What the hell. Well, I can see it through the kindle app though, so that’s good! Thanks 
Based on the tables, it seems I can start about halfway through book 4.
I saw reviews for the initial editions of book 1 that were complaining about the presence of a multiplicity of editing and linguistic errors. It seems books 1 and 2 have had many editions, but later books haven’t had many, and in fact, book 5, has had none apart from the initial one.
Have you had any problems with books 3-5?
I have I think first editions for all of them (or very early editions anyways), that do have some printing or formatting errors. I presume there’s a lot fewer of those in the latest editions. That said, it didn’t bother me all that much, it wasn’t anything that bad really, just for example mixed up table headings on some stuff, but the contents of the tables are fine so it isn’t hard to match which is which.
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I haven’t used Tobira but when I first started with self-study Japanese I used Genki. Then I realized my studies weren’t going anywhere so I found a teacher that used for our lessons a book called Minna no Nihongo. And I can honestly see now that compared, Genki is not very good…
If you still haven’t decided on the materials I wholeheartedly recommend Minna no Nihongo. It’s all in Japanese so some people don’t recommend it for self-studying but there is a another book, an “add-on” to the main coursebook that is called “Translation and grammatical notes” and I think that covers all you could ask for. There is a lot of practice purely in Japanese so it’s great for immersion but if you don’t understand something you can check in the English supplement.
Besides, another big advantage of Minna no Nihongo is that it explains conjugation really well without unnecessary confusion with “ru and u verbs” and “regular and irregular verbs” like Genki and other books do. In Japanese there is nothing like -ru and -u verbs, and Japanese kids don’t learn that way in school either. That’s why my teacher thinks Genki is shit too lol.
I don’t want this to become a “why Genki is bad” reply but I have to mention a thing that still baffles me to this day, but Genki (not only Genki though, you can find this anywhere) teaches from the beginning that じゃないです is a polite negative form for an adjective. Ummm it’s not. It’s just not correct.
Here I’ll attach a full chapter from both the main book and the english translation book. It looks a little intimidating but actually the structure of the book is pretty straightforward. In each chapter on the first page there are sentence patterns and example sentences that correspond to the chapter, on the second page there is listening that includes a conversation, third page is grammar explanation, then the rest is practice and 問題 homework which is just more practice.
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One thing I forgot to mention is that Minna no Nihongo doesn’t cover the basics like hiragana and katakana, and that there is another book for kanji but if you use Wanikani you don’t need that. There are some other books to the main book, like a textbook, workbook, something with practice and I even have those but I’ve never used them so I can’t say anything more lol
Thank you so much for your suggestions! I just checked out Kitsun.io and the interface already looks waaay better than Anki (which was very off putting to me), so I’m excited to actually try it out. As for Kanji Study, I looked it up on the App Store and I wasn’t sure if it was “Learn Japanese! - Kanji” or “Kanji Study - Learn Japanese.”? Thanks again :))
Wow! Thank you so much for a very detailed post 
I really appreciate you taking the time to compare JFZ and Genki because it was definitely weighing on my mind haha. I really like that JFZ isn’t entirely focused on a college narrative, so I think I’m leaning towards that route. Thank you for clearing my mind!!
Thank you!! I’ve heard of Minna no Nihongo, but I was always intimidated by the “completely in Japanese” bit—but now after seeing the English add-on, it doesn’t seem too intimidating. Only thing I’m worried about is that I’ll completely rely on the English add-on without reaping the benefits of immersion. Did you have any problems with that?
Tokini Andy seems like a great source if I decide to stick with Genki, thanks!!
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Hmm, I wish I could try every book recommended here to see if it matches my personality but I’d be broke and a hoarder of textbooks by the time I find the perfect one 
I really like that the Tobira beginner book deals more closely with Japanese grammar, I’m just so conflicted now with all these recommendations that I’m not even sure what would be best for me haha
This one:
You mentioned the “App store” - I hope you don’t mean Apple’s store. The app is nowhere near as good on iOS. In fact, I think it’s abandoned on iOS.
That’s what made me drop Anki even before an acceptable alternative was available.
I never got along with Japanese language textbooks, but if I were starting out today, I suspect I’d also go down this route. If I were starting out sometime next year, I’d probably go down the Beginner Tobira route. But in all cases, I’d ensure I had Bunpro and Kitsun to make the ride that much more efficient.
I didn’t use the add-on at all so I can’t really answer that. 
