I see, what do you mean by “readings” sorry ? And the book is in english, correct ? I had Minna no Nihongo a long time ago but could never get into it, full japanese was brutal for me. I will look if I can find a few “free” pages of Quartet so get a feel for it
And what about the workbook, would you say it would be useful to replace Seth’s website ? (i do not think it went all the way anyway)
Sorry for the questions, I know you are not Quartet Salesperson lmao, but everyone else feel free to give a feedback or tip if you have any .
Readings are one or two page essays at the start of the chapter, that use new vocab and grammar taught in that chapter. They’re a lot harder than the short dialogues found in Genki. Here’s the first one from Quartet 1[1]. Explanations are in English but they’re very short and there are also a lot of example sentences.
I actually don’t recommend the workbook at all. The questions are fill in the blank sentences, and finding out the exact answer that they’re looking for takes a lot of time and effort. I think it’s better to just write your own sentences and get them corrected.
If full Japanese is still scary, I recommend reading at least one non-manga book before starting Quartet. Something like 夜カフェ or ふしぎ駄菓子屋銭天堂 are good first choices.
My 2 cents is to wait until you need the books to buy them, even if that is less efficient or costs more. For me grammar books seem to lose their shininess factor very quickly, and another factor to consider is you will better understand what you want and need at that stage once you reach it. Plus, by the time you get there the next great thing might also be available…
Yeah you are absolutely right, it’s also my thought, but I could get them all as a gift for my birthday that is soon, that’s why I was getting feedbacks about them now .
I will def get a year of wanikani + 3/6 months of Satori, and the 新完全 JLPT grammar /reading books for N4/N3, and I was interested by quartet, but I just dont know if I need the book in addition to Tokini videos. The workbook I can probably wait if I will need it , with what people said about it
I’m working through Quartet in year 6 of my Japanese studies … It’s certainly a thing for AFTER both Genki / Minna Nihingo
When you are around N3/N2, I think
It’s certainly a thing you can wait to buy later
And it will have new editions by the time you are ready
No, I haven’t heard about any new editions for Quartet
…
But I’ve been having trouble studying with friends due to the changes between Genki 2nd and 3rd editions (it’s the same publishing company)
They updated vocab, prices, page numbers changed and example changed, and the exercises that we attempt to do together have some changes… So it’s a pain to work from different editions.
I’m not sure if this is what you’re looking for, but Udemy has a lot of IT courses available in Japanese. They’re intended for native speakers of course, but maybe taking a course in a subject that you’re already familar with, you can still follow along (and pick up new vocabulary). Similar to playing games in Japanese though, it will probably be exhausting. An easier route might be just to check out some short YouTube videos for your topic of interest (e.g. サイバーセキュリティ).
Amazon, Bookwalker, etc. have tons of IT books (especially anything related to AI). Unfortunately with IT material though, there’s so much カタカナ語 it might try your patience finishing anything. Also, unless you have a will of steel, I can’t imagine coming home from work and cracking open an IT book in Japanese – Quartet sounds far better to me.
I placed an order for Quartet 1 Workbook, Quartet 2, and Quartet 2 Workbook, and will be ordering Quartet 1 soon.
I noticed that there is also a “Teacher’s Guide”.
Has anyone used that? Is there any value to the student from that book? Is it likely to be too advanced for a student to use? Are the supplemental resources at the top of this thread sufficient without having access to a teacher guide?
Definitely they are more than sufficient. There is a lot to gain just from the book, so if you also have the workbook and supplemental resources, that’s plenty.
I would not get the guide tbh, as the text is probably 100% Japanese and if you want to and are able to read that kind of text, then I’m guessing Quartet will be far too easy for you! You might be able to find sample pages on the Japan Times website. But honestly, I’ve seen a lot of people get a lot from self-studying Quartet and none of them had the teacher’s guide.
Received my books from amazon, started by reading the ‘About This Book’ section of book 1, joined the Discord, starting to acquaint myself with the contents of this and the other big Quartet threads in the WK Community, going to check out Tokini Andy, etc.
I noticed in the other big thread (in the ‘Resources’ section) that the ‘Supplement’ that I read about is actually contained within book 1 - do people really rip it out (as intended) or leave it in place - I really hate ripping stuff out of books, even though that’s what you’re ‘supposed’ to do
I also was worried about this, but was glad on the end that I pulled it out
I had to pull it very hard, to be honest harder than I would have ever tried if I hadn’t read about it. But when it came out it felt and looked quite good as its own book. I personally found it handy to have it separate to leave open to vocab lists alongside the readings, but you could leave it in and flip back and forth.
This is shocking for me to read as I wanted to leave it in but with both quartet 1 and 2 it’s simply fallen out over time with use. I’m still super early on in Quartet 2 so not sure how
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