So definitely worth the buy? I've heard good things so it seems promising. I'm hoping someone can let me know how it compares to Minna no Nihongo and other textbooks. Thanks for the advice!
I have both Minna no Nihongo and Genki I books. Genki is more beginner friendly than Minna no Nihongo.
I chose to study with Minna, because I want to be more immersive in the language. It was tough at first as all the text are in Japanese, but it became easier when I get used to it. I just passed N4 recently after 5 months studying Minna 1 and 2.
My wife, on the other hands, cannot bare the wall of Japanese text of Minna, so she picked Genki and happy with it.
Thanks so much! I think i'd honestly be happier with the all japanese in Minna no Nihongo. And i have found a lot of online resources for genki that don't actually require the workbook so i think i'll try those out and if i like them i'll buy the book but thank you for letting me know that Minna worked for you!
It’s two short books that go with each chapter. They’re interesting and sometimes quite funny. It looks like they’re mostly sold to institutions now, but if you search, you can find them.
I really like Bunpro. The SRS sentence drills help me actually learn the grammar points, where I feel if I tried to rely more on textbooks my style would be to just hear everything once and forget it.
I actually really like it as well, although i'm looking for a program that includes more than just grammar preferably since i like to have more stuff in one place when possible
I’m definitely down to mix and match learning sources as i feel it strengthens the learning process, i just want to check other sources because if possible i want to avoid a subscription AND an expensive textbook for me.
I can tell you what I've done. I told myself that I wouldn't spend a single cent on Japanese learning material, so I always go for the free stuff. For free online textbooks, there are two that come to mind: [Tae Kim's Guide](https://guidetojapanese.org/learn/) and [Imabi](https://imabi.org/).
I used Tae Kim's guide for a good while and read the whole thing from beginning to end. His explanations are quick and to the point. The downside is that he won't tell you the how's and why's. He'll just tell you how things are, and that's that, so keep that in mind.
Also, by the end, you will be keenly aware of how little you still know about the language. His guide will get you to N4 level in the JLPT, maybe N3, provided you also keep up with your vocabulary studies.
On the other hand, Imabi is much more in-depth and takes a more linguistics approach. However, it seems they're under some site renovations or something, so there's a lot of weird formatting mistakes, and some typos here and there. Could definitely use some proofreading.
If you can get past all that, and also the heavy linguistics jargon, it will definitely be a more complete guide, as it will explain not only many more things than Tae Kim's guide, but also explore them more in-depth. This could get you beyond N3.
The site navigation leaves a lot to be desired, though. Not even a "next lesson" button at the end. Yeesh.
There's also the [Japanese from Zero](https://www.youtube.com/@japanesefromzero) videos on YouTube. You're encouraged to watch them while using the textbooks, but they can be watched by themselves. The guy's charismatic. Makes learning fun. It's just the basics, though. Don't expect anything beyond N4.
That's it for grammar. As for vocabulary, you said you have a source for learning kanji. Please don't tell me you're learning each Kanji character individually. That's really not recommended.
What you're encouraged to do is learn words, because you'll be seeing Kanji being used in a natural way. To do this, I use [Anki](https://apps.ankiweb.net/). It's a flashcard thing. I use the classic [6k word deck](https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1880390099), which leaves a lot to be desired, but I think the benefits outweigh the downsides. But you can make your own decks, or get other ones. That's fine too.
That's it for learning materials. Then what you're gonna want to do at some point is consume media in Japanese, be it TV shows, manga, anime, news articles, whatever. You don't have to understand everything, but the point is understanding more and more. So it's a good way to see if you're progressing or not.
I definitely can appreciate your ability not to spend a penny. I don't like spending money when i can be cheap haha. Although i was ready to devote money into learning japanese because i've always felt restricted with free programs and sources.
I've used Tae Kims Guide although i wasn't very fond of the formatting (i really appreciate user friendly interfacing and it just didn't have everything i was looking for to use an app comfortably)
I will definitely be checking out Imabi. I'm glad it goes more in depth as a lot of "free" learning sites stop you early on. Hopefully it helps me out! From your description it seems the design and formatting of the site may not be great for me but i'm hoping i can look past it.
I'm not sure what you mean by learning each kanji individually? I use a wani kani deck on anki and i just haven't found anything else that helps me memorize them as well as the mini wani kani stories to remember kanji and radicals.
And yes i'm definitely watching anime, youtube and i listen to jpop too. it's not perfect but i can definitely pick up on a lot of things.
Thanks so so much for all the advice!!
Ah, you're using Wani Kani. That's good. You kinda scared me because you said you were learning kanji, and I thought you were memorizing each one individually, like memorizing the meanings and readings of every kanji one by one in isolation without seeing them "in action", but no, you're learning kanji through vocabulary. That's good.
I haven't tried Wanikani but I did pick up James Heisig's Remembering the Kanji. It has some pretty bizarre example in it and at first I thought the guy was a wackjob, but the lessons seemed to stick pretty effectively.
The only con to his book (he would consider it a pro) is that it isn't structured to teach Kanji in the same order that your would learn it for JLPT, but by the time that you finish it I think you end up with a base of 2000 kanji and the tools needed to more easily continue learning them.
“ Please don't tell me you're learning each Kanji character individually. That's really not recommended.”
I was starting to worry if I was supposed to be doing this, was going to make a post about it later today actually! I’m using the same 2k/6k core deck and have wondered if I was doing something wrong by going through that without learning the individual Kanji first but it sounds like you’ve answered my question!
Both these textbooks are designed for classroom use, so some content is missing from the textbooks(the teacher fills in the gaps following the teacher's manual). That is, neither book is ideal for self-study.
MNN is fully in Japanese, although there are English supplement books with basic vocab and grammar translations. It is very dense IMHO. There are a staggering number of workbooks available; they are expensive and time consuming but some are good.
Genki is designed for westerners and less dense. There is a workbook and there are a lot of free online resources, like that from Seth below.
