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+--- Thread: textbooks (/thread-57.html)
textbooks - Mighty_Matt - 2007-05-12
chamcham Wrote:Completely forgot about this one.I have also read this book. Unfortunately I read it at the beginning of last year, when I was only a few weeks into starting to learn Japanese. While I found the book interesting, most of it was beyond my ability to take on board as I had nothing to attach it to. I still have it in my book case and plan to read it again later when I've got some more Japanese under my belt.
Making Sense of Japanese: What the Textbooks Don't Tell You (Power Japanese Series) (Kodansha's Children's Classics) by Jay Rubin
This is one of those books that completely changes your perspective on everything
after you read it.
Definitely a must-read.
textbooks - Reikon - 2007-06-04
For beginning textbooks, I've tried Elementary Japanese and the Genki series.
The Elementary Japanese series provides better grammar explanations and more examples than Genki, but it also uses the plain forms much less. It acknowledges the usage of the plain form, but it doesn't provide as much detail as Genki.
Elementary Japanese also has the kanji in the lesson (Genki has kanji in the back) and only uses the kanji you already learned. Unlike Genki, Elementary Japanese only provides kanji compounds and readings of words you already know. It often goes reviews older kanji when you learn new readings for it.
The appendices in Elementary Japanese are also better than Genki IMO (EJ has 9 appendices while Genki has 5). It provides a listing of grammar points in each lesson, kanji by lesson, J-->E and E-->J dictionaries in a easy to read table (Genki's isn't spaced uniformly, making it hard to read at times).
As you can probably tell, I liked Elementary Japanese more than Genki, but I wish it had more explanations of casual Japanese. Beginners should definitely consider it though.
textbooks - vosmiura - 2007-06-04
I think Genki is really designed to be taught by a teacher rather than self-learning. I used it only briefly; bought it for use at class at my workplace. The teacher had to leave soon after we started, so its been wasted ever since.
I found the ordering of things in the book to be weird. You Q&A on things that you haven't even learned yet, only to find them later in the chapter. Thats why if you don't have the guidance of a teacher it is confusing.
textbooks - taijuando - 2007-06-17
it's good to use david hallgren's japanese page to review vocabulary in genki....does anyone have any other genki related websites....btw I just started using a tutor...pretty good so far....I found out I knew more than I thought...but have a long way to go
textbooks - jokoto - 2007-06-18
taijuando Wrote:it's good to use david hallgren's japanese page to review vocabulary in genki....does anyone have any other genki related websites....btw I just started using a tutor...pretty good so far....I found out I knew more than I thought...but have a long way to goYou'll finde plenty of additional websites with genki material on http://www.genki-online.com There are also lists of vocabulary which you can use in your favorite vocabulary program.
textbooks - TGWeaver - 2007-09-17
i know this is probably old news, but here is a link to the audio files for an integrated approach to intermediate japanese:
https://www3.nd.edu/~lrc/IntermediateJapanese/index.html#CD1
-tom
textbooks - jondesousa - 2007-09-17
TGWeaver Wrote:i know this is probably old news, but here is a link to the audio files for an integrated approach to intermediate japanese:Thanks for the link, Tom. I hadn't seen it before and I hate the thought of spending $60.00 to get them. Much obliged.
https://www3.nd.edu/~lrc/IntermediateJapanese/index.html#CD1
-tom
Jon
textbooks - Laura - 2007-09-17
Another vote for Making Sense of Japanese: What the Textbooks Don't Tell You by Jay Rubin. Very funny, smart and helpful. Worth it for the riff on the Johnny Carson Hodo alone!
textbooks - rich_f - 2008-07-24
*Raises thread from the dead*
I didn't really know where else to put this... so I figured I'd put it here.
For a long time I hadn't been too big on using Genki as a sentence-mining source, because frankly, there wasn't much there. The exercises required you to figure it out on your own (a no-no in certain linguistic circles), and it's just a bother to do that when there are better sources. It *does* do a good job of explaining grammar... it just isn't big on examples.
Well, I've changed my mind now-- I had one of those "Doh!" moments, and just picked up the answer key for Genki I and II for $15 from the Japan Shop. Both books, one answer key. Don't bother with the teachers' guide- it's all in Japanese, and won't help you. (And is considerably more.)
