Genki books are based very much on the Japanese system of drilling (over, and over, and over again). Which, given the percentage of Audio/Visual learners in the world, isn’t necessarily bad. The books are designed with a teacher in mind (not for self learning, although they can be used that way). In addition to conversation classes and language lab components that compliment the books.
If you’re just following the text - read each chapter three times. First, skim it/read it quickly. Second, read it through (light notations). Third, really read and dig in and take lots of notes. Do the examples along with the text.
You should also have the workbook for the text (green or orange, depending on if you have #1 or #2), which you should be doing after the third read-through (trying to do it without the aid of the text, but refer to the text as needed - making adjustments as you go).
Finally, it is expected that not only do you use the kanji and grammar of a given chapter, but also all previous kanji and grammar taught so that you can compose target sentences on your own (by way of a daily journal, writing practice, retention practice, etc).
It requires quite a bit of discipline to self-teach using books meant for the classroom. And you’ll not see improvement unless you work on both of each of the passive and active skills (listening/reading and speaking/writing).
(I did 2 years of Japanese study in university via those texts in the classroom).
PS: ALWAYS have a printed copy of Tae Kim’s Japanese on hand to leaf through!
Woah woah woah, assumptions much? I personally am enthralled by their budding romance ever since they finally managed to get that Kabuki date to work out (silly Takeshi, waiting at マクドナルド instead of モスバーガー!). Who knows what will happen next???
I make a point not to, because I like to try to figure out new vocab and grammar from context, and then refer back to it after learning the grammar points to check my understanding. However, I can see the value in doing it the other way around.
Reading this just now made me giggle. I think that was the last chapter I read - or else, the one before… if it’s a separate chapter where he asks her out…??? It’s been a few months since I’ve touched Genki. ^^;
I really liked Genki but only when I worked out a good system for it. At some point much later than it should have been, I realised that the numbered grammar points related to the numbered exercises (at least in genki 2 it is like this). I would do a grammar point a day (or two days if it was tricky) around work (so not on the weekend which are my busiest days). By doing this, I created structure and achievable targets.
I am using this technique now on an integrated approach and it works well there too. One evening, I read all the conversations, using memrise for the vocab and then each day I do a grammar point and related exercises from the workbook. Grammar is never going to be fully fun. It will be hard work and we can’t game-ify everything. Certainly, we can game-ify the practise after what we have already learnt but we need to actually study. Equally, overly boring doesn’t work so study short amounts effectively.
This is very very true. I am thinking Genki 2 may be better for me as it is newer stuff. I suppose it is just a matter of pulling my socks up and getting stuck in.
Thanks for the help
Sometimes I do exercises by annotating a pdf of the workbook with my IME. (You can get Genki anywheres on the internets for free, kids. It’s only mildly illegal) It’s nice cause I can’t write in Japanese for shit, kanji especially, but my kana is also atrocious. The drawings in Genki are so charming.