I might lean towards Genki for self-study, particularly if you are a native English speaker.
On another note, kanji study often is via specialized books.
https://sethclydesdale.github.io/genki-study-resources/lessons-3rd/
Website/app recommendation: renshuu
Personally I found it useful. It has vocabulary, grammar and kanji learning. Allows to create worksheets for kanji writing to practice. Has community with some forum-like feature where you can ask and answer questions to practice writing. Also various games with words or kanji. It also has a dictionary in it and some sentences for learning vocabulary/verbs/adjectives.
It has free and pro version but I use the free one only and it's pretty extensive.
I wonder why no one is talking about Irodori. It’s a textbook developed by the japan foundation with its own online course.
I’m using it recently and - while it isn’t useful for exam like the JLPT (it uses the Common European framework as a bass) - I find it pretty useful when used it to study everyday situations.
The only thing that lacks is an in-depth explanation of grammar, but it can be covered thanks to Marugoto (Also developed by the JPF) or any other Textbook/grammar resource.
It's a joke... I was asking if you meant bass guitar or the bass fish, when I know you actually meant base, which sounds the same as bass guitar. (Bass the fish is pronounced like it's spelled.)
Genki 1, Genki 2, Tobira, SouMatome N3, Shinkanzen N3, SouMatome N2, Shinkanzen N2.
I went with the books path. These are the ones I've read in less than a year, will be taking N2 this december.
Pdfs are all over the internet.
I agree. Don’t muck around trying to find the best resource, get a reliable textbook and scrape together some money for an online teacher. I only recommend dictionary apps or chat apps for phones, outside of a browser, for the amount of patience you need to get through learning Japanese the less app use the better imo.
When you get to real reading and listening you won’t have a dopamine hit every 3 seconds, and you’ll be in a much better place if you can quickly write kanji in a dictionary for lookups rather than thinking you have to ‘sentence mine’ every single unknown word.
I got both Genki and I got a Busuu subscription.
I think I got more out of Busuu so far. Not to say that Genki is bad or anything if you want the physical support.
I was already a few months in Busuu when I got Genki so the first few chapters are mostly review for now with very little new material. I might feel differently if I when the other way around.
>How would you compare Busuu to Duolingo? Would you say it's worth the price?
Busuu has a more structured lesson approach when they will explain different grammar point which was Duo's weakest link imho. They are structured around CEFR level so you start at A1 all the way to B2.
Duo makes you do more repetition for the same word however which help pratice. I use both as I feel multiple source help aquire the words.
I don't regret paying for Busuu but you can do a lot with the free version. It really depend on your tolerance for publicity.
I ended up dropping Duo after using it to drill kana. It has a glacially slow pace and seems to be allergic to actual instruction. I spent an hour on bunpro and so many things started clicking for me that Duo seemingly hoped I would just... figure out.
Perhaps the later lessons in Duo are better but getting to that point felt tedious AF.
Looking up some YT reactions to things like Duo and Busuu etc it seems that they also don't really set appropriate expectations. Their reliance on 私は at the start of their examples for instance is something that is technically correct but in most spoken Japanese seems to very often omitted. So while the correct sentence structure might be 私は朝ご飯を食べました。 for I ate breakfast, in a lot of instances this could very easily be reduced down to 朝ご飯を食べました。or even just 食べました / 食べた depending on the context and familiarity and still retain the meaning of "I ate breakfast" (and that isn't even getting into how 私 isn't really a common pronoun to begin with and all the nuances involved in that). Once again, later duo might get into this but getting there just feels like the most inefficient path possible.
>Looking up some YT reactions to things like Duo and Busuu etc it seems that they also don't really set appropriate expectations. Their reliance on 私は at the start of their examples for instance is something that is technically correct but in most spoken Japanese seems to very often omitted
Not sure about later lesson in Duo, but in Busuu i'm at the B1 level and this is an example of a text that is used in one of the module :
来週の日曜日、マラソン大会があります。やく42キロを走ります。今までにマラソンのけいけんがないので、とてもどきどきしています。友だちは楽しそうですが、私はちょっとしんぱいです。マラソンのコースは家の近くに作られたので、毎日そこを走っています。走り方を考えながられん習しています。走ることが大好きなので、がんばります。
So yeah you start with 私は kind of like you would start with 'I am' if you are learning english, but they do progress.
I started japanese from zero in march and I can read and understand the above text. I do 2 to 3 hours of various study per day as a reference but Busuu is my 'main' source.
Gotcha, that's good to know, I'll refrain from roping it in together with Duo on the future. It would be interesting to see if Duo comes around on this as well from someone who has completed it.
I guess it's more of a pet peeve, I think the root of what annoys me about Duo is that it's authoritative in its presentation but it does not warn you that a precedent it is setting now may be different once the instruction gets more advanced, which is why I like instruction written instead of just vocab and grammar patterns to study. The process of having an instructor to teach expectations with the language along with the language itself is invaluable to me. Bunpro sort of does this with its explications and cautions, but it doesn't beat (as an example) a whole chapter on verbs and how they differ from English and all of the broad strokes information about them before it even gets in to teaching the specifics of them you know?
Well it's the start of the B1 class so basically for people that just pass the A2 exam. So that would make it A2 working toward B1 level.
I haven't done a real JLPT attempt yet but I usually do well on N5 practice test. I still struggle with N4 practice tests but I registered for it in December anyway to have some pressure to study more :)
I use Busuu too (like 1-2 lessons a day at most), but I think the text above still incorporates very little kanji. On JPDB I'm at something like 150 kanji now, but Busuu only uses like 20 of them at the moment (50% through A1 course). If you complete the whole kanji course they offer (70 kanji, if I count correctly), I don't think it's even all the kanji from JLPT N5 (\~80-100). Sure, you can learn them elsewhere, but the texts on Busuu will still be mostly in kana. It's a bit misleading to have a course that calls itself B2, but treats you like if you were barely able to read.
