Forming Complex Sentences

[misty flint]

I am still new to Japanese grammar and I'm now diving deep into particles to create more complex sentences. Google Translate keeps giving me different translations so I can't rely on it, therefore I'm asking here whether a certain sentence is saying what I want it to say.

The sentence I'm trying to make in Japanese is: "I went to the park by bus to play with my nice sister".
The sentence I made in Japanese is: わたしは公園にバスでやさしいあねと遊びに行った。

Is this correct? Is there a better way to form this?
Thank you!

[willow shadow]

Faq1

Also early output

and uhhh

Just immerse

(Trying to guess what Shiki is gonna say)

[timber abyss]

There's a few things here.

1. If you're still early into grammar, and early into Japanese, it's not recommended to be attempting to form sentences at this stage using grammar rules. The Refold Method is designed around creating a natural instinct for the language through mass input, and avoiding the grammar translation approach all together.

2. Google Translate and other machine translation services are completely unreliable for languages like Japanese and are not recommended. Not unless you have already reached a high level in the language and can tell where things are going wrong.

3. In general, these sorts of questions fall under FAQ1. I highly recommend going into #❓faq and reading about FAQ1 because it's a very important aspect of the server and language learning. We don't answer questions like "how do you say x" or "what does x mean" or "what is the difference between x and y" because we are all learners and it's possible to be misled or misinformed and getting the wrong idea about something in the language due to another learner's explanation.

Instead, we want to teach people to fish instead of just giving them the fish. Next time you have a question like this, ask about resources that would help you understand what you're having trouble with instead of asking for the answer directly.

If you have already been reading about particles, the best thing to do is to try to find those particles in your immersion to develop your understanding.

[willow shadow]

I was close

Oh yeah but in general for output (I’m probs not adding much) only say stuff you have heard in immersion

Or like close to it

then you’ll always be sure you’re saying something right

But you’re also not at the level where you should be worrying about output anyways

(Neither am I Kek)

[misty flint]

Ah, I see. Sorry about being in the wrong channel - I'm still finding my way through the server. 😅
Also, I understand that immersion is a much more reasonable method than "giving them the fish", however, I was just trying to see if I was using the correct particles, for now, so that when I go to immerse, I am, at least, getting a logical understanding of the sentence(s) I see. Again, sorry!

Also thank you, and Rita!

[timber abyss]

You weren't in the wrong channel. We just don't do what you're requesting in this server. But, since you know that particles are a weak point, your brain will be primed to look for that information in immersion to try to solve the puzzle. But that takes time. It's not a quick and easy answer that we can give you here. Like Rita said, using the correct particles and worrying about producing correct language isn't the goal at your stage. At your stage, the goal is to develop your comprehension in the language until these sorts of things come naturally.

[misty flint]

Mhm, I understand! I'll look into some beginner-level text and start digging in then. If you know anywhere or anything that contains this, online or not, I'd really appreciate it.
Once more, thank you!

[timber abyss]

Sure! I have a couple different recommendations in mind depending on where you are more precisely. What would you guess your vocab size is right now? How many immersion hours do you think you have?

[misty flint]

My vocabulary is very limited, which is really unfortunate. I admit I haven't learnt the "first 100 words" that people usually learn, barely knowing even the simplest things, however, I am hoping to start working on that on the weekend, as I had no time to during this week. I thought that by learning some basic grammar first, I could start applying it to words/nouns, but I guess that isn't pure immersion, right? So, in return, I technically do not have any significant hours of immersion.

[timber abyss]

I gotcha! So you are pretty early on in stage 1. You can update your role in #stage-selection-old

When it comes to increasing vocabulary, reading and using SRS like Anki for a bit of a boost is going to be the fast route. But, at your stage, your options are a little limited. You could try the Tadoku Readers. They are picture books meant for adult learners, created in a way to be understandable without lookups and getting things based on context in the pictures. I recommend starting with the 50 Lvl 0 stories pdf in this post: https://reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/s/9yjG4tEJAi

Another popular option is watching a tv show with Japanese subtitles. If you have a show from your past that you're familiar with (like an anime you have watched before), it will give you a boost in comprehension if you rewatch it now already knowing the plot.

