We used Minna no Nihongo,
I Find them very good, but you again need to know both Hiragana and Katakana (it does have an explanation and stuff but it's only a few pages)
The thing i like about it is that it comes in 2 books, the Japanese exercisy book and then the translation and grammar notes, which explain everything. I would assume this is not uncommon in language textbooks though.
I have heard that the Kanji learning book for Minna no Nihongo isn't very good (we don't use that, we use Basic Kanji Book vols 1 and 2) But the reading exercise supplement is very good, i've found that very useful! I could scan in a few pages from the first lesson if you wanted to see th style, but i'm not back at university until tonight (GMT) but send me a PM or something and i'll see what i can do
Jam it back in, in the dark.
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British Chris