I am looking for a textbook for self-study of the Japanese language. I studied the language already through classes for a year, but it has been about 1 1/2 years since then and I am a little rusty.

I asked a few people and it usually comes down to Genki or Minna no Nihongo. What I want to know, from people who have used both or sensei who have taught with both, is which one I can get the most out of?

[Zgarbas]

They're both basically the same, so you can safely go with either one. I did Minna no Nihongo and it was ok.

Zgarbas Wrote:They're both basically the same, so you can safely go with either one. I did Minna no Nihongo and it was ok.

Thanks. :-)

Though I would like a few more opinions just to get a general consensus among a group.

In case you haven't done so yet, you might want to check out Tae Kim's guide: http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar

I had gone through the first half of Genki 1 rather thoroughly and skimmed through the other half, but found it more fun to alternate between using the guide above and reading manga, occasionally checking back with the guide.

I've only taken glances at Minna no Nihongo, but it seems to introduce many phrases early on which are in fact made up by conjugations or other grammatical constructs that haven't been taught yet. Still, I've heard that Genki has some outdated constructs, so it's not that great either.

Minna no Nihongo is way better. Genki sucks. Just my objective opinion xD

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Thanks for the comments so far guys. Please, if you have experience with both texts, keep the comments coming!

I did Genki 2 for study abroad, and the last few chapters of Minna no Nihongo as review when I moved back to Japan later. I liked Minna no Nihongo better, but probably mostly because I found the presentation in Genki to be pretty childish.

(My main textbook was Japanese The Spoken Language, which I love, but I think is awful for self-study)

Although a work in progress, I do want to make known that my site is way better than Tae Kim as far as amount of content is concerned.

imabi Wrote:Although a work in progress, I do want to make known that my site is way better than Tae Kim as far as amount of content is concerned.

A bit of constructive criticism though: I don't think your site is very beginner friendly. I imagine that Genki is very beginner friendly, Tae Kim less so, and your site less so. The beginner section of your website almost seems like it would be a nice (more thorough) review of beginner concepts once you're at an intermediate level, rather than as an actual introduction to beginner grammar.

Your site is a very good resource though, and I commend you for your efforts. I've certainly looked up stuff on your site. And it's certainly true that you have far more content than Tae Kim.

As you should be aware, though, is that has been a main project in curbing. I continuously make the site easier and more comprehensive. Hopefully by May the site will have 50 new lesson spaces for Modern Japanese material to go, which will take a great burden off of intermediate and advanced. Also, if you haven't checked in a long time, much of beginners is really not the same.

When I was in college I used 'Yookoso! An Invitation to Contemporary Japanese' and the intermediate book in the series as well. I found the grammar explanations really great and thorough and the culture notes and linguistic notes were pretty informative too I thought. While some of the vocab lists and such may be targeted more towards current students (for example one of the first chapters covers a big list of different majors), I think it is still great for self-study beginners too. When I took a look at Minna-no-Nihongo a few years ago (and Genki as well for that matter) it seemed to me that a lot of the grammar exercises focused more on a 'get a feel for the grammar as if you were a native speaker' than providing the concrete rules that govern the different conversions/how different grammar points were related/ how things should be combined etc. Yookoso's explanations always seemed really straightforward and easy to understand by comparison (for me that is). At the end of every chapter there is also a section that focuses on reading/writing, there are tons of workbook problems and quizzes that coincide with the textbook chapters available online, and the kanji that are introduced each chapter also correspond with the vocabulary learned in that chapter (instead of the fairly haphazard way Minna-no-Nihongo eventually introduces them). After the first introductory section the whole book uses kanji and kana exclusively as well, so I think it's pretty useful in that respect for making you learn how to read those from the get go too. There are also audio CDs as well and a ton of appendices in the back related to different grammatical conversions too.

A lot of people complain that it's too expensive/the dialogues could be more thorough/the dictionary indexy thing in the back is lacking etc, but I was never really bothered by those things to be honest...

[Zgarbas]

imabi Wrote:As you should be aware, though, is that has been a main project in curbing. I continuously make the site easier and more comprehensive. Hopefully by May the site will have 50 new lesson spaces for Modern Japanese material to go, which will take a great burden off of intermediate and advanced. Also, if you haven't checked in a long time, much of beginners is really not the same.

