1. Are mini-lessons useful to you or no (please be honest!)?

2. Do you read the mini-lesson posts (please be honest!)?

3. Are they too hard? Too easy to be useful?

4. Should I do these less frequently?

5. Is certain content better for mini lessons in your opinion? What’s the best kind of mini-lesson content? What’s the worst?

6. Are you just waiting for others to respond to see the answers? Are you answering on your own but not posting up?

7. Anything else that might be helpful? :D

Anyhoo, just want to make sure time’s being spent well – more than happy to do not as many of these (as I have been the last two weeks) if there needs to be more time between them (definitely have plenty of other things to do!), but would love to hear your thoughts on it too! Thanks thanks!

2. Do you read the mini-lesson posts (please be honest!)?
Yes, always

3. Are they too hard? Too easy to be useful?
Sometimes too easy.

4. Should I do these less frequently?
Whatever your workload can handle. (or have people to support you and help you out)

5. Is certain content better for mini lessons in your opinion? What’s the best kind of mini-lesson content? What’s the worst?
What is sometimes difficult is understanding without context. In Japanese, context is usually crucial to understanding what is being said. I think a lot of Japanese is understanding what is not said too.

6. Are you just waiting for others to respond to see the answers? Are you answering on your own but not posting up?
I always try to understand them on my own at the very least. Occasionally I will post.

7. Anything else that might be helpful? :D
hmmmmm

2. Do you read the mini-lesson posts (please be honest!)?
I do.

3. Are they too hard? Too easy to be useful?
They are perfect for my level, I know parts of them but not everything, everytime.

4. Should I do these less frequently?
Maybe you should make a bigger sentence (multiple sentence) and make it a Weekly thing Monday to Monday

5. Is certain content better for mini lessons in your opinion? What’s the best kind of mini-lesson content? What’s the worst?
I’ll go with the last poster, since context is important, lot of the sentence are thougher because of that. Maybe what I said for 4. would help that?

6. Are you just waiting for others to respond to see the answers? Are you answering on your own but not posting up?
I’m answering(trying) without posting and without reading others.

7. Anything else that might be helpful? :D
Don’t know, an anki sentence practice deck after each season? Like multiple sentence that incorporate the kanji and grammar rules that we saw in the season. You make( or anybody really) like 50-100 sentences to review…you could even just take the sentence you use for the practice sheet or chapter example. The good thing in this deck is that you could mix the sentence grammar point. When you pratice and it’s all the same point one after the other, it’s kind of obvious and easy to see the pattern without thinking.
In fact I’ll probably do this when I’m done with the ultimate lists and focussing or grammar and sentences, but it won’t be before like 2 months

2. I always read them.

3. A few have been too easy for me. I wouldn’t really class anything as “too hard”, even though there was one tricky one that I got completely wrong, hard is good because I will learn more. We have a lot of people of different levels here and I think it’s important to cover a range of difficulty that can satisfy everyone. Even the easier ones make for good practice, so I’ve been happy with the mix.

4. As frequently as you can manage without it interfering with work on the core lessons. I enjoyed seeing new ones every day, but if that’s too much for you then it would be better to slow down.

5. Dialogue taken from real Japanese media is definitely my preference. This is something that a lot of other textbooks don’t cover much, and it can be a big jump from textbook Japanese to ‘real’ Japanese. I’d love content that contains colloquial and casual Japanese especially, it could even come from manga perhaps.

I was quite a lot less enthusiastic about the last mini lesson (the の particle) because it was mostly the kind of simple example sentences that are found in standard beginner textbooks.

6. I always answer on my own before reading any answers. However I do go through the other answers before I post my own and if the sentences are fairly basic and people have already given the same answers as me (and I know them to be correct), then I may not bother writing a response myself. I tend to respond if my answers differ from those already given, or if I feel that I can explain or clarify something that perhaps others reading may not have understood.

In other words, if I don’t feel that I can add anything further of value then I may not post. But I will still ALWAYS read the lessons and answer them in my head.

1. Are mini-lessons useful to you or no (please be honest!)?
The mini-lessons are very useful to me, because they use good sentences with just the right grammar and questions. It’s difficult for me to do it on my own, because I wouldn’t know which sentences are good (daily Japanese) and which aren’t.

2. Do you read the mini-lesson posts (please be honest!)?
I check almost everyday to see if one has been [ANSWERED] or if there’s a new one :)

3. Are they too hard? Too easy to be useful?
Well with Rikaichan they’re doable for me. I don’t really mind the difficulty, because even if I don’t understand something I can learn from the answers of others.

4. Should I do these less frequently?
Well, if you’re having a hard time doing them, then I guess so :(
But please don’t stop doing them, because I (and I’m sure others too) like them a lot!
Once a week might be a bit slow unless you post a lot of sentences (A kind of mini story). Maybe 2 or 3 times a week if it’s too much to do everyday?

5. Is certain content better for mini lessons in your opinion? What’s the best kind of mini-lesson content? What’s the worst?
I wouldn’t really know..

6. Are you just waiting for others to respond to see the answers? Are you answering on your own but not posting up?
*ahem* Seeing as this is probably my first time posting on the forum… I do try to answer them on my own before reading the answers :) Even if I don’t understand the grammar, I will at least look up the vocab and see if I can make a construction with it in my head that would make sense.

7. Anything else that might be helpful? :D
Textfugu is awesome *heart*

Did you find mine too hard?

2. Do you read the mini-lesson posts (please be honest!)?
Yes I always check if I can answer them

3. Are they too hard? Too easy to be useful?
The questions difficulty depends on the subject, and if it is Q number 1 or 7. I think the level is fine, but I can rarely get the last Q right.

4. Should I do these less frequently?
1-2 per week seems fine to me, 1 per day might be a little too much.

5. Is certain content better for mini lessons in your opinion? What’s the best kind of mini-lesson content? What’s the worst?
I would prefer Japanese from newer movies/radio or w/e. As long as it is things where the grammar is correct, and there isn’t too much slang

6. Are you just waiting for others to respond to see the answers? Are you answering on your own but not posting up?
Posting when I get time/see the thread has gone up.

@Missing: For me your mini lesson was way too hard :/

Most of the kanji are beyond the ones that I learned with TextFugu or some of the more common one’s that I’ve learned on my own. I don’t really want it all converted to hiragana though, and I also don’t want to use rikaikun all the time, since it gives me nearly every possible definition when all I need is a little reminder about the reading. Perhaps the html tag could be used to include the reading, so that it will pop up if I hover over the kanji?

I read all of the posts and posted to the first few, but after missing one day, it was harder to start posting again. Perhaps the frequency should be reduced to 2-3 days to give more time to answer even if you don’t check every day. But more important is consistent updates, because after a few updates were delayed, I stopped checking as often, and was only checking to read the questions, think about the answers to myself, and compare to the answers at the end.

Examples taken from some real source are best. Drama dialogue is good; Manga dialogue, Novel snippets, or anything else from a practical source. I like going through the sequence of lines like we did with Good Life, since it built the context which is so important to understanding Japanese.