掲示板 Forums - Japanese sentences practice

Hi everyone!!

I was just wondering if there is a method how we can practice words and sentences . As I can learn words but how to use them and when to use them , it is something we have to practice for Learning in my opinion.

so like how to practice the framing of sentences and understand meaning? Basically trying to use the words I learn so I don't forget them.

Sentence schedule and then, you can a sentence list or just choose a few sentence for the word you want to learn.
Once you have created a schedule, you can do that very easily by just clicking on the cross next to each sentences in the dictionary.

You can select easy sentence first like
寿司は美味しいです (Sushi is delicious.)

At the same time, don't try to understand the exact meaning or grammar first. Get used to how japanese is used first. By that, I mean, observe each words meaning if you want and just accept that to say that in japanese, it's possible to say it like that. Maybe there are others way to say, maybe there are some nuance here but that's not important first.

Observe and imitate basically. In this situation, for roughly that meaning, I can say that.

The reason I said that is because you will only learn japanese with... translation for now. And translation are not about meaning or preserving grammar structure. It's about "usage". For example, if you type "which" in the dictionary, you will get:

どれ、どの

And at that point, you may think to yourself that to say "Which language?", you can just use どの for example.

どの言語ですか？

But bad luck here, in most situation, Japanese would say

どこの言語ですか？
or even
何語？

And どこ means where while 何 means what. Neither means "which". That's called usage. In the same situation, you used words differently. And the grammar doesn't help either.
It's better to just accept the equivalence. In situation A, I can say that. But in situation B, I should say that.
Once you've seen enough situation, you will know how to use which words in which situation even if you don't understand why. And at that point, if you study grammar, you will receive some kind of enlightement (for example: "AAaah, that's the grammatical reason why it used like that"). Grammar is much easier and safer to study like that. Once you already know what is "correct" japanese. And I said "know". Not "understand". After seeing the same kind of sentences fifty or a hundred times, you will know what it correct.

Analyzing translation in detail on the other hand is not a beginner exercise. It's not even an good intermediate exercise. At least without the guidance of a teacher or a native. Because you need a deep understand of how words are used in each language as well as a solid understanding of grammar. But when you're studying by yourself or are a selflearner, your knowledge of Japanese, and Japanese culture, will still be a big WIP which is not safe to rely on.

Anyway, that's my take on sentences :D
Oh and watching video on youtube with JP/EN subtitles can be quite useful too. Because the face, the gesture people make, the object around, etc, etc. are really useful to understand the "situation". They're all "hint" that will prevent your brain from making incorrect association. Focusing on details without that can lead to wrong generalizations because of too much different reasons. Same with single sentence on renshuu. Without context, you simply cannot understand perfectly those sentence and there are often multiple possible translation too most of the time. If you decided that one of those interpretations or translations is correct, you're already wrong by choosing one and excluding the others.

Anyway, last one this time, good luck and have fun! xD
If you have any others questions, don't hesitate to come back here, plenty of people will give you different answers with hopefully a few that you will find useful :3
頑張ってね～