[misty flint]

Alright! I have updated my roles.
I will check that out when I can and start immersing within it then. About TV shows, I genuinely struggle more with listening than reading, even in English and Portuguese (my second fluent language), well, sometimes, so I think I will try the Tadoku Readers first before doing some listening comprehension.

Sorry once more for asking the wrong questions at the beginning and thank you for the recommendations - I really appreciate that! You rock 😎 👍

[timber abyss]

Very cool! The new color looks good. 😎

That's understandable. Listening is the most difficult skill for pretty much everyone. But the only way to get better at it is to do it! So generally it's recommended to do both reading and listening at the same time, like with a tv show and subtitles, so that you get practice time in both skills.

For sure, try out the Tadoku Readers. But remember not to delay starting listening for too long either.

If you want to explore more resources for immersion content, we have a whole section under the #📌resource-info-old channel for various different media.

No worries! I look forward to seeing your progress in the server.

[misty flint]

Hahaha! Thanks! 😆
I see. Listening is still an important skill in any language. Even when socialising (which, nowadays, people struggle to do that). 😑

Anyway, I'll make sure to check #📌resource-info-old out for more immersion content and resources.

Thank you and I look forward to your help in the future! You're really nice! 😄

(I forgot to reply 🥲 )

[timber abyss]

Haha totally, no worries. I appreciate it!

[distant seal]

One of the advantages of input-first is that you'll naturally want to structure your thoughts around how people actually say things.

For example a textbook should teach you both 遊びに行く and 遊ぶために行く but it probably doesn't (and can't) give you a sense of why people sometimes choose the second instead of the first. I have a gut sense that バスで遊びに行く feels weird. I'm not sure if this is correct (natives have a much more accurate version of this sense) but it's real and it comes from input. I've never consciously studied it. Either バスに乗って遊びに行く or 遊ぶためにバスで行く feels better to me.

There's other stuff like how あね is a polite (ever so slightly formal) way to talk about your own sister to someone outside the family so やさしいあね is weird. Instead if you want to say you appreciate her hanging out with you that actually changes things around, maybe あねに　遊びに　さそわれて　もらって (getting as a favor invited by my sister to hang out) - that detail is awkward in English but it's natural in Japanese. あねにさそわれてもらって公園までバスに乗って遊びに行った is ultimately how I feel comfortable writing the idea.

The point I want to make here is that expressing even a simple idea in a normal complex sentence is likely to touch a lot of grammar concepts. You can (and if you have the opportunity should) try to use simple sentences to communicate earlier and worry about complex sentences later. Either way to build the foundation for output it's more important to listen and read than to translate. もらって doesn't have a good translation in English or Portuguese so translation won't make you practice it as much as you need to.

[misty flint]

Ah, alright! I see...
It's because I felt that by building a base in Japanese grammar, I could learn some vocabulary later and start forming sentences, simple or not. Of course, you don't get taught everything and sometimes the wrong thing so I will immerse, firstly using Shiki's recommendations, and start listening and reading more like you suggested for output foundation build. I am just trying not to repeat my learning process of the Portuguese language because it was through textbooks, which lack so much context, especially for sentence forming. Even though they were national textbooks, they still lacked explanations which sucked.

Also, about the rewrite of the sentence, I kind of understand it, but, because of lack of grammar and immersion, I don't fully understand. However, I will get there eventually. Right now I only know that turning verbs into their ~い steam allows them to be treated like nouns with particles that attach only to nouns like に. Of course, there would be a more better and natural way to say it despite having multiple ways of saying the same thing. Oh, and the "あね" part, I see and thank you for correcting me!

Thank you so much!

[tall wigeon]

did you mean さそってもらって? or just さそわれて on its own. sorry to kinda butt in lol, just asking in case there's anyone else like me who likes reading and thinking about other people's explanations.

[distant seal]

Woah, how is that...
Alright I do not know how I have glitched that - I do want the 受け身 in there but it doesn't look grammatical.
Shit. I need to read more.

(looking at massif.la)

Yeah, I'm just wrong

And like, severely so. I'm gonna targeted-mine about 20-30 examples of correct usage into SuperMemo, maybe some production cards.