Still, I’d stay it isn’t a problem if you rely a lot of on the English translation because 1) there are a bunch of practice exercises that aren’t translated at all and you can only lookup individual words 2) in the beginning you won’t be able to immerse yourself completely anyway, because there is no way to pick up from context the meaning of words like “dog”, “cold”, “to break” etc.
I’d say don’t worry and do what you’re comfortable with 
the important thing is to understand the sentence structure and eventually get accustomed to it.
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Sounds like a promising book then, honestly!
I never quite understood the ru/u distinction textbooks made and at some point I just split them into more groups like Tae Kim when I was still drilling conjugations for convenience.
When it comes to stuff like that it’s hard to compare Genki to Tobira, because:
- Tobira is mostly in Japanese
- Tobira covers more advanced topics, completely differently than Genki
So perhaps Tobira as a follow-up to Minna no Nihongo? I’ve never done Minna no Nihongo, though. But if it’s in Japanese and one has some understanding of Japanese, it might be a good idea 
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EDIT: I’m actually a very big fan of Japanese textbooks in Japanese after starting Tobira. It’s definitely good practice and avoids the constant JP-EN flipping some textbooks have to do. The downside I noticed from Tobira is that sometimes (rare cases) the inlined translations for individual words are completely off and don’t fit the context of the sentence.
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To help make context of my posts: I’ll mention that my learning style is reversed from that of the many learners I’ve met. I tend to want linguistic (whether “true” linguistic or perceived) explanations before practical usage information. For me, the practical use tends to develop more easily from the linguistic understanding, given how my mind tends to work. In essence, I’m very piece-and-puzzle oriented.
First: Tobira has a Beginner’s level book, now.
This beginner’s book is not “mostly in Japanese.” It’s also designed to be used as either a classroom text or a self-study text. It still has a notable college narrative, unfortunately, but from what I’ve used of the text so far, that’s more of a background than the main narrative. (I could be wrong, though, and the narrative might hold more sway in the chapters I haven’t reached.)
Okay, now that I’ve got that out of the way…
I just scanned through Minna no Nihongo, and I now remember why I steered away from it. Though I think it could be great for someone who has a teacher who can go through it with them, I wouldn’t think it’d be very useful for self-study.
Also, it unfortunately has the very same issues that bring about my fights with Genki. So, It’s virtually guaranteed I’d have fights with Minna no Nihongo, as well. Its saving grace is that it doesn’t use any English, so it can’t make those issues worse, but it certainly wouldn’t fit my learning style.
P.S.
Japanese-Japanese dictionaries actually do make the -ru/-u distinction. But, they do call it something different: 一段 (いちだん) and 五段 (ごだん) verbs. In my opinion, the purpose behind this distinction would be much clearer and more reasonable if explanations stuck with those terms. And, also introduced the actual reasoning behind making the distinction.
The distinction exists, basically, because perceived stems of 一段/-ru verbs don’t perform any vowel-shifting, while perceived stems of 五段/-u verbs do (in plain form). I like to name the change in 五段 verbs the “kana shift”. 
Now, in case anyone faults me for the “kana shift” comment (it’s happened), I said perceived stems. Linguistic analyses treat Japanese verb stems differently, but linguistic grammar and user grammar don’t always match up.
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By linguistic do you mean “why a specific grammar point works the way it does from its components”? I think at least me and @yamitenshi here take the same approach. I think it’s useful, because it makes it easier to intuit about new grammar points. Translations are mostly out of the window due to this, though, right?
Haha I see that now we need a more complete name for the “old” Tobira otherwise people will start getting confused 
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Right and I’m not sure whether textbooks usually go into details why certain verbs are ichidan and other godan. I can’t remember exactly, but I don’t think Genki does. Advanced Tobira doesn’t mention it either, because it’s kind of lower level info already.
One reason could be not wanting to overwhelm learners with tons of new kanji which would also need to be presented to better drive the point home. Then again saying we have ru and u verbs and then saying how ru can be both ichidan and godan depending on N is not helpful either 
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That’s one part of it. The other part is it lets me recognise the role of a grammar point within a text much better than just memorising it. Plus by the time I’ve figured it out I’ve spent so much attention on a grammar point that I’m bound to not forget it anytime soon.
Also, it’s a bit of a mini-research-tangent for my brain to go on which for some reason holds my attention much better than just reading about a bit of grammar does.
I have all the books as well although for some reason I don’t have the supposed newer version of book 4 despite buying after the new version (which annoyed me when I got to book 5 and there’s a bit about that). Maybe ask the author where to get the most recent version of book 4 because Amazon sent me the older one even though it’s a print on demand situation.
