How to count and parse words in Japanese isn’t completely agreed upon by linguists, and there are people who consider attached particles to always be part of a word, I guess how we’d consider “we’d” to be a word that is a contraction of two words. But others count each particle separately.
People don’t say こんにち for today much anymore, but I think the “particle-ness” of the は is still apparent to Japanese people. I’ll try asking some what they think.
When you put it like that, it makes a lot of sense. Thanks for opening my eyes towards this (I’m a pretty new learner, so I shouldn’t come to conclusions om my own benefits), I have always seen こんにちは as a word that breaks the norm of a standard わ and not really a word with an added particle.
I would have to apologize to @lschaffstall for my previous post and correct it with that the particle は is what converts to a わ pronounciation 
Is there a consensus or timelime of how fast to go through genki? Would anyone be interested in creating a sub group of people going through Genki starting now and doing one chapter a week and practicing together… maybe sharing work book answers? How far along is everyone in this thread? I’m just starting. I have a wide but arbitrary amount of grammar knowledge but know of it really connects well…
How fast to go through Genki really depends on how much study time you have available and what you already know.
The real life study group that I’m a part of just spent one week each on Lessons 1-3. But now we’re planning to spend 2 or even 3 weeks on Lesson 4.
For checking workbook and textbook answers, nothing (except for a teacher) beats the actual answer key, which is available for sale on Amazon or for pirating elsewhere on the internet.
Something I would be interested in, though, is sharing and discussing answers to the open-ended writing exercises from the textbook.
Does anyone here use the teachers’ manual? I’m wondering if it would be worth the investment…
I bought it, but as I’ve since learned it isn’t too hard to find a copy online. All it’s good for is checking your work, so the physical copy kind of becomes a pain for having to carry around/keep. But it’s a very worthwhile supplement if you’ve already got the textbook and the workbook
Anybody still steadily working through Genki?
I’m finally starting to get some actual use out of mine. I intend to finish it and Japanese the Manga Way before the end of the year. I don’t currently have an “x amount of chapters in x amount of time” goal but if other people are still working through at a steady pace, I’d like to join in the discussion.
I’m only on lesson 3 right (I plan to do a couple chapters today alone, at the very least, because I’m off work today) now but I’ve already been exposed to everything I’ve encountered thus far so it’s more of a review. I’ll be climbing through the lessons fairly quickly until I come across some new-to-me material. So I should hopefully be able to catch up to others rather quickly.
I really want to, but keep foregetting to sit down and do it.
I have Genki 1 about to start it if anyone needs a from the beginning buddy to work with please feel free to let me know we can sit down get a game plan going and set goals etc
PS also have the workbook
I am but I currently have my time spread over three different books and various other material.
I’ve also picked up my Genki I volume after not having touched it for quite a while.
For now I’m trying to study with it every day or every second day at least. Doing half an hour a day seems managable, not too overwhelming, and I think it’s going quite well so far.
Just started with lesson 7 today.
The real-life study group I was in is falling apart, but I’m still planning to keep working. I’ve just begun Lesson 5 and have set out a sequence for the exercises. I don’t have a particular goal, but I think my average study time is about 3 hours/week. I’m getting through quite a bit in that amount of time, though, because it’s review. (Looking ahead, it’s by about Lesson 9 or 10 where I start feel fuzzier about some of the grammar points.)
I will be starting lesson 5 today as well.
Is anyone else around there? We could discuss together if needed.
What’s your pace from here going to be? Would you be interested in doing pair exercises together?
I really need to get back into this…
I’ve just been so exhausted lately…
I’d like to go relatively quickly because I’m also working through Japanese the Manga Way and I want to finish both books before the end of the year.
I’m going to do a bit of reading in the book every single day. I don’t have an exact pace in mind, though. As in, I’m not saying I’m going to do X amount of chapters per week or anything. I’m just planning on doing a little each day.
Yesterday I did all of Ch 5 because it was so short, but I don’t intend to necessarily keep a pace of a chapter a day… that might be a bit much.
If you have a pace in mind, I’m all ears. Er… eyes, I guess. xD
As far as pair work… I’m not sure how we would do that?
@Ryouki - my pace was 1 chapter a week. If you’re doing both textbooks, I don’t know if you can do a chapter from each a week… but you know your schedule and how long the Japanese the Manga Way chapters are.
I’ve been mainly skipping exercises - I don’t have an answer key…
I need to get back into trying to use new grammar on HelloTalk after each chapter.
Perhaps tomorrow, I’ll get back into it! Or maybe tonight if my mind is awake when I get home.
Right now, I’m focusing more on Genki. I might try and get through that first, or I’ll just do it until I need a change of pace and then I’ll focus on JTMW for a few weeks just to switch it up. shrug
I sort of skip some of the exercises too depending on what they’re asking me to do. But I at least read through everything just for reading practice, if nothing else. I don’t have an answer key either.
Right now I’m going faster than a chapter a week (Genki only, not JTMW) but that’s mostly only because I’ve already been exposed to everything I’ve gotten to so far. Once I start reading chapters that I’m not familiar with, then I’ll probably do around a chapter a week.
FWIW I do all the excersises by hand (helps writing practice), and I then use Google Translate to test my work. It’s not always 100% but it’s good enough for me to check where I went wrong.
Hmm… Google Translate for answer checking… that’s not a bad idea…
Except for