Looks like the answer key is going to be nice source of quick and dirty sentences. I'm going to blitz through some of it as a review of stuff I've forgotten I learned in the first place. (It's been 3-4 years since I did Genki II, then took a 3 year break, so I'm feeling rusty.)
textbooks - Rina - 2009-01-04
I bought Genki I and the workbook from Amazon UK, and it shoud arrive between the 5th and 9th ot January, yay. Nevertheless, I've been using a PDF version of Genki, and I'm now on chapter 3, and so far, I'm loving it. I know that after the whole genki series I should get another book that is like its 3rd version.
Should I buy any more book? Like a kanji dictionary or just a kanji book. I have "Easy Kanji" by Fujihiko Kaneda, but I don't like it very much. I wanted a book with an index divided for example by:
Animals
Fruits
Verbs
etc.
I think its easier to learn by learning the vocabulary of a "group" all at the same time.
Is there any book for this? Or do you recomend any? (even if its not the way I want to)
Luckily I'll be entering college in late september, I'll be majoring in mandarin chinese and minoring in japanese, and I want to learn as much japanese as possible to dedicate myself to chinese and to the other subjects (politics, culture, geography, history, etc, of course I will continue to study japanese, obviously)
Thanks.
textbooks - Yufina - 2009-01-05
Best textbook I know is Minna no nihongo. It is better than Genki series. (I own both). It have a lot more supplementary books than genki..
Here is list of books that I recommend to everyone:
All books are something like JLPT 3 (or maybe 4) level...
Complete Master JLPT 3 Kyuu Grammar
Nihongo Challenge JLPT 3 Grammar and Reading Practice
Nihongo Challenge JLPT 3 Vocabulary and Kanji
Japanese Kanji Flashcards, Vol. 1, 3rd Ed. (JLPT 4 & 3)
Understanding Basic Japanese Grammar
Find out your weak points! Japanese Proficiency Mock Test Level3 (with a CD)
どんなときどう使う日本語表現文型200 - 200 Essential Japanese Expressions
A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar
A Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese Grammar
A Dictionary of Advanced Japanese Grammar
And here is list of Minna no Nihongo supplementary books that I recommend..
Minna no Nihongo I Workbook - Hyoujun Mondaishu
Minna no Nihongo I Topics 25
Minna no Nihongo I Bunkei Renshuchou - Grammatical Patterns Exercise Book
Minna no Nihongo I Listening Task 25 - choukai tasuku 25 with Two CDs
Minna no Nihongo Kanji I (English Edition)
Minna no Nihongo II Workbook - Hyoujun Mondaishu
Minna no Nihongo II Topics 25
Minna no Nihongo II Bunkei Renshuuchou Grammatical Patterns Exercise Book
Minna no Nihongo II Listening Task 25 - choukai tasuku 25 with Three CDs
Minna no Nihongo Kanji II (English Edition)
textbooks - Tobberoth - 2009-01-05
Yufinas recommendations are great!
I've already said my share on Minna no Nihongo: If you want to learn functional important Japanese (at least for living in Japan), it's completely unbeatable. Amazing series for beginners.
A dictionary of YYY Japanese Grammar: REALLY good. I only own the advanced one but I'm thinking about buying the other ones just to have them all. These books are pretty much amazing. TONS of high level example sentences, great explanations, detailed exceptions, synonym lists... If you want a good book to study ANY grammar, that's the one you should buy.
Other than that, the Kanzen master books have really good example sentences if you're studying for 1kyuu and 2kyuu of the JLPT.
textbooks - Rina - 2009-01-05
Thank you so much for the suggestions.
I will not buy Minna no nihongo because I will use it in College next year, a printed version, not the book, I know I will use another books, but the main one is Minna no Nihongo.
Well, I'm studying Genki 1 now, and I think that I'll buy that 3 grammar dictionary series when I finish it, it all depends on Amazon UK.
And do you know any good books for Kanji? I want to study kanji in context, and as soon as my grammar starts having more foundations, I want to learn more meanings of the kanji I already and will know.
One more thing, I'm aiming to study 2/3 hours a day, do you think I can finish both Genki series until September?
