Just want to see what textbooks everybody uses. - Feed Post by shirokitsune
Just want to see what textbooks everybody uses.
posted by shirokitsune
Comments 3
Genki 1,2,and 3. Remembering the Kanji 1 and 2 (hoping to start on the third volume near the end of this year), Read Real Japanese Fiction (want to try essays version), and Breaking Into Japanese Literature: Seven Modern Classics in Parallel Text. Hbu?
Currently I'm using 'Genki 1', 'Genki 2', 'Let's Learn Hiragana', 'Let's Learn Katakana', 'Let's Learn Kanji', 'Japanese For Busy People', 'Collin's Easy Learn Japanese' and 'Mina No Nihongo'.
The 'Let's Learn...' series are pretty good and 'Mina No Nihongo' is the book most claim is the best. 'Collin's Easy Learn Japanese' is available in audio-book form and was the first learning material I got, but it's not especially good in retrospect. The 'Genki' series comes with audio CDs (requires a PC, not a CD player), if you get the 2nd edition. Audio books are good if you're not able to speak it aloud too often.
I switch between textbooks frequently depending on whatever I happen to be interested in, and very rarely ever work my way through any of them fully. I don't really enjoy reading books (anime>manga), especially not literature books but also not usually patient enough to sit through a textbook either, no matter how interesting. But saying that, I've looked at a ridiculous number of textbooks, just that I don't put any effort into practicing what I've learnt from them. So much of the knowledge is wasted, other than satisfying a brief curiosity I have at that time. If I listed every textbook I've ever used, it would be a long list. ^^;
The one I'm currently reading, which I'm going to make an effort to read from beginning to end, is by William George Aston, "A grammar of the Japanese written language" (published in 1904)... There have been several little things in it I've found really interesting, such as the へ particle being part of the word 家 (いへ, now いえ) which is made up of い root of 居る (いる) + へ. It is one of a number of fascinating out-of-copyright old books available to download for free on archive.org:
https://archive.org/details/gram00marofjapanesastorich
