Came here to make that same recommendation, I love that book. Best $5 Iāve ever spent, and the author has a blog and youtube videos that are super informative. Be warned that the YouTube videos, and Cure Dolly (the person who creates them), are a little bit . . . odd.
To put my own 2c in, Iād recommend āshopping aroundā a little bit and trying various resources out before you commit to Genki. Iāve tried all sorts of grammar resources and have disliked most of them, Genki included. I preferred the accessibility and clarity of Human Japanese instead (it is digital though) combined with the essays in Unlocking Japanese.
Another thing you should consider is the role your textbook should play in your learning. For me, the textbook is a means to pick up the very basics (syntax, particles, some vocab) and serves as a reference in case I forget something. Iām relatively new and canāt say much from personal experience, but Iām going to parrot Cure Dollyās philosophy that you canāt really learn Japanese from a textbook; the textbook, Japanese-for-English environment is totally different from the real-world, Japanese-for-Japanese environment. Pick up a textbook and learn the basic particles and conjugations, get some kanji and vocab from WK, and then start hitting Japanese materials as soon as you can (a few months). It seems better to learn Japanese from actual Japanese than boiled down examples and exercises from textbooks for English learners.
Thanks for mentioning Cure Dolly, and her YouTube videos. I hadnāt heard of her before couldnāt resist your description, and yes the presentation is ā¦ unusual (and intriguing). But the material is unorthodox, well-organized, and super smart. Iāve read Jay Rubinās āMaking Sense of Japaneseā, and Cure Dolly takes a lot of those concepts, but carries them even further. Iāve become a fan, because I think that under the weird audio-flltered voice, and the 3D animated doll character, this is an excellent approach to Japanese grammar. And unlike most YouTube celebrity-wannabees, she doesnāt go on and on. She lays out the knowledge rather clearly, gives an example or two, and finishes the lesson.
Actually Iāve been wanting to ask if Unlocking Japanese does take it further from Jay Rubin (the sample snippet on Amazon is pretty much the same as Jay Rubin, and has been credited as such).
And in your opinion is it just basic grammar, or more?
Iāve only watched some of the videos, so I canāt speak to the book, but what I was thinking about saying that she took some concepts further than Jay Rubin, was particularly a video on Japanese conjugation.
Her contention is that most of whatās called verb conjugation in most Japanese textbooks is actually a system of helper verbs. So for example, ććććć is not in her conception the passive tense of ććć. Rather itās ććć (scold) + ćć (receive). So rather than translating ććććć as āI was scoldedā, it would be, āI received scolding.ā To me this approach seems attractive in that it seems to take Japanese structure on its own terms rather than trying to explain it in terms of English grammar. Anyhow, Iām always open to fresh approaches.
Iām glad you found her as elucidating as I did. I was having a really hard time with grammar, getting hung up on ćÆ and ć particles that were appearing and disappearing seemingly at random in Tae Kim and Genki. After giving the blog a look, I was convinced to buy the book, and in the first 10 or so pages everything became clear to me! Itās very accessible and offers a good perspective (what she calls the Japanese perspective) on a lot of aspects of Japanese grammar that have seemed otherwise rather arbitrary. The verb conjugation video you linked is a great example of her work.
I havenāt gotten the books myself but the complementing video series for Japanese from Zero is great!
From my understanding itās geared towards self learners, unlike Genki which is mainly meant to be used in a classroom. However I donāt think the choice of resource is that important, all of them should cover the same points, the important part is that you practice.
Interestingly. Seems they do a kanji and kana series, too. I think Iāll order the first one and see what I think. As one definitely didnāt enjoy (though I still donāt look negatively on it) the self-study Genki experience, it would be nice to find a more āfunā looking, self-study material I can recommend.
That, and Iām a terrible sucker for reference materials that use the anime-like mascots (I absolutely hate New Horizon as an English learning material, but I do like the characters ).
After seeing the ToC on Making Sense of Japanese, I would say thereās some overlap. Probably on the ćÆ / ć particles, since Unlocking japanese has a fair amount of that as well and even stops saying that for more in depth explanation, the Jay Rubin work proves of use. Then it goes with type of particles, ć, ćć , adjectives.
Anyway, itās 5 bucksā¦ ā¦ As for Jay Rubin book, probably Iām getting that one as well, afer seeing the ToC and the reviews Iām guessing it will be a similar reading (very clear and different approach from standard textbooks).
I have Making Sense of Japanese and I really like it. It does assume you have prior knowledge of Japanese grammar from other textbooks though (similar to Unlocking Japanese?). Iām doing my second read through now. Iām hoping the two resources will complement each other!
The problem I was getting with his videos (JFZ) was that you have to skim through a lot of chatting and idle pauses if you follow his video seriesā¦ making it kind of a waste to be honest. The actual moments when heās focused and doesnāt derail from the actual topic of the lesson it proves useful though.
The Cure Dolly videos are straight to the point. 100% learning content, no ego involved, no silly comments, no chattering.
Weird maybeā¦ but if you can cope with the character itās a win win.
Sheās a little bit uncanny valley, but for some reason, I quite like her voice (though sheās got the mic too close to her mouth in some of the earlier videos, so itās picked up all of her mouth movement noises). But more to the point, I like her way of describing particles.
Itās true that he derails a lot, but for me that helps to make the learning experience less intense which I think is a good thing. I always feel like most resources like tae kimās guide give too much information at once. JFZ are easier to digest, and so I prefer them, but of course itās all about preference.
So Iāve now read āUnlocking Japaneseā. My quick thoughts are that it is a very short book and a quick read, and does deliver some good insights to how the Japanese language work (and how it can differ from English).
For me, at the end of each chapter I felt like I had learnt something but also felt like there wasnāt enough of a continuation to further explain some concepts. They introduce ālogicalā and ānon-logicalā particles, but donāt go into much more detail about each type and why the particles are grouped the way they are - maybe this is obvious to more advanced learners(?), but for me I wished there was more. Maybe they explained it more in their videos, but I also recall them saying the āUnlocking Japaneseā is the coursebook for some of the content, so I expected it to be more comprehensive?
All in all, I did like the content and would recommend it, and I would definitely be reading it again to make sure I fully grasp the concepts. I do hope they keep producing more written content (just personal preference over the video content)!
tl;dr - liked it, wished there was more
(i never know how much is too much words so hereās a gif for good measure)
I get the feeling that Cure Dollyās thing is brevity. Sometimes I feel like her videos are a bit too quick to fully explain the point sheās making. But since itās mainly theoretical and from a non-native of unknown fluency, itās maybe best that there arenāt that many examples. I do like her explanations of concepts, though. Looks like the book maybe doesnāt add much to the videos though if like me youāre satisfied with those. Also, most of her content seems to be aimed at beginner level students, so I probably shouldnāt be spending too much time relearning things I already pretty much understand, time being limited.
A similar and more profound reading could be āMaking Sense of Japaneseā by Jay Rubin.
More in depth analysis acompanied with some very memorable situations in which you can realize how much can small grammar changes affect the entire connotation of a sentence.
As one definitely didnāt enjoy (though I still donāt look negatively on it) the self-study Genki experience, it would be nice to find a more āfunā looking, self-study material I can recommend.
).
ā¦ As for Jay Rubin book, probably Iām getting that one as well, afer seeing the ToC and the reviews Iām guessing it will be a similar reading (very clear and different approach from standard textbooks).
