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Japanese verb conjugation the simple hard way

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Re: Japanese verb conjugation the simple hard way

#161

Post by danabramov »

teye wrote: post #156
danabramov wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I much prefer how Japanese people actually teach verbs: 一段 (ichidan), literally "1-step"; 五段 (godan), literally "5 steps", plus a few exceptions sometimes called irregular verbs This is literally what I teach in the article, including these translations. Quoting it: > in ichidan ("one-row") verbs like taberu, the last syllable of the stem is fixed. it's always going to be be, no matter the suffix: > > (table) > > i…

Where does the commenter say it was only a glance? I share the feeling.

The grandparent says it’s easier to teach by saying ichidan and godan actually mean “one-step” and “five-step”. That’s exactly what I’m teaching so it can’t be an argument against my article. This is something I not only say, but explicitly show visually with a table — as I have just quoted. From this I conclude the grandparent hasn’t read the article, and is commenting on vibes.

Then the grandparent says something I agree with (don’t force the language into another language) but I don’t think it’s a fair description of what I’m doing. It sure looks like that’s what I’m doing, but I strongly believe that learning conjugation is primarily phonetical (it’s about how it sounds, not kana itself) and therefore romaji is just a better pedagogical choice for someone not already fluent with kana. And no, I don’t buy that you have to put being fluent in kana as a prerequisite. The whole conceit of the article is basically that you can learn almost the entire conjugation system in one evening with zero prior knowledge of the language. That alone justifies the small shortcut I took to get there.

Re: Japanese verb conjugation the simple hard way

#162

Post by purpleflashing »

throwaway27448 wrote: post #157
zerof1l wrote: post #130

Don’t want to sound negative, just want to share my observations as someone who’s been actively learning Japanese for a couple of years. I much prefer how Japanese people actually teach verbs: 一段 (ichidan), literally "1-step"; 五段 (godan), literally "5 steps", plus a few exceptions sometimes called irregular verbs. It's not hard; it makes sense, just some textbooks (e.g. Genki) teach it really bad. Learning Japanese i…

> Learning Japanese is about learning a new way of thinking and structuring your thoughts. I suspect this is true with most languages that are not in the same language family. The indoeuropean languages are all pretty similarly structured (don't @ me for not knowing the eighteenth tense of lithuanian), but it still takes time and effort for an english speaker to think in french, even if for the most part concepts tra…

As an unrelated tangent, I love seeing it when the “thinking” in a native language leaks into the writing in another, I find it so endearing and intriguing. My French colleagues sometimes produce the weirdest English sentences (perfectly understandable just unusually phrased), that alone occasionally sparks my interest on picking up a bit of French — I just want to learn how different the grammar and sentence construction is!

Obviously, it applies to other languages, I’ve just been working a lot with French. Well, and my own language often leaks into English, of course.

Re: Japanese verb conjugation the simple hard way

#163

Post by Twisol »

imtringued wrote: post #119
klodolph wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s probably a mistake to use Hepburn if you’re learning Japanese, it kinda gets in the way. Either learn kana (which takes what, a week?) or use one of the other romanization systems which maps more cleanly to Japanese orthography

I've never understood how people can claim that learning kana takes a week. It clearly takes more time than that, considering how similar some of the symbols are and a lot of them only differ by double dashes or a stroke (think nu vs me, ne vs re, ro vs ru, chi vs sa, and so on). Then there are the combinations and even if you managed to learn hiragana, you still have to learn katakana. Oh and I forgot, you have to a…

I think "a week" is slightly optimistic, but I also think "a month" is slightly pessimistic. When I learned hiragana, I spent my free time drilling on RealKana [0]. I'd focus on a new column of the kana table, then bring in columns I'd already practiced, until eventually I could flash reliably on cards drawn from the entire table. This legitimately didn't take much longer than a week, because learning a single column in isolation is very quick, and the real difficulty comes in distinguishing similar kana (as you say). But I was able to drill similar kana by selecting two or three kana that would force me to see them often. (I still struggle slightly with wa, re, and ne, but I definitely know them.)

I also drilled on a drag-n-drop kana table [1] in a few ways -- sometimes I'd start from the kana and try to figure out where they should go in the table, and sometimes I'd go along rows or columns in the table and try to find the kana that belong there. These two directions drill both recognition and recollection.

