Is it worth reading "Understanding Basic Japanese Grammar" by Nishiguchi? I got it by now. I somehow didn't get the hang of "da" is not the polite form of "desu" as Kim describes o0

just search for "UBJG" on these forums and you'll see lots of discussions about Understanding Basic Japanese Grammar. In short, it's an excellent book.


btw, i have the book and love it.

caivano Wrote:

bennyb Wrote:I saw one of my co-workers flipping through "Minna no Nihongo I" today, and it was ALL in romaji.... like a 300+ page textbook. Yikes. Would not recommend

The version I have is all hiranaga / katakana / kanji / furigana... no English, no romaji

Likewise with the version of MNNI and II that i've used. I didn't even realise there was a romaji version. It would seem to be against the style of that textbook, which is to teach japanese in japanese as much as possible. Even chapter 1 of MNNI is written in kanji, it just has furigana on all them.

Also consider self-study books like the Assimil Japanese course. Many textbooks are meant to be used in a classroom setting and may be less effective when used for self-study. I used Assimil as my primary "textbook" and feel it is a good accompaniment to Heisig since it introduces more kanji than just about any other introductory course other than perhaps Bowring's Introduction to Modern Japanese.

The added bonus to Assimil is that it's available in German, too.

UBJG is okay. it's really direct. if you want explanations on nuances then it's not really that great, you just have to take their word for it. i'd at least do genki 1 first.

i also got the first dictionary of basic japanese grammar. in combination with UBJG it's pretty good because they break down the differences between related grammar.

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i would always recommend a textbook to a beginner. beginners benefit a lot from getting a general overview of what to look for in the language.

So what's the conclusion de facto?

* Tae Kim to get a rough overview of Japanese Grammar
* What's about particle books/esp. the "Japanese Particle Workbook" book?
* Genki 1 - any other good textbook compareable in German?
* core2k6k Vocab in Anki

I had the "Japanese Particle Workbook" long time ago and as i saw it was ripping into many bits and pieces i decided to scan it for my personal purpose only naturally.. Is it worth printing it out and practicing the most important stuff - Particles in japanese? They are quite important and didn't get the hang between ga/ha yet.

Thanks for any additional advice!

I think the important thing to understand is that there simply isn't a conclusion in language-learning, as in the end it's not the method that is most important so much as the commitment of time and effort. People achieve high levels of fluency in foreign languages despite thousands of variations in textbooks, workbooks, study routines, vocabulary methods, how they practice, etc.
I suppose what I'm trying to explain is that WHAT you're using to study isn't nearly as important as the fact THAT you're studying. I often see people devote far more time and energy to the method of studying, rather than to the studying itself.

All of those resources you listed are perfectly fine. There is no such thing as the "best" way to develop foreign language skills other than the simple principle of Nike's slogan: DO IT!

This post isn't directed at you so much as how often I see people obsess over how to learn a language rather than just going out and learning it

So in fact it's more or less unimportant which textbook is used as every textbook introduces into grammar and vocabulary (basic/intermediate/advanced). It's also useful to go through different, such as "Understand Basic Japanese Grammar" to get a rough and fundated insight.
Thanks Aijin.. You opened my eyes. One really could spent on discussing which textbook is good/bad/sucks and so on, but in the END the only result one want to achieve, namely fluency, is achieved by every textbook you steadily learn with/Anki.

I guess i will just finish with RtK1 and will dedicate myself into Tae Kim's Guide in the evenings plus the Workbook on Particles on my flight to Romania next week

To all other folks looking for the "right textbook": Just do it, as Aijin said!!
Thank you aijin you opened my eyes

kapalama Wrote:(japanese) Dramas and anime are the absolute worst ways of learning Japanese. It's like watching 'Aqua Teen Hunger Force' and 'Days of our Lives' to learn English. You end up sounding like a profane drama queen.

I don't think it's THAT bad.

Imitating lines from these shows may be a bad idea, but since they often feature vocabulary used in our daily lives, it's fine. Here's a line from Days of our Lives that I just looked up.

"You sat there, you watched us grieve, and you did nothing!"
I think you should be able to understand that.

Plus if you study in conjunction with other material you can usually tell when they sound silly. "usually" being the key word. If I start calling you kapalama-nyan then you can shoot me.

