Should I start with TextFugu or wait for EtoEto?

If you buy the lifetime version of TextFugu, it’ll give you access to EtoEto when it comes out (I’d estimate that’ll be some time around 2030 at this rate), but also a 50% discount on WaniKani forever. For me, it ended up being cheaper to just buy TextFugu and then pay half price for WK.

(MODERATOR EDIT: The TextFugu code does NOT work on the WK lifetime price, just monthly or yearly.)

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I’m taking a college Japanese Course, and our native teachers uses Genki, so I think it’s a pretty solid choice. However, they have some weird instances where they say things like “Typically, japaneses speakers don’t put a question mark (?) after the particle Ka.” Which is… not really true. Genki will also teach you long form/masu form first, it comes with CDs for listening comprehension, and kanji sheets (which can help with your writing, but definitely not learning :wink: )

I personally would recommend starting by reading Kim Tae’s guide to Japanese, it’s online and free and even has an app (thought it’s outdated). It covers a lot of grammar points in a nice order, in my opinion. Tae Kim’s guide was what I used when I first started, and they teach you plain form first which is debated to be the best form to learn first, not that I necessarily agree with that. However, Tae Kim’s guide really tries to get the reader to understand the difference between “wa” and “ga”, and there is a very important difference, but it’s pretty overwhelming. Genki doesn’t really cover “ga” in big depth. Not sure how important that is.

Furthermore, I recommend checking out Japanese from Zero! which has its own books and video series. I watch the video series as supplemental knowledge to Genki, and I am not sure if the books are any good. The writer and video maker is not native to Japan, but seems to know the subject well enough to teach.

If you’re looking for something more crass and you can handle strong language, go check out Nama-Sensei’s video series. They’re… just wild. I can’t explain them. He covers all of the hiragana and katakana but also talks about Te-form and other important grammar points. He was living in Japan at the time of making the videos, so I trust the advice and lessons he gave.

This wasn’t mean to be such a long post, sorry! It’s a little disorganized but I am in a rush and thought I’d share my insight!

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It really seems to be material-dependent.

Of the sources I’m using for reading practice, most professionally edited things post-mid-2000s use question marks regularly, but stuff from the 80s and 90s often don’t. And even modern publications sometimes leave the question-mark out when か is present (but use one in when a question is asked without explicit indication) or put a question-mark on a statement.

It’s just not consistent, so I’m glad little tips like that are present in Genki, which was originally written in the 90s.

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My personal recommendation is Learn Japanese with the Human Japanese family of apps

Read both on my tablet

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I really like Japanese From Zero. You can read reviews of it on Tofugu and there are some reviews of it here and on reddit’s r/learnJapanese as well. For me, learning Japanese is a hobby that I try to fit between working two jobs, and the slow pace (and friendly, encouraging content provided by the author in the Youtube videos) has been a really good fit.

That said, you’ve made progress on WK already, and you may have more time to devote to language study than I do. If you have access to native speakers and you are very disciplined, then you can get more information in a shorter amount of time from Genki.

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As others have said, dont wait for EtoEto and just get a grammar book to study! I have personally used Genki I and Genki II and while its not perfect for self study, it does the job fine! I have also heard that Minna no Nihongo is a good resource as well! If you want free grammar guides, Tae Kim and Imabi are there for you!

But whatever you do, make sure that its enjoyable!

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If you haven’t already, give Bunpro a whirl, though I don’t know if I’d recommend it for absolute beginners…

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I actually started using Minna no Nihongo, because a version with german (which is my native language) translation and explanation is available as well. Nevertheless, it seems not to be made for self-studying. As I will attend a Japanese Course at my local, Japanese culture Centre, I hope this will make the first steps a little bit more comfortable :blush:

Same bro

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I had this happen too.

Right now, I want to get into just grammar (not worrying about speaking/listening which is also a big part of Genki), and really fast, and for that I am using Bunpro.jp and the book Japanese the Manga Way (at the recommend of another WK-er). So far, I really like this book, and I think it’s going to help my reading a lot.

The resources/textbooks that you choose will depend on your own personality, as well as what you want to learn over all.

I was an absolute beginner when I started it. I can safely recommend.

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N5 is the lowest level of the JPLT, you can’t get more elementary than that :joy:

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