Hi All,

Do many other people at about my level feel like they are stuck in some intermediate limbo? There's a plethora of beginner books and material, and a really nice selection of more advanced material, but I can't seem to find anything that makes the transition from having completed through Genki II to the next level smoothly. I'm dedicating a portion of my study day to vocab building via Core6K, but there's no grammar development there, so I really need to incorporate some other resources.

I'm contemplating taking the rather rough approach of sentence mining, cover to cover, the "Dictionary of Basic/Intermediate Japanese Grammar" (JapanTimes, Makimo & Tsutsui), which seems like a real goldmine of quality sentences, but also that task seems rather... dry.

One other book that I saw suggested on this forum is this one: http://bookclub.japantimes.co.jp/act/en/...do?id=1307

However, the sample PDF of the first Chapter does not seem very convincing.

Suggestions? Links to other threads that have surely addressed this question?


Thanks a bunch!

-k

The next book after Genki 1 & 2 is An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese: http://www.amazon.com/Integrated-Approac...4789007413

Edit: oh, that looks like the same one... it is the next book in the series though

that book is alright.

J301 and J501 are pretty good. i was looking at this one the other day, and it looked alright: http://www.whiterabbitpress.com/catalog/...16551.html

and this one is pretty popular at language schools: http://www.whiterabbitpress.com/catalog/...16579.html

also, minna no nihongo just came out with an intermediate textbook, so if you like their style that might be worth a look. there's another book called "sura sura" that i found pretty useful, but it's hard to find at bookstores.

in order of difficulty:

(1) the book you mentioned + sura sura
(2) J301
(3) Essential grammar points + Chukyu kara Manabu Nihongo
(4) J501

outside of those, there really isn't that much (though there is a wealth of JLPT related material). if those books are appealing to you, then the grammar dictionaries are a good choice. they may not be the most interesting things in the world, but grammar rarely is.

What exactly do you mean by you have "Finished Genki I and II"?

I think it might be time to break away from text books for a bit and get stuck into some authentic media. Unless of course you already are or something but want some additional structured material?

I'm in the same situation. I thought Genki was great as I was going through it but after having finished it I felt like I had these huge gaps in knowledge of even basic grammar. So afterwards I used a combination of Japanese For Everyone (another beginning book), reviewing my Genki notes and adding to it with A Dictionary of Basic Grammar (I think I used another beginning book as well but I forgot the name).

I probably went overkill on fussing over basic details but after having done this I finally feel like my Japanese is coming together. I wanted to have a solid understanding of the basics before moving onto intermediate Japanese.

Now I'm using An Integrated Guide to Intermediate Japanese and supplementing it with A Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese. I will probably try to find another intermediate book to go along with it too.

Thanks for the comments on the various books out there. The texts that are in all Japanese with no English explanations are probably just a tad beyond me at this moment. I think I could do it if I had the diligence to really work through each chapter, but I don't know if that's the most efficient way of going about it. Maybe I just have to accept that there's not a point where making the transition from Japanese+English to Japanese+Japanese is effortless -- it's probably going to be a bit of a battle at first no matter what

Like others have said I would break away from text books for a while and just focus on building vocab and reading as much native material as possible to really cement everything you've learned in Genki I and II. Once your vocabulary is high enough I'm confident, based on what others have experienced in this forum, that you'll be able to tackle the "high level" stuff with relative ease.

From what the advance learners state it seems like vocabulary really becomes the major issue and that you'll just "get" the grammar with enough exposure..... as long as you understand most of the words that make up the rest of the sentence.

Yeah, pick up some native stuff and just use the dictionaries of basic/intermediate grammar as a reference to look up unknown grammar as you come across it.

my path is with みんなの日本語 volumes 1 and 2. I think the level correlates with Genki 1, 2. みんな is entirely in Japanese and I have the English grammar guides, which helps wade through some points that I am not familiar with.

Afterwards I have a text called "Intermediate Japanese: An Integrated Course" by Nobuko Mizutani, which is a compilation text from Nihongo Journal. The text is out of print but can be found used occasionally. I have the audio also so I can work on listening. However, I am not sure if I should go through J301/J501 first. Not sure yet.

Along with way I want to go through Kanji Odyssey to increase my vocabulary and dry sentence count.

A good friend of mine is tackling the Kanji Kentei series (日本漢字検定), which sounds fun, but I have to set reasonable goals and can't pile on too much.