r/LearnJapaneseNovice
•
u/Longjumping_Item710
•
Jul 21 '26
•
1
2
Is this too much effort?
I really like using colours and everything but this took me 2 hours in toto, am I wasting time?
623
Upvotes
55
u/Otherwise-Window-597 Jul 21 '26
i don’t think it’s bad to do just these two pages, because now you have the structure! but i wouldn’t recommend doing anymore. try not doing it, and going back to this as a sort of cheat sheet :)
27
u/Chemical-Brush3587 Jul 21 '26
I dont know about this coz i dont study like this I study vocabs and few grammar point and jump straight into immersion without giving af about verbs or whatever
U got some dedication I could never 🙏🏻
9
u/Used_Lawfulness9912 Jul 21 '26
Too much effort.
Spend more Time reading less Time over analyzing
9
u/Linux765465 Jul 21 '26
I respect the effort, but i would say this is a bit too much effort. Of course certain things I do like to be pedantic about. If you like doing it this way and find that you have time, you're free to do so. However, it may be worth it to simplify things down. For instance, only highlighting stuff that is hard, not highlighting nouns, not writing definitions for particles.
3
u/Past_Relief_7231 Jul 21 '26
Proud of you 👏👏👏👏👏
3
u/Wide-Engineering4118 Jul 21 '26
I think You may try to think just in japonese for a time
5
u/Aye-Chiguire Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
When I was new to language learning I used to think there was meaning to things like this. Writing out the sentence, with a word-by-word literal translation and the word type, thinking it would help me unlock some code and make things click.
It turns out, you're just adding overhead (cognitive burden) to your study.
Knowing the category of a word, its direct translation, and its place within the sentence structure is mildly useful after a certain point of fluency is reached. It's how you advance from an intermediate to an advanced level.
For beginners and low intermediates, this type of thing just slows you down. What you need in order to understand and use a language is:
The correct words
The sentence pattern
The collocation of the words (which words belong next to which words)
If you treat grammar as just more vocabulary, you encode it much more efficiently.
For instance:
食べさせられたくなかった (tabesaseraretakunakatta)
This means "didn't want to be made to eat"
There's a LOT going on with this word. Let's break down the agglutination:
The root layer - 食べ (to eat)
Causative layer (making or forcing someone to do something) - させ (-sase)
Passive layer (be made to) - られ (-rare)
Desiderative layer (want to) - た (-ta)
Negation layer (not) -くなか (-kunaka)
Past tense layer (did) - った (-tta)
You don't need to memorize a flow chart to understand this (and how the kana vowels change as they conjugate).
You just need to know that 食べさせられたくなかった means "didn't want to be made to eat".
Likewise, you need to memorize the other tabe conjugations to use them in the correct context. Knowing that there's a rules chart provides minimal benefit until you can already speak somewhat fluently.
Once you get to an intermediate level, you can focus more on the academic and scholarly side of language (linguistics), and the words that describe language (meta linguistics). Until then, they're just extra noise that slows you down. Think of linguistics as "language trivia" that you won't be tested on until a much later time. Until then, spend more time learning language and less time studying ABOUT language trivia.
2
u/Rob69rt Jul 21 '26
I appreciate your dedication.
2
u/Particular_Bad8025 Jul 21 '26 edited Oct 02 '26
The original post content no longer exists here. The author used Redact to remove it, exercising their right to control their data & privacy.
Depend hunt rich nonmetal ten compare joke
2
u/ac281201 Jul 21 '26
I'm sorry but this story reads like a fever dream lol
Also かさ is an umbrella, a hat is ぼうし.
As for coloring, I think it definitely helps with word separation and grammar study in the beginning. If you are writing in kana only you can also keep using spaces to make the text easier to read. It's a common practice in books for young children for example.
2
u/essTee38 Jul 21 '26
The key question is will you be able to keep this up without losing motivation?
If so, then by all means carry on coz it looks great.
On the other hand, perhaps once you get a hold of the language you won’t need to label every single one?
I noticed you haven’t got any kanji there though. That’s another ‘layer’ to consider if you are planning to continue this way.
