I got the grammar book, and it works great most of the time, but sometimes you just need someone to correct your exercises because there’s nothing on the answer key or they are free writing exercises.
Why would one need to go through Tobira (don’t know that text-book at all), when you have a nice selection of N3/2 prep books like Sou-Matome or Kanzen? Is there anything in there that’s not in the prep books? I was thinking that everything else comes from exposure.
If you need a good grammar book, I’d strongly recommend the grammar dictionary: Amazon.com : japanese grammar dictionary
Tobira doesn’t have the greatest explanation for the grammar point [Noun も Verb ば, Noun も Verb]. An example sentence is:
寿司が好きな人もいれば、嫌いな人もいます。
Tobira says this grammar “is used to present some members in a group, things in a category, actions someone takes, characteristics of something/someone, etc., among others.”
So with that, to me this sentence reads something like, “There are people who like sushi, and people who dislike it”, or perhaps more naturally, “Some people like sushi, and some people hate it.”
Edit: Another sentence that’s given:
この教科書は、会話も練習できれば、文化も学べます。
How I read it: With this textbook, you can practice conversation, and also study culture (among other things).
Am I on the right track with these?
Uhhhhh. I’m on the verge of giving up here. Genki held my hand until I finished the series and when Tobira hit, I lost it. I tried to do what I always did back on Genki, take notes on all the grammar points and then do the exercises but with 16 grammar points for tobira, it ain’t gonna cut it. Dunno how I go from here. Do I just read all the grammar points and RAMBO my way through the exercises or do I just but Tobira in the back seat and focus on reading native material. I have a book sitting right next to me, I think the title is 君が見つける物語 and I would really like to ream them. Any advice?
Read stuff like NHK Easy and easier manga then return to Tobira. The reason why Tobira is harder than Genki at its root has to do with it being almost entirely in Japanese. The grammar explanations, however, are largely not. Therefore, my recommendation would be to read a fair bit of native content with something like Rikaisama while doing the grammar exercises, then return to the parts of Tobira with the vocabulary and large passages.
I’m just concerned on how I can retain the grammar points. I’ve tried Anki for the grammar and the deck is really confusing. It’s not arranged per lesson so it throws me grammar that I haven’t learned yet. Also, what native content do you think I should read. I’m on chapter 3 of Tobira right now and I’m thinking of buying a dictionary of Intermediate Japanese but it’s a really pricey book and I’m not sure if I’ll use it enough.
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Like I said above, I would recommend NHK Easy and easier manga. Something like Yutsubato. Reading will greatly help with retaining the grammar points. That is because you’ll basically be using them, albeit clumsily, while engaging in the content. I tried it while looking back on Tae Kim and Tobira to review and I felt like it was easier to swallow the grammar points if I had a reference to my reading. Sort of a way to organize them. NHK Easy was the big one in particular that helped me.
What is your goal? The ability to produce each grammar point in spoken and written Japanese? Recognize the grammar points in the wild?
Language is about exposure, so my strategy is to grind through the text and workbooks, take good notes, and go back and review if I come across a grammar point I forget (Tobira helpfully has that great index in the back of the book so you can easily find grammar points you’ve already studied).
I spent too much time puttering over Genki. My strategy these days is lots and lots of organized input, then review and revisit as I move forward in my studies. Production is a fantastic way to cement things (and I get a little of that with the workbook), but with repetition I think that ability will come in time. (If it doesn’t, I will revisit my study strategy). I don’t want to be a perfectionist and get bogged down and de-motivated for lack of Mastery! of each and every grammar point I study.
Another note - Tobira grammar is color-coded by importance so if you are worried about retention, you can just focus on the critical grammar before moving on.
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I take notes on every grammar point in Tobira, and I’ve found myself referring to those from time to time whenever there’s something I don’t understand. I also write four example sentences for each point, make sure I understand all of them, and then put one or two in my Tobira Anki deck that I’m currently going through.
I do agree that Tobira is a pretty huge jump after the hand-holding Genki books. It definitely helps to do more reading practice on the side to help with retaining things.
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I take lessons on Italki 2x/ week. I have a busy day job, and so I decided to go through Tobira slowly and methodically with my teacher. Following the text passage and model conversations, and we will discuss the text in Japanese. No English is allowed during our discussion. My teacher corrects my pronunciation: pitch accent and intonation must be as perfect as possible. We painstakingly go through all the questions related to the text passage. All the questions must be answered in grammatically correct Japanese, just like in a Japanese high school classroom. We go through grammar points carefully: I make sample sentences for each point. After we finish each chapter, we will do the grammar power book together. Because my interest is in oral communication, I do all the questions only in spoken Japanese. Every few chapters, we will go back to early chapters and review all the grammar points and vocabularies.