Aijin Wrote:I suppose what I'm trying to explain is that WHAT you're using to study isn't nearly as important as the fact THAT you're studying. I often see people devote far more time and energy to the method of studying, rather than to the studying itself.

I totally agree with this and it's true with almost everything in life. There's a limit to how much your method really matters and people often hit it very quickly. I can bore everyone with stories about how it happened with me in different situations.

Debating compound exercise selection... (are RDLs really better than Good Mornings?)
Theory-fighting on Street Fighter 4 boards... (that's what we call it when we argue on messageboards about what would work in theory instead of actually playing)
Buying more cookbooks than actually cooking...


So yeah.
Go for it.

A quick point I'd like to add to Aijin's suggestion:

The most critical element to sustaining your study efforts is to stop using any material that you do not enjoy or can hardly comprehend (you can try returning to it later). To avoid having to do this in the first place, I would recommend spending 10-15 minutes browsing through any material you're seriously considering to purchase. Anyway, after you relieve yourself of unhelpful resources, then find materials that are enjoyable and comprehensible. Don't feel pressured to follow the materials frequently recommended on the forums if they're not working for you.

It's true that you can learn Japanese with pretty much any textbook, but I figure if you're going to the trouble of working your way through Heisig you may as well find a textbook that uses lots of kanji so that you can gain valuable practice using those kanji that you've already been exposed to.

I think most of a persons studying should be enjoyable but it's important to study stuff you don't enjoy when it's important to the language. This is also a good point about textbooks, you can check off the chapters as you go, so you're not skipping the stuff you find hard (and therefore don't like).

kapalama Wrote:Genki gets recommended a lot because it is cheap for a text book, and fairly complete, and you can easily find both the book and the audio on the web, and some university actually posted Japanese made videos of all the dialogues. People directed me to it over any other choice.

Genki is good because it introduces kanji and casual vocab / grammar early on; all other textbooks seem to focus on formal business Japanese. Also itb teaches you cool vocab about dating, going for a drink, see a film at the cinema etc. Japanese for Busy People was soo boring, it was all about going to meetings and trying to find the local post office..

anyway, where can I see these dialogue videos?

EDIT: dont worry, found them
http://genki.japantimes.co.jp/self/self.en.html

Aijin Wrote:I suppose what I'm trying to explain is that WHAT you're using to study isn't nearly as important as the fact THAT you're studying. I often see people devote far more time and energy to the method of studying, rather than to the studying itself.

This.

I often change how i study to stop me getting bored and keep myself studying. Recently i've been doing a lot of writing production (of complete words, not counting RTK), which is something i've never really done before. I used to use readthekanji.com a lot, but haven't used it in months now. I don't think any less of it, i'm just sick of it for a while.

Studying by the one true method (whatever you believe that to be) isn't super effective if you get so sick of doing it that you aren't studying at all.

As for textbooks, i recommended MNN because it was the textbook we used, and i thought it got the job done. I never even really looked at any other beginner texts. Just pick one that doesn't piss you off, and work through it.

It's so damnd with Heisig in my opinion: you get introduced to very rare used kanjis already in the beginning and learning them in vocabulary form does appear later on in textbooks (forgetting what you learnt with heisig when you spent time with learning voabulary - basic vocabulary - phrases, grammar moreover steadily). It's quite inconvenient, i must say.

Is there any advice on how to keep this "vowelfull" words in my mind?! Anki just does not do the job.. I was even thinking of srsing only "Grammar" in a way - by asking sentences, and i suppose it's already outta there somewhere (as a deck, whatever.. core2k6k has it, doesn't it?)

Nah, anyway.. I really want to buy a textbook and not work with scanlations, so which one would be advisabel to buy - i know every texbook fulfills its purpose, but they have different prices amongst eachother (f.e. genki is the most expensive as far as i know, isn't it?)... Thanks for further adobaisu ^_^

Go to the publishers' websites and look at the samples they have. 3-A is the publisher of Minna no Nihongo.

http://www.3anet.co.jp/english/books/books_01.html

They have some pages from the textbooks on the site, and Japan Times is the publisher of Genki.

http://genki.japantimes.co.jp/index.en.html

If you go to the website, you'll see that they're coming out with a new version in March, 2011. Interesting.

Anyway, go to the websites, and check out the materials there. Or go to a Library and check some books out.

Here's some concrete info about Genki. I used both books in my university Japanese classes a while back. It's a decent textbook. It's not perfect, but it'll do the job.

