6 ms·

As someone who is fluent in Japanese, the thing is that this is not an example of a method that works well, it’s an example of a beginner coming up with an over

As someone who is fluent in Japanese, the thing is that this is not an example of a method that works well, it’s an example of a beginner coming up with an overwrought headcanon (while calling it “simple”, nonetheless!) that ultimately will hinder their understanding, as I will detail elsewhere. If this was a similar post about programming, it would not get upvoted here because more people would recognise it for what it is: a “Monads are Like Burritos” post from a well-meaning but misguided beginner.

kazinator 3mo ago
E.g: > not so lucky and got a "ru" ending? check what vowel before the "ru". it it's one of -aru, -oru, -uru, then it's also a godan verb. Wrong: 煽る (aoru) is ichidan: 煽った、煽りたい、煽らない、煽ろう、煽られる。。。
- EdiX 3mo ago
  煽る is a godan verb, consistent with your example conjugations (if it was ichidan it would be 煽た、煽たい, etc)
  - csande17 3mo ago
    I used to get these terms mixed up all the time because some textbooks use "Group 1" and "Group 2" to refer to these verbs, but Group 1 doesn't mean ichidan. For all that I'm not totally sold on this article's idea of "stems" and "suffixes", I think it does a good job of avoiding this pitfall and correctly explaining the groups.
    - kazinator 3mo ago
      Ichidan verbs end in "ru", but many verbs that end in "ru" are godan. Once and for all, I just have to remember that ichidan end in "ru" and drop the entire "ru" and replace it with the conjugative suffix; and so the previous kana stays the same (one column). The godan ones fracture the last kana, changing it into the four siblings in the same row (or else replace it with って or った). If we have a -ru verb and the -ru goes to -ri to make the stem, that indicates godan (帰る→帰り→帰ります); if it just drops to make the stem, godan (見る→見→見ます）. I have no need to tell which is which, other than discussing grammar with other gaijin. I would never remember that a verb is supposed to be godan, in order to then know how conjugate it; I already know how to conjugate it and so just for academics, I have to remember which pattern is classified as which conjugation. An important aspect of vocabulary that informs you about verbs is knowing the nominal: the noun-like stem. Like when you consider 帰る, you know from your vocabulary that there is no noun-like word "kae" that is just written 帰. You know that "homecoming" is not "kae" but "kaeri", 帰り. So from that alone you know instinctively which way it conjugates: らない、れない、りたい、った、って、ろう、。。。 And a big source of learning the stem is ... japanese polite speech with -masu. This is how children absorb what the stems are: hearing all the verbs in -masu form. For instance, I think that every single verb that ends in "-rimasu" in the polite form (other than just arimasu?) is a godan -ru word. Drop the masu and you have a -ri stem, which implies the word is -ru, and conjugates godan: -ranai, -renai, -ritai, -rō, -tta, -tte, ...
      - csande17 3mo ago
        > For instance, I think that every single verb that ends in "-rimasu" in the polite form (other than just arimasu?) is a godan -ru word. Not quite: https://jisho.org/search/%23words%20%23v1%20%3F*%E3%82%8A%E3%82%8B https://jisho.org/search/%23words%20%23v1%20%3F*%E3%82%8A%E3...
        kazinator 3mo ago