Proper pronunciation is a cross-cutting concern. As a whole, it's not something you can reasonably learn solely from kana, but the aspects that are relevant are not difficult to pick up. Every kana breaks into one (vowels and N) or two (the rest) phonemes, and for the most part, the way you pronounce those phonemes is consistent across rows and columns of the table (admitting exceptions like "shi" and "tsu"). If you are taught those basics, learning how to pronounce kana is not hard. Training your ear to "hear" distinctions among English allophones, and to distinguish pitch accent from the more familiar stress accent, is much harder, and really has to come from experience, not just kana.

[0]: https://realkana.com/hiragana, wow it's improved since I last used it

[1]: https://ohelo.github.io/usagi-chan/hiragana/

Re: Japanese verb conjugation the simple hard way

#164

Post by zerof1l »

danabramov wrote: post #144
zerof1l wrote: post #130

Don’t want to sound negative, just want to share my observations as someone who’s been actively learning Japanese for a couple of years. I much prefer how Japanese people actually teach verbs: 一段 (ichidan), literally "1-step"; 五段 (godan), literally "5 steps", plus a few exceptions sometimes called irregular verbs. It's not hard; it makes sense, just some textbooks (e.g. Genki) teach it really bad. Learning Japanese i…

> I much prefer how Japanese people actually teach verbs: 一段 (ichidan), literally "1-step"; 五段 (godan), literally "5 steps", plus a few exceptions sometimes called irregular verbs This is literally what I teach in the article, including these translations. Quoting it: > in ichidan ("one-row") verbs like taberu, the last syllable of the stem is fixed. it's always going to be be, no matter the suffix: > > (table) > > i…

There’s nothing wrong with trying to make sense of something new using terms and concepts you already know and that click for you. We all do it, me included.

I was speaking more broadly about learning Japanese and what I see on HN. Every six months or so, somebody discovers a clever pattern in the Japanese language. It’s almost always related to something taught in the beginning, the N5 level. And that pattern seems to have been eluding rest of us.

Specifically about your post, I think there's a shorter and simpler explanation of the verbs. One good example: https://kellenok.github.io/cure-script/5-verb-groups-and-the...

Re: Japanese verb conjugation the simple hard way

#165

Post by danabramov »

lmm wrote: post #91
danabramov wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like you’re going out of your way to misinterpret the article. As the article says below: > this is why it's important that you don't actually "think in" romaji. i'm using romaji as a convenient way to refer to phonetics in text. however, your "mental algebra" should match the hiragana table. Then the article includes an exercise that verifies the reader’s understanding. I also included a note: > (note i could…

> I feel like you’re going out of your way to misinterpret the article. Nope. You correct yourself after, sure, but what I wrote is how it came across at the time when reading. > Where is the factual mistake here? “si” is invalid romaji, my article uses romaji No, that's not what "romaji" means. If you mean Hepburn, say Hepburn. And if you don't know the difference, that's a sign to learn more before presuming to tea…

I’ve already conceded in sibling comments that saying “romaji” to mean “Hepburn romaji” specifically is technically imprecise. Note I still do explicitly mention other romanization systems, want to stay consistent within the article, and don’t want to overload the reader with terminology. My motivation here is that realistically that’s the romaji you’re going to be exposed to the most as a learner. At least that’s been my experience.

As for “correcting” myself, yes, I expect the reader invested in arguing online to also be able to follow more than a single paragraph of text. I think it’s fine that you stumbled there as that paragraph wasn’t for you. I don’t think I’ve hurt your understanding of Japanese this way.

The only people confused by that paragraph are people who already learned kana or correct pronunciation (or both). That paragraph isn’t for them.

Re: Japanese verb conjugation the simple hard way

#166

Post by teye »

danabramov wrote: post #161
teye wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where does the commenter say it was only a glance? I share the feeling.

The grandparent says it’s easier to teach by saying ichidan and godan actually mean “one-step” and “five-step”. That’s exactly what I’m teaching so it can’t be an argument against my article. This is something I not only say, but explicitly show visually with a table — as I have just quoted. From this I conclude the grandparent hasn’t read the article, and is commenting on vibes. Then the grandparent says something I…

I figured it was alluding to more conventional approaches to learning them. Reads like you’re making assumptions and defending instead of engaging with criticism in good faith.