While I actually enjoy your site, I would never know who to recommend it to since it is a bit all over the place. Some things which I consider basic are in the Intermediate section, whilst the beginner section seems pretty flooded, etc. I guess you lose against basic textbooks because they know their audience a bit better, even if the quality of the info is not as high.

Apart from the obvious grammar (は, が, を etc.) what is basic and what not is pretty much subjective.

For example, I would think that -なんて would be a basic point but DoJG explains it in the Advanced volume. (Authors of DoJG took the position that the basic grammar terms are those which are treated in the beginner textbooks and organised the volumes accordingly.)

日本語文型辞典 doesn’t categorise the grammar points into beginer/advanced levels at all.

You could learn grammar by following order determined by JLPT level and that’s ok, isn’t it?

Either way, sooner or later you would need to learn most of the grammar, so I fail to see how imabi could be wrong in his order/selection.

[Zgarbas]

I consider basic grammar:
- grammar on which future grammar points are built (stand-alone use of particles, simple uses of more complex grammar points, etc)
- grammar which is used to express simple statements.
- extremely frequently used grammar points (this is obviously subjective)

I believe that by following a certain order you can make your study/understanding of grammar much more efficient. JLPT levels, beginner textbooks, what not; they all follow the same lines.
Imabi favors a large amount of comprehensive information regarding certain points to a slow implementation of these points in one's grammar dictionary. Whilst not wrong (there is no right and wrong in learning imho) I think it is tiring for a person who is encountering these things for the first time, as it is too much to take in at once, but no one likes to keep going back a few lesson numbers to touch up on their fine lines. Also, while I personally wish stuff like bases would stick to me (especially since I keep encountering them in my 百人一首 explanations) they don't, and not many people care for them. You have occasional explanations which are simply too technical and leave the user not having learned anything really. While the material is of high quality, it just feels inaccessible. Also, there's too much info at once. It's hard enough for a beginner to grasp what だ・です means, and being flooded with unusual conjugations, the である and so many details right at the beginning is bound to turn him off japanese forever (or at least off the site).

A means somewhat effective for myself, being a person with a insatiable curiosity for different opinions and cross-references, has been extensive reading on a various array of grammatical explanations -both professionally published and personally published online- and different peoples opinions and employment of said usage patterns. The environment itself is somewhat immerse, non intentionally; Japanese media is merely a personal entertainment preference, so I cannot really comment on it's effectiveness as it has been around long prior to active target language study.

For a beginner, I would suggest that while using whichever textbook (most of the popular ones are useful as they provide some structure), don't shy away from being skeptical and continually searching for other definitions, descriptions, opinions, etc. as long as one doesn't fall into the trappings of taking online language learning guru-types too seriously, or any information too seriously; or taking your own comprehension too seriously and blocking the flow of information because it may not fall in line with a certain understanding you're come across from whichever source of information you favour during your self-study.

It's a little funny, I still consider myself more or less an illiterate beginner, despite being able to comprehend certain native material in a way which would be have impossible months ago. If I am like any typical Japanese language learner (which I believe so) it is that there is a period while initially learning the language in which there is only a limited amount of input and technical descriptions/information which is able to be used as information by the brain, and most of it being discarded until the conceptual framework which the language floats within (at least from the perspective of a native English speaker) has flooded your brain to a certain critical mass in which the descriptions and language itself becomes to seem less foreign and a larger amount is allowed to bathe in the brain without being telegraphed straight out the other side of your ear and into the ether.

That it to say -although I have no evidence- that there is a pre-beginner period to learning Japanese, which is more like an infantile phase, wherein even the most well-meant earnest and simple explanations of grammar and speech are not going to really be accessible, in a similar manner as a perfectly balanced nutritional adult needs to be broken down into a easily digestible mush which does not really represent anything remotely like the original meal, but for all intensive purposes, is enough for the infant to digest and get enough input in order to grow into the environment enough to access a more definite and detailed aspect of a nutritionally balanced diet.

That is to say, something extremely simple and enjoyable, while still introducing elements, even in very basic manner, will probably do more for the beginner until they have adapted enough to accept the conceptual framework in which the language evolves within. Something which takes an amount of active study/involvement time, and a certain amount for the brain to take it all in.

