Starting to study Japaneese... textbook suggestions?

I use Genki also. They seem fine to me. My recommendation though is to NOT try and learn japanese unless you plan to take it in college also. You wont have the motivation to really learn it otherwise. It's very difficult and frustrating, but also fun and rewarding

Also, Pimsleur's Japanese is no good for really learning the language. It teaches nothing but memorizing short phrases (yes i've listened to it). Hiragana and Katakana are a bitch. I had to learn them both in 2 weeks and i've never been so stressed before. Don't worry though because after about 4 months you can write and read them without thinking too much.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I agree because i suffered with the same problem. Genki taught me to think the masu form was the only form at first. I didn't even realize what the dictionary form was used for until much later chapters (can't remember which). Basically it set me back because i got used to ignoring the dictionary form.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

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I'm not sure if you have Genki confused with another book but the book does not actually teach it that way. Dictionary forms and masu forms are introduced in the same chapter (#3) but they teach you the differences, (there's even a chart listing out dictionary form, present test affirmative, present tense negative, stems, bases etc.) and how to conjugate RU verbs and U verbs into -masu. Also in the vocab lists, all the verbs are listed under their dictionary forms and -te form is introduced right in the Chap. 6 so I don't see how you could ignore them, for long anyways.

No its genki... i've only looked at it a million times...lol. All i can tell you is short form isn't formally introduced until about half way through the first book, hence i never used it at ALL before then. I straight up memorized the te forms without understanding where they came from. I know its mentioned but sence it was never used in homework for a long time, i had trouble memorizing them all when the time came. No biggy but yeah, it was probably more of my teacher's fault then the book's. Actually now i think about it maybe i was just stupid

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.