Comments on: 10,000 Sentences: Why

By: » Study Diary, 07/30/2008 &raquo Japan Study Abroad Podcast

» Study Diary, 07/30/2008 &raquo Japan Study Abroad Podcast — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 14:42:28 +0000

[…] this way, I’m sort of becoming a convert to the AJATT sentence method. I can go through this vocab book a lot faster this way than I can the other way, and it sticks […]

By: Shaun

Shaun — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 05:40:21 +0000

Wow!　I　stumbled　onto　this　site　yesterday.It’s　just　what　I　was　looking　for.I　started　learning　Japanese　about two years ago with Japanese friends in Australia.I didn’t have any formal lessons, just “おたがいにおしえあう”.I always wrote down the sentences and words I learnt from friends, or books, and revised in my spare time untill they were memorised.Step two was to meet and hang out with Japanese, as much as possible, so I could use my new sentences.After about one year,I could speak enough to impress, then someone gave me two of the ”べらべらのほん”by Shingo, of SMAP fame.After learning the sentences in these books, people started thinking I could really speak, because the way I spoke was so natural sounding, as opposed to the text book and dictionary sentences, that sound too formal.Of course , it was just an illusion, my Japanese is nowhere near good enough to understand television programs, or even contribute intelligently to Japanese only conversations.Anyway, now I live in Japan ,and feeling like I’m out of my depth, but thanks to this site I can see my way forward.I need to memorise more sentences but this time written in Kanji, and I need to use my mobile internet.Why didnt I think of that??

By: Sherry

Sherry — Mon, 26 May 2008 02:10:57 +0000

I do like the idea of immediately immersing your “students” in Japanese. Secondly your optimism when it comes to learning this language.
But in this I’ll continue to toil with my books and my flashcards, I believe in grammer, more than that, I like it.
And occasionally I’ll opt to impress with a few key sentences that I can speak fluently, because what good is a language that you never boast with?
I’ll conquer this slowly, but your little web page provided some lights for this tunnel that I’ll [eventually] walk out of.
Because kanji and kana like to knock me on my ass.

By: Robert

Robert — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 00:56:33 +0000

Well, that answers my question, thanks for that! I’m gonna buy the books now instead of wondering weather I’m unprepared at taking on this passion. I just started and I forget most of the stuff, but this helps me out! Kudos! And I also agree with Kay because I’m constantly learning new music lyrics in different laguages from German to Swedish and a couple inbetween. So thank you too Kay.

By: khatzumoto

khatzumoto — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 04:14:01 +0000

@Kay
>So basically: whatever works for me, right?
Ultimately, yes. Initially, though, I would suggest you try to follow some of the guidelines — because I think they are valuable and based on experience — and then work out your own tweaks, changes, and customizations from there.

By: khatzumoto

khatzumoto — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 03:55:04 +0000

Correct. You can tag them on to the “ANSWER” (BACK) side of the sentence card to check yourself.

By: Mediat

Mediat — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 17:41:53 +0000

While learning the sentences, you must first know the words right? (learn the words within the sentence) so you can understand the sentence?

By: khatzumoto

khatzumoto — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 08:34:01 +0000

@Kay
#127 by “dilandau23″ on the same page is also very informative.
Um…there are only 3 fundamental rules.
1. Have fun
2. in Japanese
3. First learn rule #1
Everything else is to help do that more efficiently.

By: Kay

Kay — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 07:15:12 +0000

Thanks. =) So basically: whatever works for me, right?

I did order the kanji book you recommended. I read some of the amazon reviews and if that works, it sounds hella awesome.

What I got mostly from this site, like lots of people, is motivation. Ever since I read it a few days ago, I’ve been working my ass off trying to learn more Japanese. I thought about your sentences suggestion and realized that hey, I am uncanny at learning songs. So it looks like I’ll get my 10k or 5k or whatever from doing that–today I learned “Hoshikuzu Namida” or something from Gunbuster, and in breaking it down I even learned several new verbal compounds and threw them into khatzumemo. How did I make it till now without -chatta and -ba?? Best of all, it’s stuck in my head. (Although ” byebye hoshikuzu namida” may not get me to the supaa on time.)

