Particle Review/Practice Resource Recommendations?

Japanese
#1

Basically what it says in the title - I’ve been learning Japanese for quite a while now and while there’s a lot of things I’ve improved in, I feel like half the mistakes I make during my bunpro reviews are using the wrong particle. Sometimes it just feels like I’m guessing whether I should use に or で in one sentence, or は vs が in the next.

It’s a weakness that I’ve had for a long time and I think I was hoping I would be able to just kinda start feeling the difference with enough time (the way I do in English), and while there’s a teeeeeeny tiny bit of that, for the most part I still feel quite frustrated by them.

Does anyone have recommendations for ways to refresh/practice particle use? I do have a few old genki textbooks I could dig out, but I don’t do super well with textbook studying these days so I’d like to hear what else folks do.

(I do WK and bunpro for studying, with some immersion in reading manga or watching anime as well as daily life because I’m teaching English here in Japan. But for some reason particles just do not stick well in my brain.)

5 Likes
#2

It’s not really a drilling exercise, but Cure Dolly’s video series was immensely helpful for me, explaining what the particles do and why you would pick one or the other.

I recommend all of the videos in this series, but Lesson 8 gets to the heart of your question.

2 Likes
#3

Normally when I fail a grammatical item in my reviewssa I’m reading the grammar explanation again, so I’ll understand the nuances better. Do you use the resources tab on grammar items?

1 Like
#4

I’ve watched one or two of her videos before, but I don’t know if I made it to this one. Thank you for the recommendation!

I go through the explanations/examples when I make a mistake in the grammar itself, but there are a lot of times where I get the grammar point but I wrote に instead of で or something similar, and those are what I’m hoping some review will help with.

3 Likes
#5

I mean do you use the resources of explanations outside of Bunpro? It’s the original feature of Bunpro if I can remember this right. Like the person before me was referring to CureDolly I think a diversity of explanations is always a good way to check for yourself if you are on the right path.

#6

I like Cure Dolly’s book too, especially since it dials back the gimmick.

If you want something thorough, with edge cases and everything, Fundamentals of Japanese Grammar by Yuki Johnson is terrific.

More than that, though, I wouldn’t recommend just a book. If I had to learn Japanese all over again, the main thing I would do differently is use the knowledge as much as I study it. Lately I’ve been doing a lot of writing on LangCorrect (I don’t work for them; heck, I’m not even a paying member, but it’s a really useful site). When I don’t have ideas for what to write, I’ll just take a grammar point from here, vocab and kanji I’m having a hard time with, and just make up sentences. In fact, here’s one I did yesterday.

I do want to normalize this. Every learner struggles with は vs. が and に vs. で. Books will help but you also want to practice doing so much input and output that muscle memory kicks in. Even if you’re mostly guessing, get corrected enough and you’ll guess less.

EDIT: Here’s a Kaname Naito video that I just happened to watch over this last weekend. It talks about an “invisible” particle to replace both は and が, but I felt like it helped in a different way.

4 Likes
#7

Ah, okay, sorry for the misunderstanding. While I have checked them once in a while, I can’t say I’ve used them very often. I might go try some of those links and see if they have anything helpful for particles, though, so thank you for the idea.

I’d actually rather have more than just a book! Like I said, textbooks haven’t been my go-to in recent years and I’d love to have something that lets me practice the particles specifically, but I don’t know that there’s really a resource for that.

I do have some output with my coworkers and students, but they’re often kind of hesitant to correct me (even though I’m sure I need it) :sweat:
I think I actually tried Langcorrect at one point? But I had a hard time with the journal-entry style. Maybe I’ll give it another shot, though, see if a second time is the charm.

And being able to use “muscle memory” for the particles is definitely the goal, it’s just that right now I feel like my guesses are doing more harm than good, since I either have to mark a grammar point incorrect (and slow my progress on studying that grammar) or backspace and re-type it (and hope I remember the correct particle the next time, which I often don’t). It’s a bit of a vicious cycle. I’m just hoping some review resources will help me put a little more thought into the guesses, and feel less like I’m tossing darts at a dartboard.

Thank you for the additional video! It’ll be good to have a few different explanations to try out.

2 Likes
#8

An additional thing that’s been helping me: after I get corrections on LangCorrect, I then plug my revised entry into OJAD and practice reciting each sentence out loud.

My theory—I haven’t proven it yet!—is that this’ll acclimate me to the sound and feeling of producing more natural Japanese. I still often stumble on the same issues myself, though, so the jury’s still out!

1 Like
#9

There have been some good suggestions already.

I just want to reiterate some comments and add others.

  • It is normal to not grasp particle usage fully at first. Normally when first coming across a particle explanation, it will be quite limited in scope or it is forced to put things into terms that make sense for an English speaker (or speakers of whatever the language of explanation is). The Cure Dolly video posted above is a good example of this. It over simplifies a lot, speaks in absolutes which are not necessarily true, and also uses her own made up terms which are “easier” instead of using recognised grammatical jargon.
  • Meaning: When a specific particle use doesn’t make sense it may be worth consulting a more comprehensive source than a beginner introduction. Reference books like the Dictionary of Japanese Grammar or even Wikipedia have more examples and depth than something like Genki; if you are at the right level then native dictionaries actually have fairly good explanations of particle usage.
  • Particle usage can appear idiomatic. To use an analogy in English, you ride in a car but on a bus. You also ride on a boat, even a large one, but perhaps you ride in a submarine? Or is it on? Similarly, particles can imply specific nuances however in some cases they are not radically different in meaning (consider と比べて・に比べて). The general “rules” for particle use can be quite generalised, so sometimes they may not appear to “make sense” if you have a single “rule” in mind.
  • These things take a lot of time. Some specific study may help bring the issue forward in your mind but sometimes these issues are just to do with time. In my experience, the vast majority of issues like this simply dissapear with experience. Sometimes they persist and need some active input though.

