Hi, everyone.
I am looking for very basic texts in romaji for total beginners. Could you recommend something easy and solid that is out there?
Thank you.
cingo
Member
From: germany
Registered: 2007-10-03
Posts: 31
Romaji is very bad for your health.
And a forum for people who are keen to learn somewhere between 2000 and 3000 kanji is probably not the best place to ask.
Besides it takes about three hours to learn all the kana.
This has been debated widely over the last few centuries, as you will see from here http://tinyurl.com/bm32lut .
Last edited by cingo (2012 May 26, 10:14 am)
netsplitter
Member
From: Melbourne
Registered: 2008-07-13
Posts: 168
A lot of the books published by Kodansha International used romaji alongside proper Japanese, which might be useful to you. Unfortunately, the company has since been shut down, but you can probably still find a lot of their books floating about. A good book is "All About Particles" which a lot of people here recommend, but I'm not too sure if it's suitable for the level you are after.
If this is really what you want, you can get the Ultimate Japanese series of textbooks. There is also Japanese for Everyone for which a Romaji version is available. I am sure that I have seen other books using romaji almost exclusively, but can't remember the titles at the moment. Edit I just remembered one other that I have seen, Shin Nihongo no Kiso, which comes with a Japanese version, meaning Kana, Kanji, and the English translation with Romaji.
しんにほんごのきそ http://www.amazon.com/Shin-Nihongo-No-K … amp;sr=8-1
JFBP: http://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Busy-Peo … amp;sr=8-1
Ultimate Japanese: http://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Japanese … amp;sr=1-4
But as others have already told you there is nothing you can gain from learning Romaji versus learning the Kana. So you had better learn the Kana instead of relying on the Kanji. After you learned them more resources will become available. Not only textbooks to learn the language with, but also childrens stories, Manga, and even newspapers written for children.
So, again, take your time and learn the Kana, either with a pre-made Anki deck, with Nukemarines fantastic video series http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKh9MQOaZ7I or with the Meguro Learning Center Worksheets http://www.mlcjapanese.co.jp/Download.htm With the MLC worksheets, you also get some writing practice, but this is optional. Anyway you are going to do it, the important thing is to just do it, you will not regret it. 
Last edited by Nagareboshi (2012 May 26, 4:20 pm)
Thora
Member
From: Canada
Registered: 2007-02-23
Posts: 1659
I also wasn't sure what you mean by "texts" for total beginners.
If a textbook would suit your purpose (and since you prefer non-Hepburn romanization), you might like _Japanese The Spoken Language_ published by Yale (by Eleanor Hart.) It has more detailed grammar explanations than most [but be prepared for] some unique terminology. I think the audio is available on one of the univ websites.
There are a number of elementary textbooks and materials that include romaji. They usually contain basic dialogues, sentences and sometimes short readings. Japan Times used to publish one called something like _Modern Japanese_ . Most use Hepburn, I think. (All of the ones listed above?)
If it's longer texts you're after, I recall that a couple societies promoting the elimination of kanji had produced material intended for native speakers in kana-only or in romaji. Probably not appropriate for beginners, though. And the older stuff might contain some outdated Japanese.
fyi, I noticed this site has a beta Japanese-to-romaji converter for sentences. It can't determine the correct kanji readings if there are alternate readings. [It lists the possibilities instead.]
But.... (jumping on the bandwagon) :-) ... I also wouldn't recommend using romaji. As I see it, there are no benefits and several disadvantages.
[fixed link and mangled sentence]
Last edited by Thora (2012 May 27, 1:29 am)
callmedodge
Member
From: Tokyo
Registered: 2012-02-06
Posts: 69
Once learning the kana, which doesn`t take long at all, reading Japanese in romanji becomes distincly more difficult.
I would seriously recommend to your friend not to learn anything in romanji. It`s a short cut that will only get you so far and will be ultimately detrimental to learning to language properly.
Edit: "Ultimately detrimental" is a bad way of putting it. Basically, when they do get around to learning the kana, reading words will be as difficult aas when they`d first started off. Learning through romanji is essentially a waste of time.
Last edited by callmedodge (2012 May 28, 3:05 am)
meeatcookies
Member
From: Poland
Registered: 2011-11-12
Posts: 68
With Heisig's Remembering the Kana, you can learn both hiragana and katakana within 2 days(or even 1). Learning japanese with romaji, would be the same as learning english with katakana for japanese. With good exercises, he can master reading/writing kana within few days - writing down words, reading something written only in kana. Just dont let him skip it, because he thinks it's easier to use romaji atm(nah, kana is easier). I had polish book with romaji everywhere, but dont know any english ones.
quark
Member
From: Canada
Registered: 2011-10-11
Posts: 152
Why not get your friend to try something like "Japanese for Everyone"? It starts off with both romaji and kana, and then it kind of slowly weans you off the romaji.
If he's really set on getting a textbook in romaji, Japanese for Busy People has romaji versions of their text. I also believe Japanese for Dummies has romaji, but I'm not sure how good of a textbook that is.