What I think Zgarbas is trying to get at is that there are some mentionings of things that would almost certainly never be mentioned at a certain level, but the only reason why I do is to be more complete about the overall topic of that lesson. I assume the last time she truly looked at it was several months ago. I could be wrong, but if that's the case, then she has missed over 40 pages worth of such information being moved to more suitable locations.

Also, there will be another reorganization of the material no later than the end of May. It will introduce four levels to Modern Japanese. Intermediate will be far easier, and pretty much any truly difficult topics other than Keigo will be put into higher lessons. The ordering is just a work in progress. Also, if you notice in 1-50, a lot of the main topics are just too important to Japanese. There's so much to learn about Japanese. I feel that the divide between beginners and intermediate is hard, and they're treated as the same level at my university. The latter is just an extension of the former.

I'd be helping more here if I had the time. Sadly I've only had time to read posts every now and then.

Having read a little bit more, I don't think talking about である is dumb. For one, it's where だ comes from. Furthermore, you're bound to see it. Where else would I talk about it? If the lesson is about the copula forms and it's way up there in importance--obviously not as high as the other two--then I'd have to go back.

Explanations are only truly complicated when the topic is complicated. Things like ての、のだ、がVSは、Etc. are rather difficult in the bigger perspective of Japanese grammar. Also, let me reiterate that sizes of explanations have gone down while still making the quality the same or better. As far as the bases are concerned, that's just the facts of the language. It's not 100% flawless, but as far as explaining so much of Japanese conjugation, it's important to know them in my opinion. Furthermore, even though the terms are used, I still show how you conjugate with new important endings with charts that you see in any other text. So, I do both. Have the terms for the curious and bravehearts, but also have the backup for those that just want to know what the end result is.

Besides, most already inherently know what the bases are anyway. If you know how to make the negative, polite forms, te form, imperative, volitional, end a sentence with something, use a verb or adjective as a noun phrase modifier, then you already know the 6 bases. You just don't know their names. Also, for stuff in the Kanji lesson and some other lessons in beginners and intermediate, many of those topics are about to get their own lessons in more suitable areas (not where they are now). This is just a goal, but by the end of the summer, the site should from 181 lessons to ~300, and the overall difficulty (of course there is more material but a lot more room and options to put things) for the main part of the curriculum should be down a good 25%.

Remember, this is my dumping grounds for research. There is a time where things pile up, and then there is a time for sorting and organizing it better. The last cycle produced about 12 new lessons. So, that's a lot of material that got thinned out. The last time you probably saw the site, the average size of a lesson was about 10~12 pages. Now, it's only 5~7. There are plenty that are shorter than this. The average will go down some this weekend. In fact, one of the larger lessons left in intermediate just go split in half.

Well, there's definitely a lot that I'm doing. So, if I keep on going, it'll seem that I'm trying to take away from the thread and be selfish. But, I do want to at least try to set some of the record straight given that I put so many man hours into the upkeep of it.

As far as what the thread is about, I have two Minna no Nihongo books I got just to see what was in it, and I found the explanations to be far more accurate than some others I've seen. Having not seen genki before, I can't make a judgment call, but I can say that if you don't have much many, just stick to what you can find online. Course, many people like having things in front of them and lots of resources, so the more the merrier. I'm sure there are things that one covers that the other doesn't.

[Zgarbas]

I actually read your website .
As I said, I do find the info there to be good, it's just really cluttered and imho not beginner friendly at all. The explanations are short indeed, but rarely thorough, and I find it more lacking than terse when it comes to shorter lessons; often when I encounter anything that's new, I'll open up a different resource to actually learn it. It's still throwing too much information at once, just without explaining it (which is worse than if the lessons were longer). Given how I need more brushing up and review than learning, it's pretty good for my current level. But finding new information in lesson 8 for beginners when I'm at N2 level is a bit weird.

It throws a lot of information at once, which makes it really difficult to follow unless you already know most of what's there (at least passively). After years of referring to things as the て、た、etc. forms it is really difficult to adjust to bases, which are far less of a tangible approach. I have no idea how anyone who would start out with bases would treat it though, but I don't think that's common =/.

I know you have Zgarbas. I am just saying that things are constantly being updated, reorganized, etc. So, the more time elapses, the more of the problems that I'm already trying to combat go away. Details continuously get added all the time too, which is why split-off lessons often have to be made. People have holes in their knowledge anywhere. There really shouldn't be that big of a surprise. The info on bases is uncompromisable. It isn't going away. Anyhow, the amount of reliance on knowing them and still do well in the site is far lower than it used to be. Just keep an eye out for changes. About 3 pages worth of notes are added on a given week--not including new lessons--so that does end up going somewhere.

