Textbooks
The first textbook I used was Japanese for Busy People in 1995 with Witsil Sensei. She hardly ever used the book and I was advised to not even buy it. She liked to work from handouts. Japanese for Busy People is an ok textbook to use because it prepares students to be able to pass the JLPT, the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. However it does fall short if you are walking around Japan and want to speak Japanese. It is not really designed well for spoken Japanese. So after two semesters of Japanese I and II with open books test I was not prepared for the next stage.
In 1997, I transferred to University of South Florida where I would major in English with a minor in Japanese Studies. I took Japanese 3 and due to the lack of using a textbook, I was struggling to keep up with the rest of the class. So I met some Japanese students studying English at the English Language Institute and we become roommates. That way I was constantly exposed to spoken Japanese and cultural habits. The textbook was Yookoso!: An Invitation to Contemporary Japanese. Yookoso was a better textbook then Japanese for Busy People because it had better dialogues, extensive vocabulary lists, and interactive exercises. The key is to find a language partner and do the language drills so much that you don’t have to think about how to reply. This will be helpful when you are in Japan and you have to speak to the clerk at the convenience store to find something.
However, Yookoso falls short because it divides the verbs into Class 1, 2, and 3. This proved frustrating later on.
Even with living with Japanese students, speaking Japanese, and taking lessons at the college level, I was still missing that next crucial step. My Japanese language skills were not improving fast enough to suit me.
I decided to study aboard as a Foreign Exchange Student in 1998 and this was what I needed, total immersion.
On a hot and humid day in August 1998, I arrived at Itami Airport in Osaka, Japan to study at Kansai Gaidai University in Hirakata City. I thought my Japanese was good because I had 3-years of study. This turned out to be a false assumption. Due to my limited exposure to Japanese, I was not prepared to walk up to some random person and hold an intelligent conversation. Despite studying in the US, where everyone is constantly exposed to English, a short time studying Japanese for half an hour a day was just not enough.
I soon arrived at Kansai Gaidai, a private language college, and took the placement test that I thought I would do well on but I didn’t rank as high as I thought I would. This was mainly because Witsil Sensei didn’t follow any organized plan or make use of a textbook that adds skills and builds on previous knowledge. Kansai Gaidai is divided up into levels. Levels 1-3 are for beginners. Levels 4-5 are for Intermediates. Level 6 is a transitional phase from Intermediate to Advanced. Levels 7A/B are Advanced. Following Levels 7A/7B, you can take a course in Japanese at the college level.
I was unhappy with my spoken Japanese until I started studying from Genk Ii: An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese for my Level 2 class. I had a really good sensei who was demanding at times, Shinagawa Sensei. We had to memorize dialogues, vocabulary lists, demonstrate language skills in class Monday through Friday. However, this proved helpful when I was in a situation at a Japanese department store where no one spoke English, all those demanding lessons got me through it and made me glad I put in the time and effort.
I didn’t make it easy for myself. I could have lived in the Seminar House, the dorms, and spoke English with other students but I decided to live with a host family for a year and chose the options for no English. So there was no English spoken inside the Japanese house I was living in. The TV shows, the Jpop music, the family conversations were all in Japanese. Plus I was spending the weekends with a Japanese girl who spoke no English and wasn’t studying it at all in college.
After a 7-hour date one Saturday in Kyoto to see the Gion area, my head hurt. It may sound easy to speak a foreign language all the time but it can wear you down. After that long date, I had to take a couple of aspirin. That being the case, every so often I would get together with a few close friends to speak in English so I didn’t have to think so much during conversations. You really need a balance even with being this immersed.
Enough of my rambling, here are my textbook recommendations from absolute beginner to advanced.
1.) Genki I: An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese. 12 lessons that cover the basics that tells the story of foreign students living and studying in Japan. The dialogues are very useful and I relied on the memorization work I did when I was at Narita International Airport and trying to buy a bus ticket. I forgot want I wanted to say and then it came back to me when I needed it at the ticket booth.
My recommendation is to buy flashcards and memorize hiragana and katakana in about a week. Don’t rely on romaji at all. Romaji is Japanese written out using the Western alphabet. Make flashcards of all the vocabulary lists. As soon as you master a grammar point, proceed to the corresponding drill and keep practicing until you don’t have to think about what you want to say. Buy the audio CDs, or search online for mp3s. Make a habit of using the CDs to build your listening skills. Find a favorite Jpop/Jrock singer and memorize a couple of songs. You don’t want to be invited out to karaoke and have to rely on songs in English. Your Japanese skills will increase with putting in the work to singing one song. Plus your Japanese friends will be impressed that you can make it through one song. I recommend a ballad because a fast rock or rap song is going to be hard to keep up with.
2.) Genki 2. This is the textbook I used for Level 2. This will get you quickly up to speed and I was already using the lessons that I was learning when I was out in Downtown Osaka on dates with Japanese girls. You want to have your language skills down to impress that special someone and eliminate sounding stupid. Genki 2 covers 13-23. After completing all 23 lessons, your beginning Japanese should be solid. I used Genki 2 for my Level 3 class and we watched My Neighbor Totoro in Japanese with no English subtitles. This is the part of language learning I had spent a lifetime pursuing. I was also reading manga at the time. Manga is important because it gets you away from the proper way of speaking that all the textbooks use and teaches you Japanese slang and how people really talk.
At the beginning level I recommend something easy to understand and follow like Doraemon and Crayon Shin-chan. You may want to be careful with Shin-chan because he can be rude but no worse than Bart Simpson. After 3-years of hard study, you should be able to handle easy manga for children. I love SF but that can be difficult to read with all the kanji involved. Congratulations!! You have passed the basics and may go forward with Intermediate.
3.) An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese. This should really be called Genki 3 because it is by the same writers of Genki I and II. Now Kansai Gaidai doesn’t use this book but to me it is the next logical step. As my friend Eric pointed out to me when he was studying Level 4 back in 2000, the learning curve just goes straight up. Most students can get through the basics but the intermediate stage is where it gets really hard. This book contains 15 lessons that follow the Genki layout. So if you are already used to studying Genki, this is an easy book to continue with. Now on to the scary, hard stuff.
4.) Authentic Japanese: Progressing from Intermediate to Advanced. This is the best Advanced textbook that I have seen. There is no longer any English used for the dialogues and grammar points. Even the vocabulary list is all in Japanese with the word followed by a definition. I bought mine used online that didn’t come with a CD and this proved to be foolish. Buy the latest revision that comes with the CD, you will be glad you did. Assuming that you have gotten this far, you should be well versed and able to handle most conversations in Japanese. Beyond this level I would suggest buying a Japanese novel and seeing how far you can get. I like horror so my first novel was Ringu by Suzuki Koji. Suzuki is the Stephen King of Japan and I think he is scarier.
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