Any good text book to complement Japanese learning?

[Kazuomi-ko]

Hi!! can anyone recommend me a good textbook (preferably available in Amazon) to study along with this interesting app?

Thanks!!

[OreoRiley]

Genki is the one that most go for as their first textbook, make sure to get the second edition though.
Tae Kim’s Complete Guide is another one that is highly recommended (and free online)
Then there’s Tofugu’s one (same people that make this) called TextFugu though not everyone gets on with it.

Other people will probably have better suggestions than me, but these are the main three.

[zzzlurg]

Maybe my experience can help you a bit, idk. I’m using TextFugu and can give you my $0.02 on it. I initially got a subscription because I was too cheap to buy Genki and because you get a 50% off coupon for wanikani with it. I wasn’t 100% sure how far I’d go with Japanese learning so I didn’t want to spend too much money upfront. I see now why it’s not really recommended. 1st of all, it’s incomplete. It’s not a huge deal but I think you’d probably have to get another beginners textbook anyway before moving on to a “beginner II” level. Someone correct me if I’m wrong. I ended up buying Japanese The Manga Way to supplement. I am really liking it so far but there are no exercises in it. TextFugu at least has exercises, but since it’s incomplete, exercises are missing for some chapters. I think Genki probably has the most exercises and for that I kind of wish I’d gotten it at the beginning. It’s kind of a waste to pay for a third textbook though ¯_(ツ)_/¯ So I’ve been posting on lang-8 to practice what I’ve learned, mostly.

Oh yeah, I tried Tae Kim but I don’t know why everyone likes it so much. I find it really hard to navigate (online) and don’t really like his style. But he does have a lot of useful knowledge to share at least, and explains things in a way a beginner would understand.

[MoroNoKimi]

I second the Genki textbook (and workbook) recommendation. The exercises make it easier to get a grasp on the information.

[rodrigowaick]

Genki is very thourough, with clear explanations and lots of exercises, follow the lessons and you will learn. It is supremely boring, though.

[VegasVed]

I second this. Genki puts me to bed faster than a half pint of cough syrup. Well, I’m not really qualified to make that comparison, but I’m guessing cough syrup would be less effective.

[LostProphet]

if you are learning by yourself I’d recommend Japanese from zero! it’s somewhat slow, but it has good explanations, better than the ones given in Genki, if you ask me, and exercises for everything. it’s a 4 part book series and each is about 20 bucks, so it’s overall cheaper than genki too, if you don’t want to invest too much upfront.