        Good catch: the -riru verbs, where the -ri isn't coming from the godan conjugation of ru, but is part of the stem before the -ru. None of these are ever other than ichidan? If we imagine a -riru verb that is godan, it would have to go to -ririmasu. That sounds like something only a ditzy weather girl called Ririko would say, for a gag. :) FWIF, the "#words #v5r ?*りる" search does come up two hits: The first one is 手を借りる, which is a classification error; it is a compound verb that conjugates exactly like 借りる by itself. The second one is a curiosity: ラリる -- to get high on drugs. Supposedly godan, so it does give us ラリります, etc. Wikipedia page on it with some etymology/origin notes: https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/ラリる https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/ラリる Well, apologies to Ririko there!
  - kazinator 3mo ago
    I can't remember which is which for more than five minutes! I don't have a problem actually conjugating and don't have any tricks for it. It comes with vocabulary. Once you have a vocabulary that contains enough verbs to hit all the cases, the rest just land in one of the cases by example. If you know 泳ぐ (oyogu) very well, then even though you don't use 仰ぐ (aogu) very much, you just conjugate it intuitively like oyogu. When you're speaking, there isn't enough time to go through a roster of rules.
- deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
- geraldwhen 3mo ago
  This is so obviously incorrect that I have to wonder if it was an AI response.
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
danabramov 3mo ago
How is this my headcanon when this is literally how it works linguistically? Please provide a counterexample.
- runarberg 3mo ago
  Linguistics are orthogonal to petagogy. Something can be sound linguistically but still an in optimal way to teach the same thing. If linguistics were all there was to language learning, we would all just get a grammar reference book and call it a day, but we all know that is a terrible way to learn a language. Personally, as a beginner/early intermediate learner, what I have found works is just to allow my brain to learn this over time by reading and understanding more an more sentences. I used Genki and am aware that it thought this badly. But it was in the 3rd chapter and by the time I reached the 6th chapter I had gotten an intuitive idea anyway (とている just sounded wrong and I couldn't explain why). And I wasn't doing much output anyway so it didn't matter that I maybe confused a couple of verb endings as I recited the 2nd writing exercise og the 5th chapter of my textbook.
  - danabramov 3mo ago
    "Headcanon" implies I made it up and it's plain incorrect. Now we seem to be litigating that it's correct within its scope but the pedagogical approach is unsound? I'm not saying that I wrote this article for everyone. I wrote it for me and people like me. Specifically, for people who appreciate the rigorous-and-ridiculous — like teaching from the linguistical perspective while using romaji. It's the same approach that my "Just JavaScript" course uses — it's 100% by the spec, but I'm using unconventional metaphors (like "wires" for variables instead of "boxes"). I take pride in making rigorous explanations approachable by slicing the explanation differently. This is not for everyone. But it's also not a reason to say this shouldn't be written.
    - runarberg 3mo ago
      I am not a native english speaker so perhaps I misunderstood what headcanon meant. But I took it to mean as expanded upon by GP, that you were a well meaning but misguided beginner and have some ideas about what works for language learners that is not expressed by language learners experts. My personal headcanon to verb conjugation is that you know them when you know them, the shorter the explanation the better, spend more time with examples then explanations, and maybe just learn one or two forms at a time. And when in trouble, find a conjugation chart (preferably at the back of your textbook; after the glossary). My main criticism of Genki was that they should have taught the short form first (before the -masu form; 食べない and 飲んだ before 食べません and 飲みました etc.).