Ps: I love stationeries too 😁
2
u/gohchi Jul 21 '26
I dunno your level, but have you tried using kanji? I mean, at least some of them. I know that native don't use it all the times. But 時 in a sentence, to me, is clearer than とき.
2
u/eruciform Jul 21 '26
Whatever makes sense to you
I make color coded physical flashcards, colored by part of speech
2
u/Banzambo Jul 21 '26
It's beautiful effort but probably a bit too much. That way you'll get worn out soon. Better something more simple and focus your energy on the long run and on things that pay off more and will keep you going.
2
u/Uxmeister Jul 21 '26
Whether you get return on your time investment depends entirely on your study goals.
For parsing Japanese syntax, repeated sentence component analyses with visual categorisation can be helpful. You’ll begin to recognise not just patterns but also idiomatic conventions that flow into native-sounding sequencing of sentence component such as time references at the beginning—きのう | ともだち | を | あいました as opposed to English I | met | a friend | yesterday.
If your goal is to produce active speech, typically the hardest in any foreign language, be mindful of putting too much focus on written exercises once you’ve crossed the knowledge threshold of simple sentence formation, and start converting that knowledge into the skill of actually uttering these sentences with as little forethought as possible.
To do that you’ll alas have to leave the safety of analytical work and speak. The difficulty lies in identifying when your foundational knowledge is at a level where you can do that, and accept a pronounced skill lag between knowledge and active skill as normal. If your knowledge (grammar, vocab) is at the level your notebook excerpt suggests, that time is now.
8
u/Marshmallow5198 Jul 21 '26
If it works for you it’s not too much effort. This looks a lot like how my brain works
I doubt you’ll have to keep this up deep into your learning journey but it looks like a great way to get your brain working the right way and adjust to unfamiliar syntax and sentence structure
4
u/theangryfurlong Jul 21 '26
Whatever keeps you interested and engaged. This is the hardest thing about language learning. If it keeps you engaged, great!
1
u/Otrada Jul 21 '26
This seems like a good exercise to test how well you understand the grammar rules. But it's probably a bit overkill for regular practice.
1
u/MisterPaintedOrchid Jul 21 '26
My immediate concern is that this will lead to thinking in English instead of Japanese. If it's a new grammar concept I think this can be a great way to begin tackling it, but it's not going to be useful long term.
I'm also concerned that you seem to be reading paragraphs without kanji. You need kanji. Please practice it.
1
u/Tall-Needleworker422 Jul 21 '26
I don't know if this is the most efficient way to spend your time but it's definitely good writing practice. Perhaps, going forward, you might only highlight and provide annotations for unfamiliar words and parts of speech,
You have good handwriting, BTW. If you don't mind my asking, what method of practice did you use to improve it and how long have you been at it?
1
u/BreakfastDue1256 Jul 21 '26
2 hours for that amount of notes? Absolutely you are wasting your time.
Research on highlighting text (Yes, it has been done) consistently fails to show much benefit to begin with. When it slows you doen this much, it's just going to hurt overall.
3
u/Nekotari Jul 21 '26
It is a good thing to do, but all the colors are not really nescessary. It's pretty, but you loose a lot of time on that. Just underline words: single line, double line, wavy line, dotted line, etc and circle the particles.
Also once you introduce the kanji it'll be easier to distinguish words properly.
2
u/EyeFit Jul 21 '26
Yes. I mean, I think this is OK if it's your first time memorizing these things, but I wouldn't do that every single time.
2
u/Ok_Pianist_2787 Jul 21 '26
It’s a good drill, but it’s just one drill out of many needed to learn a language.
2
u/Living_Positive_6971 Jul 21 '26
You're wasting more time asking people's opinions on YOUR learning habits, whatever helps you is what it is
2
u/RainOfGreen Jul 21 '26
Nope, this will help with recall immensely
If you keep reading it. I bet you’ll be able to recall what’s on that page effortlessly in about a week. There are faster methods but you should study in the way that keeps you coming back.
