Hi, I’ve seen a lot of people using Tobira here and it’s also my next move after I finish Genki. I know there are three books overall: main, grammar, Kanji. I don’t need the Kanji one because I use WK but what about the grammar book? I have never seen anyone talk about it, so I guess people here only do the main one?
Like is it okay to move to for example Shin Kanzen Master N2 afterward without doing the Tobira grammar book?
WHEN IT COMES TO TOBIRA BOOKS, WHICH ONES DID YOU USE?
Yes, it says “Exercises for Mastery”. I used both the Main and the Exercise book. The exercises are quite good if you’re willing to do all of them repeatedly to enforce what you learned in the Main book.
Also, regarding jumping to Kanzen N2 after Tobira, I personally didn’t do that. I wanted to be thorough and went through Kanzen N3 grammar and reading books after Tobira before moving to N2.
I realised there’s quite a lot of missing grammar that Kanzen N3 has and Tobira doesn’t. In addition, the reading sections in N3 Kanzen are trickier than in Tobira.
I’m currently on N2 Kanzen and I think if you jumped from Tobira to N2 Kanzen, there would be a lot of time wasted adjusting to the difficulty; time which would have been better used going through N3 Kanzen.
The grammar explanations are in the main textbook and grammar power has grammar exercises to practice what you’ve learn. I find that it’s quite a useful way of reinforcing what you’ve learnt and forcing you to actually use the grammar and produce sentences. I definitely recommend getting and using it alongside the main textbook.
You could probably get by without it if you are using another source to practice like forcing yourself to use the new grammar in conversations or text chats etc. with native speakers. But if you’re able to afford it and will use it then I say get the Grammar Power book anyway.
I found the exercises to be quite dry and gave up on them after a few chapters. As a self-learner, I found it unhelpful that many of the exercises were completely open ended, meaning there was no way to check my work. Plus I personally just don’t like producing language and answering those kinds of open ended questions (no matter the language).
I’m still skimming through the main Tobira book, which is at least tolerable. The readings are a bit easy, but they’re still good to read through, and the grammar explanations are fine, even if they’re not that thorough.
I plan to go through Shin Kanzen Master N3 afterwards, and then N2, just as you’re doing. I’m hoping that makes the transition smoother and helps reinforce the grammar more.
I understand your view on the exercises, but also as a self learner I quite enjoyed being asked to “produce” instead of simply finding the right answer to a question.
When learning by oneself it can be difficult to actually use what you learn, such as speaking or writing, but with those exercises I felt like I was actively thinking about what to say and how to say it.
There’s also an answer key which gives you suggestions on what was expected, I used it to check if I used the grammar point correctly within my own sentence.
I just bought Tobira and am hoping to start working through it in a couple of months. I was wondering if anyone has been using it in conjunction with Bunpro instead of the grammar workbook? Until now I’ve been using Bunpro as reinforcement for Genki, and it’s been a great supplement for drilling… (I can drill as much as I need without relying on a human to correct me)
Bunpro has a Tobira path, but I’m not sure whether it would be best to go through the book page by page, adding grammar points to Bunpro as I go along – or going through Bunpro batches and reading through the associated Tobira pages…
Just do the same thing. If it worked for Genki why wouldn’t it work for Tobira? Also the goal is to consume native material, not spend your life on textbooks. With Bunpro you can make sure you got the different grammar points and you can check that by consuming Japanese content later. If something is still shaky, you can always go back to it.
Thanks for the reply! I did a bit of a mix with Genki because I only found Bunpro quite recently - so you’re probably right in that it doesn’t really matter which way around I do it!
I’m already consuming native materials (Netflix and now also WK book clubs) - but I still definitely need structured grammar lessons and practice to make that easier