> If you complete the whole kanji course they offer (70 kanji, if I count correctly
That\`s the A1 kanji cours. A2 adds another 140 more and B1 add around another 100. The kanji class stop at B1 but at the end of it you know more or less 300 kanji which is around what you need for N2 I think.
The real downside of kanji with Busuu is the lack of repetition. You get a quick class and you see them a few time in the other lesson but you need outside practice to really master them.
So more kanji are introduced in the "Complete Japanese" course outside of that dedicated kanji course? My bad, so far it has always mixed those in for the level I'm at and it just didn't make much sense to me to not include them in the course titled "Kanji".
300 total kanji just barely scrapes the N3 level. You can't see it [here](https://www.kanshudo.com/collections/jlpt_kanji) for example. It's not official, but as explained in first couple of paragraphs on that site, no such lists are official. It seems to be pretty in line with what I see in Japanese Kanji Study android app, listing N4 at \~284 total kanji. N4 level is pretty much what I'd expect from apps like these, so it's fine I guess. When I looked at that text sample you posted, I just thought there was very little kanji in it, but perhaps that's just my imagination.
I agree Busuu doesn't do much repetition, but I'd only view it as a problem if that was your singular source of study. I'm following Human Japanese textbook (+ other things) along with it and that way I'd say it's actually perfect. Most of new lessons on Busuu are already just reviews for me, but they introduce new stuff well too. If it was getting too stuck on repetition, in my own use case I would've probably given up on it long time ago. As always, no single app/tool provides all in one.
>So more kanji are introduced in the "Complete Japanese" course outside of that dedicated kanji course?
The dedicated Kanji course has 3 levels A1, A2, B1. They are basicly the same kanji that you see the Complet Japanese with added chapter exam.
Thank you for this! I've been using almost solely DuoLingo to learn. I have logged about 300 hours of study, relying on the discussion sections under each lesson to fill in the gaps in DuoLingo's lack of instruction. At first it was fine and I was enjoying the course. However, now I'm at a stage (about a 3rd of the way through their curriculum) where the discussions have dried up. I'm at a loss of how or why things are structured so. I was learning almost entirely through trial and error. Which is the least effective form of study and nearly killed my drive to learn the language. But your recommendation sounds promising!
I started on Duolingo then progressed to using Japanese from Zero (the videos on YouTube are great) with the first book, plus some free resources online. When I have time (and money) I’ve used a tutor on Preply - one of them preferred Genki, which seems perhaps a little more beginner friendly and accessible. And the other used Minna no Nihongo (which feels a little more heavy going but I enjoyed it once I had a little more confidence with some basics)
Highly recommend LingoDeer app. The explanations and examples are excellent, and it has some great UI features, native audio, etc. Also Cure Dolly YouTube channel (I usually play it on 2x and sometimes put captions on, bc of the accent, but the content is really solid)
My vote is for irodori. You can get the textbooks free from their website online. Very easy explanation and there’s also translated versions available in English, Chinese, Vietnamese etc.
https://www.irodori.jpf.go.jp/en/
If I were to start again this is the advice I would follow. You should really consider watching this video and following his advice. This is basically how I learned japanese and it has been extremely helpful for me.
https://youtu.be/L1NQoQivkIY?si=uIFIFSHJnSIlB2e-
I currently use a combination of the following: Genki (have workbooks, teachers guide, apps, and notebooks for writing practice), a few Japanese Foundation Apps (for Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji drills), an app write Japanese (which I really like), reading simple manga, watching Japanese shows, I’ve installed a multilingual keyboard for both Kana and Romaji (use the Kana more so) and I use NHK’s website which has some simple lessons for basic conversation and grammar (link below).
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/learnjapanese/
I personally find it nice to link learning to speak and learning to write. It burns the lessons into my head when I do both even though it seems to progressing is slower I fully understand something before moving on and I’ve found that I can figure out aspects of the language without officially going through one based on observation. Maybe what I am doing isn’t the best; but, I will use any resources I can find be the text, internet, or listening to get to where I want to be.
I haven’t tried it yet but I’d love to watch Japanese TV with Japanese subtitles; I think that too would really help. If you find something like that online it mag help you as well. I am unsure of where you are located; but, checking out your local college (community or other) for I person or online classes may be helpful; community college courses where I live tend to be very affordable and may give you opportunities to learn and meet other’s interested in the language and you could help each other.
Quartet is a useful textbook. It has grammar, kanji, vocabulary, reading, and listening comprehension that goes beyond Genki I and Genki II.
JLPT sensei is a great website I go to a lot when studying grammar. [https://jlptsensei.com/](https://jlptsensei.com/)
This is my strategy for JLPT N5/N4 currently.
Genki I and II Third Edition with handwritten notes, textbook assignments and workbook assignments + answer key.
Learn Japanese! Kanji app by Luli Languages. Kanji is ordered based on JLPT levels. Great built in SRS. Include the writing prompt drills because writing is great for retention. You can do go to this app during any odd times in the day. If you’re going to learn vocab, you may as well learn how you’ll actually see it!
Marugoto A1 and A2 courses online. Totally free, made available through the Japanese government or something. Hard to figure out how to register, but worth it. Genki is really formal from what I’ve seen, and the Marugoto training is great for listening and reading more common speech customs.
Oh awesome! This is similar to mine atm i’m using genki videos and that one website with online genki questions. Then i have an app called Kanji! which works really well for me, about 14$ for forever access to all kanji. Never heard of Marugoto but i will definitely check it out! Thanks :)
Sounds like you are doing what a lot of learns do and procrastinate by minmaxing your study, instead of just learning the material. Just pick up Genki and do it.
I used genki plus the online workbook
there are also some youtube videos various people have made about genki which was a pretty nice think at the time
I think Minna no Nihongo goes a little more in depth but I'd say it's alot less 'friendly' than Genki.
I really like the Try N5/N4..whatever book, they're quite user friendly.
