Nihongo Book
- Thread starter Oops I did it again
- Start date
340
meron ako dud. "Minna no nihongo" since nag-aral ako for 1 year in Japanese school sa Makati. btw if you want to self study, i suggest try mo muna kabisaduhin ang Hiragana then Katakana. pero if you want to study with books, i suggest this
GENKI I: An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese
If you took Japanese in University, this is probably the textbook you used. And love it or hate it, it’s still probably the best beginners Japanese textbook out there.
, the Genki series is currently in its 3rd edition print run (2020 edition) and has sold more than 2 million copies worldwide.
There are no shortcuts with this textbook — you have to put in the time to learn and absorb the material. If you can work through to the end of this textbook, you’ll the necessary foundations of vocabulary, grammar, hiragana, katakana, and some basic kanji to build on.
The book is divided into 2 sections:
Conversation / Grammar focuses on learning vocabulary, sentence structure and culturally useful expressions via studying dialogues.
Reading / Writing focuses on teaching you kanji and reading comprehension via lessons that correspond to the Conversation part of the book.
Overall, while the Genki series still has some flaws that other textbooks have (for example, it teaches ‘Sayonara’ for ‘goodbye’, which isn’t very commonly used day-to-day in Japan), it’s still the best book out there to start learning Japanese on your own.
Pros:
Notes:
If you get Genki, we also recommend you get the too.
Remembering the Kana: A Guide to Reading and Writing the Japanese Syllabaries in 3 Hours Each
In this book James Heisig applies his mnemonics method to learning to read and write the Japanese writing systems of Hiragana and Katakana. I found it really helpful when I was starting out.
Pros:
Mnemonics that really help to remember each character
Can teach you how to recognize hiragana and katakana in 3 hours each
Notes:
If you already know kana, skip this one and jump ahead to Heisig’s Remembering the Kanji book
If you’ve learned some kana without much difficulty, you may find this book ‘overcomplicates’ the learning
Kodansha’s Furigana Japanese Dictionary
This has to be the best Japanese-English dictionary in print form. Kodansha really gave a lot of thought to the layout and functionality of this dictionary — and it shows. This furigana dictionary is a must-have in the library of any serious Japanese learner, from beginner to N1.
Pros:
Heisig’s Remembering The Kanji is an invaluable book for mastering kanji, and this book should be required reading for all serious learners of Japanese.
My personal anecdote about this book: I struggled terribly with remembering Kanji before I came across this book years ago, and it helped me immensely. Although I’ve forgotten many of the mnemonic ‘stories’ I first learned, I still remember the meanings of most kanji.
Pros:
So this is another kanji-related book. Kanji in Context allows you to build a strong vocabulary after using Heisig’s book.
Pros:
This JLPT N5 study guide was released in 2019 by Clayton MacKnight of JLPT Bootcamp and published by Tuttle.
If you’re just starting to , and are aiming to take the N5 test (or even if you’re in need of a refresher), I highly recommend this book. It has an easy to follow layout, great illustrations, and covers each topic at a good pace.
One of the best ways to prepare for the JLPT test is doing actual practice questions, which this book has plenty of. The practice sections include all the different types of questions that you’ll see on the actual test (kanji, grammar, reading and listening), so you’ll know which areas you’re prepared for, and which need more work.
If you’re working towards N5, this is the book for you!
Pros:
This is a great book for making the tricky jump from intermediate to advanced Japanese. Of course, you can read “real” Japanese anytime nowadays online but it’s sometimes nice to have explanations for unknown expressions and writing styles you come across. The book contains eight varying and interesting essays by famous Japanese authors such as Haruki Murakami, Seiko Ito and Banana Yoshimoto.
I enjoyed studying with this book except for the author’s inexplicable usage of romaji in the vocabulary explanations. Why would an advanced learner still be using romaji? Anyway, it is an interesting read and you should be able to find it used for cheap on Lazada and Shopee
Pros:
Good luck! Keep studying. It's going to be a while, so don't burn out by putting so much worry and energy into it so early. Leave the worrying for later when you've invested too much to back down
GENKI I: An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese
If you took Japanese in University, this is probably the textbook you used. And love it or hate it, it’s still probably the best beginners Japanese textbook out there.
, the Genki series is currently in its 3rd edition print run (2020 edition) and has sold more than 2 million copies worldwide.
There are no shortcuts with this textbook — you have to put in the time to learn and absorb the material. If you can work through to the end of this textbook, you’ll the necessary foundations of vocabulary, grammar, hiragana, katakana, and some basic kanji to build on.
The book is divided into 2 sections:
Conversation / Grammar focuses on learning vocabulary, sentence structure and culturally useful expressions via studying dialogues.
Reading / Writing focuses on teaching you kanji and reading comprehension via lessons that correspond to the Conversation part of the book.
Overall, while the Genki series still has some flaws that other textbooks have (for example, it teaches ‘Sayonara’ for ‘goodbye’, which isn’t very commonly used day-to-day in Japan), it’s still the best book out there to start learning Japanese on your own.
Pros:
- Accompanying CD for practicing pronunciation
- Lots of exercises to practice at the end of each chapter
- If you finish this textbook, you’ll have a fairly large vocabulary (about 50 words per chapter)
- Unusual standard of romanization: ie. kiree instead of kirei
- Doesn’t include the stroke order for kanji
- Sometimes not 100% logical in its presentation (ie. teaching 5 color words, but then skipping the rest)
Notes:
If you get Genki, we also recommend you get the too.
Remembering the Kana: A Guide to Reading and Writing the Japanese Syllabaries in 3 Hours Each
In this book James Heisig applies his mnemonics method to learning to read and write the Japanese writing systems of Hiragana and Katakana. I found it really helpful when I was starting out.
