Starting to study Japaneese... textbook suggestions?

Originally Posted by a_winner_is_not_u

I agree with Kat on this one, as well as starting out using the verbs in the informal jisho form (~u and ~ru form). The first text books I used (Interactive Japanese) started with the ~masu form which made things much easier to follow. The Jisho form didn't come onto stage until the 2nd book. I'm not too sure why the authors "split" the Genki text into two parts. The first bit (chapters 1-12, I think) cover "Mary", a fictional exchange student, and her adventures in Japan using everyday life examples as primary study material and the vocabulary revolves around that. The second part seems more like grammar explanations and kanji stroke order and the like.

All in all, I think Genki is a good series, but now on reflection it's not very newb friendly, especially the explanation of the verb system and changing from masu to u and ru form (Genki does this backwards starting with the u/ru form going to masu). This series should perhaps be picked up at a later time, perhaps 6 months after you've got a more elementary textbook as suggested above.

FTW

Uh no, learning -masu form right out of the gate is the dumbest teaching method I can think of. It'll totally fuck up your base knowledge of verb conjugation, in the future you'll have to re-learn everything just to know how to properly conjugate other forms. -Masu form is just one of those many forms, in fact it's barely used at all in normal day to day speech and it'd be stupid to put priority of learning that over dictionary form. Basically if you first learn -masu form, it's just memorization without knowing why it's conjugated the way it is. It becomes double the work and 3 steps back.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

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.

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

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.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

I have :jap1901: next semester as one of my uni classes so maybe this thread will be of help then ~~

I was speaking idiomatically.

Quote:

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

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

I made a similair thread before the "Great Crash". You should check it out for further information. (And yes, my name was "-Dark Warp-" Back then).

FELIPE NO

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

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

We use Genki in my class, and I don't really have any complaints on it (except, as someone mentioned, the randomness of the vocabulary lists). Maybe part of this is because I was pretty familiar with Japanese when I started taking the class, and most of the stuff in the first book was review.

There was this one thing my teacher went over in class the other day, which I thought was funny. He's a native, and commented on how feminine a lot of the speech was in the examples (when it wasn't stated that "this is a female speech pattern). Three of the four authors are women, so I guess a lot female influence (intentionally or not), found its way into the book.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Yea, learning the writing system very first is probably a good idea, that way you have access to all materials, and not just the stuff in Romaji. I'm learning Arabic right now, and I'm focusing on getting good at the writing system before anything.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

everyone, check out this link http://www.mlcjapanese.co.jp/
It has tons of free material of japanese language exercise. I'm overjoyed. I hope you could use it too for your own sake.

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

If you're looking to make a serious investment into learning the language, you may want to consider getting Elementary Japanese by Hasegawa. This is the book that they use here at Berkeley (I had to deal with it in a thick reader form before) and I definitely came out of my first year of Japanese here feeling like I learned a whole damn lot. It pretty much hits on the all the major topics any good first year college Japanese book should.

We've never used Genki here, so I'm always lost when talking to my friends from other colleges about Japanese. We do use Intermediate Japanese though.

I've always thought that they teach the -masu form before (usually) the plain form because they don't want you to go out into Japan and basically speak rudely to everyone there and make a problem out of yourself. Of course, if you're bold enough to go to a foreign country and speak in their language only after a year of training, then more power to you.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by kat

Uh no, learning -masu form right out of the gate is the dumbest teaching method I can think of. It'll totally fuck up your base knowledge of verb conjugation, in the future you'll have to re-learn everything just to know how to properly conjugate other forms. -Masu form is just one of those many forms, in fact it's barely used at all in normal day to day speech and it'd be stupid to put priority of learning that over dictionary form. Basically if you first learn -masu form, it's just memorization without knowing why it's conjugated the way it is. It becomes double the work and 3 steps back.

I started with the Interactive Japanese texts and it just seemed that they used ~masu as the base. At that time I wouldn't really know if it would be the most optimal or the least effective way to go around verbs. But since I've seen both ways now (masu to u/ru/irregulars) and vice versa, I guess I'm somewhat indifferent, but it seems the u/ru forms are where some of the other stems come from (~te/~tai desu). Perhaps when I move further into Genki I'll see the reasoning of starting with the u/ru form.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Okay, I'm learning Japanese at school...very slowly. I've learned all hiragana, barely any katakana and only about 20-30 kanji. What book (or series of books) do you recommend for me?