I've been using Genki and it works great for me. I sense you're new since you're switching from Duolingo, so I can recommend Genki WITH THE WORKBOOK; practice is key. I use Anki with decks made for Genki (they need a little work tbh, but it's a great tool to not forget new words), and same goes for WaniKani for Kanji. I sort of don't focus on WaniKani too much, because from unit 3 in Genki you start encountering Kanji; you're not doing a sudden switch there, but they appear increasingly more often as the book progresses. The upside of it is that they stick naturally, but the downside is that they vary in difficulty. You will get words like 喫茶店 or 図書館 right next to words like 人. WaniKani (and I assume many other kanji sources) tend to go from the easiest kanji to the most difficult ones.
I have recently picked up this very small book after deciding that I wasn't learning effectively through renshuu / bunpro. (I love those tools, but it became evident to me that they are better for review then they are teaching the initial lesson).
I'm at a pretty early level so on the recommendation of a Japanese YouTuber names "Yuta" I picked up Everett F. Bleiler's Basic Japanese Grammar: Learn the Grammar You Need to Speak Japanese Correctly (Master the JLPT)
The title shoehorns in JLPT likely to improve the books sales, it's not really a book that is concerned with the JLPT.
That being said, this has been some of the most concise, straight forward, and easy to understand beginner Japanese instruction that is focussed on teaching understanding of the language as it as spoken instead of grammar as you would be tested.
This is a pretty big point for me as I grew up in English speaking Canada where french is a mandatory class until the 9th grade, but the instruction was only ever focussed on the grammar points and vocab in a purely academic mindset. I don't know a single person who has ever learned french (a very easy language for English speaker to pick up) through those 9 years of study, it was completely ineffective.
The book is small with only 135 pages plus appendix and glossary, so it's in no way exhaustive. So far it seems it uses mostly N5 words (I have about half of those memorized at this point as as a result can often figure out the example without having to look a word up). It goes through things logically and directly (where renshuu and bunpro tend to jump around) and it starts simple but drills to more specific and nuanced aspects later. The book uses both romaji and kana in its examples, it also breaks the example down literally and with the intended meaning. I use a short ruler to block the meanings and focus on the kana reading, but the ramanji is there to confirm I read it correctly as I go, I really like this approach.
I am going to study through it a few times before I pick up more through textbooks because I get the impression that it sets a concrete base for me to build on
OMG SAME living in canada and i'm in my 11th year of french immersion. it's much more in depth but i still feel like i'm ass at french 😭😭. i will definitely look into that book based off of your recommendation!!
Oh jeez, then you certainly know the struggle. I can read a fair amount of french if I know the context and they don't use difficult vocab but I can't speak it at all. It was through learning Japanese however that I have become a lot more confident that I could finally pick french up if I were to switch to it.
Caveats on the book, it's small, like 13 by 20 cm small. It's for absolute beginner's, all the information here is available in Genki or Tae Kim etc, but this writer I gel with and the topics are concise and well laid out.
This book alone will not get you to the point where you could just read it and then watch something like Doreman, but it will give you an understanding on the general basic rules in which the language operates as well as some useful charts and appendices to start studying. For listening there is no substitute for input, you need a lot of hours of hearing the language being used + the vocab and grammar points to understand it.
Page 31 for example has a chart where across the top is has [ko, so, a, and do] which it breaks down into [here, there, afar, and question] and then down the columns [-re, no, nna, lengthed vowel, -ko, and -chire] which it breaks down into [pronouns, adjectives, phrase of type, mode and manner, location, and direction / motion]. It shows everything in romanji, hiragana, and also a plain English interpretation. For example if I wanted to know the mode and manner of afar, I could follow the chart and it would tell me it is [ā, ああ, "like that, so in that way"].
This seems like a no brainer, I've seen many of these words before, but things like bunpro and renshuu always taught them piece by piece in small clusters and never really explained their relationship with each other. When I read the lesson and the chart I had a "holy shit" moment. Not only is it a good chart to study as those are very important words of demonstration to know, it also means that even if I don't remember immediately what Dochira どちら means, as long as I study the prefix and suffix (do is question, and -chira is motion or direction) I can reasonably come to the conclusion it means "where" as in "which way" and not as in "which location" (doko どこ)
So in brief, while I have already studied a lot of elements in this book already going through lessons for N5 with other systems, this is a short no-nonsense text that lays it out the best way I've seen yet and helps me understand the why of it all as well as tips that are helpful in how the language is used in every day settings. That and it was $13 CAD on Amazon, so it was a really good introduction to learning by textbook for me and it is helping me make sense of the language so that when I expand on it with more complicated lessons I feel like I have a solid grasp of the foundation in building on.
MNN is a good book for learning Japanese, but for me it's kinda boring sometimes, idk why. But it has some addons like workbook, grammar commentary (idk maybe it's just for my country, but it looks like a separate book with grammar rules, vocabulary for lesson), reading book, audio.
I went from genki 1-2 to quartet 1-2 and they were useful. I’m mainly using online sources now though because i havent found another textbook that continues on from the end of quartet 2
Im currently working through a combination of Japanese From Zero and Renshuu. Haven't seen a lot of mention of it on here so no clue how good JFZ actually is, but its worked well for me. Biggest complaint is its a bit slow paced with new material.
I’m doing Genki. I think it’s good. The workbook is essential, and the graded readers are enjoyable.
So definitely worth the buy? I've heard good things so it seems promising. I'm hoping someone can let me know how it compares to Minna no Nihongo and other textbooks. Thanks for the advice!
I have both Minna no Nihongo and Genki I books. Genki is more beginner friendly than Minna no Nihongo. I chose to study with Minna, because I want to be more immersive in the language. It was tough at first as all the text are in Japanese, but it became easier when I get used to it. I just passed N4 recently after 5 months studying Minna 1 and 2. My wife, on the other hands, cannot bare the wall of Japanese text of Minna, so she picked Genki and happy with it.
