This alone frustrates me beyond belief. I’m learning Kanji through WaniKani, and using JPDB for miscellaneous words, but I can’t piece sentences together for the LIFE of me. I am learning particles and such. JPDB I am using to learn Core 2K, yet it feels useless. I can see the same word 10,000 times and not make sense of it. For example: という, もう, そう, だけ are words i’ve tried learning. Vocabulary without kanji is incredibly hard, and the example sentences make them feel impossible to learn.
For example, for そう:
“女の子がそういうこと言うなよ.”
I can clearly read the translation as “a girl shouldn’t say such things.” I have learned 女の子 and 言う. I recognize 言う is negative. I recognize こと can modify verbs, but even still: I can’t make sense of sentences. I can’t make sense of そう in this context, nor the いう that directly next to it.
What should I do differently?
**UPDATE**:
The outreach on this post has been phenomenal. I’ve learned a lot already and will continue to reference this post as I continue my journey and, inevitably, experience more hiccups and frustrations. What I will do now is put more of an emphasis on grammar, plain and simple. Bunpro and Cure Dolly will be my method. If that is not sufficient, i’ll go the Genki route. In addition, i’ll test out the Moe Way N5 deck on Anki, and continue with my Wanikani studies. That is all.
32 comments
I think starting with core might be too difficult. I had the same issue, and used The Moe Way N5 deck instead. It got me more comfortable making sense of sentences caused it used simpler patterns. I then moved to the N4 when that got too easy. Now I’m using Satori. I did go and look at Core after all that, and was able to make sense of the sentence structure and words without being overwhelmed.
言うis not negative, it means 言葉を口に出す. 言うな is negative, and means don’t say.
こと here means matters or things. So そういうこと means such matters or such things. It is not modifying verbs here.
Like my late Uncle Jimmy use to say, “It’s never too late to give up.”
Sometimes you have to have the courage to say to yourself, “I tried my best, but maybe I’m just not cut out for this.”, let out a sigh and pack it in.
Hoping for the best for you.
It will help you to do some grammar study outside of just learning vocab or immersion.
Some good sources include Japanese from zero which is a free 100+ episode youtube playlist, or Tae kims guide, or one of the many anki decks.
Those will help you learn how particles and other words connect sentences together. In this case you need to know that “そういう” roughly means “that kind of” or “like that”. Also “言うな” is not just negative of “to say”, that would be “言わない”. “言うな” is a command to not say something. So you haven’t yet learned that conjugative form.
so the full break down of the sentences would be
女の子が – “as for girls” or “on the topic of girls”
そういうこと – “that kind of thing”
言うな – “don’t say”
よ – ending particle which adds emphasis and gives the connotation you are telling the listener new information
all together a good translation would be “a girl shouldn’t say that kind of thing”
I’ll can tell you that for me, I didn’t even come close to feeling like I could understand anything until I had completed at least the first 2k vocab and covered all the basic grammar points. Even then it takes many more hours of immersion to make reading less painful. With that being said, progress is always being made, I still feel like I “level up” every new 1000 vocab I learn.
Have you tried using a textbook such as Genki, MNN, or Tobira? Some people act like textbooks are a complete drudge and waste of time, but textbooks are very good at taking a group of words and grammar points and giving you example sentences at your level. Then they give you exercises that help reinforce the meanings and the way they work so that when you see them in the wild you’ve worked with it enough to understand it.
Textbooks are also fairly good at introducing the multiple meanings of a word spaced out so that you’re not bombarded with all of the meanings at once.
I also recommend [graded readers](https://tadoku.org/japanese/en/free-books-en/). Sure the storylines aren’t as exciting as manga or anime but they will help reinforce the grammar points you are learning. Reading through comprehensible input will help make things click.
女の子(girl)が(with regards to)そういう(like this)こと(things)言う(say)な(do not)よ
i.e. girls don’t say things like this
what anyone with an indo-european language background starting to learn japanese needs to understand first and foremost is the word order: in japanese, it’s all backwards – once you wrap your head around this concept it would be so much easier to make sense of japanese in general
The solution is just don’t use JPDB for your sentences. I love JPDB but the sentences are just way too complex for beginners. I turned them off and never looked back. Use a grammar source to learn grammar and then just get exposure to sentences through reading things like tadoku graded readers, crystal hunters like you said, etc…
I’ll also plug Renshuu, which I also love. It has a bajillion sentences, most with native audio, and you can build schedules approximately by grammar level. If you were going to approach something through learning sentences via an app rather than reading, then that might be a good resource to check out.
can someone explain what 言うな means? I know its negative, but like what form is this and how does it break down?