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

you know, I think we should make a thread to share our knowledges of japanese language to the forum. I also want to chat in japanese, but I'm just too afraid that I will speak in wrong grammar.

FELIPE NO

(sort of a bump, I guess)

Regarding the Genki series of books:

1) If I wanted the "complete" Genki I package what would I need? eg workbook, CD etc...
2) How many Genki series' are there?
3) Are there any sites besides amazon which sell these books? (and on that matter, ship internationally?)

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From what I've read and heard, GENKI is one of the better texts.

Try to find torrents online so you can download stuff like rosetta stone or primswhatever.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Theres a lot of these torrents on Demonoid.com(some have external trackers). I found some Genki mp3's but it looks like some part of it is missing on another torrent that seems to be dead.

I'm sure there was a ~10 gig Learn Japanese collection on the Hongfire tracker, seems like its dead also.

Does anyone want to scan their text books? :dealer:
(In advance...MOAR MOAR MOAR MOAR)

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Bitme.org has a live torrent with 8 gigs of Japanese learning matieral. It's an invite-only site, though.

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Originally Posted by rocketdog

Well I am assuming somewhere on this board someone exists who is studying Japaneese. I searched and suprisingly there are not threads on this, thus I figured to start one.

I want to start to learn. I'd be learning from scratch. I know absolutley NOTHING about Japaneese... I am basically looking for textbook series/suggestions, so I don't have to sort through all the mumbo-jumbo they sell all over the place.

Any tips from people who have studied? Which texts worked for you, and which do you suggest?

HAI!:1zhelp:

Well If you're in college, then I would personally suggest that you wait until you graduate. Once that's done, you could just join the JET program. From people I've talked to who've actually participated in the program stated that they didn't know a lick of japanese prior to when they first started the program.

I don't think any textbook would be the greatest tool in learning any language. Learning the written stuff is one thing, but there is nothing like getting spoken knowledge from people speak the language fluently.

Anyways, good luck with your search.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Muzza

Okay, I'm learning Japanese at school...very slowly. I've learned all hiragana, barely any katakana and only about 20-30 kanji. What book (or series of books) do you recommend for me?

I sugguest you have a look at the Minna no Nihongo text books. I used them in class and find them good. The first volume comes in 2 books, the main one (pink colour) with all the exercises and the 2nd being the grammar book (yellow colour). You can get the pink one either kana or romaji - although I suggest kana; romaji is weak. There's also a CD, but it's expensive. Lucky I got a copy of it from a classmate.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Speaking of all this, I just got my pratice copy of the Kyuu 3/4 JLPT test today in the mail. I'll be putting that aside until a few months when I'm ready to test myself out.

How ya doing, buddy?

I have been studying nihongo myself since the summer of 2005, and I must tell you, you are in for a lot of work. I wouldn't recommend doing this unless you are truly serious.

Anyhow, I would recommend these relatively cheap and easily available books: this for learning the basic grammar, hiragana, etc., and this for the kanji. Neither are full-fledged textbooks, like Genki, but they served me pretty well, enough to be proficient in basic Japanese.

Actually, I found this thread Googling for a torrent of a real textbook.

~ erikku

FELIPE NO

I hear many suggestions for textbooks, but none for the most efficient. There is no substitute for learning a new language in the real environment or with real people. Study the grammar vocabulary online and get on a chat with someone, they are not that hard to find.

If you really want conversational dialogue, the best place to look is subtitled anime! They use colloquialisms and slang that you would be using in your elementary level, and you will get used to the conjugation naturally, instead of having to figure it out procedurally.

I wonder what support we would have for creating a couple threads in which members would speak exclusively in that language or it could be a sounding board for those learning members. There seem to be many Japanese scholars in this thread alone, so anyone interested?

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by Von

If you really want conversational dialogue, the best place to look is subtitled anime! They use colloquialisms and slang that you would be using in your elementary level.

I found this page by on Google randomly, and I made an acount just to say this. What I've quoted is COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY FALSE.The way that Anime and Manga are phrased, NO ONE ACTUALLY TALKS LIKE THAT. They're written a certain way because of the style. There is a lot of things said you would never hear in real life.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Another vouch for Genki since that's what we're using right now, although the vocab introduces some counter-intuitive words like "host family" and "LL". I also wish they introduced short form earlier with its various applications, since -masu makes lots of things longwinded. However, overall it's a good book as long as you force yourself to learn each concept thoroughly.

There's nowhere I can't reach.