Sentence Mining: How to Learn Japanese in Context

But this approach has a lot of problems. First, it’s very easy to study too much with flashcard systems and find yourself drowning in reviews. People can spend up to an hour a day clearing their reviews. Visit any language learning forum and you’ll find years-long threads on managing review backlog.

Second, it doesn’t account for context.

A single word often doesn’t have a single meaning. This is especially true of verbs. Tae Kim gives a great example with the verb 乗る (noru; to ride). The use of 乗る is straightforward in a sentence like 電車に乗る (densha ni noru – ride the train). But it has many other uses, like in 話に乗る (hanashi ni noru; jump at the chance) or 調子に乗る (choushi ni noru; to get excited, to act cocky).

取る (toru) is another good example. Jisho lists 17 separate English meanings for this verb depending on context. Japanese dictionary Goo has its own entry broken down into 13 separate categories. Sure, you can 取る an object, like a salt shaker. But you can also grow old (年を取る; toshi o toru) and take something the wrong way (悪く取る; waruku toru).

Sentence mining: learning usage, co-locations, and more

How do you get a handle on all these diverse meanings and usages of a word?

One popular tactic is to abandon studying individual words. Instead, you study the words in the context of sentences.

In other words, you wouldn’t study 取る on its own. You’d drill it in a sentence such as その本を取ってみてください (sono hon o totte mite kudasai; check that book out) or 中立の立場を取る (chuuritsu no tachiba o toru; take a neutral stance).

Language learners refer to this practice of finding and drilling sentences as sentence mining. The goal is to find useful sentences and phrases – usually short – that help solidify the meaning of a word as someone might use it in the real world.

Start sentence mining without mining

Where do you find sentences, though? Especially when you’re just starting out?

If you’re just learning a language, the best way to start is with a good textbook or a language-learning app. My personal preference is to use learning apps that pair sentence drills with solid explanatory texts breaking down grammar and cultural points.

Here are my two favorites these days. Note: These are affiliate links – UJ earns a commission if you make a purchase. However, these are also apps that I use in my own language learning and would recommend regardless of incentive.

Also, my screenshots below are from the Korean programs for each app, as that’s the language I’m currently studying. Both apps also offer full programs for Japanese study.

FluentU. I’ve said before that a great way to learn is through native materials – content produced for native speakers. But most native materials are inaccessible until you’ve reached a certain level of fluency.

FluentU helps bridge that gap. They’ve curated an extensive collection of YouTube videos and ranked them by difficulty. Then, they’ve added in translations, language notes, and even a flashcard system to help you learn sentence by sentence.

FluentU keeps you engaged by exposing you to content that may be the reason you wanted to learn a language in the first place. Plus, since it’s all video content, it pairs listening with reading. This is a hallmark of the listening-reading method that I’ve discussed elsewhere.

Rocket Languages. Rocket is my favorite way to get in on the ground floor of a language. They have in-depth explainers at the start of each unit where native speakers discuss the unit’s grammatical points in-depth. The rest of the units are chock full of sentences along with functions to practice listening, speaking, reading, and recall.

One thing I like about Rocket Languages is that it’s free-form. You can hop back and forth between lessons and review previous lessons easily. This is great for an ADHD brain like me. It lets me hop around and learn a little bit of various grammatical concepts – e.g., present tense vs. past tense – simultaneously.

Advanced sentence mining

At some point, you’ll want to ditch the training wheels and tackle native materials head-on. When that time comes, you can do your own sentence mining. Copy or write down sentences or phrases that you find interesting or useful. Add them to an SRS deck like Anki or Memrise and practice a few every day. Or, just keep them in a notebook and review them when you have a spare 10 minutes.

One word of warning here. You’ll want to select sentences (or even sections of sentences) that are relatively short. Alternatively, copy a section of text and bold the portion that particularly interests you. Long sentences will quickly become a chore to review regularly.

At some point – e.g., when you’re watching shows or reading novels and understanding over 80% of what you ingest – I’d say ditch sentence mining entirely. At that point, you’re approaching fluency. Mass exposure and repetition can replace sentence mining as your primary learning strategy.

Learning another language should be fun! But rote memorizing bits of information quickly becomes painful and boring. With sentence mining, you can learn new words and grammatical concepts the same way they’re used in the real world.