Should I study Genki/Minna, etc. after finishing Tae Kim and JTMW

hkoros New member

Registered: 2013-08-08 Posts: 2

Hi,

but of in a limbo as what to do.
I finished Japanese the Manga Way and Tae Kim's guide, and am wondering if I should go with the Genki I&II/Minna no Nihongo books after (I didn't know about them until I was almost finished TK).

I think JTMW and Tae Kim were really good, but am worried that I might be missing out on a lot since I didn't start with the traditional approach (ie. the textbooks).
Or should I just ditch those textbooks go straight to immersion stuff like Japanesepod, etc.

Much thanks

ryanjmack Member

From: New Jersey Registered: 2013-01-30 Posts: 150

I'm studying Genki I right now inputting sentences/vocab in to anki. I'm also doing Tae Kim but I'm only about 100 cards in.

Here's my $0.02.

Pros:
With your knowledge of grammar going through this will be a breeze. By the time you hit the end of the book you learn a good amount of sentences/vocab. I don't know how advanced you are with Japanese the manga way, but either genki will reinforce what you know or teach you some more basics. Either way you might be interested in checking out Core 2k/6k/10k before committing to buying another textbook. You seemed like you might be prepared to tackle the core decks.

Cons:
Genki can be very tedious. Looking at the book manually entering sentences in to anki, adding audio via TTS (text to speech). Also not all of the vocab on the vocab lists at the beginning of each chapter are found anywhere in the chapter. If your somewhat ocd or a perfectionist you will have ample cards with vocab only, no sentences (some vocab will not be in context). The audio that is used via TTS sometimes has weird pronunciation but nevertheless gives you a rough idea of how the sentence should sound.

Once I finish Genki I I'm going to see if I'm ready for the core decks. I definitely do not want to keep textbook studying, it's very dry and tedious. If I'm not ready I guess I have no choice to do Genki II.

Ash_S Member

From: UK Registered: 2011-02-24 Posts: 156

I can only answer from my own experience but I just had a quick read through Tae Kim after completing RtK then straight onto native material/immersion and it's worked fine for me. I think a textbook would be unnatural and boring but as long as you get to the native material at some point you're going to own at Japanese in the future...

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MelonBerry Member

From: United States Registered: 2011-12-04 Posts: 74

Do what you feel you need to. I read Tae Kim, reading it through out a few weeks. I had nothing to back it up, so most of the things I learned, only very few sticked. Now I'm going through Genki 1/2 + aDoBJG, along with it's deck. I'm trying to get the most out of grammar before jumping into native material, because I simply can not do it. I'm surprised and very curious about how some people read Tae Kim and are able to do that..

Xanpakuto Member

Registered: 2013-06-01 Posts: 239 Website

I just couldn't stand reading so much Genki and Tae Kim. So I got halfway through Genki, and went all around in Tae Kim and just went straight to J-Drama and manga. Been working out so far, I've had plenty exposure to Japanese sentences already so it's not that hard to pick off what grammar point I have to plug into google. I'm still going to finish Genki 1 + 2 because it has a lot of nice sentences to add to anki.

(Genki 1)
You don't have to follow me but, I'm only going to put the vocab that was in the dialog into my vocab decks in anki only due to the fact that their in context sentences. That's how I learn all my vocabulary; songs, drama, books, grammar sentences.

s0apgun 鬼武者 ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ

From: Chicago Registered: 2011-12-24 Posts: 453 Website

MelonBerry wrote:
I'm surprised and very curious about how some people read Tae Kim and are able to do that..

Tae Kim Anki deck

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MelonBerry wrote: