掲示板 Forums - best ways to learn grammar

I never tried the practice part of the Tae Kim guide but if it is nearly as good as the grammar lessons it's worth looking. Note that there's practice only for begginer lessons, but I strongly advise reading the guide as a whole. http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar

I am using too the Tae Kim grammar guide (wich is free),it properly explains the grammar,and I also review the grammar points on the site japanesepod101.com wich has thousands of funny podcast/audio lessons,every lesson cover specifically one grammar point,but since it comes with a dialogue to display that grammar point (wich is read 3 times,normal,slowly,with english translation) and the .pdf ,you get to review so much more in every single lessons and constanly practicing all the grammar that you learn :) That is not free though,but you get all of that (access to all the audio and video files + pdf) with the basic subscription that is fairly cheap :) Only 2 things I don't like about that site is that they are focused too much on making money,in fact at the end of every podcast (wich usually last from 15 to 20 min) they waste 2-3 minutes of your time publicizing their site and telling you to upgrade to premium user,wich is fairly annoying since you ear that even if you just paid your subscription, and soon you'll see that as audio spam,also they have this fishy approach toward the subscription,for example,if you watch the subscription upgrade page you will see the Basic subscription is only 4$,but once you click on it and you are writing down credit card informations, you'll find that is 4$ only if you subscrive for 24 months, and 8$ if you want the basic only for 1 month...so a really fishy approach,wich in my opinion is not suitable to that site,since what they offer is still a lot of good study material. If you can watch beyond that,it is worth to subscribe :)

definitely then you have to subscribe when you'll have the opportunity,this also because using the same account you get to check the lessons you have followed already so you can easily keep track of your progress :)

[quote author=みさこ link=topic_id=5905&post_id=31177#rmsg_31177 date=1388766153]I write them down on a sticky note.[/quote] I laughed too hard at this ;D I also have no money, but neither do I have the patience to subscribe new accounts to get premium days. The free part of Japanesepod101 isn't that bad though - I still get to hear the lessons - I just can't download anything. That suits me pretty well because I rather listen to music than podcasts when I'm not at home. Also, if I had money I would rather spend it on actual japanese content (Doramas, movies and such) than on sites that "are focused too much on making money". Just my opinion though.

[quote author=みさこ link=topic_id=5905&post_id=31175#rmsg_31175 date=1388754226]Yeah, I use that. You know how you get 7 free premium days? I just keep deleting my account and resubscribing to use those days. I have no money. :'([/quote] I subscribed just once a long time ago, and I had to set their emails to spam. Still get 'em.

Reading grammar explanations is kind of useless unless you have experience with the language to make sense of those explanations. I'd just read and listen a lot. For lower level stuff try something like this: http://hukumusume.com/douwa/0_6/0nen.html . There are mukashibanashi there sorted by elementary grade level. For more intermediate to advanced stuff just read stuff like the news http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/easy/ , http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/ or NHK 高校講座　http://www.nhk.or.jp/kokokoza/index.html , there are tons of videos on different school subjects for Japanese high schoolers there and texts that go over whats in those videos. Another thing I recommend, which I did with Korean and it worked really well, is pick like 5-6 grammar points for a week (maybe points on tae kim) and everyday that week write one example sentence for each of those 5-6 grammar points. After you write them, you could put them on lang-8 or give them to someone who knows Japanese so they can look over them. Once you know the sentences are ok, get a recorder and record yourself reading all the sentences you wrote. You can record the English or whatever translations you want on there too if you want, and then just listen over and over. If you're lucky, you could find a native to record the sentences, but then again Japanese pronunciation is just a joke it's so easy, so I wouldn't worry about it. Also when you write the sentences, you can study vocab as well. If you run out of ideas about what to write since you would be writing examples every day, just try to think about who, what, where, & when, and for a subcategory something like academic subjects. So out of the 5-6 sentences you write each day, write one using some 'who' term you want to learn (maybe a profession, like 'doctor'), another sentence with a 'what' term you want to learn (like 'window'), another sentence with some academic word you want to learn (maybe you decide to focus on geography for the week and want to use 'Mountain range' in a sentence), etc.

...I really do hate the amount of upselling they push into everything, but the lessons are top-notch. I believe I have you to thank for that, Marcus—I saw one of your earlier posts in a "what other ways do you study" thread. Here's an idea—according to this page (http://www.japanesepod101.com/helpcenter/getstarted/downloadhowto/): [quote]If you have an active Basic or Premium subscription, you have access to the Basic and Premium iTunes feeds. These feeds make downloading lesson content a breeze. These password protected feeds will automatically deliver new lessons and PDFs straight to iTunes or other iTunes compatible feedreaders for you [b]and give you the option of downloading all of the past content as well with a single button click![/b] In addition, the Premium feed will automatically deliver any premium content to you as well such as dialogue-only audio files and lesson review audio files. Please see the Basic and Premium iTunes feeds page for details on how to subscribe to these convenient, time saving feeds.[/quote] So I guess, theoretically, you could buy a month of premium and download all the past seasons, then go back to a free user and keep listening to the new ones as they air. During my free trial I grabbed all the beginner seasons and culture classes (which they allow you to do), thinking it should give me plenty of time to save up a bit of money for a real subscription. Another thing you might want to try is the coupon code "EVERYTHING", which is good for 65% off according to the email they sent me after I quit registration halfway through: [quote]Hi Learner, Okay... I'm about to give up, but as we teach our Japanese community members, persistence is the key to success. So I'll try "ONE-LAST-TIME" to convince you to learn with us. So here it is, here is what I've got: The most incredible learning tools ever! * Getting Started With Japanese (Value = $99.00) * Premium Member Access (Value = $25.00/month $300.00/year) * Secret to Mastering Japanese Course You'll also get these Exclusive "Members Only" Perks: - Premium Member RESTRICTED ACCESS WEBSITE - Continually Updated Language Learning Lessons and Tools - Up To 50% DISCOUNT on Future Innovative Language Learning Products - On-Line Successful Language Learning (Priceless!) Get All of the Above For 65% OFF. Use Coupon Code EVERYTHING, and SAVE 65% Instantly. Click this link to Get EVERYTHING for 65% OFF! http://www.japanesepod101.com/everything/[/quote] That will get you 24 months of premium for $84 instead of $240.

I often use Imabi - [url]http://imabi.net[/url] for grammar and exercises. There arent many exercises for each point, but I find the questions useful.

[url]http://study.u-biq.org/english.html[/url] Has a fair amount of grammar practice material. As for lessons, Tae Kim is gentle; translations are literal, and the explanations are crystal clear , really hitting the logic behind structure. imabi is like one of those treasure-troves in Middle-Eastern folklore the hero risks getting lost in: a fantastic wealth of grammatical, syntactical and etymological information, but you'd better know your 連用形 from your　未然形 (after all, he gave you those in an early lesson :-[)