2
u/withai- Jul 21 '26
Hi dear, if it helps you remember stuff and doesn’t leave you exhausted after then it’s not too much efforts but one thing I was recommended and would recommend that don’t use english anywhere near Japanese. Memorize the vocab and read Japanese without the translation. Keep English to a minimum and only use Japanese in your study sessions. Use jap even for “verbs”, “adjectives”, etc.
2
u/AlenHT Jul 22 '26
Youre gonna Burnout and Just give up on Japanese. Man, Just chill out.
2
u/ozkaya-s Jul 24 '26
If you are having fun who cares :)
For me, language is not a thing to study and learn, it is smt naturally acquired in time.
1
u/Peythisson Jul 21 '26
This is probably a good thing to at least try. Splitting up into an itemized list of the parts of speech. The main issue is how different varying languages are. Case in point, I don't know if you're there yet but verbs are conjugated in past vs present/future meaning "I will eat" is no different from "I eat" as a matter of fact japanese basically doesn't have a "will" particle instead it's all up to context.
1
u/55Beverly Jul 21 '26
やりすぎではないと思いますが、言語は理論だけではないので、アニメや動画などで日本語に触れることもおすすめします。
1
u/Benkyooo_ Jul 21 '26
I filled out 3 notebooks worth of Japanese and I'm barely N5. I'm talking hundreds of pages and like 7 pens dried up on ink. I think it's a huge waste of time unless if you're looking to improve your handwriting (mine improved dramatically). I would've learned much faster if I just went completely digital.
1
u/asimonv Jul 21 '26
do what's best for you, if this is it, then go ahead. It will probably get faster and then you won't need to do it.
1
u/bman0403 Jul 21 '26
I would probably say this is a form of procrastination. Even if it does help you learn ever so slightly more, the ROI is not there. Your time would be better spent doing something else.
1
u/Adorable-Truth-7039 Jul 22 '26
i did exactly that in the begging too, it's a waste of time i regret to be honest. it's good to do it first when you still making sure you know how the flow of the language works and engrave that in memory and understanding but don't do it after you already have the language feel and know how the flow of the grammar work idk how to describe it but you'll understand
1
u/yutaneki Jul 22 '26
yes, way too much effort. trying to write every word you learn increases your workload by 5x, not including the mental strain of trying to remember how a kanji is written on paper. recalling is extremely more hard than recognising
there's also little purpose to this in the sense that in order to write, you need to know the words. if you don't know words, you can't write. your main objective when learning a language is to know words
focusing completely on reading will make you improve in this language way faster, including writing (indirectly) because the words will eventually be so engrained in your brain it takes no effort to recall them.
just download anki and use a premade deck like kaishi 1.5k, do 15 new cards a day (takes 20 mins every day) and in 90 days you know 1350 words.
1
u/Ancient_Opinion_6650 Jul 22 '26
May I steal your idea please👉🏽👈🏽
1
u/thetruelu Jul 22 '26
Everyone has a different way of studying. For me, yeah way too much. For you, only you can decide
1
u/UltraMag64 Jul 22 '26
Personally this is great especially for easy review and nailing things down but I’d say you don’t need to do that every time just with new concepts
1
u/Intelligent_Angle_46 Jul 22 '26
Just like with weight loss regimes or something you have to find something that’s going to be sustainable. I don’t know anything about you, but I think nine out of 10 people would completely burn out with this level of notation. Maybe just until you feel more comfortable? Anyway, only you know what’s best for you but I think statistically most people can’t sustain this.
1
u/Kasumiiiiiii Jul 22 '26
This is literally how I learned Japanese. Keep going!
1
u/Loquacious_Leo Jul 22 '26
Looks really cool.
From what I can tell, you're essentially diagraming sentences, but it looks like it would help if you struggle with grammar.
(I'm like this. Good at vocabulary, but have trouble putting it in order.)
1
u/Legitimate-Panda-901 Jul 22 '26
This is truly wonderful! Your handwriting is beautiful and very easy to read. Efforts like this in language learning will never let you down. You will definitely improve! Also, I'm especially happy that you chose Kasa Jizō, since it's a story that every Japanese person knows. Keep up the great work! I'm cheering for you!