I second any Genki recommendation! The textbook was fantastic for me
I find learning through sentences at the beginning a waste of time, especially for anki cards.
I study things separately, grammar / vocabulary / kanjis.
For grammar you just need to get the point of the lesson and move on. Reading a sentences 500 times with the same 1-2 grammar points won’t make you remember better. If anything it’d just slow you down.
Repetition is important but mainly for vocabulary and kanji imo. You don’t need to remember the grammar but to understand it, if that makes sense. If you understand the concept of the grammar point you’re learning then it’s all good you don’t need to practice it over and over again.
So for vocabulary I do word by word. like apple = x, orange = x, hospital = x and same for the verbs…etc. That way I can learn a lot of words every day and do a lot of cards.
Kanjis is a mix of both, studying them individually and in context
And when I try to read things in japanese ~~like hentai~~ , it’s when it all blend together. But I wouldn’t practice everything at once.
It’s like learning a song on a instrument. You don’t straight play it fully and hope to improve, no you cut it into parts and you practice each individually. At least it’s my opinion.
So yea not a fan of learning through sentences.
You can quickly get overwhelmed since there are a lot of individuals points all at once. And you’ll naturally struggle and maybe lose motivation.
Split them, learn them one by one and it will be way easier to blend them all together later on.
Don’t worry about immersion, you’ll get plenty through VN,books,videos with jp subtitles, games…etc. But that’s for later, you need to build solid bases before going that.
Get a textbook, it will explain the grammar very clearly and give you plenty of examples sentences specially for the point it’s trying to teach you. That’s a fluid way to learn
Even DuoLingo would help you a lot. All they do is sentences. They move at a frustratingly slow pace but with your particular issue I’d recommend you give it a try. Best, it is free
Hmm, how I learn is that I focused on building a basic foundation (grammar, vocab, reading etc) up to upper N4 to early N3 level using textbooks like genki and minna no nihongo then I started joining book clubs like: [https://community.wanikani.com/t/x/44659](https://community.wanikani.com/t/x/44659) and read the contributions people include when explaining some of the missed nuances.
I’m also doing vocabulary with Wanikani and with basic grammar, the examples sentences have been very helpful in terms of providing contextual usage.
From what you mention above, seems like you’re missing out on actual grammar study.
One thing other people don’t seem to be directly mentioning (but is implied in their explanation) is that often words combine to make up a grammar point in it of themselves. You’re trying to break down そういう into two independent terms, but it’s far better in this case to think of them as a singular grammar point. そういう fits into a collection of grammar points alongside こういう and ああいう.
I used [bunpro.jp](https://bunpro.jp) to learn grammar points until I felt comfortable identifying them myself in text. Textbooks are also great for getting you through enough grammar points to begin reading.
When you find yourself getting frustrated or thinking about quitting, just stop for the day and try again tomorrow. Also, if you find yourself particularly confused on one grammar point, literally just move on. You will come across it again later when you’ve gained more experience and might have a better chance at understanding it the second time. Language learning is picking things up, a little at a time, until you start forming a more holistic understanding. You can’t understand everything the first time you read about it. Don’t be afraid to take your time, you’ve enbarked on a long journey. 塵も積もれば山となる
Okay, I have some ideas on this.
1. You might just be struggling with what these parts are and do.
Conventional textbooks are really bad at teaching grammar. So I recommend this playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLg9uYxuZf8x_A-vcqqyOFZu06WlhnypWj
For example, if you think 君が好き grammatically means “I love you”, then you have a totally backwards view of Japanese, and this course will fix that faster than anything.
I was shocked to first find this out, but the explanations cleared up my Japanese for good! It’s very simple, too.
Take your time and feel free to jump around, but I recommend watching them all, *especially* the first 12 episodes at least. This will give you a solid foundation.
And if so, it’s just a matter of breaking up the parts and knowing what they do/mean.
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Let’s analyze:
*女の子がそういうこと言うな。*
女の子 (Girls)
が (subject^)
そういう (say in that way)
こと (things/concepts)
言う (say)
な (do not).
女の子が—そう言うこと—言うな
Girls———-said things—-do not say.
