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 Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2008 7:40 pm
hi everyone!
i was wondering if any has any recommendations or suggestions as to what textbooks and/or workbooks one can use to study Japanese on one's own time. since i, myself don't have bunches of time to learn off the computer... i was wondering what textbooks, most preferably workbooks, one can use to study with. i know someone had posted about the Genki books, i have volume 1, but i was wondering is there others that are good and that i can carry around and bust out when i got the free time.
Arigato Gozaimasu!
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Posted: Sun Feb 03, 2008 6:20 pm
My college uses nakama 1 by Makino Hatasa. It seems alright. I haven't seen many. But I find this one good enough so far.
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Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2008 2:43 pm
I was also wondering about this. I bought Japanese for Dummies, but that book sucks. I realize I need more quality books. So I bought Essential Kanji. So, I know the kana, and I'm up to 49 Kanji right now. But I need a book to teach me grammar, sentence structure, verb conjugation, particles etc. I want to learn in kana and kanji, not romaji. Is Genki the book I'm looking for, or should I consider something else?
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Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 7:53 am
Nosada_the_Stealth I was also wondering about this. I bought Japanese for Dummies, but that book sucks. I realize I need more quality books. So I bought Essential Kanji. So, I know the kana, and I'm up to 49 Kanji right now. But I need a book to teach me grammar, sentence structure, verb conjugation, particles etc. I want to learn in kana and kanji, not romaji. Is Genki the book I'm looking for, or should I consider something else? Genki is DEFINETLY the best book to get/have! I use it for my college course now, but they are god none the less. It teaches the grammar and such in them.
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Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 3:08 pm
My university also uses the Nakama textbooks- they come with an audio CD or cassete and there is an available workbook/lab manual that you can get as well, which makes it a nice set to have. They teach grammar, vocab, and the writing systems. Nakama is also one of the only textbooks I've seen that actually shows what written hiragana/katakana/kanji are supposed to look like- they can be rather different than their type versions. I would suggest looking at what textbooks are available at your local library, and checking out what they have before buying anything because textbooks are really expensive. I would also advise against getting a kanji learning book, and instead get a textbook that teaches grammar along with the kanji- it helps with remembering them if you learn them along with grammar/vocab that relates to it.
I would caution about trying to go too far with self-study: there are just so many things you can't really learn on your own. Being taught by a native speaker just gives you information you don't find in textbooks.
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Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 3:47 pm
The book I have shows typed and handwritten kanji. So that's good. So far, I have had little trouble memorizing any of this stuff. However, I have only just begun. I will look into Genki and Nakama. There is a resturant in my city named Nakama. Anyway, for now, I have to teach myself. I can't afford to go to school, and I don't have transportation yet either.
Thanx for the info.
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Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2008 7:15 pm
Adventures in Japanese is the textbook my school uses. I've never used Genki so I can't make a compairison, but if you like having every new vocab word to come with a kindergarden-like picture, then you'll love this. XD
Adventures in Japanese also teaches grammar, spelling and even has ways to remember Kanji. But the book says by the end of the volumes it'll only teach a total of 347 Kanji, so you need to learn more on your own. :/
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Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 1:00 pm
Japanese for busy people. This book is good, well i say, i dont know the quality of genki, cause i cant buy it in the shops here.
But when you buy, buy the non-romanized, cause only number 1 is romanized and you might have problems with part two. I dont know how much harder it will be when part one is romanized. But ill notice soon enough.
But if you dont make this mistake like i did its a great book collection of 3, with a wide vocabulary, hiragana and katana written textes. from basic to high grammar. Kanji (dont know how many but enough to get you going ^_^). Things you can use in every situation. A cd, for pronouncation.
they also have separate workbooks, but you dont really need to buy them, because the headbook also has questions and all...
maybe something next to the lessonbooks is a dictionary, in our alphabet ^_^ and maybe if you think its better kanji cards to learn all the kanji
do your best ^_^
btw there is also a version called japanese for students. Who is more for the young people razz . But its also not available here in the netherlands.
