Best textbook for self studying in your opinion?

[Gerandpa]

I just skip those exercises. The workbook doesn’t have partner exercises, so there’s plenty practice for self-learners.

And the answer key is clearly divided by book and chapter and even has the page number for the exercise to make extra sure you’re checking the right answers. I’ve never heard of anyone having trouble with it, but I also have no idea how many people actually use it.

[krysta84]

I personally liked Minna no Nihongo but we had all the books and thus all the exersises which helped a ton with understanding the grammar.
Plus we had a teacher to explain everything with us.
We went through a chapter each week. So in 2 years we were done with all the books.

For self study though, I have no idea if it works just as well, especially since getting all the books might get a bit expensive.
Genki seems to be a better option in that regard, simply because there are a lot of others using it, so you can have a lot of feedback from peers.

Both books are the basics only, though. I expect you to get to N4 at the most with these options. But that’s pretty much where you should start anyway, right at the beginning.

[Evueimeimei]

@Nightscotsman

On the issue of Genki for self-learners, how do you handle the exercises in the book that seem to require two people.

So far I’ve seen two types of group exercises in the Genki books. The first type is “ask other people about their ____” or “find a person who has ____”. For these ones, I usually just skip over them, there are plenty of exercises between the textbook and workbook that I don’t feel like I’m missing anything. The second type is roleplay/skits. For these I usually write a small dialogue. I play both parts. These are hard to check since there are no answers for them, but you can always post them somewhere like here or Reddit or lang8 to have other people check them.

@Nightscotsman

Also, my understanding is that the answer key for the workbook is entirely in Japanese. This seems like a frustrating nightmare for beginners to face. How do you deal with checking your answers in the workbook?

As long as you can read the two section headings (かいわ.ぶんほうへん & よみかきへん), it’s really not an issue. The questions are numbered by section and number using numerals and the answers you’re giving are in Japanese anyway.

[elynchbell]

A nice advantage of having lots of different resources is that I something doesn’t click in one resource then you can look it up elsewhere and maybe different explanation will make it work for you.

I’m a bit ADD and sometimes find it hard to sit down an study by myself so I love to be able to dip in and out of things, especially apps, short articles for reading and the like. If I’m going to focus then it helps if I have a teacher in the room so either going to Japanese school, working in person with a local tutor or doing italki has worked for me.