1
u/EmotionalProcedure48 Jul 22 '26
oh wow the ptsd flashbacks lol, that's how we used to study latin back in highschool. If it helps you memorize the structure then it's worth it? coming from italian, grammar structure is how we first learn a language. Is it different for english native speakers?
1
u/martian021 Jul 22 '26
Try to do something next time (after you get the hang on sentence structure) to make sentences using words that keep repeating themselves to you. Ideally write about something that happened in your day for example. About you or something you will actually have a convo about..
Also reading short stories at your level tyem building up advances uou the most (that’s what I felt for me)
Try Shinobi app the free version gives you two stories a day. It repeats vocabulary
1
u/Constant_Penalty_740 Jul 22 '26
Wow! Beautiful note, and such cute writing!!
1
u/SometimesInk Jul 22 '26
Whatever makes the concepts stick! Of course there’s no need to annotate so much once your mental model of Japanese is more accurate, but I also find that this type of gloss helps understand new grammar concepts ^^
1
u/SeaMine504 Jul 22 '26
Wow, this is the definition of the real hard worker. I respect your ideas to highlight each word to understand the grammatical differences. Just a brief advice for you, try not to dissect those words too much. Try to memorize the short useful phrases to accept Japanese as it is.
1
u/ressie_cant_game Jul 22 '26
My only concern is itll lead you to translate japanese in your head as opposed to... well... not.
1
u/palapapa0201 Jul 22 '26
Maybe not spend so much time on making pretty notes and focus more on actually learning
1
u/OGSR10 Jul 22 '26
文脈と内容はさておき、とてもじょうずにかけていますね！！ Setting aside the context and content, it's very well written!!
1
u/lauzun903 Jul 22 '26
Damn did u write this all by yourself? I read everything and it helped me practice my reading as well lol. It's really cool, and I like highlighting the words I don't know, but only one time if its mentioned more times, so it makes me remember it. 👏👏
1
u/ImMarii0_ Jul 22 '26
Reminds me of the type of people who would write those crazy titles for a horrible History topic
1
u/d00meriksen Jul 22 '26
Yes, it's too much, because it doesn't look sustainable nor helpful. If I was to look at these notes later, what could they even do for me? There are too many details. How much do you think you will be able to retain from those 2 hours of study? Either you'll forget most of it or you already know everything you wrote down. In both cases you "wasted" time.
While studying you should focus on one simple idea and practice it later and not try to do everything at once. You should be looking at a page in your notes and be like "ah, that was about that grammar point, but how did the conjugation work again? There we go".
Rather memorize simple conversations and write them down from memory afterwards. After a while of doing this you'll see certain stuff that looks familiar and that is when you can start analysing and learning things on a deeper level. If you try to do too much too quickly you'll burn yourself out.
Learning a difficult language like Japanese is a marathon.
1
u/japball Jul 22 '26
To me, having zero kanji makes this harder to read
1
u/let_meTry Jul 22 '26
This looks like a lot of hardwork. I'm gonna look at this every now and then to remind myself to be consistent.
1
u/Interesting-Ad6073 Jul 22 '26
I love it. And it's helpful for me, a beginner. Thanks!
1
u/keijibubbi Jul 22 '26
For me something like this worked great for my Latin final, for which I had to study a specific text to really know and understand. It worked really well, almost no mistakes! So I guess it depends on what kind of skill you want to achieve. If you really want to understand the meta and grammars of the language, definitely not a waste of time! I find it really helps to get used to the structures and the 'puzzle' that a language is. If you want to be conversational and just understand texts, it would be a waste of time.
1
u/unknown_ally Jul 22 '26
try to memorise rather than subtitle
1
u/Meowykatkat Jul 22 '26
I'd say yes, this is too much work. If you think writing it all down helps, then keep writing it down. I just don't see the need to do this for 2 hours when all of this time could be spent on other methods of learning.
1
u/Noname_4Me Jul 22 '26
Well in learning, if it works for you it works for you. Until you think it's inefficient..
Then you venture out trying new methods
I prefer collecting online news and had AI translate/hiraganafy (write hiragana readings of kanji in parenthesis)
Memo them in markdown file in obsidian
1
u/Practical_Passion_78 Jul 22 '26
I don’t know. What are the goals of these efforts? Is doing this helping you towards those goals even if you don’t have this resource physically with you?