Once again, thank you for your responses. I'm really gratefull and will do some reseach on all those books.
textbooks - mentat_kgs - 2009-01-05
Are you doing self study? Are you aware of the AJATT discussions?
Do you know http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/about ?
I don't want to start an offtopic discussion here, but just point it out that not only you can learn the kanji and japanese without textbooks as it might be more efficient.
textbooks - Rina - 2009-01-05
mentat_kgs Wrote:Are you doing self study? Are you aware of the AJATT discussions?Yes, I'm self-studying, and I do know AJATT. I don't think however, that studying all the kanji at once would be the best for me. I try, whenever I remember, to say things in japanese, like colors, some animals, some food, some simple sentences, I listen to Jpop and will watch more dramas.
Do you know http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/about ?
I don't want to start an offtopic discussion here, but just point it out that not only you can learn the kanji and japanese without textbooks as it might be more efficient.
But are you saying that I could learn Kanji faster and more efficiently by doing what Khatzumoto does? How come? I don't have anything but the books and internet to learn kanji. I still haven't really figured out how to use this website (Kanji Koohii), but I'm ought to it.
Thanks. Obrigado.
textbooks - mentat_kgs - 2009-01-05
Oi Carolina! Percebi agora q vc e' de portugal!
Yes, I'm suggesting that. Katzumoto's ideas are very sound. Many people in this forum enjoy them. There is even an specific thread about it, and it is huge.
AJATT is not something new. Katz just applied old ideas to the study of japanese.
Check lingosteve's videos:
http://www.youtube.com/user/lingosteve
textbooks - Tobberoth - 2009-01-05
Learning kanji in context is very very slow and error prone. I suggest you finish RtK1 first so you have a solid foundation. If you put in 2 hours a day, you can easily finish RtK1 within 3 months. After that, you will very rarely run into unknown kanji no matter how advanced the texts are, so you'll always know the kanji of the words you're learning. It's a great advantage.
textbooks - Rina - 2009-01-05
Tobberoth Wrote:Learning kanji in context is very very slow and error prone. I suggest you finish RtK1 first so you have a solid foundation. If you put in 2 hours a day, you can easily finish RtK1 within 3 months. After that, you will very rarely run into unknown kanji no matter how advanced the texts are, so you'll always know the kanji of the words you're learning. It's a great advantage.Whoa, thanks. Sounds really good to me. However I still don't understand how it works, I mean, will I be able to write the kanji? Will I be able to know its readings? I wanted to learn in context most because of the readings.
I'll try to finish Genki as fast as possible. I'll try to finish chapter 3 in the weekend or even sooner. Tonight I shall study some more.
mentat_kgs, yup, I'm from Portugal
Thanks for the link!
textbooks - annabel398 - 2009-01-05
CarolinaCG Wrote:And do you know any good books for Kanji? I want to study kanji in context, and as soon as my grammar starts having more foundations, I want to learn more meanings of the kanji I already and will know.I have been lackadaisically working my way through the Basic Kanji Books vol. 1 and 2.
Pros: You jump right into multiple readings and compounds; pretty basic grammar, so you focus on kanji; and I think the first two books cover JLPT 3 kanji (though don't take my word on that).
Cons: Mainly, that I have such a hard time remembering the kanji I haven't learned through Heisig yet! It really does demonstrate how powerful the RTK technique is: The ones I've already learnt are like old friends; the ones I haven't are like... well, most of them I recognize, but hell if I can write them from memory.
Edited to add: link
textbooks - Tobberoth - 2009-01-05
CarolinaCG Wrote:You will be able to write them, but you won't know the readings. The thing is, if you want to learn every reading for every kanji, it will take you years before you're done knowing enough kanji to actually read stuff. The important thing is to get to a readable level as fast as possible. There are several ways to learn readings if you feel it's important:Tobberoth Wrote:Learning kanji in context is very very slow and error prone. I suggest you finish RtK1 first so you have a solid foundation. If you put in 2 hours a day, you can easily finish RtK1 within 3 months. After that, you will very rarely run into unknown kanji no matter how advanced the texts are, so you'll always know the kanji of the words you're learning. It's a great advantage.Whoa, thanks. Sounds really good to me. However I still don't understand how it works, I mean, will I be able to write the kanji? Will I be able to know its readings? I wanted to learn in context most because of the readings.
