Workbooks/textbooks for beginners?

Hello everyone!
I’m currently looking for japanese workbooks for some additional studies outside of wanikani, does anybody have any recommendations? (So far I have learnd Hiragana and just started Kanji)

Thank you! :relaxed:

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Generally, Genki is recommended. Do you plan to attend a class or do you self study?

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Yeah, Genki is great, although expensive.

I’d also recommend getting started on a katakana deck soon (anki, memories, or equivalent), once you’re really comfortable with hiragana.

You may also want to consider JapanesePod 101.

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For Katakana, I recommend Memrise to practice reading real words.

For Hiragana, practice reading real sentences should be enough.

For Kanji, mostly rely on WaniKani, although you should learn a lot of vocab somewhere else, too.

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I’ve been reading 80/20 Japanese and it serves as a great textbook for me. I’ve tried Genki but that book seems more focused towards classroom study rather than self study.

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Thank you so much!!
Going to a class is not really an option for me since my time is very limited unfortunately.

Thank you! :relaxed:

I will definitely check it out, thank you!

as far as the kana go, realkana is my favorite when i was mastering hiragana and katakana, especially the option boxes for various fonts since they can vary quite a lot in how they look. they have an iOS app version of it if you have those devices, as well.

i did the genki series self study, the grammar notes are really clear so it works well. there are a few group exercises you can’t do but there are enough single person exercises that are more than sufficient :slight_smile:

One advantage of Genki is that it comes with a CD for all the audio, too. While it’s targeted at 2-3 semesters per book, I was able to use both of them (1 and 2) on my own once I had kana down. There’s also an extra workbook for, well, extra work. There’s also a kanji book you can get that goes along with the series for more writing practice. For that, though, it’s just as good to follow Polv’s link and get the writing sheets from that list.

The Genki books are paced to get you through the N5 with book 1 and the N4 with book 2.

No matter what, welcome to WK and がんばって!

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Make sure the resource you get has plenty of exercises to work on, (plus an answer key if you self study). You don’t want to just study about the language, you need to actually use it actively as part of the study.

Genki will have you very covered in this regard, so that’s one reason why I think it comes recommended so frequently. Yes, some of the exercises are for paired study, but there are plenty that will work just fine for self-study. You can always try and seek out a study buddy as well for the pair stuff.

In the Japanese class I am currently in, we used the Japanese For Young People Volume I (1) for learning the hiragana/katakana, and it was well structured with many opportunities to practice writing, as well as some vocabulary.
We started Kanji just a bit ago, and are using the Japanese For Young People Volume II (2) for that. Both are well made, and I would recommend them.
I haven’t tried much else but JFYP I/II, Wanikani, and Realkana (A good site to help with hiragana/katakana), but have heard that the Genki books are a great source too.
Hope that helps! :grin:

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