NIHONGOCENTRAL | Sentence Difficulty

Sentence Difficulty

I have seen this issue brought up on several forums, sometimes directly, other times indirectly. In my experience, sentence difficulty is an issue commonly overlooked by many people. However, I have determined that choosing sentences that are the correct difficultly for the learner’s current level has a very big effect the effectiveness of the Sentence Method.

The Basic Rules:
1. Sentences should not be too easy, because you will not be learning.
2. Sentences MUST not be very difficult, because they take too long to review/learn.

Determining Difficulty

In order to determine the difficulty of a new sentence you must count the number unknowns corresponding to unfamiliar grammar, new vocabulary, never before seen kanji, and unknown kanji-compounds. For example, if a sentence has (3) unfamiliar words, each using (1) unfamiliar kanji-compound, the sentence has a total of (6) unknowns.

Optimal Difficulty

The optimal difficulty for any given level is a (2) unknowns. However, any sentence that falls within the (1-3) range is also acceptable. In my experience, sentences that are too difficult are worse than easy sentences because they tend to take so long to learn & review that I tend to lose interest.

Also, notice how the optimal difficulty is relative. This means that sentences that have too many unknowns now, will have less unknowns in the future and become optimal for the Sentence Method.

Logic, Reasoning, and Mathematics

I have been playing around with a way to show how much longer difficult sentences take to learn versus optimal sentences. I have experimented to some extent and have concluded that it takes about 3 times longer to learn a sentence that has (6) unknowns, as apposed to 3 sentences with (2) unknowns each. The following formula seems to be the most accurate in this regard.

Example 1: Three sentences, each containing (1) unfamiliar word, and (1) unfamiliar kanji-compound.
Difficulty: (2*2)+(2*2)+(2*2)=12x

Example 2: One sentence, containing (3) unfamiliar words, and (3) unfamiliar kanji-compounds.
Difficulty: (6*6)=36x

(‘x’ equals average speed of learning, depends on each person, their mental state, motivation, etc.)