I'll try to finish Genki as fast as possible. I'll try to finish chapter 3 in the weekend or even sooner. Tonight I shall study some more.
mentat_kgs, yup, I'm from Portugal
Thanks for the link!
How I personally do it: Learn all the kanji in RtK1. That means I can write them all from memory and I recognize them more or less instantly when I see them in any text. Now that I know them, I simply learn words. I know 世 and I know 界. When I see 世界 and learn it's read "せかい", I've learned that 世 can be read せ and that 界 can be read かい.
Good parts: I learn words as I go and I don't have to study kanji in particular anymore. I also don't have to worry about kanji having several readings etc, it comes automatically as I see words which use the readings. Unimportant readings which are never seen IRL, I won't even learn since I only learn readings from words I learn. It's a great technique if vocabulary is your main weakness.
Movie method: A guy at this forum has come up with his own method for learning kanji which has influences from Heisig and many other techniques. It lets you learn all the RtK1 and ONE reading for each kanji almost as easy as normal Heisig. I haven't tried it (I think it fits much better for Chinese than Japanese) but a lot of people here seems to use and like it. Pros: Learn all the kanji and one reading each in about the same time it takes to finish Heisig. Cons: Learn just one reading per kanji (almost every kanji has 2, some have 3 or more), so you still need a technique to learn the rest.
Bad method: Learn every kanji with every reading right away. Pros: None. Cons: Tons. Reviweing it becomes impossible, you will mix up readings constantly, no system to keep the exceptions at bay, will take years because there's too much information.
textbooks - Rina - 2009-01-05
annabel398 Wrote:Cool. Someone had already told me about that book. And by what I've read it is great. I might buy it.CarolinaCG Wrote:And do you know any good books for Kanji? I want to study kanji in context, and as soon as my grammar starts having more foundations, I want to learn more meanings of the kanji I already and will know.I have been lackadaisically working my way through the Basic Kanji Books vol. 1 and 2.
Pros: You jump right into multiple readings and compounds; pretty basic grammar, so you focus on kanji; and I think the first two books cover JLPT 3 kanji (though don't take my word on that).
Cons: Mainly, that I have such a hard time remembering the kanji I haven't learned through Heisig yet! It really does demonstrate how powerful the RTK technique is: The ones I've already learnt are like old friends; the ones I haven't are like... well, most of them I recognize, but hell if I can write them from memory.
Edited to add: link
Thanks.
Tobberoth Wrote:You will be able to write them, but you won't know the readings. The thing is, if you want to learn every reading for every kanji, it will take you years before you're done knowing enough kanji to actually read stuff. The important thing is to get to a readable level as fast as possible. There are several ways to learn readings if you feel it's important:Thanks. I'll keep all this in mind, I think I'll mix some methods, taking in concern that I'm still learning grammar, and that's where I want to focus, for now.
How I personally do it: Learn all the kanji in RtK1. That means I can write them all from memory and I recognize them more or less instantly when I see them in any text. Now that I know them, I simply learn words. I know 世 and I know 界. When I see 世界 and learn it's read "せかい", I've learned that 世 can be read せ and that 界 can be read かい.
Good parts: I learn words as I go and I don't have to study kanji in particular anymore. I also don't have to worry about kanji having several readings etc, it comes automatically as I see words which use the readings. Unimportant readings which are never seen IRL, I won't even learn since I only learn readings from words I learn. It's a great technique if vocabulary is your main weakness.
Movie method: A guy at this forum has come up with his own method for learning kanji which has influences from Heisig and many other techniques. It lets you learn all the RtK1 and ONE reading for each kanji almost as easy as normal Heisig. I haven't tried it (I think it fits much better for Chinese than Japanese) but a lot of people here seems to use and like it. Pros: Learn all the kanji and one reading each in about the same time it takes to finish Heisig. Cons: Learn just one reading per kanji (almost every kanji has 2, some have 3 or more), so you still need a technique to learn the rest.
