Practice
“Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase. Just take the first step.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
Let’s take a step back and look at what you’ve learned so far.
You’ve learned present tense in です. That’s like saying “it is ____.”
Then, you learned how to ask questions. “Is it ____?”
Now, you’ve learned how to say “It is not ____.”
I think you can see where you’ll be going in the future (did “It was ___” and “It was not ____” come to mind?). As you go through the practice, think about what you learned in terms of a slightly larger picture – a picture that covers all the different tenses. All of them follow the same sort of pattern too, which means there’s actually very little new stuff to learn. です becomes じゃありません. じゃありません becomes something else. The pattern continues.
Sentences
But, right now you have two patterns plus the ability to make them into questions. Let’s look at some sentences that embody the concepts you’ve just learned.
Start by going through these sentences, repeating after the recording until you can say and read them all out loud. Just go through them one by one and take your time. Focus on pronouncing everything correctly, especially the じゃありません portion (since that’ll come up quite a bit!).
a ねこ じゃありません
a いぬ じゃありません
a じてんしゃ じゃありません
a りんご じゃありません
a みかん じゃありません
a しんぶん じゃありません
a さくらんぼ じゃありません
a もも じゃありません
a にほん じゃありません
a いぬ ですか？ ・ いいえ、いぬ じゃありません
a さる ですか？ ・ いいえ、さる じゃありません
a いぬ じゃありません。 ねこ です。
a もも じゃありません。 いちご です。
When you’re able to say and read all of the sentences, it’s time to learn the meanings of them. I imagine some of them (or a lot of them) you’ve already figured out. So the next step shouldn’t be too difficult.
Importing Sentences 3
Time to take the above sentences and learn their meanings. Import “Sentences 3″ into your Sentences Anki deck.
Here’s the file. Unzip it and then transfer it over by going to File>>Import while you have your Sentences Deck open in Anki.
When you’ve imported the deck, start the new sentences in your “TextFugu Sentences” Anki deck. In theory, you should be up to date on your reviews and Anki will be ready to give you your new cards. If you’re not up to date… well, make sure you study them more so you do stay caught up. Nothing worse than falling behind!
Radicals 2
Now it’s time to look at the Level 2 radicals. Why aren’t we doing kanji first, you ask? Perhaps some 1-stroke kanji? Well, the answer is because there’s only a single one-stroke kanji. So, we’re going to save kanji for a time when we can combine Level 1 and Level 2 radicals, and that time will be two chapters from now (unless you count the next chapter, which gives you some more background on learning kanji).
Anyways, you know the drill now – head on over to the Radicals Page and go through the Level 2 radicals. They’ll get you ready for the 1 and 2 stroke kanji, coming up soon! When you’ve done that, you’ll want to download the Radicals 2 Anki deck.
You’ll want to import this deck into your TextFugu Radicals deck (which you should have created when you imported the Level 1 radicals). More info on importing into Anki decks can be found here.
Before You Move On
Before you move on, you should be able to do the following things (and have done the following things):
- Make sure you can understand じゃありません (and be able to pronounce it).
- Make sure you can read all the sentences.
- Make sure you can say (out loud) the sentences.
- Import the Sentences 3 .anki file and the Sentences 3 .media folder into your “TextFugu Sentences” deck.
- Go through and study the sentences in Anki. Get your reviews done while you’re at it (and make sure you keep doing your reviews as well).
When you’re all done with everything, move on to the next chapter!