Outside of my Italki lessons, I do not study much. I use Anki flash cards and the Tobira Kanji workbook ( I only spend 1-2 hour per chapter: I answer the question using iPhone hiragana keyboard to make sure I can text in Hiragana). I also listen to JapanesePod 101 upper intermediate level lessons in my car. I do not really use Tobira website material.
After one year, we have finished 10 lessons, and we plan to stick with this plan until we finish the whole book. This is in contrast to how quickly I completed Genki 1 and 2: I finished them in 1 year. I have decided to take my time and to slowly digest everything. I don’t care about learning to write in Japanese nor do I care about JLPT: I am not going to work in Japan. I aced JLPT N4 but I found that the stuff I studied is not useful for conversational use. I would rather spend my time learning to speak good Japanese than to learn to pass a test that has no use for me personally.
One thing I notice as we go through the book slowly: the text and the workbook really do help to reinforce the grammar and vocabularies. If you do them slowly and carefully, a lot of the grammar points will sink into your brain naturally. If you were to rush through the grammar points, you will soon forget what you learned and you will have a hard time using them naturally. Therefore, if your goal is to learn to speak Japanese well, I advise you to go slow.
I have been pretty lazy as of late so I kind of put Tobira on pause (I’m fully 6 chapters through at this point), but up until then, I’ve used the supplemental grammar workbook as well as the questions in the main textbook, and the videos for each chaper. The most useful part of Tobira’s grammar book is the open ended essay questions at the end of each chapter; the goal is for you to shoehorn in as many of the grammar points as you can into your composition while simultaneously making a cogent argument, so you start to think of how to use grammar points instrumentally in the context of a single extended train of thought. I continue to try to do this with other writing prompts in japanese and have my tutor check them, and also to underline or otherwise mark these grammar points when I see them “in the wild” when I’m doing outside reading practice. That, I’ve found, helps me retain the best.
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Soo I just got started with Tobira. I dabbed a bit into reading NHK Easy and manga before starting (which I will continue on the side). I like to think that reading more has helped me immensely for the switch from Genki to Tobira. Also slogging though a N4 prep book.
No problem with the reading and dialogue parts but huh… there’s so much grammar in each chapter. @_@" At the moment I’m also not really happy with the little amount of information that is given for each grammar point. 
I will try to continue doing what I did for Genki (make own notes, put example sentences into Anki, do the exercises) and see how that works out. As it looks, it will take me quite a bit longer per chapter as before. I’m glad I’m not in a hurry, otherwise this workload would stress me out 
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I think this was pretty much my reaction when I first got Tobira, too. The chapters are definitely more dense than Genki, which had maybe 5-6 points per chapter. And the grammar explanations are far more concise. I was initially worried I’d have to do a ton of extra research for each point, but that ended up not being the case, mostly thanks to the variety of example sentences that helped in understanding their usage.
I ended up doing pretty much exactly what you described, though - taking notes on each point and putting example sentences into Anki, and it’s helped a lot with retention.
I’m trying to go through Tobira very thoroughly…I was wondering what people think about translating the larger reading texts. Good practice ? Helpful ? Waste of time ?
Hey guys, I just got my Tobira in yesterday and for some reason can’t get onto the website. I’ve typed in the url a few times, double and triple checked it but still couldn’t get it to work 
! Has anyone else had this issue? It just says “Safari can’t open page” do I need to use another web browser?
http://tobiraweb.9640.jp/ works just fine for me. Didn’t try Safari, though
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Ahh! For some reason it worked through your link! (It’s still saying it’s not secure but it’s working so I’m happy). Thank you so much for taking the time to reply! I owe you one!!
I’m finishing the last few chapters of Genki II and I’ll be starting Tobira in the next few weeks. I’m excited, but I’m going to miss Mary and Takeshi and their clumsy love story.
I didn’t buy either workbook, so I’ll just be using their website exercises and textbook.
Though I might pick up the grammar workbook later on if I feel I need it (though I do have a Bunpro subscription and N3 grammar books, which I why I didn’t spend the extra 50AUD for the grammar workbook).
Yeah, that’s how I felt when I closed Genki for the last time the other day. Weird feeling.
I just started Tobira the other day and one day it too will be closed for the last time.
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