Tae Kim's Grammar: Expressing State-of-Being

Practice Work Sheet

Chapter 3: Basic Grammar (3.1-3.2.4)

Expressing State-of-Being

Declaring something is so and so using「だ」

Attach　「だ」 to the noun or na-adjective

(1)　魚。- Fish. (2)　魚だ。- Is fish.

大人たち。　大人たちだ。

子供。　子供だ。

草。　草だ。

ワンピス。　ワンピスだ。

車。　車だ

Conjugating to the negative state-of-being

Attach　「じゃない」 to the noun or na-adjective

(例）　友達 → 友達じゃない　(is not friend)

水。　水じゃない。

警察官。　警察官じゃない。

犬。　犬じゃない。

花。　花じゃない。

コーヒー。　コーヒーじゃない。

Conjugating for the past state-of-being

Past state-of-being: Attach 「だった」 to the noun or na-adjective (例) 友達 →  友達だった (was friend)

Negative past state-of-being: Conjugate the noun or na-adjective to the negative tense first and then replace 「い」 of 「じゃない」 with 「かった」 (例) 友達 → 友達じゃない → 友達じゃなかった (was not friend)

馬。　馬だった。　馬じゃない。　馬じゃなかった。

空。　空だった。　空じゃない。　空じゃなかった。

白。　白だった。　白じゃない。　白じゃなかった。

月。　月だった。　月じゃない。　月じゃなかった。

りんご。　りんごだった。　りんごじゃない。　りんごじゃなかった。

If the best way to get a kid to do their homework is to force them to turn it in, then it stands to reason the best way to make my self study is if I post it up here.  That way I can shame my self and give myself a zero for the day if I fail to do so.  

Word Bank

I've done nothing for over a year with my quest to learn this language.  The insurmountable wall in my path that is preventing further study consists of the transition from the study of the kanji and their most basic meaning to the study of a language which is not phonetic.  However, I believe I am putting to fine a point on the non phonetic nature of Japanese.  So, instead I propose forgetting this detail and moving on.  

The next two biggest hurtles I plan to tackle are vocabulary and grammar.  I have a pretty strong foundation in vocabulary thanks to Rosetta Stone however my grammar is spotty at best.  From here on, I will strive to create a word bank, one that  will consider the kanji merely as a expression of a word and not be the focus of my study.  Once I have all my foundation vocabulary in the word bank and will begin a study in grammar in tandem with the additions to the word bank.  

The eventual goal being to study 20 new words and 5 new grammar points a week. I will incorporate random words from the bank in conjunction with the new words to create sentences using the grammar.  These sentences can later become a journal or stories.  I hope to a some point drop the grammar study, and continue with the vocabulary until I can succeed a JLPT1.  After that, I'll be able to read, write and comprehend the language and all will be shiny.

Tae Kim's Grammar

I feel like an idiot. I have spent over a year learn Japanese and I know hardly anything about grammar. I took Spanish in high school and hated it. I hate conjugating verbs and all that jazz. So when I read an article that advocated avoided study grammar and simply learn it inn its context, I jumped for joy. This was the answer. Jump ahead about a year and my grammar still sucks. According to what I've learned recently, the most difficult parts about Japanese grammar come up early. Once those topics are learned and understood, it will become possible to concretely comprehend the language. With that in mind, I'm going to attempt studying the Tae Kim's Guide to Japanese Grammar.

The tentative plan is to study and review the next day with anki additions.

Access the guide here: http://www.guidetojapanese.org/grammar_guide.pdf

iKnow Saved My Ass!

When school kids learn the kanji in Japan, do they also learn all its given readings? I'm just curious. And I find it difficult to believe they do. Which is why I dropped attempting to assign arbitrary readings for words that I have yet learn and won't do so for months. I don't think it possible for me to try and learn multiple readings of a kanji without having the context of words the reading employes. This is troublesome also because kanji assignments don't bow to an order of convenience. So a kanji that may have three readings for a beginners level Japanese may also have three other reading that would first better under and advanced level.

For this reason, I have dropped learning the kanji readings from my to do list. Instead, I will learn words and the readings as they come. As I go along in the future, I will take the time to compare what I've learned to lists of readings to see where I am lacking, but that is in a future time and place far from now.

I like simplicity.

And I like iKnow!

Its saving my ass and keeping me from flailing around like a fish out of water with no place to go. It may suck to have to pay for it, but that monetary price is good motivation to keep myself on track and working at as fast a pace as I can muster. And its well worth it so far.

Vocabulary is the answer!

Believe it or not, I am still dancing around the subject of "Where do I go form here?". And I've wasted too much fucking time. Time I could have spent learn. And I've come to a decision very recently, as in the last five minutes. I'm threw learning the kanji as kanji. From now on, I will learn them as vocabulary or not at all. There point in me trying to memorize all 12 readings for 下 just because its a JLPT N5 kanji. I will learn to pronounce each reading as I learn the vocabulary. This will cut out that bullshit question of how to go about learning the metric ton of readings there are. Instead, I will start with 10 words tomorrow morning.

1. Browse the anki list for the ten.
2. Hand write one sentence pertaining to the image I add to the anki slide.
3. Hand write a second sentence, just using the vocabulary term.
4. Come back a few hours later to type the sentences into anki.
5. Late in the evening, run the the anki set.

I will of course increase the number of vocabulary words, but ten is a good place to start. Also, I will continue to expand my grammar knowledge that I will practice with my sentences.

Simplification is key. Along with continual progress. I cannot continue to remain stagnate the way I am.