Re: Japanese verb conjugation the simple hard way

#167

Post by danabramov »

zerof1l wrote: post #164
danabramov wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I much prefer how Japanese people actually teach verbs: 一段 (ichidan), literally "1-step"; 五段 (godan), literally "5 steps", plus a few exceptions sometimes called irregular verbs This is literally what I teach in the article, including these translations. Quoting it: > in ichidan ("one-row") verbs like taberu, the last syllable of the stem is fixed. it's always going to be be, no matter the suffix: > > (table) > > i…

There’s nothing wrong with trying to make sense of something new using terms and concepts you already know and that click for you. We all do it, me included. I was speaking more broadly about learning Japanese and what I see on HN. Every six months or so, somebody discovers a clever pattern in the Japanese language. It’s almost always related to something taught in the beginning, the N5 level. And that pattern seems…

Sure. I like Cure Dolly. I’m actually surprised you bring her up because she gets a lot of purist haters too.

I’ve found this lesson difficult to digest when I tried her approach. It’s actually where I fell off and lost the interest the first time I tried to learn the language.

The comparable lesson is primarily https://kellenok.github.io/cure-script/7-5-conjugation.html, not the one you quoted. I prefer teaching it before the -te form because it’s more orderly.

If we reorder these two lessons and rely on romaji over kana, you basically get my approach. I found it helpful so I wrote it down.

Re: Japanese verb conjugation the simple hard way

#168

Post by danabramov »

teye wrote: post #166
danabramov wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The grandparent says it’s easier to teach by saying ichidan and godan actually mean “one-step” and “five-step”. That’s exactly what I’m teaching so it can’t be an argument against my article. This is something I not only say, but explicitly show visually with a table — as I have just quoted. From this I conclude the grandparent hasn’t read the article, and is commenting on vibes. Then the grandparent says something I…

I figured it was alluding to more conventional approaches to learning them. Reads like you’re making assumptions and defending instead of engaging with criticism in good faith.

“Don’t want to sound negative […] I much prefer” reads to me like a comment phrased against the article’s approach. Otherwise why would it “sound negative”? And what I’m saying is that it matches the article’s approach. Thus, the assumption. Where am I wrong or uncharitable?

Re: Japanese verb conjugation the simple hard way

#169

Post by stratocumulus0 »

danabramov wrote: post #150
stratocumulus0 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of content is usually shared by people who are learning a language out of genuine interest for the first time. Most of the time it's Japanese because of the popularity manga and anime enjoy, and the challenge of learning a language that's so different from one's mother tongue. There are countless blog posts written by people to whom it "clicks" for the first time, and they excitedly run to their computer to…

Please provide a counterexample if you think the article has a mistake or builds a system that doesn’t work.

I'm not claiming any of those.

Re: Japanese verb conjugation the simple hard way

#170

Post by zerof1l »

danabramov wrote: post #167
zerof1l wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s nothing wrong with trying to make sense of something new using terms and concepts you already know and that click for you. We all do it, me included. I was speaking more broadly about learning Japanese and what I see on HN. Every six months or so, somebody discovers a clever pattern in the Japanese language. It’s almost always related to something taught in the beginning, the N5 level. And that pattern seems…

Sure. I like Cure Dolly. I’m actually surprised you bring her up because she gets a lot of purist haters too. I’ve found this lesson difficult to digest when I tried her approach. It’s actually where I fell off and lost the interest the first time I tried to learn the language. The comparable lesson is primarily https://kellenok.github.io/cure-script/7-5-conjugation.html , not the one you quoted. I prefer teaching it…

I get that: getting stuck on something, losing all interest, and just stopping altogether for a month or two. Happens to me from time to time.

Genki, for example, did a pretty awful job of explaining verbs. I bet a lot of people gave up right at that lesson. I myself have re-learned the verbs at least three times now. The first time, I learned all of them in the ます (masu) form. To conjugate, you just drop that and add another ending like ました (mashita) for past tense. That was a really bad approach :D But hey, it got me to learn 15 or so commonly used verbs.

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