Learning Japanese: Genki Review

Today's post will be a review of Genki. The Japanese language textbooks and workbooks.

As my plans for moving to Japan are now for definite i have been teaching myself japanese using these books. I do a chapter or so of the textbook then do a few pages of workbook a day. it seems to be helping as already my Hiragana knowledge has shot way up.

The way the book teaches you is very good as it gives you a text or paragraph in hiragana with romaji underneath and then gives the translation of it in english below. This way i can look at the text, read the romaji and figure out what it says then study the hiragana. The other day i could understand a whole conversation (romaji only)!! It then gives you nice list of the vocabulary at the end of the lesson in Hiragana, romaji and english translation along with notes on the grammar and fun little facts on the language. Then it goes on to re-enforce the lesson, teaching you how the sentence structure works, how to use words (like doko, soko, asoko, dore, sore, are etc) and where they belong in the sentences and how to successfully use conjunctions etc.

One niggle i did have with the book however is how little the "alphabets" (yes i know they arent really alphabets) are introduced and how they work at the beginning of the book. especially as after lesson 2 it kinda launches straight into only hiragana. You will need your hiragana chart handy for the workbook too.

Overall however it has so far been a challenge (and i'm not even onto lesson 3 yet!!)but nevertheless one that has stuck and i seem to find myself knowing more when i study than i did the day before. which is... you know nice. But i have always had an affinity at learninf and "getting" new languages.

One thing that has been reccommended to me is the audio CDs that go with the books that supposedly help with pronunciation etc. My pronunciation has always been commented on at how good it is by my japanese friends however so i think i will save these for when i know more japanese itself and need to start listening to the faster flow of it better. but whatelse is anime for right? XD

I've reccommend these books. they have been pretty good so far!! :)