If we’re still recommending resources, then I would like to mention a textbook that not many people seem to know about, or at the very least, praise.
I’m quite a big fan of An Introduction to Modern Japanese. After looking at Tae Kim’s guide all the way to half-way through Essential Grammar, about half of Genki I, and 13 lessons of Imabi, I have to say that this is what has worked best for me. I’m 10 lessons through it currently, meaning that I have 42 to go. It’s very concise, and attacks grammar and details in ways that other resources haven’t. It has yet to confuse me, even when introducing concepts that I hadn’t been privy to before.
It’s also perfect for someone like me, who wants to learn how to comprehend Japanese in both verbal and written formats to a decent level within a year. This is exactly what the book is designed for; as a 1-year intensive course in Japanese. Most of it has been review so far, but I found that for most of the lessons, about half of it was new content.
There is also a considerable amount of vocabulary that the book expects you to know every lesson, because it doesn’t provide furigana. There’s around 30 new vocab for each lesson, some of them being particles and counters. The key to this is the second book, which is actually a companion book rather than a sequel. All up, if you’re borrowing the e-book versions for 3 months, you’ll be paying about $60US. If you want to buy them, your expenses shoot up to ~$120US. Most likely, you’ll want to rent it for around a year, which comes to $50US each, or $100US. Not too bad.
That’s the first massive downside. It’s expensive. Really expensive. However, in addition to vocab, the second book also contains accompanying exercises for each lesson, and they’re quite good for the self-learner, I think. I tried some of the earlier ones, but I mostly read through the lessons and was able to absorb the content fairly well. I plan on doing the exercises soon after I get to Lesson 15 as review. For the price, I feel it’s worth it - but we don’t all have $100 to fork out on the suggestion of some guy on the internet.
The other downside is that it may not necessarily be too suitable for absolute beginners. It works fantastically if you’ve had some experience with grammar before, however - say, with Tae Kim. I personally found Tae Kim’s explanations to be lacking, and I stopped fully understanding them around half-way through Essential Grammar. For now, I’m just reading through the rest of Tae Kim so I can be exposed to all of the common beginner grammar that I’ll need to understand sooner or later, and hoping to plug the holes in knowledge with An Introduction to Modern Japanese’s much more concise yet comprehensive explanations. The first resource I learned どなた from was An Introduction to Modern Japanese! That’s pretty crazy.
Anyway, I feel that if you don’t think you’re getting anywhere with Imabi and Tae Kim’s explanations, then you should probably buy a textbook. Genki is considerably expensive as well, but the good thing is you only need to buy the first textbook to see if it’s for you. If you worked well with it, you can buy the sequel. The workbooks are your choice, too. The lessons are much longer, slower and easier, and it has a Vocabulary and Kanji section (one at the front of the chapter, one at the end of the book). Not a bad introduction to the language, most likely. But I found I only really got the most out of it when I went back to it with some knowledge from Tae Kim and Imabi. It thankfully does away with Romaji after the first 2 chapters, but I believe it still unnecessarily has furigana for everything. That’s fine, I suppose.
Back to An Introduction to Modern Japanese; I strongly recommend it from the 1/5th of the book I’ve been using so far. Explanations have really stuck, and it’s not boring, either. That’s just me. Good luck!
