In all fairness I agree with the assessment that the grammar level of the first book (I haven't seen the second) is quite basic but the point of the book is not to teach grammar. What the book does and does very well is speak at a very natural pace with many casual and formal phrases. Just because the grammar is not hard does not mean the book is worthless. Speaking as a self-study never-taken-a-class student of Japanese, vocal production is by far the biggest hurdle. Reading and input is easy to bolster over time, you just keep reading more. But without constant attempts to vocalize and speak quickly and fluidly takes a ton of practice that is, in my experience, quite difficult to diligently practice on one's own.
Some of the simple simple simple phrases in the book have been great in real-life use for me. like "Sorry I was late, were you waiting long?" -- saying that in a very casual friend-to-friend way is not often discussed in any text book. Sure, you could glean it from anime or whatever, I'm not saying there are no other resources for gathering this sort of information, just saying don't knock the book simply based on the vocabulary difficulty or grammar complexity.
With that said I'm super-excited to find out that there's a second book that seems to be even longer and more complex!
CarolinaCG, please share any methods you've refined for using the text -- are you following their prescribed approach? In my approach I've found this very helpful:
1) when shadowing don't go through the whole section, just pick one phrase and work on it over and over, then move on (like do one phrase 10 times the first time you encounter it, as opposed to doing a set of phrases 10 times through). After that initial familiarity is established then doing it once through later on is much much easier.
2) speak LOUDLY. it's a simple suggestion, but when shadowing I've often felt overpowered by the audio, like I'm submitting to it and trying to get it refined as I'm listening. That doesn't work at all. Speak loudly and speak over the audio. If you get it right it will sound right (i.e. in unison), if you get it wrong it will sound wrong and you will know. But I think it's pretty important to "power through" the segment of audio.
3) don't make an SRS deck out of it at first. Shadowing requires a lot more initial dedication to get it right. It's not about recognizing the phrase, or understanding it or being about to say it. It's about ALL of that, at once. You've got to practice speaking it as it is natively spoken. putting a phrase into Anki and recognizing it and passing the card will be selling yourself short.
Just my two cents.
K
Some of the simple simple simple phrases in the book have been great in real-life use for me. like "Sorry I was late, were you waiting long?" -- saying that in a very casual friend-to-friend way is not often discussed in any text book. Sure, you could glean it from anime or whatever, I'm not saying there are no other resources for gathering this sort of information, just saying don't knock the book simply based on the vocabulary difficulty or grammar complexity.
With that said I'm super-excited to find out that there's a second book that seems to be even longer and more complex!
CarolinaCG, please share any methods you've refined for using the text -- are you following their prescribed approach? In my approach I've found this very helpful:
1) when shadowing don't go through the whole section, just pick one phrase and work on it over and over, then move on (like do one phrase 10 times the first time you encounter it, as opposed to doing a set of phrases 10 times through). After that initial familiarity is established then doing it once through later on is much much easier.
2) speak LOUDLY. it's a simple suggestion, but when shadowing I've often felt overpowered by the audio, like I'm submitting to it and trying to get it refined as I'm listening. That doesn't work at all. Speak loudly and speak over the audio. If you get it right it will sound right (i.e. in unison), if you get it wrong it will sound wrong and you will know. But I think it's pretty important to "power through" the segment of audio.
3) don't make an SRS deck out of it at first. Shadowing requires a lot more initial dedication to get it right. It's not about recognizing the phrase, or understanding it or being about to say it. It's about ALL of that, at once. You've got to practice speaking it as it is natively spoken. putting a phrase into Anki and recognizing it and passing the card will be selling yourself short.
Just my two cents.
K