Genki has 2 main textbooks, #1, and #2, 1 workbook for each main textbook (a total of 2), 1 answer key for everything (important for self-study, and a gold mine for SRS questions, if used properly--dirt cheap, too), and an outrageously expensive set of audio CDs.

Since Genki is designed for use in a classroom setting, it has a lot of group exercises. These aren't useful at all unless you have a tutor working with you.

The workbooks are somewhat useful, but they contain a lot of exercises that require the audio CDs, or you can use the audio you find online. It's out there. The site my class used in 2001-2002 is still up. (I can't believe that.)

I've heard a lot of good things about Minna no Nihongo, too. 3A makes a lot of really good books that I use every day, so I don't think you can go wrong with either one, if you stick with either one to the end. As I said on page one of this thread-- any method will work if you stick to it.

If you can, why not visit a University, contact the Japanese studies department, and maybe you could stop by and have a look at their textbooks, if they use German books. I know that there are German textbooks for Japanese, because I stumbled across them a few times while looking for German textbooks. But I have no idea what sort of quality they are-- if they're the $9.99 cheapo ones, or if they're comprehensive, well-edited series that are hard to find.

For particles, I would recommend "All About Particles".

Instead of reading the book cover-to-cover, take a more backwards approach.
I would suggest the following.

Make note of all the particles in the book.
When you come across them in reading and don't understadand its usage, refer to the book.

Also, for the person that says drama is useless, I disagree.

For example, drama is one of the few places that you can see business japanese
in the workplace. Just watch a business drama (for ex. Fumo Chitai) and you'll
see what i mean. And it's good for everyday situations as well. The great thing about
drama is that nearly all the dialogue is conversational. So it's perfect for building
conversation skills.

Also, drama is written by japanese and made for japanese people. So there's
all kinds of unique japanese quirkiness that you won't find in textbooks.

Honestly, a textbook is just a roadmap to start your studies, anyway. They're useful to a point, but after that point, you're going to learn a lot more Japanese by watching TV/movies, reading books, looking at websites, listening to podcasts, music, and most importantly, talking to people. (That is the main reason you're learning, right? Communication with people in the language.)

You'll buy other books down the road, too. There are tons of useful books out there you're going to want to use to help with various parts of your language development. Don't sweat the textbook too much.

Think of a language as food. You want a well-balanced diet, where you eat a little bit of everything, and you don't wind up eating too much of one thing. Dramas are a good source of linguistic nutrients, but there are other sources, too. (Still watching　げげげの女房... sorta...)

I would suggest consuming a variety of media once you start to get the hang of the language. It will definitely strengthen your grasp of it. Japanese TV is great because a lot of shows like to flash captions of what the person is saying while they're saying it. Very useful if you have trouble picking up what they're saying. (But it gets annoying after a while, I'll admit.)

I like to watch informational programs where they just go out on the street and talk to people. NHK has a show called 50 voices... dunno the Japanese name for it... that's the name that pops up on my satellite guide. They have a few topics, then talk to 50 people on the street total about the topics.

Shows like that, or the somewhat-cheesy "ふるさと一番！" It's just NHK announcers and minor celebs going to a random place and talking to the locals, and they show off the Famous Local Thing while they just sort of talk about it. It's not exciting, but it's somewhat educational in that you hear how ordinary people talk in front of a TV camera. (Yes, it's old people TV.)

In the info-tainment genre, I really like "みんなのニホンGO!," because I learn weird linguistic trivia. It's appointment TV for me. I learned about the origins of "うざい," as part of a local dialect in the far out western bits of Tokyo. You know, useless stuff like that.

Then there's always the news. Start with news aimed for kids. Less kanji, and easier to read.

There's a thread here somewhere with links to streaming TV as well.

I do not need the sample pages really as i was able to scan these mentioned books for private purpose.. i got some old on a market and i decided to digitalise them before they die away a cruel death. i easily could print them out in copyshops (which is naturally expensive). I owned the CDs for Genki esp. as well (if somebody is interested..).