Good luck!

4 Likes
#10

I think it’s a problem that we all have.
Just googled some stuff and it seems like Imabi has a really great amount of info for each grammar point https://imabi.org/the-particle-ga-i　格助詞「が」①/

The articles is like 10 pages long and then it sends you to the next が articles with perhaps more nuances.
I’ll try reading it today and many taking notes or making close anki cards with sentences.

3 Likes
#11

Oh, I haven’t seen this site before - I just took a look through the が article and I think this could be a lot of help, with the different examples and use cases. Thank you!

Yeah, that’s kinda the goal with this - like I said, I’ve been at this for quite a while, and this has definitely been a persisting weakness. Obviously a bit of review isn’t going to magically make me understand them all perfectly, I just want to make sure I’m putting some thought into which particle I use when I’m doing reviews and not just throwing my hands up and guessing at random. Thanks for the additional suggestions!

#12

Another way I see for this is just writing.
You start writing whatever you want and when you don’t know for sure that you are 100% correct, you notice it, and then continue writing.

Then after you’ve finished writing, you go though that text and taking notes/underlining/mb just noticing your questions.

Then you jump to internet/youtube/LLM and trying to find out the correct way of saying what you wanted to say.

I love this approach of going from questions and problems in every field because it focuses my attention only on the things I need and struggle, I use it immediately in practice, and going as deep in each one as I need.

Then you write a new text before long and you make new errors and have other situations where you are not sure, and you repete the process.

I thought of making cards with mistakes as of a good idea for quite a long time, but now it sounds more like a wast of time and energy on reputable stuff. If digging is deep enough and writing happiness more then once a week, I fully believe it will just slow everything down, and forgetting something, then remembering while making knowledge even wider at the same time, will be much more engaging and effective.

#13

When I was first starting out, I found Japanese Made Easy to be a huge help in understanding how and when to use the various particles. It also really helped with internalizing some of the basic ‘counters’. At this point in your learning, however, some of what is covered in the JME podcast series may be too basic or repetitive for you, but if you don’t mind hearing/learning some things that you already know, it might still be beneficial for you…to hear how this guy (named ‘Greg’, and who appears to be a native English speaker)…to hear what a great job he does at explaining particle usage.

1 Like
#14

It might be, but it also might be a helpful back to the basics review. I’ll give it a look when I have a moment, thank you!

1 Like
#15

As you progress, more nuances appear for each particle, as previously mentioned in this comment by @JamesBunpro, it takes time.
The only site I have found that is good at teaching particles is:

There it can seen that each level N5-N4-N2 have particle practice, that is what I mean about the nuances becoming more fine tuned as you progress, so it is normal to feel confused. :sunny:

Even though, you have mentioned books are not something you’re looking for, these are excellent:

短期集中初級日本語文法総まとめ ポイント20 (Review practice with explanation)
イメージでわかる！ 日本語の助詞 (Very easy to understand, has pictures, has English translation of explanations)
くらべてわかる てにをは 日本語助詞ドリル 入門・初級コース (This is for beginner levels, with exercises and English explanations)
くらべてわかる てにをは日本語助詞辞典 (This is for higher levels, no exercises, and no English explanations)
A Dictionary of Japanese Particles and All About Particles (For those who prefer thorough explanations in English)

Best wishes!

2 Likes
#16

Everyone else has said it takes a lot of time, but I also think this is one of those things that gets better as you have more input exposure to natural Japanese. If you don’t have the ability to talk to someone in Japanese a lot, reading is a good way to pick up things like this if you do it regularly. I know it’s not as exact as knowing the reason behind it, but you eventually get the sound of it, if that makes sense. You’ll kind of intuitively be able to say, “this sounds right,” and that can be really helpful, too. It can just be an extra way to reinforce what you’re learning, but honestly you won’t get this right all the time, especially at the beginning.

1 Like
#17

I’m a bit perplexed how to understand you using Bunpro. So you do regular reviews for grammar points and when you answer particle questions wrong you also click wrong, right?

#18

Ah, what I was referring to with this is when I get the “grammar” correct - i.e. I remember the word/conjugation that a question is asking me for - but I answer with the wrong particle, such as a に instead of a で, and so I get the review itself wrong.

Obviously that leaves me with the options of either accepting the “incorrect” marking and reviewing the grammar point again at a shorter interval, which is frustrating when I feel like I know the new grammar itself and am just making mistakes with the particles, or backspacing and marking it correct, which I think hurts my practice because I wind up just guessing on particles. (Also, I prefer not to backspace and correct because it feels like a poor review habit, but again it gets frustrating to see the same grammar again and again when the mistake lies in remembering the particle to go with it.)

And I do appreciate the encouragement everyone is offering, but part of the reason I’m frustrated and trying to review these is because I’m not new to studying Japanese and I do hear it on a daily basis, but I’m still having trouble with particles. I figured going back to the basics a bit might help me to think a little bit more about how they’re working in different sentences/grammar points. So thanks again for all the resources, folks!

#19

I totally get it, you are also living in Japan but maybe you shouldn’t stress yourself about that fact (also you have a 92 on your profile :sunglasses:). What you doing here is formal study, so it’s doesn’t represent your language capabilities in real life. I’d say, click the fail and do the review more often, the repetition is (part of) the practice.

1 Like