good japanese learning books

list down your japanese books tat help u learn...

My first book was Japanese for Everyone featuring the adventures of fictional characters Barbara and Michael Webb! Their adventures were not half as good as mine, but the book was a quite a good introductory book.

The Basic and Intermediate Grammer Dictionarys (Yellow and Blue cover respectively) are also excellent.

Well, I learned hiragana and katakana on my own and used my college text book to learn basic grammer and such (I believe it was called "Japanese for Everyday Life"). And then started reading manga w/ Furigana like Peach Girl and Hana Yori Dango to help improve my reading speed and comprehension (also a nice way to learn new Kanji). And then I just continued on using the rest of the college texts in the Japanese For Everyday Life series....

Besides going to school or self learning from a text book, here's a list of my favourite Japanese learning reference books :

"Japanese Verbs at a Glance"
with this book I finally figured out how to conjugate verbs in Japanese... ;)

"Kodansha's Basic English-Japanese Dictionary"
Very good dictionary for the beginner to intermediate.

"A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar"
A little expensive and not for the absolute beginner, so get it only after 6-9 months of study. Otherwise, its a great book and must for any serious student.

Hey, does anyone have any suggestions for some good Japanese learning books out there? Cause I've been trying to look for one but there are so many. Just wondering if anyone's found one that's really worked for them. Thanks!

i tried this book called japanese in three months from hugo's language books. i think the author is john breen. comes with i forgot how many cassettes but you'll learn pratical japanese.

The top textbook seems to be Genki Japanese, but the CDs are retardedly high ($500.00) but I learned Japanese from them. They made learning Japanese possible where other methods just left me scattered.

Pimsleur's Language series are supposed to be the most effective language learning tool. They have three levels (beginner to advanced), but the price is pretty high, about $150 each with 10 ~ 15 CDs in each box.

thanks you guys!

It's really hard to find a good book to learn japanese....their books are very good if you already know a lot about japanese....

FierceStriker wrote:Pimsleur's Language series are supposed to be the most effective language learning tool. They have three levels (beginner to advanced), but the price is pretty high, about $150 each with 10 ~ 15 CDs in each box.

Pimsleur is good for conversation and listening practice, but its is not a "most effective language learning tool". The vocabulary you learn is limited, grammar is practically non-existant, there's way too much polite and respect language (IMO :)), and most obviously, you learn nothing about reading & writing.

Pimsleur and NHK audio lessons are handy for learning basic conversational skills.

While I studied Japanese, I just couldn't seem to bring it all together to converse. I had Japanese people around me but they hindered more then helped. In between kanji and grammer books you should spend some time talking (duh!) Pimsleur is good for that.

You can't, however, learn Japanese from Pimsleur, no way no how.

Edit: And you need to know enough Japanese to avoid the classic Pimsleur traps "Obsure polite Japanese" that will make you sound like an idiot.

goshujin ha ko-he- wo nomi takkate irun desu ga. Hey, that's so gay.

I recommend

Minna no Nihongo (eventually +listening and video files)

Although I'm probably biased, I think Elenor Harz Jorden (I misspelled elanor)'s book Japanese:the spoken language is VERY good, even without a teacher. However, the romanji style takes getting used to (si is pronounced "shi", for example) but you get used to it. Also, she uses a lot of accent marks that my teacher told us to not wory about (they don't affect readablity at all). When coupled with the writing book by the same author, the set is unbeatable (I think). One thing though if you have no clue about japanese pronunceation: ask others when in doubt of certain prononciations, such as how the "u" is dropped in "desu" or in other words in certain instances.

I agree that Harz Jordan's books are an excellent series.

But I don't know if I'd recommend it to somebody without a teacher. The reason is because it is just *so* thorough and dense. My Japanese teacher used to joke that every time he opened the book, he would learn something new himself. All the little nuances of the language are captured in the explanations, but those explanations can be hard to interpret by just reading them.

So while I think it is a great resource, the downside is that it can be overwhelming without a guide. Dialogues notwithstanding, it's like reading a grammar and usage book. Chock full of information, but booooring (must be the lack of pictures :hehe: ) and hard to interpret at times...

SpookeyDonkey:
As for the accent marks, those are actually indicators to tell you when to inflect upwards or downwards. Using the "desu" example you mentioned, if you look at the text, above the "u" in "desu" should be a little accent mark pointing downwards, meaning, as you said before, the "u" is dropped. If used properly, they will help you speak more naturally.

I have had some friends recommend the Japanese for Busy People series for individual study if you just want to learn basic communication, but I've never actually cracked open one of those, so I can't say anything definitive about them.

mizune wrote:I have had some friends recommend the Japanese for Busy People series for individual study if you just want to learn basic communication, but I've never actually cracked open one of those, so I can't say anything definitive about them.

Recommended. Even better if you have the audio CDs.

i have started Japanese for Busy People. Its quite good for daily use, as it goes over things pretty well......if i had audio cds it would be even easier to use.

I just bought the Random House Living Language set for learning some japanese basics quickly. I just wanted to get some basics down through the set and I'll let you know how it works out. It comes with 3 audio CDs, a dictionary, and a coursebook.

Which books to use... an interesting question. Just like the infamous 'which dictionary!?'..

For me, the Asian (Japanese) Studies Dept. back at my home university in Australia didn't recommend using Genki Japanese although one of their exchange institutions (ŠÖ¼ŠO‘Œê‘åŠw) in Japan is currently using that book with the beginner/intermediate classes. Sorry, I have no recollection as to why that book was a 'no-no'..

Reading some of the other replies in this discussion, I noticed:
- Japanese for Busy People
- Hugo's Japanese in Three Months

The first textbook I ever used was Hugo's Japanese in Three Months. It is really quite straight-forward and useful for people self-studying, yet from recollection, it contains no hiragana whatsoever- only romaji. It is really good for beginners to the language however, especially those who aren't yet willing to tackle hiragana and katakana. The tapes are pretty decent too I guess..

Japanese for Busy People is quite a well-regarded text for self-studying types. I used that for a couple of years when I was in highschool,.. it built up my vocabulary, grammar, etc and essentially prepared me for studying Japanese at university.

People place a lot of concern on what textbooks they use.. i find that no matter what the textbook, people often adapt different studying methods anyway and some people just seem to 'get' Japanese more quickly than others. The same goes for Kanji study.. the amount of methods I have heard are amazing.. yet at the end of the day, if it works for you, don't change (unless another study method seems more effective).

Just go for pro and don't stop.. losing the passion to learn the language would be disastrous, right? (n_n)

Oh, as for dictionaries-

I wouldn't recommend using an electronic dictionary, unless it is in English language, until you are at least intermediate level, because you'll translate something and not have a clue how to read the example sentence or whatever (unless you can read Chinese you should be ok at guessing).

Just my two cents.

I've been through a few books, required for various classes. For beginners level, classroom instruction, I found Genki to be alright. For intermediate "An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese" was a nice read. I can't help you with advanced-level books.