“Girls do not say said things.”
が: Just marks the subject; we’re talking about girls in general.
そう: means “that way”.
いう and 言う: are both the verb “to say”.
こと: Is a concept or a non-physical thing. An idea, a sentence, a situation.
な: is used as a negative command; do not
So put it all together:
*女の子* (が) –
*Girls* (<-subject)
*そういう* (こと) –
(Things) *said that way*
(言う) *な* –
*Do not* (say).
To flip it around for English order:
“Girls do not say things said that way.”
“Girls do not say such things.”
“Girls shouldn’t say such things.”
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2. It could also be that you’re not ready to parse it yet.
Give yourself time to get used to the structures and eventually, you’ll unconsciously understand some things.
Truly, in studying we will be breaking apart sentences and analyzing them in this slow way. We’ll be translating.
But you don’t have to understand everything all the time! You can just accept for a little while that “hey, I’m not ready to understand this yet” and move on.
You don’t have to give up, just let your mind adjust overtime. Keep trying, and avoid being stressed.
Take a look at those grammar videos, and you’ll see the directions that grammar gives Japanese sentences.
It is most important that you realize that Japanese is not English, and can’t be understood in an English way.
It would be out of order and inaccurate, so you’ve got to let your mind think Japanese! The videos will help, and experience will also bring you there.
Be content that you won’t always be able to make an English equivalent to the Japanese. That’s how things work, they’re very different languages.
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3. It also seemed that you didn’t recognize いう as 言う, which is fine, it takes experience. But you can use: https://m.romajidesu.com/translator/
Plug the sentence in, and it will try to break it apart for you and you can click on definitions for the parts, even if there’s no kanji.
It’s a lot easier than it seems. C: You’ll do great, I promise.
PS: If you’re really struggling with a sentence as sometimes I also do, try plugging it into DeepL to see what it comes up with!:
https://www.deepl.com/en/translator
頑張ってね！
mango, free with library card
You need to study grammar
I’m also using core 2k from JPDB. When I run into a sentence I don’t really understand, I just take note of what parts I do understand (if any) and the definition of the word and move on. Pretty often when I come back to the sentence later it makes a lot more sense. Its probably not as important to learn every word “in context” as you think. If you learn the definition, when you then learn grammar later you’ll be able to piece it together. Ideally you do want sentence examples you can understand, but you should probably be more lenient on yourself if you’re frustrated.
I use bunpro in concert with jpdb for grammar, and a lot of sentences that used to confuse me now make perfect sense. I think that unless you are using a deck that is designed to be n+1 (ie. tango) you should be definitely using something to study grammar.
[I really reccomend these videos](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSvH9vH60Ig&list=PLg9uYxuZf8x_A-vcqqyOFZu06WlhnypWj&index=1), they’re grammar and some other stuff, but the sentence structure videos are so good
I struggled with this as a beginner as well. I don’t think there’s any easy answer except that if you keep studying, eventually the easy grammar will sink in subconsciously.
I would recommend not sweating advice like “learn through sentences”. Don’t worry so much about doing what other people tell you. Just keep studying through the methods you like and which feel helpful and it will get better over time.
For what it’s worth, I also found the core2k to be useless. I wouldn’t bother with that. And trying to learn grammatical words like that through SRS is especially futile and frustrating. Personally, I’d recommend deleting/blacklisting any grammar-like words you see on JPDB. They’re not worth the torment, and you can’t really learn them via SRS anyway.
I’d also recommend trying to do more immersion and less SRS. Which is unfortunate since you can’t really do immersion at your level, but just look for easy stuff aimed at beginniners and eventually it will start to sink in. Once you reach an intermediate level, you can move on to Satori Reader, and eventually full immersion.
For another suggestion, how much have you practiced your listening skills? For me I have way more listening hours than reading hours due to me watching japanese youtube and anime a ton, and I find that having that “japanese voice” in my head helps immensely with reading.
Watch Cure Dolly’s grammar playlist on YouTube! The visuals and voice might be off putting at first, but you get used to it and there are subtitles. She will help you see the logic behind beginner and intermediate grammar much better (in my experience) than many textbooks. Once you understand how different words and particle are functioning together in a sentence, your comprehension will increase and you can learn more effectively.
I used the Core 2k deck as a vocab deck first, then I did Tango N5 and N4 which are easy i+1 sentence decks (only the words that weren’t in Core 2k deck)
If I had to start again, I’d choose Tango N5 + N4 for the sake of simplicity.
