry about translating all of the grammar concepts through an English framework first.
EDIT: Ah, I just saw from your earlier post that you already tried MNN! My apologies!
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What you’ve said is an another subject I would like to ask as well, but I didn’t because it would make this topic goes all over the place. If it’s a good idea to learn Japanese from Japanese textbooks directly, once I could understand them.
I have a look on Japanese text book and videos that explain Japanese grammar frequently. (Most of them are N3 and above) To find if I have enough Japanese knowledge to understand them.
I am also dutch, but I try to think more about compare grammar to dutch than to English, because it makes more sense to me. I think part of this that in college I loved to break down dutch sentences and try to figure out how it worked. Looking back on what I learnt back then makes learning (especially the beginning of) Japanese grammar so much easier. I absolutely love particles in Japanese for this reason xD
I can understand that non-native english speakers have problem with grammar, because the words that are used for certain grammar points aren’t common words that you use when speaking english casually. Other grammar points just do not exist in the same way in English, which makes it even harder to understand…
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So translating Japanese sentences would be a good approach as well, right? I was thinking about translating Japanese news on Todai apps to Thai to make sure if I understand the article correctly. However, I haven’t done it yet because I’m not sure it would worth my time and effort.
It’s OK, I understand. I’m the same. Hahaha. I think a lot of Asian cultures encourage people to be more private and not to reveal too much about themselves straightaway.
It could be, but you’d need some way to check your translation so you know it’s correct. Also, what are ‘Todai apps’? I haven’t heard of them before. 
I don’t think that translating everything is a good use of time. However, like you said, yes, it’s a good way to check your understanding.
(I’m still trying to see if I can come up with any Thai-specific advice. I’m doing a quick read of some articles on Thai grammar and sentence structure – I’ve never learnt Thai before. For now, I think it sounds most similar to Malay among the languages I’ve seen…)
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It’s an apps that help you reading Japanese news from various sites.
I’m not sure about Malaysia but Thai language is really similar to Laos and Cambodia because Khmer empire was so huge and had influenced langauges around this area. The reason why Thai and Japanese have some similarity in vocab and sentence structure is probably because of the influence of Chinese language in the past. (Just my guess)
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It’s possible. When I was finishing secondary education several years ago, a Thai student visited my school, and he told me his surname was Jui. He explained that it’s a surname of Chinese origin (水 – the on’yomi in Japanese is すい, which is quite close), so I guess there is some Chinese influence in Thai as well. I wouldn’t be surprised if the yes-no question particle mai in Thai (sorry for the lack of accents: I don’t know Thai tones; I just know that there are five) is related to 没 (Mandarin reading: méi), because we use it similarly in Mandarin.
I see. I just did a quick search, and yes, it does look like it could be good practice. However, I think you should only do it if it’s interesting for you. Otherwise, studying grammar more explicitly, with clearer explanations, might be better. That aside, you can also ask grammar questions on this thread on the forums:
The explanations from other users might help you.
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When children learn they don’t have any scaffolding around the knowledge they are trying to build up. As adults learning a language, we do: our native language knowledge (which we built up over years of painstakingly laying brick over brick) serves as an easy shortcut to try and build more connections to the new knowledge more quickly. Fundamentally, I think we will take shortcuts when available, especially as we get less and less patient as a society.
I agree it is problematic though, and your suggested approach may be better (it’s one I attempted with Spanish, with much better results than textbook-learning and poor translations), but I bet that both you and I unknowingly “cheated” by using the scaffolding provided by our native languages. In your case, it seems your scaffolding may be more useful for Japanese. In mine, mine was much better suited for Spanish.
I doubt the status quo is going to change though. Learning a language looks much easier when the advertising makes it look like you can just use your language to gently hop across the abyss between you and your target language. [Insert obligatory Nietzsche quote]
We are understandably lazy as a whole, of course we will take the path of seemingly least resistance, so courses structured in a “quick easy progress” format are not going anywhere, even if they are not effective.
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Do you mean textbooks that Japanese kids use to study their native language at school? I’ve never tried that. Neither have I heard of any adult foreigners doing that. My guess would be that since Japanese kids are already fluent in Japanese they focus more on writing, learning the language history and stuff like that. Not super relevent for foreign learners.
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Yeah, I think most countries stop teaching strictly linguistic features of their main language fairly early on. In Singapore, for instance, I think that grammar study and intensive vocabulary study stop around the age of 14, or maybe even earlier. In France, students may be studying French literature at that age. Most of the basics of a country’s main language are probably taught in the equivalent of primary school in that country, I think.
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I mean the books like Shin Kanzen Master. The one I could find in Thailand is fully Japanese but the one I found online have a bit of English on some clarification. Many online learning resources level N3 and above are in full Japanese langauge as well. 日本語の森 for example, which I started to understand what are they talking about in full Japanese. (I was very happy when I understand when they teach grammar in full Japanese explanation)
I’m waiting for my Japanese skill to improve to the point that I would be able to understand them. It’s because it would be counterintuitive if I need to open dictionary every 5 second when I read them lol.
I didn’t considered that possibility and I think you are right. I just unknowingly cheated by using my native language knowledge on learning Japanese and unfairly criticised English textbook and learning methods.
Ah, in this case try using them as soon as you can. I never used textbooks like Genki and I abandoned Minna no Nihongo after a few chapters. ShinKanzenMaster was great though. I finished N4 and N3 and also started doing N2. N2 has no English whatsoever.
Besides, I’m taking lessons with a tutor and after passing N3 I exclusively use Japanese during my lessons. When discussing grammar with my tutor I’d try to explain how I understand it in simple terms. I think it’s essential to jump into studying Japanese in Japanese.
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