ISOtope,

I don't think you need much prerequisite for Minna no Nihongo beyond knowing the kana.

I used the first two Minna no Nihongo books in class, albeit last year's version.

Beginner texts - I didn't think the Minna no Nihongo books were stellar but liked them better than Japanese for Busy People or the free Tae Kim summary. Minna no Nihongo is quite dense and a bit dry.

Never really found a great Japanese beginner text book for English speakers although the Genki series looked like the most compelling; my teachers said Genki progression was too slow but I don't have a view there. I have the Dictionaries of Japanese Grammar, which are decent reference books but quite long. Finding a good intermediate text is even more challenging.

Classroom text - Anyways, the Minna no Nihongo textbooks are designed for classroom use so there are some concepts purposefully excluded from the textbook or not clearly highlighted. Those are included in the teacher's guide which you can not purchase. The main text's answer key (pull out at the back of the book which is sometimes missing) provides some answers to the end of chapter questions and the English supplemental text helps (although the English, while grammatically correct, was a bit difficult to understand). Some key vocabulary by chapter is highlighted in that English supplement.

Kanji - Also the Minna no Nihongo main text is exclusively in Japanese, with furigana to help with kanji pronunciation. The introduction of Kanji is a bit frustrating in the later chapters as inevitability some simple words use some more difficult kanji (e.g. there is not a linear progression of kanji). But that is the nature of Japanese. We used a separate Kanji textbook series; the kanji and vocab in the Kanji textbook were not too closely linked to those of Minna no Nihongo.

Other related texts - 3A sells a bunch of complimentary text books; I have many of the prior versions. The workbook is quite useful as it provides a bit more depth missing in the main text but as I recall there is no answer key so you will need someone to correct your answers. There was a kanji book which follows the main text; the question of course is what is the optimal order to learn the kanji. There is also a listening book that is quite useful.

The best students seemed to simultaneously study grammar-listening with specialized JLPT texts and began preparing for the JLPT exams from day one.

I would consider using RTK to help you systematically learn and remember the kanji.

Last edited by scooter1 (January 07, 2:16 pm)

MNN shokyuu I starts from zero, so if you know hiragana and katakana you should be good to go.

Things that were useful for me:
1) Main text (for obvious reasons)
2) Companion book with explanations for the grammar & co
3) Workbook. It's really important that you get the basics right and ingrained, so exercising is key.

The additional Kanji books were okay and definitely helped some classmates, but I'd rate them as nice-to-have and not really necessary, especially if you plan on using additional/other books for kanji study.

Overall I think MNN was quite good and did its job well. However, it can be quite dry at times and the dialogues/topics are very predictable. E.g. ミラーさん always acts in a scripted way and awkward way, but somehow I actually kind of grew fond of him and wondered how strangely he'd perform the next time.

One last piece of advice: While the Japanese encountered in MNN is always 'well-behaved' and easily understandable, there is also a world outside the books where things are quite to the contrary. I'd recommend you to not isolate yourself with just one source, but also add other study material in order to avoid only being able to cope with dumbed down Japanese.

Last edited by hyvel (January 07, 6:59 pm)