Hey guys,

One of my research projects this year is an analysis of the 3 main Japanese textbooks: Genki, Yookoso, and Nakama. I know most of the members here are independent studiers, but wondered if anyone knows of universities (that are NOT in Japan, sorry, I'm mainly concerned with JFL, not JSL) that use Nakama? All I know is that it's not as widely used as Genki or Yookoso.

Thanks!

Hmm, I think I heard Harvard used it, but I don't know if they still do... I think a lot of the U.S. colleges have moved on to Genki.

Hmmm, interesting.

I hope some others still do.

Btw, not limited to US universities, any country is fine, even if the lingua franca is not English!

[Zgarbas]

My Uni (in Romania) used Minna no Nihongo and Basic Kanji Book(English versions). I thought that Minna and Genki were more common those other two.
I asked my friend from another Uni in Romania, and they used nihongo shoho.

Interesting. I've been told that Yookoso is big in the US, though at a friend's they used Nakama. In NZ all the unis that do Japanese use Genki though.

My alma mater, Brandeis University, used Nakama (and I hope they still do; it was, IMO, much better organized than Genki.) Princeton does also; I know there are a number of other American schools using it, but I can't remember which off the top of my head. It looks like you might be able to find some leads by searching things like "university bookstore Japanese Nakama," though, if we can assume that a course uses the books it requires.

I did a google search of the term "syllabus Nakama" and got tons of hits. Here's the first page of results:

University of Southern California
University of Hawaii
Willamette University
Harvard University
Rose‑Hulman Institute of Technology
University of North Texas
University of Arkansas

Oh, cool, I'll try that too!

Yes, after looking at a couple of chapters yesterday, I think it's a far better textbook than Genki. Prob better than Yookoso too, but I haven't looked at that one yet. For me, Genki is totally inadequate, and a waste of time, haha. But that's my opinion, other people like it, and it's certainly popular (and a hell of a lot cheaper than Nakama...)

I don't know if this helps since it isn't a university, but I took two years of Japanese at San Antonio College (in Texas), and my class used Nakama. My professor used to work at the University of Texas at San Antonio, so I'm assuming she used it there as well.

Incidentally, I met Seiichi Makino (one of the authors) a few weeks ago when he came to SAC for a teaching conference. My girlfriend is a student there now, so I attended it with her. He spent about an hour talking with the students. I told him about RTK, and he seemed interested in it. He even gave me his business card. I'm looking at it right now, and it says he's a professor at Princeton. I'm assuming his book is used there, too.

For what it's worth, I thought Nakama and its workbook were great. I've read some of Genki as well and didn't think it was nearly as useful.

Oh, cool! Yeah, I think princeton does use Nakama.

I think this is obvious, but I will post a few comments for the record.

US university professors generally have the option to choose textbooks. So a given university may use several introductory textbooks for a given course. That said, when it comes to introductory language courses (and some core courses), I suspect some universities may have common textbooks and supplementary learning materials. That way they can rotate young graduate students as instructors and maintain a certain standard.

Some European schools have fantastic language programs so you might take a brief look there.

In your study, it might be worth briefly surveying Japanese language schools based in Japan. Today I sense they are geared towards Chinese and Korean students, many who aim to enroll in Japanese trade schools or universities. Chinese have the obvious advantage of the "shared" kanji and some common readings. The Koreans have significant shared grammar and vocabulary; many Koreans have studied "kanji" also, although I understand younger people are drifting away from the "kanji." Years ago, I think there were more US and European language students in Japan so the language schools have probably been shifting their teaching materials towards Asian students.

In Tokyo, I did not find a language school that used Genki. I am not sure of Nakama. MLC used Japanese for Busy People, but they seemed to have a lot of western students. I think Minna no Nihongo was a popular textbook (for the first two books only). Some schools used Nihongo So-Matome curiously.

I'l bear that in mind. I'd still love to hear if any non-US universities are using Nakama.

The other author is from Purdue and they use it there as well.