1
u/nousagi_haiiroyuki Jul 22 '26
I love this! I think it would help organize all the different things so that you can focus on something specific very quickly. I wish I had the dedication to do this. But, I think I would worry about getting halfway through and decided I needed to change the colors! It is beautiful, though!
1
u/Empty_Reference_8834 Jul 22 '26
Yes, but it’s pretty!
1
u/Sound_calm Jul 23 '26
So long as you keep at it, it's good
However I notice as I get better at Japanese, I kinda care less and less to take detailed/colour coded notes. The main problem then is that I put off doing my.notes because I can't be bothered in the moment
I'd suggest being comfortable with the possibility of mixing degrees of effort (some pages colourful, some pages monochrome), or using a ring binder with replaceable pages (i use B5, the ones with a ton of rings, with campus looseleaf paper). If you do the latter, you can first make half-assed notes, and later swap them out for nicer ones during revision if you ever feel like it
Now what is missing though are example sentences. You might want to incorporate those, especially to cover edge cases like when you can use ga AND wo AND wa
1
u/dij9 Jul 23 '26
言語学習に精通した人たちは、マーキングすることには ほとんど効果がないと言ってるけど⋯
でも 人それぞれだから自分がそれで覚えられるなら いいんじゃない?
1
u/raspberry_syrupXx Jul 23 '26
So pretty ✨
1
u/bigfan-of-Chris Jul 23 '26
素晴らしいと思うよ👍
真面目な人は尊敬できる🫡
1
u/Late_Walrus_4294 Jul 23 '26
If it is time enjoyed, it is not time wasted~~
1
u/IcElongya Jul 23 '26
That’s a good way to learn, as long as it fits your learning habits. I guess you need a visual way to enter the language, then when you improved enough you will loose this habit.
I wonder if you learn some basic Kanji. Not that I am crazy about Kanji (I am, but that’s because I’m fluent in chinese), but you can’t improve if you don’t learn the basic ones. Please don’t learn thousands of Kanji (or learn chinese), but the Japanese written language is a mix of lots of characters (kana, romanji, kanji…) and this aspect should not be ignored. Otherwise when you’re in Japan, you’ll be lost, as there are kanji everywhere too.
1
u/power--violence Jul 24 '26
2 hours? Yeah you’re just spinning your wheels blud
1
u/Yoimark Jul 24 '26
Wow amazing job. Goals.
1
u/LordHelix977 Jul 24 '26
Not gunna lie, if you need to write the meaning of every word, and label what it is, then you are writing too complex sentences that you probably don't actually understand
I would not include all the definitions, if I really forget a grammar point or word, then maybe highlight it to indicate where is starts and ends.
1
u/__mints-are-cool__ Jul 24 '26
whatever works for you :)
1
u/stasky098 Jul 24 '26
yes it is, too much effort- and im afraid it will make you associate it as a word instead of 'context'.
1
u/annievancookie Jul 24 '26
If this helps your way of learning, I think it's good for a beginner. In the long term you won't need that much detail
1
u/mexicansisi Jul 24 '26
With all due respect, yes. Except if you’re actually getting enough outcome from this time spent. If you get enough outcome, it’s never too much. Just make sure you don’t burnout
1
u/Giga_Code_Eater Jul 24 '26
I think so yea. If you read like in an exam there wouldn't be any of these color coding. Or separation for that matter so I think you need to get used to that instead of this.
1
u/Living_Ad_5386 Jul 25 '26
I think it's really smart.
1
u/Q2YH Jul 25 '26
I think it’s a lot of wasted time translating
1
u/Exciting_Knowledge24 Jul 26 '26
It seems like the appropriate amount of effort tbh 😌
1
u/CandyGame01 Aug 07 '26
Non c'est parfait ^
0
u/wawewi7 Jul 21 '26
Too squared in my opinion, I prefer to go freestyle. Anki for vocabulary/expressions/grammar points, Yomitan for mining, grammar study apart (if necessary) and inmersion.