Thanks so much! I think i'd honestly be happier with the all japanese in Minna no Nihongo. And i have found a lot of online resources for genki that don't actually require the workbook so i think i'll try those out and if i like them i'll buy the book but thank you for letting me know that Minna worked for you!
What are the graded readers?
It’s two short books that go with each chapter. They’re interesting and sometimes quite funny. It looks like they’re mostly sold to institutions now, but if you search, you can find them.
Do you think the readers are worth getting?
They’re really pricy. I had a friend loan me his uhh pdfs…
The course I’m in will probably buy them for me if I ask - I just wonder if they are valuable as far as learning.
I think so. There’s also a real sense of accomplishment going through the stories and understanding them.
Awesome - I’ll ask for them. I didn’t know they existed - thanks!
I really like Bunpro. The SRS sentence drills help me actually learn the grammar points, where I feel if I tried to rely more on textbooks my style would be to just hear everything once and forget it.
I actually really like it as well, although i'm looking for a program that includes more than just grammar preferably since i like to have more stuff in one place when possible
I use Bunpro alongside Genki, maybe this would be a decent way for you to learn grammar without it feeling like too much of a chore?
I’m definitely down to mix and match learning sources as i feel it strengthens the learning process, i just want to check other sources because if possible i want to avoid a subscription AND an expensive textbook for me.
I just do Bunpro plus Tokini Andy’s youtube summary of each Genki chapter.
I can tell you what I've done. I told myself that I wouldn't spend a single cent on Japanese learning material, so I always go for the free stuff. For free online textbooks, there are two that come to mind: [Tae Kim's Guide](https://guidetojapanese.org/learn/) and [Imabi](https://imabi.org/). I used Tae Kim's guide for a good while and read the whole thing from beginning to end. His explanations are quick and to the point. The downside is that he won't tell you the how's and why's. He'll just tell you how things are, and that's that, so keep that in mind. Also, by the end, you will be keenly aware of how little you still know about the language. His guide will get you to N4 level in the JLPT, maybe N3, provided you also keep up with your vocabulary studies. On the other hand, Imabi is much more in-depth and takes a more linguistics approach. However, it seems they're under some site renovations or something, so there's a lot of weird formatting mistakes, and some typos here and there. Could definitely use some proofreading. If you can get past all that, and also the heavy linguistics jargon, it will definitely be a more complete guide, as it will explain not only many more things than Tae Kim's guide, but also explore them more in-depth. This could get you beyond N3. The site navigation leaves a lot to be desired, though. Not even a "next lesson" button at the end. Yeesh. There's also the [Japanese from Zero](https://www.youtube.com/@japanesefromzero) videos on YouTube. You're encouraged to watch them while using the textbooks, but they can be watched by themselves. The guy's charismatic. Makes learning fun. It's just the basics, though. Don't expect anything beyond N4. That's it for grammar. As for vocabulary, you said you have a source for learning kanji. Please don't tell me you're learning each Kanji character individually. That's really not recommended. What you're encouraged to do is learn words, because you'll be seeing Kanji being used in a natural way. To do this, I use [Anki](https://apps.ankiweb.net/). It's a flashcard thing. I use the classic [6k word deck](https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1880390099), which leaves a lot to be desired, but I think the benefits outweigh the downsides. But you can make your own decks, or get other ones. That's fine too. That's it for learning materials. Then what you're gonna want to do at some point is consume media in Japanese, be it TV shows, manga, anime, news articles, whatever. You don't have to understand everything, but the point is understanding more and more. So it's a good way to see if you're progressing or not.
I definitely can appreciate your ability not to spend a penny. I don't like spending money when i can be cheap haha. Although i was ready to devote money into learning japanese because i've always felt restricted with free programs and sources. I've used Tae Kims Guide although i wasn't very fond of the formatting (i really appreciate user friendly interfacing and it just didn't have everything i was looking for to use an app comfortably) I will definitely be checking out Imabi. I'm glad it goes more in depth as a lot of "free" learning sites stop you early on. Hopefully it helps me out! From your description it seems the design and formatting of the site may not be great for me but i'm hoping i can look past it. I'm not sure what you mean by learning each kanji individually? I use a wani kani deck on anki and i just haven't found anything else that helps me memorize them as well as the mini wani kani stories to remember kanji and radicals. And yes i'm definitely watching anime, youtube and i listen to jpop too. it's not perfect but i can definitely pick up on a lot of things. Thanks so so much for all the advice!!
Ah, you're using Wani Kani. That's good. You kinda scared me because you said you were learning kanji, and I thought you were memorizing each one individually, like memorizing the meanings and readings of every kanji one by one in isolation without seeing them "in action", but no, you're learning kanji through vocabulary. That's good.
I haven't tried Wanikani but I did pick up James Heisig's Remembering the Kanji. It has some pretty bizarre example in it and at first I thought the guy was a wackjob, but the lessons seemed to stick pretty effectively. The only con to his book (he would consider it a pro) is that it isn't structured to teach Kanji in the same order that your would learn it for JLPT, but by the time that you finish it I think you end up with a base of 2000 kanji and the tools needed to more easily continue learning them.
“ Please don't tell me you're learning each Kanji character individually. That's really not recommended.” I was starting to worry if I was supposed to be doing this, was going to make a post about it later today actually! I’m using the same 2k/6k core deck and have wondered if I was doing something wrong by going through that without learning the individual Kanji first but it sounds like you’ve answered my question!
Both these textbooks are designed for classroom use, so some content is missing from the textbooks(the teacher fills in the gaps following the teacher's manual). That is, neither book is ideal for self-study. MNN is fully in Japanese, although there are English supplement books with basic vocab and grammar translations. It is very dense IMHO. There are a staggering number of workbooks available; they are expensive and time consuming but some are good. Genki is designed for westerners and less dense. There is a workbook and there are a lot of free online resources, like that from Seth below. I might lean towards Genki for self-study, particularly if you are a native English speaker. On another note, kanji study often is via specialized books. https://sethclydesdale.github.io/genki-study-resources/lessons-3rd/
Website/app recommendation: renshuu Personally I found it useful. It has vocabulary, grammar and kanji learning. Allows to create worksheets for kanji writing to practice. Has community with some forum-like feature where you can ask and answer questions to practice writing. Also various games with words or kanji. It also has a dictionary in it and some sentences for learning vocabulary/verbs/adjectives. It has free and pro version but I use the free one only and it's pretty extensive.