That aside, there are some typos and stuff. It wasn’t that big of a deal to me, though there were some mismatch of answers in the back I believe for book 4 (the older version, may be fixed in the newer version). The typos didn’t bother me so much, everyone has their own preferences though. Books 4 and 5 have fewer versions because they are much newer. Book 5 only came out in 2019 so there hasn’t been a revision yet.
Glad to help and good luck choosing something!
So… you’d be me! I amassed my collection over many years so I’m not broke, but I am a book hoarder (actually working on culling right now). I would say I still haven’t found a “perfect” one yet unfortunately.
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Of course, you’re right, there is a distinction. I didn’t want to dwelve into godan and ichidan further but you made me realize that ru verbs and u verbs are in fact godan and ichidan I got it a little mixed up when I wrote that there are no irregular verbs. Sure there are, する and くる. I learned conjugation a while ago and I didn’t check how it’s actually explained in the textbooks I have on my shelf. Now I feel stupid for writing that
In my defence, I just picked up Genki to check and I realized why I wrote that there are no irregulat verbs (as explained by Genki). They make a point that if a verb has a, u or o before る it must be godan BUT then they say there are exceptions to this rule. I associated irregularity with those so-called exceptions, which of course is something different.
Still, in my opinion it’s unnecessary to make that kind of distinction. I feel like they made differentiating between godan and ichidan even more confusing. I have no idea if it’s an original Genki rule they came up with, or if it has a different source. I remember trying to learn this by heart along with the exceptions and completely failing, only then to realize that I never needed to remember. Conjugation can be taught in a way that you don’t really have to memorize any rules (with multiple exceptions) like my favorite Minna book did hehe
You may be right. I did have a teacher that went through Minna with me but I thought I’d recommend it, as it has the English explanation. Based on that fact people recommended it for self-study. I steered away from it in the beginning too as I got intimidated.
My approach is a little different, though. I don’t rely on explanations too much, I just get the gist of it and then, the more sentences (sometimes with the help of translations) I drill into my head, the more it clicks. I remember my head literally hurting in the beginning after reading so much “weird” sentences in Japanese and trying to make sense of them but the more I saw, the easier it got. But it’s not like it goes away completely. I’m in the middle of N2 textbook and still the biggest challenge for me is making sense of those long-ass sentences (curse you modifier).
Anyway, the grammar points for me have to be straightforward, relatively short and bam, on with the practice. I’d even say that on higher levels explaining everything linguistically bit by bit becomes futile. You can learn grammar points from context. The whole N3 and now N2 I used 日本語総まとめ textbook and there are no explanations. Only the example sentences are translated. But it’s just my experience. Just as you said: The best resources are the ones that work for you. 
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I just saw this thread and since I’m currently going through tobira I thought I’d give some advice. So first of all, Tobira is almost entirely written in (sometimes fairly complicated) Japanese so you don’t want to use it unless you’ve been through all of Genki/Minna no Nihongo/other basic garmmar sources and also know a decent number of kanji.
Other than that though I think Tobira is a really good textbook and I highly recommend it. The reading practice is challenging but also teaches you so much, the grammar explanations are very clear and come with plenty of examples, and finally the online resources are super helpful. The only issue is that it can be sometimes hard to use as a self-learner because there’s quite a few class activities.
Also, if anyone has any advice on how to best study from Tobira, please tell me.
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This is almost exactly it for me. And, yes, it does make translations almost moot. However, as I’m also a conlanger (I make fictional languages), I’m used to seeing glosses, as well as warping English so the structure of the non-English language is presented.
I have no problem bashing Genki. It so doesn’t fit my way of learning… Yeah, it’s their wording. The actual rule is that verbs that end in -いる or -える sounds (when in plain form) are most likely 一段 verbs, but some exceptions, like 帰る (かえる) exist.
That’s the exact opposite from me.
See my above posts: There’s a beginner’s level of Tobira, now!
To bring the discussion back around to the information of what’s in the textboosk, though, there are a few things that this Beginner’s Level Tobira book does that I did not see Genki or some others do. And, they are what solidified my preference for it.
- It shows the pitch accent for all vocabulary.
- It teaches conjugations from the plain form.
- It actually has a somewhat in-depth explanation on が vs は.
- It almost (unfortunately, not quite) treats conjugations as the constructions of helper words. (It does this only in some contexts, but ones which make sense. I wish it did it with たい and ない as adjectives…)
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