A reccomendation for those who want to Learn Japanese

timelesssymphony · (#1 (**permalink**))

For those of you wanting to do some Japanese self study I would recommend a set of 2 books put out by the Japan Times one of Japans leading English language newspapers called Genki, they are set up well in my opinion and are in good English, they also have writing lessons as well as reading and as the lessons progress kanji from your writing lessons are slowly included. In addition its also widely used by many Japanese language teaching schools in Japan. Please note I do not work for them nor do I make anything from mentioning this.

link,

Genki Online

Miyavifan · (#2 (**permalink**))

Thank you for this link. I'm working on learning Japanese all on my own.

TalnSG · (#3 (**permalink**))

Quote:

Originally Posted by timelesssymphony

For those of you wanting to do some Japanese self study I would recommend a set of 2 books put out by the Japan Times (snip) called Genki.

Your timing is wonderful.
Thanks!

Harold · (#4 (**permalink**))

These are the textbooks that I used to start learning Japanese myself. I would definitely recommend them. Keep in mind that this is elementary Japanese, so GENKI will only lay down the foundations for you to build the rest of Japanese on top of it. When you finish GENKI II, you should be at a JLPT 3 level, which is far from fluency. The Japan Times has also put out some intermediate level books that look very helpful. They are a bit pricey, so I have not managed to get my hands on them quite yet.

Miyavifan · (#5 (**permalink**))

What level is considered fluent?

Harold · (#6 (**permalink**))

Quote:

Originally Posted by Miyavifan

What level is considered fluent?

JLPT 1

4 - beginner
3 - intermediate
2 - advanced
1 - fluent

More about it here.

jene · (#7 (**permalink**))

i do want to learn japanese but i dont know where to start could you help me

Miyavifan · (#8 (**permalink**))

Quote:

Originally Posted by Harold

JLPT 1

4 - beginner
3 - intermediate
2 - advanced
1 - fluent

More about it here.

Thank you, very much.

timelesssymphony · (#9 (**permalink**))

Quote:

Originally Posted by jene

i do want to learn japanese but i dont know where to start could you help me

haha that was kinda the whole point of the thread. Yes Genki, won't get you to fluency but after 1 and 2 you can get around pretty well.

Petahpie · (#10 (**permalink**))

do you think this would be a good textbook to sort of couple with pimsleur?
I'm gonna try to rent or borrow pimsleur for japanese, cause there's no way I'm gonna buy it (the price is insane!).
I thought that I'd get genki 1 and pimsleur 1, and then go through both of them, getting the second textbook and second/third pimsleur set as I go. Figured that would get me to where I could figure where to go from there.
Any other recommendations, while I'm opening my wallet?

EDIT: I'm learning the hiragana, but other than that, I'm completely new to the language other than what I've heard from anime/j-music.

EDIT: and also, would you recommend getting the genki workbook, answer key, and/or cd? Sorry to ask so many questions. I'm really new to all this.