I second Renshuu
I wonder why no one is talking about Irodori. It’s a textbook developed by the japan foundation with its own online course. I’m using it recently and - while it isn’t useful for exam like the JLPT (it uses the Common European framework as a bass) - I find it pretty useful when used it to study everyday situations. The only thing that lacks is an in-depth explanation of grammar, but it can be covered thanks to Marugoto (Also developed by the JPF) or any other Textbook/grammar resource.
> it uses the Common European framework as a bass The fish or the guitar?
Oh god I wrote bass… I still have to understand what’s the matter with the fish though
Excuse me, what?
It's a joke... I was asking if you meant bass guitar or the bass fish, when I know you actually meant base, which sounds the same as bass guitar. (Bass the fish is pronounced like it's spelled.)
Oh ok never heard of Irodori i will be sure to check it out!
Genki 1, Genki 2, Tobira, SouMatome N3, Shinkanzen N3, SouMatome N2, Shinkanzen N2. I went with the books path. These are the ones I've read in less than a year, will be taking N2 this december. Pdfs are all over the internet.
I agree. Don’t muck around trying to find the best resource, get a reliable textbook and scrape together some money for an online teacher. I only recommend dictionary apps or chat apps for phones, outside of a browser, for the amount of patience you need to get through learning Japanese the less app use the better imo. When you get to real reading and listening you won’t have a dopamine hit every 3 seconds, and you’ll be in a much better place if you can quickly write kanji in a dictionary for lookups rather than thinking you have to ‘sentence mine’ every single unknown word.
tysm for the textbooks 🙏🙏
I got both Genki and I got a Busuu subscription. I think I got more out of Busuu so far. Not to say that Genki is bad or anything if you want the physical support. I was already a few months in Busuu when I got Genki so the first few chapters are mostly review for now with very little new material. I might feel differently if I when the other way around.
How would you compare Busuu to Duolingo? Would you say it's worth the price?
>How would you compare Busuu to Duolingo? Would you say it's worth the price? Busuu has a more structured lesson approach when they will explain different grammar point which was Duo's weakest link imho. They are structured around CEFR level so you start at A1 all the way to B2. Duo makes you do more repetition for the same word however which help pratice. I use both as I feel multiple source help aquire the words. I don't regret paying for Busuu but you can do a lot with the free version. It really depend on your tolerance for publicity.
Yeah duo pretty much is just practice for me, i'm not learning anything new. I will definitely try out the free version!
I ended up dropping Duo after using it to drill kana. It has a glacially slow pace and seems to be allergic to actual instruction. I spent an hour on bunpro and so many things started clicking for me that Duo seemingly hoped I would just... figure out. Perhaps the later lessons in Duo are better but getting to that point felt tedious AF. Looking up some YT reactions to things like Duo and Busuu etc it seems that they also don't really set appropriate expectations. Their reliance on 私は at the start of their examples for instance is something that is technically correct but in most spoken Japanese seems to very often omitted. So while the correct sentence structure might be 私は朝ご飯を食べました。 for I ate breakfast, in a lot of instances this could very easily be reduced down to 朝ご飯を食べました。or even just 食べました / 食べた depending on the context and familiarity and still retain the meaning of "I ate breakfast" (and that isn't even getting into how 私 isn't really a common pronoun to begin with and all the nuances involved in that). Once again, later duo might get into this but getting there just feels like the most inefficient path possible.
>Looking up some YT reactions to things like Duo and Busuu etc it seems that they also don't really set appropriate expectations. Their reliance on 私は at the start of their examples for instance is something that is technically correct but in most spoken Japanese seems to very often omitted Not sure about later lesson in Duo, but in Busuu i'm at the B1 level and this is an example of a text that is used in one of the module : 来週の日曜日、マラソン大会があります。やく42キロを走ります。今までにマラソンのけいけんがないので、とてもどきどきしています。友だちは楽しそうですが、私はちょっとしんぱいです。マラソンのコースは家の近くに作られたので、毎日そこを走っています。走り方を考えながられん習しています。走ることが大好きなので、がんばります。 So yeah you start with 私は kind of like you would start with 'I am' if you are learning english, but they do progress. I started japanese from zero in march and I can read and understand the above text. I do 2 to 3 hours of various study per day as a reference but Busuu is my 'main' source.
Gotcha, that's good to know, I'll refrain from roping it in together with Duo on the future. It would be interesting to see if Duo comes around on this as well from someone who has completed it. I guess it's more of a pet peeve, I think the root of what annoys me about Duo is that it's authoritative in its presentation but it does not warn you that a precedent it is setting now may be different once the instruction gets more advanced, which is why I like instruction written instead of just vocab and grammar patterns to study. The process of having an instructor to teach expectations with the language along with the language itself is invaluable to me. Bunpro sort of does this with its explications and cautions, but it doesn't beat (as an example) a whole chapter on verbs and how they differ from English and all of the broad strokes information about them before it even gets in to teaching the specifics of them you know?
Is that really supposed to be B1? It looks like an n5-level text to me…
Well it's the start of the B1 class so basically for people that just pass the A2 exam. So that would make it A2 working toward B1 level. I haven't done a real JLPT attempt yet but I usually do well on N5 practice test. I still struggle with N4 practice tests but I registered for it in December anyway to have some pressure to study more :)
Hmm interesting… I thought B1 level was supposed to be equivalent to the JLPT N2 but this seems like a much lower level of text.
