Tobira vs. Genki - Which is Best?

Japanese Language Resources
22

This is where we disagree. Some people require a wider variety of sources and perspectives to better grasp concepts (I’m one of those) and also to not get bored. Some people are able to maintain focus on a single resource. Quantity can be a great teacher. It’s the reason why when people talk about immersion, for instance. They say things like “keep reading. Just keep at it. Anything you like, just read.” without any mention of quality. The point is to keep you motivated to keep going, not to find some efficient resource you’ll drop. If a hyper-efficient method works for you, that’s really great, and I’m glad it’s working out, but we don’t all operate that way.

This describes me, so I’m not sure where you’re going with this. It describes many people on here in fact.

5 Likes
23

And you’re completely not bothered by the amount of fugus and other outdated terms WaniKani teaches, which some natives found funny?

If one really wanted to be efficient, one wouldn’t use WaniKani, but an Anki deck with common vocab, sorted by kanji difficulty and not stroke complexity.

Regarding textbooks, how would one acquire and understand grammar then? Only by consuming native content? Without basic understanding of grammar that doesn’t sound too efficient to me.

4 Likes
24

Thank you for your suggestions! I was wondering how exactly you incorporate DOJG into studying? Is it really a dictionary or is it a textbook? I’ve seen people talk about it but I never really know how I’d study with it :sweat_smile:

I’ll also definitely check out Bunpro! I’ve seen people using it in part with Genki, so I might even try that and see how that goes.

25

Super interesting! I’ll do more research on that textbook and compare the two. Thank you :))

26

It’s a stupid question, but would Genki get you to a more advanced Japanese level in a quicker pace compared to JFZ? I don’t want to take things entirely too slow, but I also want to have a better understanding of concepts being taught. Does JFZ have better practice problems compared to Genki? I feel like I’d learn best with more practice rather than simply reading the grammar points given.

27

Thank you! I’ll watch this video in my free time, it seems super helpful!

28

Sorry, I don’t know how to answer that.

For one, I never actually tried Genki, I just know what people online say about it. Presumably, if you get the separate workbook you can also get in a lot of practice as well. I know Genki is a well-reviewed textbook, and I imagine there’s good reason for that, but I also saw a lot of self-learners complain that it’s designed to be used in a classroom and not all that great for people who want to learn by themselves at their own pace.

Also, I can imagine it depends of your personality and preferred learning style too. If you’re a fast learner, or you’re already moved past the very basics, the “from zero” approach of JFZ might be annoying or boring to you.

:man_shrugging:

1 Like
29

I feel like it really depends what wants to get out of a textbook. Before Genki I did some courses on JapanesePod101 and Tae Kim’s complete guide and while I could technically understand grammar points up to N4 level, I didn’t know how to use them effectively and I had to set up tons of my own conjugation drills to practice verbs.

For me Genki covered that missing ground, because it offered a couple of drill exercises and more complex production exercises per chapter. There is also a separate workbook for each part (I think?), but I didn’t touch that, because what the core Genki 1 + 2 books provided was enough for me.

However, if one starts from zero, I can imagine it might be more challenging, because Genki has this tendency to narrow the scope of its explanations and doesn’t tell you everything about each grammar point, like the nuance behind 〜てみる being used typically for trying something for the first time or presenting a niche use case for the clause + と grammar point (meaning “when”, but in Genki being explained as “whenever” and paired with なる almost exclusively). Also, some pair and group exercises might be difficult to do alone without putting more effort into it, like building conversation scenarios.

That being said, Genki 1+ 2 will cover N5 and much of N4 with maybe ~3 grammar points per the N4 syllabus missing.

3 Likes
30

DOJG is certainly not meant to be used as a textbook. I’d imagine you’d fall asleep if you tried using it that way even faster than Genki would knock you out. It’s a great reference though.

If you use Bunpro (highly recommend!), you can learn on Bunpro and use DOJG to get a more complete explanation (Bunpro tells you which pages to look at in DOJG, for each grammar point that has an entry in the book, as far as I can tell).
I was never able to use Genki even in the classroom as it would put me to sleep, and imo it’s even worse for self-learners.

I, like you, was really looking for places to practice what I was learning.
For conjugation, I’d recommend the Japanese Conjugation City app or Don’s Conjugation Drill (search the forums).
For grammar, obviously Bunpro. Also check out JP drills and JLPT Pro (they’re both multiple choice though, so may not be what you want). Try! N5 was recommended to me for its exercises, but I haven’t been able to check it out yet. Another option is Lingodeer, which I sometimes use for practice.
For writing practice, Kanji Study (app) is really good as you can set it up to mirror your WK progress (I’m happy to help with setting it up if required - drop your Discord handle here if so).
For vocab, Kitsun.io is unbeatable. Happy to help with setup on there too.