I quite dislike the misconcept of MNN - there are three kind of books:
1) Normal Textbook (this includes texts, excersises)
2) Grammatical Explanations
3) Solutions, Appendixes

It's kind of annoying switching between them. Whereas Genki is just fine. I guess i will order a new version of the book when the new book is ready to deliver. unfortunately in english, which is still an immense problem. Maybe "Grundkenntnisse Japanisch 1 und 2" by shin'ichi okamoto is a good alternative, i have to see; but the Kanzen Master Books will be purchased definitely as well on my journey to strenghten grammar knowledge through plain stupid grammar drill exercises on the long run, i suppose. "All About Particles" is already in my library

During rtk learning i sometimes listen to FujiNN; i cannot understand any word, but watching it (kanjis esp.) makes me understand the context and i can tell it's about robbery and not about valentine's day lol

The problem is now to find a good native language alternative of "Genki - An integrated course" which has less group work elements... Maybe this University script (pdfs for download.. University Duisburg, INEAST) is really suitable and reasonable in my case.. But all this printing out seems to be WAYs more expensive than getting a textbook with a good system of teaching.. Uah, my head hurts and i cannot decide, that's the problem. I like Genki very much, but it's in english -- and my english basically sucks.

Edit
So basically I decided on this book here: http://www.amazon.de/Grundkenntnisse-Jap..._rhf_p_t_3
It's in German, so everybody who's searching a good german textbook, which is not that expensive (and has a second volume), introducing kanjis late, a lot of vocabulary, grammar well organised should possibly buy this.

One of the best ways to shop for your textbooks is to do it in a Japanese bookstore. It's pretty easy to compare things and that's where I really developed an appreciation for how Minna no Nihongo is designed. The basic texts are in Japanese only, and there are other books related to the main text which handle grammar, kanji, and additional writing exercises. The grammar texts are produced in all major languages. If you do buy all the additional texts for each level, you can expect to spend a fair amount of cash. But you only really need the main textbook and grammar notes. It is probably only when you study in Japan that you realize what a great idea having the separated grammar notes is... that way a class of students with different native languages can all study together using the same basic text. In fact, I like the MNN approach so much that I now hate textbooks which contain any other language than the target one.
From the end of MNN, you have a choice of two further series, I used New Approach after that, although there is a more technical series aimed at serious students wanting to study at the college level in Japanese, Shin Nihongo no Chukyu. This was a fairly chunky textbook that probably requires a teacher to make best use of it.

If you complete MNN and have a solid understanding of its contents, you will be at a level of between N3-N4 on the JLPT. I studied the first two books completely while studying at Yamasa in Japan, and took the old 3 kyu JLPT test about 2 weeks after with only a bit of extra studying. I found the test quite easy at that point. Reaching N2 through textbook study is a bit more nebulous. I don't have a coherent plan other than studying the grammar points and vocabulary. OTher than that, I just do whatever I can to improve my Japanese so that the overall level will be consistent with the N2 test. Studies continued with the New Approach series, which when completed would have brought me to the old 2 kyu level, which is probably slightly under the N2 level.

There are plenty of other texts which are popular. I personally thought that the Shin Nihongo no Kiso looked pretty good for beginners. I never much cared for Japanese for Busy People. One of the differences between when I started studying Japanese (2002) and now is the explosion of quality textbooks available. When I started there wasn`t a lot of selection and materials were very hard to find. Now there are awesome grammar point dictionaries (A Basic/Intermediate/Advanced Dictionary of Japanese gramar) and plenty of particle

A textbook is like a guidebook.

Everyone says that if you really want to explore a country, throw away the guidebook, and go off the beaten path.

But that doesn't mean you should actually do it. You should use the guidebook to see what's available, the famous things you shouldn't miss, the history behind them.

Use it to map out the 'high points' of your trip, but don't be afraid to wander without a map if the urge strikes you.


As the old joke runs, the first things you learn in any foreign language are 'Please' 'Thank you' and 'I'm sorry'. You don't need a special textbook for these.

Grab any foreign language textbook and take a look at the vocab lists for the first few chapters. These will tend to be the starter words in any language, make your own lists.

Granted, this leaves you high and dry for grammar, but I've found that books do a crappy job of teaching that anyways.

Only use textbooks made for native speakers.

Textbooks made for foreign speakers consist only of what one or a couple authors decided is "correct Japanese, that foreigners should learn!".

i.e., "How do you do?" and "Do you enjoy?" are in English textbooks for non-native speakers right now. You really want to force incorrect (meaning, less than correct, and irritates native speakers) Japanese into your brain, only to go out in the real world to find you've wasted your time?

But, by all means, if anything is made for a native speaker, jump on it.