The book series みんなの日本語

[shaorankun]

Hi

I'm currently studying japanese with the Minna no Nihongo book and I'm almost done with the first one.

I think I've learned quite a lot with this book, but still it is very hard to read text outside of the book (you don't learn to much Kanjies with it) and when I try to wite something I realize that there are lots of things I still don't know

Anyway, the course I'm into now is going to end in Feb. In the next term there may be a continuation of this course. Since this may be the last "advanded" course (no more than 5 people are going to do it) and the at the time nobody knows which teacher is going to teach, it is unlikely that we start with the second Minna no nihongo book.

Does anybody have the second book of the Minna no Nihongo series? Do yo recomend it? I would buy the book and learn by myself, but buying the whole set is rather expensive and before I invest lots of money I would like to know if I will learn more with it.

Thanks

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by shaorankun

Hi

I'm currently studying japanese with the Minna no Nihongo book and I'm almost done with the first one.

I think I've learned quite a lot with this book, but still it is very hard to read text outside of the book (you don't learn to much Kanjies with it) and when I try to wite something I realize that there are lots of things I still don't know

Anyway, the course I'm into now is going to end in Feb. In the next term there may be a continuation of this course. Since this may be the last "advanded" course (no more than 5 people are going to do it) and the at the time nobody knows which teacher is going to teach, it is unlikely that we start with the second Minna no nihongo book.

Does anybody have the second book of the Minna no Nihongo series? Do yo recomend it? I would buy the book and learn by myself, but buying the whole set is rather expensive and before I invest lots of money I would like to know if I will learn more with it.

Thanks

I can't speak for Minna no Nihongo, but I suggest you start learning kanji as much as possible (the plural of "kanji" is "kanji" in English like the plural of "fish" is "fish" (usually)). All of these textbooks severely deprive you of kanji, and my opinion is that it hamstrings you for future growth in the language. No textbook makes you learn kanji fast enough, and eventually you hit a point where you speak the language very well, but can't read for crap because you only know like 500 kanji.

[shaorankun]

Yes, I've already started learning kanji by myself. I've got a long list (I don't remeber the name of the book where the list came from) and I try to learn with it.

The plurar of kanji in German is "Kanjis" that's why I got confused

[SceptileMaster]

Originally Posted by KyleGoetz

I can't speak for Minna no Nihongo, but I suggest you start learning kanji as much as possible (the plural of "kanji" is "kanji" in English like the plural of "fish" is "fish" (usually)). All of these textbooks severely deprive you of kanji, and my opinion is that it hamstrings you for future growth in the language. No textbook makes you learn kanji fast enough, and eventually you hit a point where you speak the language very well, but can't read for crap because you only know like 500 kanji.

Well 500 kanji is pretty good if you only have gone through an elementary Japanese book. I mean you still have a lot of Japanese still to learn afterwards never mind kanji. Also supplementing textbook learning with a Kanji book is generally a good idea isn't it?

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by SceptileMaster

Well 500 kanji is pretty good if you only have gone through an elementary Japanese book.

No, I'm saying, categorically, that 500 is a horrendously low number, and I was thinking more after you finish Yookoso Vols. 1 and 2, which would be a 2-year affair. I would hope you'd have 15/wk*52wk/yr*2yr=1500 by then. Even 10/wk means you'd have over 1000.

And as for supplementation with a kanji workbook, that is precisely what I was advocating. Kanji in Context is a good book.

If you finish both Yookoso books, you're very nearly at JLPT2-level grammar, but you're about at JLPT3 kanji and vocabulary.

That is what I meant by not enough emphasis placed on kanji (and vocab).

So grammatically, you're well-prepared to read the newspaper, but nowhere near prepared on a vocab/kanji level. You'll spend another year just learning enough kanji to catch up to your grammar level.

[SceptileMaster]

That looks like a good book. I was wondering early about what materials exist pushing past the 1,000 Kanji barrier (although I'm not nearly ready for that :S, need to finish Genki II first). You mentioned not enough emphasis on vocabulary too. I find Kanji is a good way of learning extra vocabulary and using it in context allows the words and the kanji to act as crutches for learning each other (especially since I find that learning vocabulary out of context can give a wrong impression about the words true meaning). Maybe I should look into this book in the future. Thanks for the link.

[StonerPenguin]

Minna no Nihongo 2 can be downloaded for free here LINK REMOVED
Also, just my opinion; I think Living Languages "Ultimate Japanese; Basic-Intermediate" is an awesome book, really thorough explainations of grammar, although they only teach you around 150 kanji, however, kanji is something you learn by your self on the web, I taught my self about 500 with out a textbook and hands-down the best audio-only course for learning Japanese is the Michel Thomas Method (which you can also find for free on the internet) WAY better than Pimsluer IMO, I'm using the MT method for Russian too .

Best of luck!

[MMM]

Posting links to download copyrighted materials without the creator or publisher's permission is strictly against the rules.

[StonerPenguin]

Originally Posted by MMM

Posting links to download copyrighted materials without the creator or publisher's permission is strictly against the rules.

Sorry, I did read the rules when I joined, but I must have missed that. Thank you for telling me. I'll try to keep that in mind when I'm here. Once again, I'm very sorry.

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By the way; Would it be against the rules to send links to P2P sharing files in private messages?

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by StonerPenguin

Sorry, I did read the rules when I joined, but I must have missed that. Thank you for telling me. I'll try to keep that in mind when I'm here. Once again, I'm very sorry.

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By the way; Would it be against the rules to send links to P2P sharing files in private messages?

I think in general an obvious rule is "don't break the law here." Sharing copyrighted material without permission is illegal.