3 Likes
31

“Which is best?” – Whichever one ends up working best for you.

Different people need different things.

For me, Genki stinks. I have it; I’ll use it. But, I fight with it every single time. Something is just off for me with how things are presented. A lot of the explanations become contradictory in my mind, given the Japanese grammar constructions are explained as similar to or matching English grammar. Beyond that, there are patterns Genki basically ignores, which would make certain constructions far easier, in my opinion.

I recently bought the new beginner book from Tobira. The exact problems that I had with Genki are addressed in this new Tobira book. It deals with many constructions from a point of view closer to Japanese grammar, and has a flow that suggests the similarities to English are helpful, but don’t match exactly. (And, the online articles are especially helpful in that way.) Thus, this new book is far easier for me to learn from, as it matches my personality.

The best option, in my opinion, is to have a variety of resources, especially for grammar.

P.S. I would say that Tobira sort of meshes the practicality of Genki with the style of the grammar explanations of the Cure Dolly YouTube series. And, in my estimation, strikes a decent balance.

P.P.S. Dictionary of Japanese Grammar is seriously helpful, though, if you plan to pull most of your learning through native context, rather than a textbook. I know some people learn well that way, too.

5 Likes
32

Genki vs. JFZ
In general Genki and JFZ will get you to similar levels (about N4 if you go by JLPT) though they don’t cover exactly the same grammar points. Genki has 2 books written like typical textbooks, though the bulk is exercises with pair work (you can still do them alone if you use your imagination). JFZ is 5 books and written in a more relax way I suppose you could say. Genki also has workbooks to go with the text books. JFZ has workbook sections worked into the textbook portions. The first 2 books of JFZ are a lot slower paced than 3-5 as those volumes slowly work at teaching hiragana and katakana, kanji starts at vol 3.

As for which has better practice problems, it’s a bit subjective. They both have similar style of writing your own kind of answers. (Full disclosure, it has been a while since I’ve done the Genki ones) JFZ has a bit of reading comprehension in each workbook section whereas Genki has these in the back of the textbooks. JFZ has kanji (vol 3-5) in the chapter lessons, Genki has it in the back of the textbook and again in the workbook. So the flow of each is different. I don’t have the Genki workbooks anymore, but each chapter had a page in there or so for grammar and also something for kanji practice. Adding pair work and the workbook together Genki might have more practice work than JFZ, but whether or not it’s useful or valuable… is up to the individual to decide.

Speed
Which one would get you from point A to point B faster? Depends on how fast you are willing to go. JFZ has fewer long grammar explanations and no pair work and no flip flopping around the book compared to Genki. If you skip the pair stuff in Genki and the kanji that will cut some stuff out. Genki has reading sections in the back which some people may not go through. It’s really down to how fast you want to go through the material and still retain info. This applies to both series. JFZ vol 5 is much more dense than vol 2 so it will vary by volume there.

Additional Resources
Genki has an app with all the audio and I think other stuff…? I don’t use it so I don’t know, but it has that for free. JFZ has free YouTube videos that go along with each chapter (they are still being completed for the later books) and there is also a website you can use which is like the book only different that has the audio and also chapter quizzes and things. It is something you have to pay separately for though so if you buy the book you don’t get free access or anything (I think it’s free to start, but not to do everything, someone else posted the link above so you can check it out if you want). Lots of people do stuff with Genki online and on YouTube (like ToKini Andy’s YouTube off the top of my head), some are free, some are not.

My Opinion
I have gone through both Genki and Japanese From Zero in their entirety. Genki I went through in college with an awesome professor so it was a great experience because of that at the time. Ultimately, I didn’t keep my Genki books because they got ruined, but I chose not to buy them again because they were boring for me and I didn’t need them around. I went through the JFZ books because I wanted to know what the experience was like not because I needed them, though there were some things I picked up anyway. I don’t really get why they are considered just for kids (or better for kids/teens) because they are pretty general and there are some jokes in there that I think are aimed at adults, maybe because of the graphic style? My point is, adults can use them just fine. I actually prefer the vocab lists and the reading bits in the workbook sections of JFZ over Genki because it doesn’t assume I’m still in college on an exchange to Japan and want to talk about my major in school to everyone I meet. I also like that JFZ doesn’t have a set narrative. I get why Genki has does it as it’s designed specifically for college/university students, but with those days long behind me I find it tedious (and my major isn’t even on the list!).

