Grammar drill workbook recommendations

Japanese
#1

Hello! I’m currently trying to work on my grammar more efficiently, but I am having issues having things stick. I’ll do my best to describing where I am learning.

I took classes in college ten years ago for four semesters, then essentially started back up again on my own in Fall 2020. I take private lessons one on one and also started about a month and a half ago with a dedicated speaking partner once a week to better hone in on my speaking and listening.

I switched teachers as of March (prior teacher mostly just spoke in English, would not stop flirting with me, and wasn’t being flexible with trying to speak more Japanese in lessons), so my textbooks have varied: できる日本語 beginner book was completed along with the supplemental vocab and grammar book, and I went to chapter 4 or 5 of the second one before switching teachers. My new teacher has me going through とびら, but I’ve expressed to him recently that it covers too many grammar points too quickly for my learning speed. We’re about to start chapter four.

My strong points are kanji and vocabulary, so I am not so worried about those. But my grammar…I mean, I’m just learning how to do passive form, if that helps give you an idea, and I tried going through the 日本語総まとめN4 and did well everywhere but grammar (I was about 50% there). It’s not that I can’t understand the grammar, but that I’m not getting the right kind of practice and it’s not sticking. I feel like the grammar supplemental book for できる日本語 was working well for me, but as I’m not following that series anymore, I’m not sure if it makes sense to try to continue with that or not.

And I say specifically workbooks as writing things down helps me remember things better, and so does structure.

Does anyone have any recommendations?

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#2

If you just need more practice, probably Kanzen Master Grammar N4? But that is more multiple choice…

Can try to write your own essays before lessons using the newly learned grammar points? During the lesson, the teacher can correct them. After class, try re-writting your essay. By experimenting, it should help solidify the grammar points.

Something that may help… Just go through part of the Tobira book (eg 1/2 of the book or 1/4 of the book) making your own notes. The idea behind this is to get a general idea about the grammar points in the book… That way when you are going through the grammar points later properly with a teacher, you can ask more relevant to you questions.

#3

in my opinion you dont need anything more than bunpro. it seems like most users just do their srs and then dont use it anymore. i was like this when i started too.

then i switched to reading ALL example sentences of a grammar point. then pure listening. do i understand them all? every nuance and word?
if yes i put it in the srs and if not i read the ressources and read them again and again.

i try to spend 75% of my bunprotime in the examples tab.

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#4

Some workbooks I’ve used in the past

There’s also this page that has drills of different types, but it’s sorted by Japanese school grade instead of N levels:

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#5

Thank you very much for your recommendations!

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