By: khatzumoto

khatzumoto — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 02:21:41 +0000

@Kay
I would direct you to the post by “nacest” (#132) on this page.
http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?id=691&p=6
He knows what I’m talking about better than I do .

By: Kay

Kay — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 23:06:54 +0000

;_;

Your method seems crazy but also like it just might work. My question is, is it due to it being a great method or simply the vast amount of effort you continually push readers to put forth? Would learning words and grammar with as much fervor work just as well?

I’m not sure what to do. Someone directed me to this page because I said I felt a little burnt-out, even though I am doing very well in Japanese 2 at college. I felt that way not because it was so hard, but because I had to keep putting forth effort for such sloow progress. I want to learn Japanese FAST, I want to be fluent within less than 5 years, preferably 2 or less! But that’s not the path college has me set on.

So here is my question. Can you guarantee that if I put forth all this effort, your method will work? Even though I already know a fair number of Japanese words and grammar rules? Some of this almost seems to rely on ignorance. And I won’t be able to stop learning separate words and grammar rules in my class, not at least until the end of this quarter.

I know students who have spent a year in Japan on foreign exchange and are still not fluent. I don’t understand the reasons behind all this, or what exactly is a waste of time and what isn’t.
Well…in conclusion, I’m lost, and finding and breaking down 50 different Japanese sentences in one day seems like it would take hours in the first place! Can you help me understand?

By: Learning through using your dictionary « Spanish Only

Learning through using your dictionary « Spanish Only — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 18:58:13 +0000

[…] through using your dictionary Where I believe in the 10,000 sentences and the reading miles method, I found out that using my dictionary I learn a lot about the Spanish […]

By: Ways to expand vocabulary « Spanish Only

Ways to expand vocabulary « Spanish Only — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 16:07:31 +0000

[…] rapidly. Where I started learning loose words at first, I now switched over to the ‘10,000 sentences‘ method. My current source of sentences are the Foreign Language Institute books, which […]

By: Zaty

Zaty — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 09:53:26 +0000

i LOVE the way you’re able to be straightforward and yet so entertaining. i feel quite pressured since i’m pretty much at a beginner’s stage in japanese self-learning, but reading your articles gave me faith and believe that it’s ok to suck. well, for the time being, at least. ;T

arigatou gozaimasu ^_^

i’ll be visiting here often. hope you’re having a great day!

By: ruisu

ruisu — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 12:17:44 +0000

Makes sense, thanks for the quick response!

By: khatzumoto

khatzumoto — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 11:44:08 +0000

Learn them on a sentence-by-sentence basis. So, say you see the sentence:
コレは例文です。 You memorize the reading for 例 and 文 in this case.

By: ruisu

ruisu — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 11:42:36 +0000

hi khatzumoto, am i missing something, or are you suggesting that we skip learning the 音読み & 訓読み after completing RTK1? that confuses me, because how will we know how to pronounce the words?

By: khatzumoto

khatzumoto — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 14:49:32 +0000

>So from what you’re saying, do you think sentences alone would make the noun gender issue take care of itself?
Yes!

By: rich

rich — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 17:40:41 +0000

I love your idea of using sentences to learn languages- not just Japanese, but other languages as well. I’m just starting to revive my old German language skill, as well as my Japanese language skill (at #1977 in Heisig vol. 1), and right now I’m puzzling over what to do with all of the noun gender issues in German– how do I keep straight what’s masculine, what’s feminine, and what’s neuter in my SRS. (Using Anki.)

So from what you’re saying, do you think sentences alone would make the noun gender issue take care of itself? If so, that would save me a lot of vocab-drilling drudgery. I never was very good at keeping the not-so-obvious genders straight… if I can find a way around that, then I can also revive my 6 lost years of French sometime later on.

(Discussing the insanity of learning German and Japanese at the same time can be set aside for now. Needless to say, I need them both now, but I don’t know/remember enough of either to feel confident laddering them yet.)

By: khatzumoto

khatzumoto — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 06:51:59 +0000

The moral of the story is: do (read) what you enjoy!