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Yeah, I kinda think “grammar nazi” gets thrown around way too easily these days.
And yeah, は/が is where he completely loses track of what he’s trying to talk about. は is the topic marker – it marks the topic of the sentence, which may or may not be the subject. が marks the subject, always. They’re not in any way the same thing.
Hi Yann,
“grammar nazi” is just an English expression that means very strict about grammar. Don’t take it too literal. It wasn’t an accusation about your political views. As you go through the lessons you will see the term “grammar nazi” used often by Koichi.Honestly, the “particle” issue confused me for a moment, as well…but even the Wikipedia page has “to” listed as a particle, and I learned that as a preposition when I was in school, so…
It’s not like it’s a huge deal. I mean, Japanese grammar and English grammar don’t exactly jive together without fighting over what words are what parts of speech, much less with worrying over whether ‘is’ is a tense modifier, a verb, a particle, or a pan-galactic gargle blaster.
From japanese.about.com – “Roughly speaking, “wa” is a topic marker, and “ga” is a subject marker. The topic is often the same as the subject, but not necessarily.”
I don’t see how Koichi’s definition of wa and ga are really *that* much different. You shouldn’t have to know many English grammatical terms to learn another language, as long as you have an informal description to help you understand.
Also, you’re obviously not happy with a few minor mistakes in an informal textbook, so I’d ask for a refund now because it’s not going to get any better.
I really like the course so far, I got myself a life membership and working my way through everything… But I gotta say, if I came across this one before signing up, I might have reconsidered:
I thought the exact same thing when I came across that…. :\
Does it get any better, Yann?
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This reply was modified 11 years, 2 months ago by
lromao.
Just out of curiosity, to the people who aren’t happy, what were you expecting before you paid for a membership?
I can see at least three different examples of what kind of product you’re paying for being made clear on the TextFugu homepage:
1) “TextFugu focuses on the problems that self-learners have, which means a different way of explaining concepts ”
2) “One issue with some language textbooks is that they feel like they’re written for pro linguists. Why’s that? Well, because they were written by pro linguists. TextFugu takes a very different approach. The writing style is very conversational, and lessons focus on simplicity in explanation. If you love fancy grammar terms, TextFugu will not be for you. If you like simple, TextFugu may be worth trying.”
3) ”Warning: TextFugu Is Not For Everyone!
All that being said, TextFugu’s not for everyone. That would be a silly thing to claim! No single Japanese resource is the “best” resource for every single person. TextFugu, in particular, was made for a very specific type of person. The best way to figure out if this is you? “
I am in no way saying TextFugu is perfect or doesn’t have it’s flaws, as it has many flaws. Anyone that has used it long enough knows what I’m talking about. However, I don’t see the logic in complaining about the way things are explained when he does give you a good idea of his teaching style beforehand.
lromao,
I’m afraid it doesn’t. After going through a few more grammar lessons, it becomes clear that Koichi just doesn’t know even the most basic stuff when it comes to English grammar. It might be a cultural thing though, because most people on here seem to think I’m a “grammar nazi” but where I’m from most people would be like “WTF?”…
That being said, there are a lot of other good things… I’m at season 5 now and I’m gonna finnish it. But I’ve been supplementing the grammar stuff with Tae Kim as well as a book called “A dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar” which is pretty much the opposite of textfugu… The grammar is spot on, but it’s a super dry read, better used as a reference.
Don’t get me wrong kanjiman8, I’m not saying Textfugu is a bad resource, but there’s a difference between simplifying and being plain wrong. You can explain things in a simple, informal, non-technical way and still be accurate.
But it might be really a cultural thing, as Yann puts it (I’m also not a native English speaker).
Yes, you two are right. It must be a cultural thing. Like many others here on TextFugu, English is my native language. If I had to guess, the bulk of TextFugu members are native English speakers too, which would explain the teaching style Koichi has chosen.
I do see the point you two are raising though. There is nothing wrong with wanting to learn the true explanation of a grammar point, but I don’t think koichi’s explanations are bad enough that it warrants them avoidable. From his POV, he has to explain things as simply as possible for people who don’t understand grammar. So unfortunately, this does cause issues with people who do know English grammar better than the ones who don’t.
Despite being a native English speaker, I’m sure you two know more about English grammar than I do. I can only explain what the basics are such as a noun, an adjective, verb, adverb, etc. I couldn’t tell you what an article, preposition, conjunction, interjection, or pronoun are without having to look it up. Any grammar meanings beyond the basics, either weren’t taught at my school or I forgot what they were years ago. That’s not to say I don’t want to ever learn grammar properly, it just hasn’t been a priority. I would like to have a better understanding of grammar so I can make full use of more advanced Japanese learning resources.
I’ve only heard good things about the Dictionary of Japanese grammar series, so it’s good there are books out there which are more suited to your learning styles.
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This reply was modified 11 years, 2 months ago by
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