"日本GO NOW!" textbook

Hi guys, I’m new here and new to Japanese learning in general. I’m just about done with my first semester of Japanese class in college, and I was wondering if anyone else has used the 日本GO NOW! textbook. It hasn’t publicly released yet. My class is using a field test edition, and from my understanding other classes are as well. I’m just curious to see if anyone else has taken a look at it and has any opinions. I have many negative ones, but can’t seem to find any discussion about it online. Here’s the book series on Amazon, if anyone is interested. https://www.amazon.com/日本語NOW-NihonGO-NOW-Performing-Japanese/dp/0367508494/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Nihongo+now&qid=1588267761&sr=8-1

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Hey, welcome! Sorry, don’t know anything about the book, just wanted to welcome you to the forums! :blush:

By the way, for some reason that link to Amazon isn’t working. You can edit your post and fix it, or even use the Hyperlink button (or Ctrl-K on PC) to put in a fresh link and remove the old one, maybe.

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Hmm, actually, I wonder if it’s not working because it’s not visible to everyone yet? I tried searching for it in different ways and couldn’t find it at all. Who’s the author(s)?

I tried to look it up and was able to find it on amazon us and some of the other books (not the first one tho) on amazon.co.jp, but they aren’t available yet and there’s no preview either. Seems like your class really is one of the first to have a look a it!

You said you had negative opinions about it, what do you not like about it?

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The book is structured into “acts” and in each act there are about 5-6 “scenes” which are just conversations between two people that we read. Then after each scene there is explanations of the new grammar, and long lists of vocab. The issue is that the explanations aren’t nearly enough, and it seems we’re just expected to memorize it then move on to the new thing in the next scene. No repetition. For example, the most recent thing we learned was ~て forms. We were shown a brief conversation using te forms, had a 2 page explanation of what they are and when to use them, and that’s it. Now we’re on to the next thing. We have basically no time to actually acquire the knowledge they’ve just shown us. We’ve had about a 1 paragraph explanation on the difference between は and が particles, which I think is not nearly enough.

Possibly my biggest gripe is that we don’t learn hiragana until about halfway through book 1, katakana until the end of book 1, and kanji until book 2.

I’m bad at explaining things, but hopefully with this you can get an idea of my issues with the book. I’ve ordered a Genki book online, and I’m hoping that will make a lot more sense than this one does.

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Updated the post with a link that should work. I think the problem was that it was an Amazon search, not an actual page of a product.

Yeah it does seem like a bit of an odd format. Are you also using the workbook with it? I seem to have seen one on amazon.

I don’t know if it’s the case for that textbook, but a lot of textbook will gradually explain the different functions of a certain gramatical notion. With the te-form for example, in Genki, you first learn it to join sentences and then you learn to use it with miru, etc. It’s not like, here’s the te-form and everything you can do with it all at once. Just wanted to clarify that in case you hadn’t seen other textbooks before.

But yeah, it seems like the textbook you used in class focused more on passive acquisition through reading rather than making you use the notions in a way that would make you memorize them better.

I hope you’ll like Genki! I’ve personally really enjoyed it. I’d also recommend a good grammar dictionary like A Dictionary of Basic Japanese, if there are ever grammar notions you want to have more in-depth explanation of.

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Yeah I use the workbook along with it, although that also isn’t so great. You basically explained it perfectly though. I’m excited to get back on track with my learning.

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