Pros:
Mnemonics that really help to remember each character
Can teach you how to recognize hiragana and katakana in 3 hours each
Notes:
If you already know kana, skip this one and jump ahead to Heisig’s Remembering the Kanji book
If you’ve learned some kana without much difficulty, you may find this book ‘overcomplicates’ the learning
Kodansha’s Furigana Japanese Dictionary
This has to be the best Japanese-English dictionary in print form. Kodansha really gave a lot of thought to the layout and functionality of this dictionary — and it shows. This furigana dictionary is a must-have in the library of any serious Japanese learner, from beginner to N1.
Pros:
- Great section on how to conjugate regular and irregular Japanese verbs
- Example sentences to show how words are often used
- If anything, it’s not big enough for some more intermediate or advanced users
- No information on intonation
Heisig’s Remembering The Kanji is an invaluable book for mastering kanji, and this book should be required reading for all serious learners of Japanese.
My personal anecdote about this book: I struggled terribly with remembering Kanji before I came across this book years ago, and it helped me immensely. Although I’ve forgotten many of the mnemonic ‘stories’ I first learned, I still remember the meanings of most kanji.
Pros:
- Learn the ‘parts’ that make up a kanji
- Teaches you how to remember the meanings of hundreds of characters
- Some of the keywords chosen in the book are ambiguous or strange (ie. rarely-used English words instead of its regular-use equivalent)
- You’ll only learn the basic ‘meaning’ of the kanji, so without further study you won’t be able to ‘read’ Japanese kanji or compound words
- Some people report not being able to view kanji stroke order on the kindle version. Buyer beware!
- Most people pair this book with Anki flashcard software. I did this and 100% recommend it
So this is another kanji-related book. Kanji in Context allows you to build a strong vocabulary after using Heisig’s book.
Pros:
- Over 150 lessons that teach kanji within the context of writings
- Might be hard to find or expensive outside of Japan
- Not for beginners — more intermediate to advanced
This JLPT N5 study guide was released in 2019 by Clayton MacKnight of JLPT Bootcamp and published by Tuttle.
If you’re just starting to , and are aiming to take the N5 test (or even if you’re in need of a refresher), I highly recommend this book. It has an easy to follow layout, great illustrations, and covers each topic at a good pace.
One of the best ways to prepare for the JLPT test is doing actual practice questions, which this book has plenty of. The practice sections include all the different types of questions that you’ll see on the actual test (kanji, grammar, reading and listening), so you’ll know which areas you’re prepared for, and which need more work.
If you’re working towards N5, this is the book for you!
Pros:
- More than 300 JLPT N5 practice questions included
- 3 printable N5 practice tests
- Accompanying audio for listening comprehension
- Printable flash cards for kana and N5 kanji
- Fun illustrations and dialogues
- Ideal for students wanting to go from zero to N5 in a short amount of time.
This is a great book for making the tricky jump from intermediate to advanced Japanese. Of course, you can read “real” Japanese anytime nowadays online but it’s sometimes nice to have explanations for unknown expressions and writing styles you come across. The book contains eight varying and interesting essays by famous Japanese authors such as Haruki Murakami, Seiko Ito and Banana Yoshimoto.
I enjoyed studying with this book except for the author’s inexplicable usage of romaji in the vocabulary explanations. Why would an advanced learner still be using romaji? Anyway, it is an interesting read and you should be able to find it used for cheap on Lazada and Shopee
Pros:
- Helpful in making the difficult jump from textbooks to reading “real” Japanese
- The use of romaji in a book for advanced students is a questionable and unfortunate design choice
- Lack of sentence-by-sentence translation
- Native speakers have no clue what the best way is to learn their language. I have no idea how English works, but I probably have terrible opinions on how it should be learned. Same with Japanese people telling you how you should learn Japanese.
- You have to make mistakes to make progress. I don't think Genki really has any/many mistakes (most textbooks have some, but rarely is it much of a problem), but as a side note, it's actually been shown that mistakes are part of learning a language. Not like "go make a lot of mistakes so you can learn." I mean that from baby learning their native language to adult learning a second language, they basically go through the same ordering of progression to learn that language (It's called Natural Order, if you want to look it up). If you look at a lot of the studies done on this, people also make the same mistakes too. They have to make these mistakes in order to acquire the correct stuff. It's just part of the package and everyone goes through these things in pretty much the same order. It's hard for most teacher-like people to know or realize this, and it sounds like your teacher-friend is giving you an extra hard time for no reason. Being stressed is actually really detrimental to language learning... but that's another block of text for another time.
- No matter what textbook you use you're going to make a lot of mistakes. Genki's not a bad textbook. Stick with it if you're making progress.
- You really, really, really need to learn hiragana/katakana. Kanji too. Without kana you have access to maybe 1% of the total learning resources out there. With it you add another 9%. Then with kanji you open up the remaining 90%. Not learning those things is like learning English without knowing what all these weird squiggly lines are that I'm typing right now. With that genki'll get better.
- Ordering is always weird in beginner textbooks. No matter what. Textbooks are limited in size and so they have to choose what they think is important for you to learn. That means there will be holes. Every teacher will have opinions on which holes are okay and which ones aren't. Probably some of that going on here.
- It doesn't sound like your friend is that great at teaching (no offense). There's a difference between being a good teacher and being good at something, and a lot of people who try to teach things don't know the difference.
Good luck! Keep studying. It's going to be a while, so don't burn out by putting so much worry and energy into it so early. Leave the worrying for later when you've invested too much to back down