It’s perfectly normal that you don’t get core 2k deck sentences 100% right the first time you go through it. Your mental infrastructure of the language is yet to develop.
The more common words / idioms of japanese are sometimes the hardest because they have multiple meanings or don’t have direct equivalent in english.
* ということ
* そう
* もう
* 掛ける
The more you see those words in sentences, the more you’ll get a mental image of what they really mean. If you get a vocab card for those words, it certainly won’t help a lot since you’ll find them in lots of contexts where they don’t match the meaning you learned.
**Disclaimer: This is not throwing shade or criticizing the OP.** I have no doubt that OP is making an honest effort to study, and has just unfortunately been using the wrong resources or has been led astray by people who don’t quite know what they’re talking about.
**I’m also (obviously) not criticizing the people who are providing correct answers. These people have obviously put in the effort to understand things, and it shows. Good for them.**
That said…god, I feel like this thread is a perfect example of the dangers of “You don’t really need to learn grammar! Just speed-read Tae Kim or whatever and immerse and you’ll figure everything out eventually anyway!”
There are *so many* completely *wrong* answers about the *incredibly simple grammar* in the original post, that it is hilarious. 言うな is an abbreviation of “言うない” and means “say not”??? な is “short for なさい”? It’s basically the same as 言わない???
Literally all *wrong, wrong, wrong*, and I would have more sympathy for the people saying these things if this weren’t a simple point taught in Genki or literally any basic introductory textbook.
So many people saying textbooks are pointless, immersion is all that matters, and then they end up after a year or two years just literally throwing darts at the wall trying to understand *incredibly simple sentences* like the one in the OP.
This isn’t something that “the textbooks don’t teach you”. This is something that you *could* learn if you actually made an effort to learn grammar rather than just assuming textbooks are for learning boring robot-speak and you’re going to learn “real” Japanese by ignoring them and “immersing”.
Then…a year or two years later, you’re still just guessing and kinda-sorta-pretending you understand Japanese.
If that’s not your goal, then just…learn the grammar. It’s not *that hard* to actually legitimately study it and learn to actually *understand* Japanese instead of just feeling like you do.
Immersion
You gotta learn grammar on it’s own. You can’t just learn words. I like books myself, I’m sure there’s lots of options but get something that teaches grammar. Because you’re first sentence should be as simple as いぬ です。It’s a dog.
First, be patient. Japanese will take a while to click. And just when you think it’s clicked, you’ll up the difficulty and it’ll get hard again.
Break stuff down. Early on, it helped me to replace nouns with English to lighten the cognitive load. Even now, as I’m moving on to reading adult literature, I still find myself having to fully break down a sentence at least once a page.
Study grammar.
Get used to doing trial and error with jisho, adding and subtracting things from your input. There’s a lot of surprising collocations in Japanese and they don’t always pop up without a little coaxing.
Ask lots of questions. The daily thread is great for this. People are super patient and kind there. I asked the dumbest question yesterday and no one gave me a hard time, lol
Read more!
Accept that some words aren’t simply translatable and will require tons of time and exposure in order to grok them
Be patient. And be consistent 🙂
Believe me, the best thing to do to understand the nuances for these (let’s call them) non standard enders like な is watching animes or playing visual novels.
And yeah, I also second the Genki comments. You should use a textbook to get a foundation of grammar first
One method I learned at Coto Academy is the ankibun (暗記文) which literally means memorize sentence.
– Learn a grammar point and hear it in a couple sentences (free hack: I usually look the grammar point on YouTube and hear the example sentences).
-Write the sentences down, highlight the grammar point or underline it.
-Record the sentence on your phone or an audio program (I use Audacity, there are two ways to record, direct from the speaker and the sound from the laptop directly)
-Shadow it. Shadow it till it it stuck in your head. The pitch accent, the speed, copy it exactly.
This will build you up in speaking the langauge, grasping the grammar point and develop overtime. Miku Sensei has a grammar shadowing program (if you are willing to spend some cash).
The extra step:
write your own sentences, have someone revise it.
I’d skim through a grammar book (Tae Kim worked for me) then just watch anime with Japanese subtitles. Learning any language doesn’t have to be complicated, it basically comes down to immersion through media.
Even your example can pretty easily be learned through watching stuff. It might seem ambiguous with no context, but if that sentence was said in a tv show with context, it should be pretty easy to understand.
