One time while I was still learning English I was watching an episode of That 70′s Show, and one of the characters asked a question and I came up with a reply without really thinking about it. Turns out, it was word for word the reply that the other character gave, and I was a little stunned. I’d come up with the correct sentence structure, word use, tenses, everything, without really thinking about it. I didn’t even really know why it worked, I just knew that it sounded right.

Often when I try to test myself in the manner that you said I freeze – everything seems to go down the drain and leaves nothing for my brain to work with. I stress myself out. When this happens I just leave things and go do something else (like watch a TV show) and try to study while relaxing. Anki is great for learning vocabulary and kanji readings, but I don’t really think it is meant as a tool to help create brand new sentences from scratch. My advice would be to not stress out about it too much. Learning something as complex as a new language takes time, and you are not doing yourself any favors stressing out about it.

As crazy as it sounds you could try talking in japanese. The reason I say it sounds crazy is because, if you are like me, you may not have someone to speak it with. Simply try to have some form of conversation and incorperate anything you have learned or reviewed. This will not only give you speakimg practice but it should also help strengthen the ability to recall the information. This should in turn help with reviews.

You could also try posting in japanese on sites like facebook, twitter, or your blog (if you have one). It may help to have other learners or speakers friend you on such sites so that they can send you a response in Japanese as well. This should do like the suggestion above but give you reading and writting practice as well as kanji practice instead of speaking. I do this very little, mainly because no one else can read it, but think this is something that I should do more. I figured this might help you as well.

Definitely practice the grammar parts. From what I have seen so far, it looks like Koichisama encourages you to make new sentences on your own with what you have learned, so be sure to do that every time he suggests it.

Depending on how far you have come with your learning will depend on what you can do.

Some things I would get my English students to do at various levels are the following:

Basic –

1) Any time Koichi introduces a new sentence, see how many words in that sentence you can change with words you already know, and how many words you can switch out for each. You can even keep a record of the number to gauge your progress.

2) Diagram each sentence you learn in a very basic fashion, focusing on nouns, adjectives, particles, and verbs. For instance: Watashi wa asagohan o tabemasu = noun particle noun particle verb. The first noun is the subject the second noun is the object, followed by a verb. This is one of the simplest sentence structures, yet you can do so much with it, simply by replacing the nouns and verbs with other nouns and verbs you know. Even if you get the particles wrong, people will still understand what you are trying to say just from their position, and the rest will come with experience.

Intermediate -

1) Take your vocab words that you have learned and put them into lists of nouns, adjectives, and verbs. Randomly select 5 or so words from each list, then with those words, see how many sentences you can make.

2) Grab a children’s book and look at the sentences in it. Try to use words you know to reconstruct the sentences in Japanese. So say you see the following: Timmy kicked the ball, you first have to switch it into the proper Japanese order which would be: Timmy the ball kicked. So you have Noun, noun, verb, so come up with a sentence like that in Japanese with words you know instead, which might be: Teacher the student taught, or I the subway rode, etc (except in Japanese of course).

Advanced -

1) Imagine a basic conversation you are having with someone, and write it down in English. Make sure it’s nothing too complicated, but make sure it sounds natural and not like a robot or monkey or robot monkey… Then once again brake down the sentences into their components of nouns, adjectives, and verbs, and see if you can make the same types of sentences with words you know in Japanese and see if you can make them make sense. Unless you know a lot of vocab, they probably won’t, but just practicing it will help you learn.

2) Do the same thing as before with the children’s book, just make it a harder book.

Koichi often tells you to ignore the words when showing you the grammar lessons, because he wants you to focus on the structure rather than remember the words. This is very important. That’s why he had you make your passion list, words you are passionate about should be the easiest to remember, so try to use them as much as you can to recreate any new sentence structures you learn.

Another thing to think about is what subjects most of the words you know relate to. For instance in the first couple seasons you learn the words: apple, desk, teacher, student, room, rain, snow, autumn, summer, winter, doctor, driver, textbook, medicine, park, car, hospital, police officer, child, author, grapes, strawberries, tangerine, sugar, salt, newspaper, dictionary, bicycle, friend, box, water, cat, dog.

Looking at those words, the three areas they would most be used in would be at school, the hospital, and a lunchroom. So try to think of conversations that would take place in those locations, and how to construct the relative sentences.

More than likely you often talk to people about whatever the subject of your passion list happens to be, so think about the types of conversations you have with those people about that subject and how you can use the words you learned to say them. Just keep in mind you’ll likely have to speak as if you were talking to a 6 year old, but that’s how it starts, and you can build it up from there. ^_^

がんばって!

• This reply was modified 12 years, 3 months ago by  Aikibujin.

Write about anything on Lang-8. The main purpose is to improve your skills.

No problem. ^_^

Definitely do the reverse card thing, I started to do that immediately when I began, as I normally read the English and said the Japanese when doing physical flashcards before I signed up with this. I was in the same boat as you when I was doing Japanese to English years ago, as I didn’t know the word unless I saw it in Japanese, and that triggered my memory. I believe Koichi does this because it’s quicker to absorb initially than the other way around. But personally I wouldn’t move on to the next chapter until I’d learned them fairly well back to front.

がんばって!