As the title says, after self-studying Japanese for 2 years I feel like I sometimes still struggle on basic grammar point.
For example when learning the particle に/で, at first I thought well it was quite easy, に is used for existence, destination of an action, and で is used for the location where an action happens, like:
机の上に箱がある 美術館に行く
喫茶店でコーヒを飲む
Then I went to do some practice sets confidently, only to find out I got a lot of them wrong.
Because there are special cases, like for an event or activity you have to use で, like
都内で地震があった
スタジアムでコンサートがあった
The explanation is that ある here is an action verb like 行う, not for existence. I sort of got it, but I really couldn't tell much difference between "There was an earthquake" and "An earthquake happened" . But I told my self ok I'm studying Japanese, maybe these are totally different to Japanese people.
Then later I got another question wrong:
東京( )住んでいます.
I thought 住む (live in somplace) is an action verb so it should be で, but the correct answer is に. Apparently in Japanese mind 住む is a state like existence, not an action. I took note of this, and for another question:
東京( )暮らしています
Okay, 暮らす is basically the same as 住む, so it gotta be に like 住む. Then I was wrong again, somehow for verbs like 暮らす、生活する, you have to use で……
I've found too many examples like this throughout the study, for example
会社で働く
会社に勤めている
They basically mean the same but the choice of particle is just different, and even though I think I can force myself to make sense of this, it still won't work deeply in my mind.
And there are a lot of other examples like に/で which seems easy at first but really hard to master. At this point I just try to forget these summarized grammar rules and remember them one by one through usage.
Right now I feel like self-learning grammar points and struggling with them really isn't a good way to learn a language. Language is designed to be spoken and not like a programming language where grammar can cover all the cases. It can only give you a general concept and idea. For usage you can only get it from daily life, no other options.
by Distinct_Ad9206