Quality/Quantity
My opinion here is that when you are just starting and are brand new stick with one source that works for you for your main grammar text. If you want to use other things like BunPro as a study tool, or Wanikani for kanji, that’s fine because they don’t count (BunPro links to sources, but is just a study aid and WK is obviously not grammar). But multiple textbooks when you are just starting is unnecessary and likely will be more of a hinderance than a help. Having too many sources can easily overwhelm a new learner so add sources later and for specific reasons as needed. There is no need to be a textbook/dictionary/reference book hoarder like me (but I enjoy it, so there :stuck_out_tongue: )

Those who have specific goals or timelines will have different needs, of course, and a textbook like Genki or JFZ, etc. may not be appropriate for all learners and all situations. It’s good to know what your needs/goals are before choosing something I think. If your goal is to pass the JLPT at the N1 level in a year, it is highly unlikely Genki would be useful to you in that time.

That’s all I can think of for now. Fair warning: I edit posts with wild abandon so…

Edit (I did give fair warning): An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese would be more of a Genki 3 than Tobira as it is by the same publisher as Genki. However the structure is not like Genki and lots of people don’t seem to like it so Tobira is winning the Intermediate textbook battle at least on WK it seems (maybe elsewhere too, I don’t know). I owned it at one point but discarded it as it was super boring to me.

5 Likes
33

This is interesting, I kinda wanna look through it for this reason. One big gripe I have with how Japanese is taught (and Genki I think is very guilty of this) is trying too hard to equate it to English. On the one hand, new learners do need some basis to start from, but the whole “look, it’s just like English!” approach isn’t helping anyone and is wrong because Japanese is not at all like English. I don’t need another beginner text book though… or do I?

1 Like
35

The one everyone knows about is. But, they released a new beginner’s book, however, that I’d argue is at the same (or possibly even lower, in a good way) level than Genki.

Here’s a link: TOBIRA 1: Beginning Japanese | KUROSIO PUBLISHERS LEARNING JAPANESE WEB

I have 3 beginner’s books. It’s always nice to go back and refresh. E.g., though I have no problem producing the て-form, or the plain negative for 五段 verbs, I still like to review those explanations, especially given the different perspectives in the texts.

36

Hmmm, could you post the tables of contents for the books you have?

37

I have done all of Genki second edition through both classroom setting and self-study. It is just okay for self study, there’s too many pair works and role play scenarios. Unless… you want to RP with yourself lol.

You might want to check out the Tokini Andy channel, he taught through ALL of Genki through streams. He was extremely helpful in cleaning up a lot of confusion, as well as expanding on things as needed. He also discusses the shortcomings of the book often.

I’m beginning Tobira right now, and as said it’s an intermediate book, and there’s a difficulty spike coming from Genki. It has no hand holding, which is good. It challenges me really well and forces me to go a lot slower on each grammar point since it’s not entirely spoon fed with translations like Genki.

There’s technically a “Genki 3” now called Quartet, from the same publisher. Apparently it doesn’t have that difficulty spike initially like Tobira. If you do decide to self study Genki with Tokini Andy, he is using Quartet right now for intermediate classes.

2 Likes
38

I could do that, but it’d be a few dozen photos since there’s like 10 pages for each book and it’d just be a huge spam post. I’m sure you can see the table of contents if you preview the book on Amazon for example.

2 Likes
39

I did try that before asking you. I also tried reddit, yesjapan, and googling more generally. But don’t worry, you’re right, it is a lot of pages :wink:. I appreciate the help anyway :grin:.

40

I can see the table of contents just fine by selecting “Look inside”:

image

Book 1: https://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Zero-Methods-integrated-Workbook-ebook/dp/B08HQWYQ28/
Book 2: https://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Zero-Techniques-Students-Professionals-ebook/dp/B00RQMAS1G/
Book 3: https://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Zero-Continue-Mastering-Integrated-ebook/dp/B07K5ZNRK8/
Book 4: https://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Zero-Continue-Mastering-Integrated-ebook/dp/B07K5X7GC1/
Book 5: https://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Zero-Continue-Mastering-Integrated-ebook/dp/B0828HZNFM/

1 Like
41

I too could see book 1’s table. But the other books don’t have it :wink:. At least on my end. The first place I went to was Amazon specifically for that functionality.

42

That’s weird:

image
image918×831 152 KB

1 Like