Hey All,

Having finished RTK1, what's a good textbook to start with? I have Japanese for Busy People 1 from before in kana but that doesn't flex my kanji muscles since it's only in kana. However, I have no japanese background so maybe it would be wise to start with a beginner textbook like this? Other people are looking for intermediate textbooks after finish RTK1, so it made me wonder about what level japanese I should be studying post RTK1. Is there a beginner text that teaches grammar but yet uses kanji also?
Or maybe I should just stick with doing the kana textbooks to learn beginner grammar? Thanks,

I used the book you mentioned for 1 year in university classes, mainly for supporting the lectures so I don't know how it works for self study. It does an OK job I think, but I'd wager there are better ones available. I've heard good things about Genki at least, though haven't checked it myself.

You should probably look into Tae Kim also. I went through his stuff after my university classes, and I feel like it gave me a lot better understanding on grammar. He also uses Kanji from the start, and there's an Anki deck for the example sentences. http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar

if you're going to make cards from the textbook and stick them in Anki, you can simply convert it to kanji yourself.

edict (jisho.org/tangorin.com, etc.) usually tells you if a word is usually in kana as opposed to kanji. use どこ instead of 何処, etc.

みんなの日本語初級Ⅰ-ⅠⅠ?

Sample pages:
http://whiterabbitpress.com/the-complete...inner.html
http://whiterabbitpress.com/the-complete...inner.html

(Make sure you get kanji-kana version, not romaji)

Thanks everyone! I'll check them out. Does Mina No Nihongo kanji/kana version have english explainations for grammar or are the explanations also in japanese?

Miyumera Wrote:Thanks everyone! I'll check them out. Does Mina No Nihongo kanji/kana version have english explainations for grammar or are the explanations also in japanese?

The notes are in a separate book.

Miyumera Wrote:Thanks everyone! I'll check them out. Does Mina No Nihongo kanji/kana version have english explainations for grammar or are the explanations also in japanese?

When you click on the link to White Rabit PRESS you will see three books.

The first one is the main workbook (本冊), this one has Japanese script only. The content is arranged in lessons, where each lesson introduces new vocab, grammar points, exemplary sentences, exercises. (This book doesn't include explanation of grammar.)

The second book (文法解説 - Translation & Grammatical Notes) includes explanations you are after. It also has transcripts of dialogues and translations of sentences from the first book. The explanations can be in several languages but I guess you would like the English version of those.

The third "book" is actually a collection of 4 CDs for each of the lessons from the main workbook.

Ah, the last thing. The complete beginner course consists of 2 sets. First set is lessons 1-25, the second lessons 26-50.

HTH

Thank you Inny Jan! Just the explanation i was looking for.