QUARTET: Intermediate Japanese Across the Four Language Skills

Japanese Language Resources
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Has anyone tried out The Japan Times’s new Intermediate textbook Quartet? It looks interesting from the preview I saw, but the book is so new, I haven’t found any reviews of it online. QUARTET: Intermediate Japanese Across the Four Language Skills　I - ジャパンタイムズ出版 BOOKCLUB. If anyone has used it to any extent, what did you think of it?

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Just ordered it from OMGJapan.

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If someone gets this book and post some photos, especially of some grammar explanation, to see how it is, I will really appreciate it.

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That talks abiut the workbook, but I’m interested on how the grammar is explained.

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I’ve been wondering the same. So far I haven’t found anything on the actual grammar lessons, but I did find these pictures of the introduction and table of contents on Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/ctimkf/comment/exl5hnp

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I know this is a bit of an old thread, but has anyone tried the book yet? I’ve been looking into it, but I haven’t found much reviews, etc of it yet although it does seem interesting from the preview I saw on amazon jp.

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This guy did a look at the big three intermediate books (Tobira, An Integrated Approach, and Quartet) and his verdict was that Quartet was the best overall. It’s what he’ll be covering on his channel after finishing Genki.

I plan on moving over to it after Genki, but I do find it odd how little material there is on it especially since it apparently picks up right where Genki leaves off.

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Literally never head of Quartet

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It’s a relatively new intermediate series of books from The Japan Times, the publishers of Genki. It’s the N3 and N2 expansion to Genki’s N5 and N4. I haven’t used them yet personally, though. So I have no idea how good of a job they do.

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Seems like a bit of a stretch to call it “the big three” then

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So I haven’t used Tobira or Integrated Approach, but I’ve been working out of Quartet for about a year. I really like it! I think it’s an easy transition from Genki, difficulty wise.

The format of each chapter is basically

  • Review of Beginner level grammar (usually difficult points that people often mess up on)
  • Reading (There are two readings, each with pre-reading questions and post reading comprehension questions)
  • Reading Strategies (a lot of these are the same as in English, but it’s good review)
  • Grammar
  • Kanji practice (covers fundamentals like radicals as well)
  • Long form writing exercise
  • Speaking (tbh not super useful if you’re not in a class setting, but really good if you are!)
  • Listening

I think the grammar explanations are super clear and easy to understand. I think it does a really good job of scaffolding to gradually and naturally build your Japanese level. I also think it does a good job of encouraging you grow in how you express yourself. For example, each long form writing section starts with a pre-writing section to help you develop your ideas before you start writing. It attempts to not just help you become good at Japanese grammar, but it aims to help you be a better communicator overall. If you’re already a good communicator in English, these will just strengthen your skills and help you apply them to a new language. If your not the best reader/writer in English, it’ll help you to improve your skills overall.

Each chapter is centered around a really useful theme. While it’s aimed at students, I found the themes to be engaging and useful, even as a non-student. For example Chapter 4 is about a round table discussion on studying abroad. While studying abroad is very student-y, being able to understand round table discussions is a useful skill for anyone.

My (rather minor) quibbles are that the Grammar Review and Kanji sections are in the back of the book, so I have to flip around a lot and sometimes get confused on what order I should do things. Also I wish the workbook had more open ended questions.

Overall, I’m super happy with it and plan to move on to Quartet Level II this summer.

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Thank you for your answer! It looked like an interesting book, but I couldn’t find much info about it so I wasn’t sure if I wanted to risk the investment. So it’s nice to hear that it has potential. I think I’ll be considering it once I’m done my Genki review.

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