Bad method: Learn every kanji with every reading right away. Pros: None. Cons: Tons. Reviweing it becomes impossible, you will mix up readings constantly, no system to keep the exceptions at bay, will take years because there's too much information.
This forum is such a great help!
I'll study Kanji by books, Iknow and Rk, as soon as I finish Genki, hopefully.
PS: Sorry for the big quotes, I can remove them if you'd like
textbooks - mentat_kgs - 2009-01-05
Oi Carolina,
I second everything that Tobberoth said. But I'll add a bit more.
For studding grammar, you can do it by understanding sentences.
The idea is the same as with the kanji. It seems that you need to have a vocabulary of 3000+ words for a basic japanese and 10000+ words to get to 1kyu level of nouryoku shiken.
Grammar is indeed harder, but learning the vocabulary is a much, much huger task.
So you focus on getting vocabulary in context from sentences. It is good because you can get sentences from manga, anime, dorama, books, wikipedia, dictionaries, etc. So you don't need to restrict yourself to textbooks. You also can have a lot of fun from this.
Grammar comes naturally from the massive exposure.
Studying grammar for itself has little effect on your proficiency. But it will help your exposure. So it is your choice to study grammar and then go to exposure or just go directly to exposure.
What I suggest:
1) Finish RTK. It can be done in less then a month, if you put the hours.
2) Start understanding the sentences, finally learning how to read the kanji you learned in phase 1.
always) Use an SRS like anki, or this site.
always) Listen to japanese audio.
sometimes) Check grammar points when you feel you need.
important) anime with subtitles does not count as study time.
textbooks - Rina - 2009-01-05
mentat_kgs Wrote:Oi Carolina,Oi
I second everything that Tobberoth said. But I'll add a bit more.
For studding grammar, you can do it by understanding sentences.
The idea is the same as with the kanji. It seems that you need to have a vocabulary of 3000+ words for a basic japanese and 10000+ words to get to 1kyu level of nouryoku shiken.
Grammar is indeed harder, but learning the vocabulary is a much, much huger task.
So you focus on getting vocabulary in context from sentences. It is good because you can get sentences from manga, anime, dorama, books, wikipedia, dictionaries, etc. So you don't need to restrict yourself to textbooks. You also can have a lot of fun from this.
Grammar comes naturally from the massive exposure.
Studying grammar for itself has little effect on your proficiency. But it will help your exposure. So it is your choice to study grammar and then go to exposure or just go directly to exposure.
What I suggest:
1) Finish RTK. It can be done in less then a month, if you put the hours.
2) Start understanding the sentences, finally learning how to read the kanji you learned in phase 1.
always) Use an SRS like anki, or this site.
always) Listen to japanese audio.
sometimes) Check grammar points when you feel you need.
important) anime with subtitles does not count as study time.
As for the grammar, I'll do it with Genki, after all I bought it
, and I'm loving to use Genki because I get some vocabulary. With massive exposure you mean like watching Anime, dorama, listening to music, etc, right. I myself am not an anime fan (anime are just too big, I like series with less than 20 episodes), but that is an awesome sugestion! I shal start anime and dorama. However I don't know any sites that have the video without subtitles :|, do you reccomend any?
That got me thinking, like, by listening japanese I get the particles in the senteces, I get used to them, and when I study it gets a lot easier.
Well, now it's 9.33PM here and my eyes are getting tired, tomorow I shall read all the answers again.
Now I'm going to study Genki a bit more.
textbooks - Tobberoth - 2009-01-05
You can use the site japanesepod101.com to get some good Japanese listening going. Since you're still a beginner, you probably won't understand even 10% of what is being said in a regular anime. On japanesepod101.com however, the lessons start out really simple and grammar/new words are explained. It's a very very good resource of audio for beginners.
textbooks - mentat_kgs - 2009-01-05
If you don't like anime you might go better with something else.
You should check the essential resources thread:
http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=476
For doramas there is:
http://www.d-addicts.com/forum/
There is even a subtitles index, in many languages, including japanese transcriptions:
http://www.d-addicts.com/forum/subtitles.php
Btw, if you stray from learner's resources, pretty much every japanese site won't have any english translation at all. There is even a "japanese youtube" called nicovideo.