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Posted: Thu Mar 13, 2008 4:29 pm
This is my first time ever attempting to learn Japanese and I would love a good recommendation for a book/textbook. I can afford it, so price is no problem for me.
Someone have an excellent recommendation that I can start off with. Because I read through your posts and I honestly don't know which book would be best for a brand new beginner to Japanese.
Please PM me with some recommendations for a book, along with the author(s) name(s) please!!! <33
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Posted: Fri Mar 14, 2008 12:27 am
My university uses Yookoso!. It was written by my professors, so I guess I'm getting taught by people who really know the book front to back, so it's an advantage.
I personally really like this book. Supposedly, we get taught more kanji than with other books. The format of the book usually goes like such:
- A bit of vocab for whatever the topic is
- A few exercises based on the vocab
- Dialogue
- Explanation of new grammar topics introduced in dialogue (I've never had a problem figuring them out on my own because the book is very thorough, but the professors do clarify even more)
- Exercises based on the grammar
[And rinse and repeat]
The vocab and dialogue do have audio, and it's accessible online for free. And yes, those are my professors speaking. xd
That's the textbook. The workbook has lots of listening, reading, and writing exercises, as well as my favorite portion of the book: kanji exercises! They go through stroke order, all the different readings, how the computer writes it vs. how you're supposed to write it, and a few compounded kanji words or phrases that have been introduced in the textbook. And they give you space to write out the kanji and stuff. :]
I bought mine off Amazon, so it's definitely buyable. I think you can either buy it in a bundle with the textbook and workbook, or buy each separately. [Personally, if you want to be cheap, you could technically survive with just the textbook, but I really don't know how you'd learn the kanji 'cause all the stuff I mentioned above is taught almost solely in the workbook]
Oh, and this is my first year of taking Japanese.
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Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2008 7:57 am
My University uses Nakama as well and www.manythings.org/japanese has kana and vocab quizes that follow the Nakama lessons. I also use 250 Essential Kanji for Everyday Use from Tokyo U.
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Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 11:52 pm
I've used nakama for my beginning, then Shin Nihongo no Kiso II and Nihon o Hanashi Sou for intermediate courses.
Nakama is great for starters but is a bit light on kanji (which is both blessing and curse heh.) Yookosou seems pretty nice too, I've used it as supplemental practice during the first year.
The second two were meant more for immersion courses where it's purposely difficult in an attempt to make you not drown, which most of my class seems to be lol.
Just note that if a book uses romaji past the first chapter or two where you're supposed to learn hiragana/katakana then you probably don't want to use said book. You certainly won't learn the language yourself if the book babies you.
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Posted: Wed May 28, 2008 10:06 am
My first textbook was actually Japanese For Busy People Volume 1. I used it for a while, and it was fairly good, nothing amazing though. I purchased Genki 1 this year, and it is GODLY BRILLANT. Japanese For Busy People is an okay book but isn't that great. Mostly because in the lessons you don't learn as much compared to the lesson in Genki. Other than those two texts, I really don't have much of a concrete opinion on any other teaxtbooks, besides what I have heard for friends and such.
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Posted: Fri May 30, 2008 4:03 pm
For reading and writing I use:
Let's Learn Hiragana
Let's Learn Katakana
Let's Learn Kanji (which contains 250 Kanji)
They're all work books, and I'm finding them very useful.
For speaking I use "Teach Yourself Japanese Conversation" which is okay.
And I have the Oxford Japanese Dictionary for beginners. =]
I also bought "Teach yourself Japanese reading and writing" or something, but I didn't like it very much.
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Posted: Wed Jun 04, 2008 12:08 pm
When I started learning little bit of Japanese my boyfriend, who had learn quite a bit, told me to work on my Hiragana and katagana first. It's no good to learn in romanji. So my first book was "Easy kana Workbook." I've almost mastered Hiragana so now I need to work on Katagana. I'm learning with other computer programs on the side of course.
It's a great book and cheap enough for almost everyone. Perfect!
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