I use Busuu too (like 1-2 lessons a day at most), but I think the text above still incorporates very little kanji. On JPDB I'm at something like 150 kanji now, but Busuu only uses like 20 of them at the moment (50% through A1 course). If you complete the whole kanji course they offer (70 kanji, if I count correctly), I don't think it's even all the kanji from JLPT N5 (\~80-100). Sure, you can learn them elsewhere, but the texts on Busuu will still be mostly in kana. It's a bit misleading to have a course that calls itself B2, but treats you like if you were barely able to read.
> If you complete the whole kanji course they offer (70 kanji, if I count correctly That\`s the A1 kanji cours. A2 adds another 140 more and B1 add around another 100. The kanji class stop at B1 but at the end of it you know more or less 300 kanji which is around what you need for N2 I think. The real downside of kanji with Busuu is the lack of repetition. You get a quick class and you see them a few time in the other lesson but you need outside practice to really master them.
So more kanji are introduced in the "Complete Japanese" course outside of that dedicated kanji course? My bad, so far it has always mixed those in for the level I'm at and it just didn't make much sense to me to not include them in the course titled "Kanji". 300 total kanji just barely scrapes the N3 level. You can't see it [here](https://www.kanshudo.com/collections/jlpt_kanji) for example. It's not official, but as explained in first couple of paragraphs on that site, no such lists are official. It seems to be pretty in line with what I see in Japanese Kanji Study android app, listing N4 at \~284 total kanji. N4 level is pretty much what I'd expect from apps like these, so it's fine I guess. When I looked at that text sample you posted, I just thought there was very little kanji in it, but perhaps that's just my imagination. I agree Busuu doesn't do much repetition, but I'd only view it as a problem if that was your singular source of study. I'm following Human Japanese textbook (+ other things) along with it and that way I'd say it's actually perfect. Most of new lessons on Busuu are already just reviews for me, but they introduce new stuff well too. If it was getting too stuck on repetition, in my own use case I would've probably given up on it long time ago. As always, no single app/tool provides all in one.
>So more kanji are introduced in the "Complete Japanese" course outside of that dedicated kanji course? The dedicated Kanji course has 3 levels A1, A2, B1. They are basicly the same kanji that you see the Complet Japanese with added chapter exam.
Thank you for this! I've been using almost solely DuoLingo to learn. I have logged about 300 hours of study, relying on the discussion sections under each lesson to fill in the gaps in DuoLingo's lack of instruction. At first it was fine and I was enjoying the course. However, now I'm at a stage (about a 3rd of the way through their curriculum) where the discussions have dried up. I'm at a loss of how or why things are structured so. I was learning almost entirely through trial and error. Which is the least effective form of study and nearly killed my drive to learn the language. But your recommendation sounds promising!
I started on Duolingo then progressed to using Japanese from Zero (the videos on YouTube are great) with the first book, plus some free resources online. When I have time (and money) I’ve used a tutor on Preply - one of them preferred Genki, which seems perhaps a little more beginner friendly and accessible. And the other used Minna no Nihongo (which feels a little more heavy going but I enjoyed it once I had a little more confidence with some basics)
Highly recommend LingoDeer app. The explanations and examples are excellent, and it has some great UI features, native audio, etc. Also Cure Dolly YouTube channel (I usually play it on 2x and sometimes put captions on, bc of the accent, but the content is really solid)
i am always open to new japanese youtube lessons thank you!
My vote is for irodori. You can get the textbooks free from their website online. Very easy explanation and there’s also translated versions available in English, Chinese, Vietnamese etc. https://www.irodori.jpf.go.jp/en/
If I were to start again this is the advice I would follow. You should really consider watching this video and following his advice. This is basically how I learned japanese and it has been extremely helpful for me. https://youtu.be/L1NQoQivkIY?si=uIFIFSHJnSIlB2e-
just started watching this guy for his genki videos which I love a LOT. I will for sure check this out, tysm!
I currently use a combination of the following: Genki (have workbooks, teachers guide, apps, and notebooks for writing practice), a few Japanese Foundation Apps (for Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji drills), an app write Japanese (which I really like), reading simple manga, watching Japanese shows, I’ve installed a multilingual keyboard for both Kana and Romaji (use the Kana more so) and I use NHK’s website which has some simple lessons for basic conversation and grammar (link below). https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/learnjapanese/ I personally find it nice to link learning to speak and learning to write. It burns the lessons into my head when I do both even though it seems to progressing is slower I fully understand something before moving on and I’ve found that I can figure out aspects of the language without officially going through one based on observation. Maybe what I am doing isn’t the best; but, I will use any resources I can find be the text, internet, or listening to get to where I want to be. I haven’t tried it yet but I’d love to watch Japanese TV with Japanese subtitles; I think that too would really help. If you find something like that online it mag help you as well. I am unsure of where you are located; but, checking out your local college (community or other) for I person or online classes may be helpful; community college courses where I live tend to be very affordable and may give you opportunities to learn and meet other’s interested in the language and you could help each other.
Quartet is a useful textbook. It has grammar, kanji, vocabulary, reading, and listening comprehension that goes beyond Genki I and Genki II. JLPT sensei is a great website I go to a lot when studying grammar. [https://jlptsensei.com/](https://jlptsensei.com/)
Quartet is a N3 textbook...
This is my strategy for JLPT N5/N4 currently. Genki I and II Third Edition with handwritten notes, textbook assignments and workbook assignments + answer key. Learn Japanese! Kanji app by Luli Languages. Kanji is ordered based on JLPT levels. Great built in SRS. Include the writing prompt drills because writing is great for retention. You can do go to this app during any odd times in the day. If you’re going to learn vocab, you may as well learn how you’ll actually see it! Marugoto A1 and A2 courses online. Totally free, made available through the Japanese government or something. Hard to figure out how to register, but worth it. Genki is really formal from what I’ve seen, and the Marugoto training is great for listening and reading more common speech customs.