I would recommend studying on Bunpro in parallel with Wanikani: [https://bunpro.jp/](https://bunpro.jp/)
Bunpro focuses on grammar points, and things like [そういう](https://bunpro.jp/grammar_points/%E3%81%9D%E3%81%86%E3%81%84%E3%81%86) will appear in context, with multiple example sentences.
Be aware that learning 50 grammar points with spaced repetition takes longer than learning 50 kanji or 50 words. That’s because you have to read entire sentences, and initially you will read very slowly. But that’s also a skill you’ll need to practice, right?
I link Bunpro to Wanikani so it doesn’t show furigana over the kanji I’m supposed to know already. It’s a bit harder this way, but helps me keep them fresh and get faster at recognizing them.
That’s why you learn grammar first, then immerse.
https://gohoneko.neocities.org/grammar/taekim
I suggest you open pages 134 and 135 in Shin Kanzen Master N3 to look up this particular point (pages 134 and 135 in the book, not the reader program itself), and you will come to realize a few things.
1. Japanese grammar **doesn’t exist in a vaccum**, but builds upon itself.
That means to understand Sou Iu, you need to understand the Ko S A words first, then understand Iu and its different versions (To Iu, To Iu Koto, To Iu Nowa, etc…), then study Sou Iu as an external application of these two concepts.
As you can notice if you open the book, something like Sou Iu is extremely far in the book too, because it’s actually not an easy concept to get used to even if it might seem easy when explained; it will simply never click in your brain and you will always feel alienated from it unless you know its preceding components.
2) The second problem, also noticable in the book, is that Japanese is **not just grammar pattern**s you can take out of context and explain. The book does have a section for grammar patterns and their differences, then follows it up with other sections related to the grammar of **entire sentences and paragraphs**, not just the patterns in them.
This section includes explanations about many particles, double particles, sentence starters, and sentence enders that also feed into making the words in the sentences more comprehensible. It calls them “Templates”. Like how No Wa in the end of the first clause is coupled with Da, Kara Da, Tame Da in the end of the second clause (Page 116). And you can’t parse the sentence because you are still treating the sentences as separate components.
If you google Ni Wa you will see that only its meaning is explained, yet no page explains that it has to be followed by Ga Hitsuyou or Ga Kakaru **despite featuring them in examples** because online pages dump **down this critical information** and make you unable to understand larger sentence
As you can also notice from my Niwa Example, there are templates where ga or wa or any particle has to exist just because. It isn’t just related to its own meaning, but to the **overall template of the grammar point**. Though that’s not the problem featured in your example, and i will talk about this one in the next section.
………
In practice, when I read a sentence like this, I actually don’t read all of it. In my brain, all of そういうこと言う is a template but it becomes understandable and parsable only after figuring out all of its **components**, and not just because they are explained in English. The components I studied sepertly are 女の子**が** (Girls) **そう**いうこと (things like this) **と言う** (to say it) **な**よ (shouldn’t).
As for Wa and Ga, they are literally explained in the next section in Page 136. Again, Ga in Use 1 is said to be used for emphesis, but Wa later is said to be used for emphasis too in use 2. The difference is again is an amaglamation of concepts in Wa , and how its used as not only Wa in emphasis patterns but like To Wa or De Wa or things you simply can’t do with Ga (DeGa or ToGa don’t exist).
Many pages try to explain Wa or Ga on their own without explaining other concepts related to them. In early levels these concepts and explanations will sound sooo confusing and when you try to apply them to concepts in advanced levels they will almost never work because you are trying to apply semantic function to everything, instead of practical or template functions (these take a while and a lot of grammar solving to drill).
……………….
As you can see, most of what I explained are actually N3 concepts, so your confusion is understandable. That’s why its better to study a level then read material related to that level **only**, then move to the next level. For me I watched all I could from Cure Dolly and Game Gengo grammar videos + the words, then moved to N3 where I felt the grammar there solved many of my issues in reading. I also didn’t start reading native material until N3, which was a pain at first but not as incomprehensible as when I didn’t know the grammar and sentence templates.
Shin Kanzen’s N4 grammar book also has helpful material, but I skipped it because i replaced it with videos and stuff. and fixed what I didn’t know from it in retrospect.
Td:lr: Grammar study, but i wanted to break it down for you to get a better picture of what you lack.