[RawToast]

They are similar in content. Personally, I'd go for Genki I for a 'first textbook' as with Minna no Nihongo you'll want to buy 2 books: the textbook and the translation.

It would be a good plan to go through Genki I, then borrow/obtain a copy of Minna and try doing it without the translation.

I would recommend Minna no Nihongo, based on my experience. But like most people, I've only used one of them.

Be careful though in that none of these textbooks are meant for self-study. Minna no nihongo for example doesn't have detailed explanations and doesn't provide the answers to the exercises. I think you can get those in a special teachers only book. It's really important IMO to do the exercises when you're learning a language. If you don't, you'll build up a false sense of confidence and reinforce some wrong patterns.

If you can afford it, I'd recommend at least having a once a week private lesson with a teacher.

Eikyu Wrote:I would recommend Minna no Nihongo, based on my experience. But like most people, I've only used one of them.

Be careful though in that none of these textbooks are meant for self-study. Minna no nihongo for example doesn't have detailed explanations and doesn't provide the answers to the exercises. I think you can get those in a special teachers only book. It's really important IMO to do the exercises when you're learning a language. If you don't, you'll build up a false sense of confidence and reinforce some wrong patterns.

If you can afford it, I'd recommend at least having a once a week private lesson with a teacher.

Yep, and if anyone decides to purchase Genki be sure to get the Answer Key (answers for both Genki 1 and 2). I don't do the exercises in the textbook, instead I only use the Workbook and if there are any doubts then I search it up on Google.

daevil Wrote:Yep, and if anyone decides to purchase Genki be sure to get the Answer Key (answers for both Genki 1 and 2). I don't do the exercises in the textbook, instead I only use the Workbook and if there are any doubts then I search it up on Google.

Agree. I'm using Genki for self-study right now (as I already had I from college, got II from used book store) and the Workbook and Answer Key are essential. You can get them on Amazon for around 20$ a piece.

I haven't looked at Minna no Nihongo before, but have read quite a bit of Tae Kim and while I think it is a great resource for reference, there isn't a lot in there besides explanations and 1~2 examples (very simple ones at that) for each point. It is very hard to use for self study, but I think I will refer back to it a lot in the future when I just need a quick answer.

Genki has about ~2500 vocabulary words equally spaced across 24 chapters (2 volumes). Also plenty of exercises in book and in the workbook which the key has answers for. This gives me enough to go over for about 1 chapter/week, which is lightspeed compared to how we did things in class (and only got to Ch. 10 in 2 terms). Will wrap up Genki in a few months and move on to the next thing after that, whatever that may be.

imabi Wrote:Having read a little bit more, I don't think talking about である is dumb. For one, it's where だ comes from. Furthermore, you're bound to see it. Where else would I talk about it? If the lesson is about the copula forms and it's way up there in importance--obviously not as high as the other two--then I'd have to go back.

About stuff like this: Have you considered doing two different versions of lessons? If you look at a site like Erin's Challenge, even the basic lessons like 'Greetings' have two different versions: one for real beginners, and one for more advanced leaners who still have more to learn about greetings (for example, extremely polite or casual greetings that they might have seen but want an explanatoin for).

For example, in the lesson on the particle か you teach it as a final particle marking a question, and also in easy expressions like かどうか. But then you have things like AかBないか and かそこら, which are certainly more rare, and more advanced. If you had two pages, the first could explain just the very basic most prominent uses of か, and the second could be for more advanced leaners who might still have questions about phrases like AかBないか. You could have a link on each lesson that says 'Advanced Version' or something like that.

I think something like that woud make your site waaaay more useful for beginners.

Actually, there are planned lessons to go back to many topics that can be discussed in much more detail within the coming days/weeks. So, there will definitely be more options in the future. I definitely agree that the other different variants of the copula don't need to be mentioned, and that's definitely something I'd move out of it, but I do want to still mention である. You will probably like the site much more in about a month or so, because something to this degree is slowing in the works.

Edit: I will keep かどうか. I don't want to move it out of that lesson. However, I did move the info for the "or" phrases into its own lesson and expanded slightly on them all, and then I moved そこいら up several lessons.