Hey everyone, I’m new to WaniKani so this is my first post. I am currently studying abroad in Tokyo and will be going home next month. Are there any really good Japanese learning books that I can only get in Japan that I should get while I’m here? I’m almost at an N4 level but I’m willing to buy advanced books too since I’m thinking long-term.
Even if they aren’t exclusive, you may want to factor in postage costs to your home country; depending where you live, getting any Japanese book from abroad can be an expensive prospect.
Hello and welcome! It’s great to have you here, and best of luck on your kanji journey!
I know they’re technically not Japan-specific, but I am always buying my favorite manga in Japanese from secondhand stores like BookOff. They’re super cheap (I read older mangas, so often I can get volumes for ¥100 each) so it’s been worth it to do that instead of ordering them online as they are small and easy to slip in my luggage when I go home. Then I practice reading and vocab using those.
I’m sure you already are, but have fun in Tokyo! I studied abroad there too, and it was a blast.
They’re not really for learning Japanese specifically, but I die a little bit inside whenever I try to buy textbooks (the kind they use in school for math/history/etc). They don’t ship directly to where I live (in the US) from Amazon JP, so I usually have to proxy to get them, which really ramps their cost up.
The only other types of books I’ve seen that are kind of “exclusive” are older books that no longer get stocked and volumes of books sold in bundles (this is 50/50 on Amazon JP, from my experience).
If budget is not a problem for you (unlike mine), I highly recommend Leebo’s vlog and/or his recent electronic jisho.
I only have kanken and homonyms dictionaries. If I also had a budget and were in Tokyo, I’ll probably also walk to the store in Tokyo and test myself of which electronic dictionary that fit me.
I don’t know about exclusives, but I loaded up on every textbook I could while I was in Tokyo earlier this year because they’re so much cheaper than they are in the UK! For example, the JLPT practice books are around 4 times as expensive in the UK as they are in Japan. In fact, I bought so many that we very nearly went over our luggage allowance. You might want to think about shipping books back surface mail if this is likely to be an issue.