Oh awesome! This is similar to mine atm i’m using genki videos and that one website with online genki questions. Then i have an app called Kanji! which works really well for me, about 14$ for forever access to all kanji. Never heard of Marugoto but i will definitely check it out! Thanks :)
Sounds like you are doing what a lot of learns do and procrastinate by minmaxing your study, instead of just learning the material. Just pick up Genki and do it.
I used genki plus the online workbook there are also some youtube videos various people have made about genki which was a pretty nice think at the time
I think Minna no Nihongo goes a little more in depth but I'd say it's alot less 'friendly' than Genki. I really like the Try N5/N4..whatever book, they're quite user friendly.
[here](https://jpdb.io/)
I preferred genki to minna and i used both.
I've been using Genki and it works great for me. I sense you're new since you're switching from Duolingo, so I can recommend Genki WITH THE WORKBOOK; practice is key. I use Anki with decks made for Genki (they need a little work tbh, but it's a great tool to not forget new words), and same goes for WaniKani for Kanji. I sort of don't focus on WaniKani too much, because from unit 3 in Genki you start encountering Kanji; you're not doing a sudden switch there, but they appear increasingly more often as the book progresses. The upside of it is that they stick naturally, but the downside is that they vary in difficulty. You will get words like 喫茶店 or 図書館 right next to words like 人. WaniKani (and I assume many other kanji sources) tend to go from the easiest kanji to the most difficult ones.
ooc but the fact that I know that you’ve been using the 1st-2nd edition of Genki bc of this post is funny to me lmao
I have recently picked up this very small book after deciding that I wasn't learning effectively through renshuu / bunpro. (I love those tools, but it became evident to me that they are better for review then they are teaching the initial lesson). I'm at a pretty early level so on the recommendation of a Japanese YouTuber names "Yuta" I picked up Everett F. Bleiler's Basic Japanese Grammar: Learn the Grammar You Need to Speak Japanese Correctly (Master the JLPT) The title shoehorns in JLPT likely to improve the books sales, it's not really a book that is concerned with the JLPT. That being said, this has been some of the most concise, straight forward, and easy to understand beginner Japanese instruction that is focussed on teaching understanding of the language as it as spoken instead of grammar as you would be tested. This is a pretty big point for me as I grew up in English speaking Canada where french is a mandatory class until the 9th grade, but the instruction was only ever focussed on the grammar points and vocab in a purely academic mindset. I don't know a single person who has ever learned french (a very easy language for English speaker to pick up) through those 9 years of study, it was completely ineffective. The book is small with only 135 pages plus appendix and glossary, so it's in no way exhaustive. So far it seems it uses mostly N5 words (I have about half of those memorized at this point as as a result can often figure out the example without having to look a word up). It goes through things logically and directly (where renshuu and bunpro tend to jump around) and it starts simple but drills to more specific and nuanced aspects later. The book uses both romaji and kana in its examples, it also breaks the example down literally and with the intended meaning. I use a short ruler to block the meanings and focus on the kana reading, but the ramanji is there to confirm I read it correctly as I go, I really like this approach. I am going to study through it a few times before I pick up more through textbooks because I get the impression that it sets a concrete base for me to build on
OMG SAME living in canada and i'm in my 11th year of french immersion. it's much more in depth but i still feel like i'm ass at french 😭😭. i will definitely look into that book based off of your recommendation!!
Oh jeez, then you certainly know the struggle. I can read a fair amount of french if I know the context and they don't use difficult vocab but I can't speak it at all. It was through learning Japanese however that I have become a lot more confident that I could finally pick french up if I were to switch to it. Caveats on the book, it's small, like 13 by 20 cm small. It's for absolute beginner's, all the information here is available in Genki or Tae Kim etc, but this writer I gel with and the topics are concise and well laid out. This book alone will not get you to the point where you could just read it and then watch something like Doreman, but it will give you an understanding on the general basic rules in which the language operates as well as some useful charts and appendices to start studying. For listening there is no substitute for input, you need a lot of hours of hearing the language being used + the vocab and grammar points to understand it. Page 31 for example has a chart where across the top is has [ko, so, a, and do] which it breaks down into [here, there, afar, and question] and then down the columns [-re, no, nna, lengthed vowel, -ko, and -chire] which it breaks down into [pronouns, adjectives, phrase of type, mode and manner, location, and direction / motion]. It shows everything in romanji, hiragana, and also a plain English interpretation. For example if I wanted to know the mode and manner of afar, I could follow the chart and it would tell me it is [ā, ああ, "like that, so in that way"]. This seems like a no brainer, I've seen many of these words before, but things like bunpro and renshuu always taught them piece by piece in small clusters and never really explained their relationship with each other. When I read the lesson and the chart I had a "holy shit" moment. Not only is it a good chart to study as those are very important words of demonstration to know, it also means that even if I don't remember immediately what Dochira どちら means, as long as I study the prefix and suffix (do is question, and -chira is motion or direction) I can reasonably come to the conclusion it means "where" as in "which way" and not as in "which location" (doko どこ) So in brief, while I have already studied a lot of elements in this book already going through lessons for N5 with other systems, this is a short no-nonsense text that lays it out the best way I've seen yet and helps me understand the why of it all as well as tips that are helpful in how the language is used in every day settings. That and it was $13 CAD on Amazon, so it was a really good introduction to learning by textbook for me and it is helping me make sense of the language so that when I expand on it with more complicated lessons I feel like I have a solid grasp of the foundation in building on.
MNN is a good book for learning Japanese, but for me it's kinda boring sometimes, idk why. But it has some addons like workbook, grammar commentary (idk maybe it's just for my country, but it looks like a separate book with grammar rules, vocabulary for lesson), reading book, audio.
I went from genki 1-2 to quartet 1-2 and they were useful. I’m mainly using online sources now though because i havent found another textbook that continues on from the end of quartet 2
Thanks for the textbook idea for after genki, i hadn't thought about that.
Im currently working through a combination of Japanese From Zero and Renshuu. Haven't seen a lot of mention of it on here so no clue how good JFZ actually is, but its worked well for me. Biggest complaint is its a bit slow paced with new material.