kazinator 3mo ago

E.g: > not so lucky and got a "ru" ending? check what vowel before the "ru". it it's one of -aru, -oru, -uru, then it's also a godan verb. Wrong: 煽る (aoru) is ichidan: 煽った、煽りたい、煽らない、煽ろう、煽られる。。。

EdiX 3mo ago
煽る is a godan verb, consistent with your example conjugations (if it was ichidan it would be 煽た、煽たい, etc)
- csande17 3mo ago
  I used to get these terms mixed up all the time because some textbooks use "Group 1" and "Group 2" to refer to these verbs, but Group 1 doesn't mean ichidan. For all that I'm not totally sold on this article's idea of "stems" and "suffixes", I think it does a good job of avoiding this pitfall and correctly explaining the groups.
  - kazinator 3mo ago
    Ichidan verbs end in "ru", but many verbs that end in "ru" are godan. Once and for all, I just have to remember that ichidan end in "ru" and drop the entire "ru" and replace it with the conjugative suffix; and so the previous kana stays the same (one column). The godan ones fracture the last kana, changing it into the four siblings in the same row (or else replace it with って or った). If we have a -ru verb and the -ru goes to -ri to make the stem, that indicates godan (帰る→帰り→帰ります); if it just drops to make the stem, godan (見る→見→見ます）. I have no need to tell which is which, other than discussing grammar with other gaijin. I would never remember that a verb is supposed to be godan, in order to then know how conjugate it; I already know how to conjugate it and so just for academics, I have to remember which pattern is classified as which conjugation. An important aspect of vocabulary that informs you about verbs is knowing the nominal: the noun-like stem. Like when you consider 帰る, you know from your vocabulary that there is no noun-like word "kae" that is just written 帰. You know that "homecoming" is not "kae" but "kaeri", 帰り. So from that alone you know instinctively which way it conjugates: らない、れない、りたい、った、って、ろう、。。。 And a big source of learning the stem is ... japanese polite speech with -masu. This is how children absorb what the stems are: hearing all the verbs in -masu form. For instance, I think that every single verb that ends in "-rimasu" in the polite form (other than just arimasu?) is a godan -ru word. Drop the masu and you have a -ri stem, which implies the word is -ru, and conjugates godan: -ranai, -renai, -ritai, -rō, -tta, -tte, ...
    - csande17 3mo ago
      > For instance, I think that every single verb that ends in "-rimasu" in the polite form (other than just arimasu?) is a godan -ru word. Not quite: https://jisho.org/search/%23words%20%23v1%20%3F*%E3%82%8A%E3%82%8B https://jisho.org/search/%23words%20%23v1%20%3F*%E3%82%8A%E3...
      - kazinator 3mo ago
        Good catch: the -riru verbs, where the -ri isn't coming from the godan conjugation of ru, but is part of the stem before the -ru. None of these are ever other than ichidan? If we imagine a -riru verb that is godan, it would have to go to -ririmasu. That sounds like something only a ditzy weather girl called Ririko would say, for a gag. :) FWIF, the "#words #v5r ?*りる" search does come up two hits: The first one is 手を借りる, which is a classification error; it is a compound verb that conjugates exactly like 借りる by itself. The second one is a curiosity: ラリる -- to get high on drugs. Supposedly godan, so it does give us ラリります, etc. Wikipedia page on it with some etymology/origin notes: https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/ラリる https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/ラリる Well, apologies to Ririko there!
- kazinator 3mo ago
  I can't remember which is which for more than five minutes! I don't have a problem actually conjugating and don't have any tricks for it. It comes with vocabulary. Once you have a vocabulary that contains enough verbs to hit all the cases, the rest just land in one of the cases by example. If you know 泳ぐ (oyogu) very well, then even though you don't use 仰ぐ (aogu) very much, you just conjugate it intuitively like oyogu. When you're speaking, there isn't enough time to go through a roster of rules.
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
geraldwhen 3mo ago
This is so obviously incorrect that I have to wonder if it was an AI response.

deleted 3mo ago

[deleted]

danabramov 3mo ago

How is this my headcanon when this is literally how it works linguistically? Please provide a counterexample.

runarberg 3mo ago
Linguistics are orthogonal to petagogy. Something can be sound linguistically but still an in optimal way to teach the same thing. If linguistics were all there was to language learning, we would all just get a grammar reference book and call it a day, but we all know that is a terrible way to learn a language. Personally, as a beginner/early intermediate learner, what I have found works is just to allow my brain to learn this over time by reading and understanding more an more sentences. I used Genki and am aware that it thought this badly. But it was in the 3rd chapter and by the time I reached the 6th chapter I had gotten an intuitive idea anyway (とている just sounded wrong and I couldn't explain why). And I wasn't doing much output anyway so it didn't matter that I maybe confused a couple of verb endings as I recited the 2nd writing exercise og the 5th chapter of my textbook.
- danabramov 3mo ago
  "Headcanon" implies I made it up and it's plain incorrect. Now we seem to be litigating that it's correct within its scope but the pedagogical approach is unsound? I'm not saying that I wrote this article for everyone. I wrote it for me and people like me. Specifically, for people who appreciate the rigorous-and-ridiculous — like teaching from the linguistical perspective while using romaji. It's the same approach that my "Just JavaScript" course uses — it's 100% by the spec, but I'm using unconventional metaphors (like "wires" for variables instead of "boxes"). I take pride in making rigorous explanations approachable by slicing the explanation differently. This is not for everyone. But it's also not a reason to say this shouldn't be written.
  - runarberg 3mo ago
    I am not a native english speaker so perhaps I misunderstood what headcanon meant. But I took it to mean as expanded upon by GP, that you were a well meaning but misguided beginner and have some ideas about what works for language learners that is not expressed by language learners experts. My personal headcanon to verb conjugation is that you know them when you know them, the shorter the explanation the better, spend more time with examples then explanations, and maybe just learn one or two forms at a time. And when in trouble, find a conjugation chart (preferably at the back of your textbook; after the glossary). My main criticism of Genki was that they should have taught the short form first (before the -masu form; 食べない and 飲んだ before 食べません and 飲みました etc.).