I was thinking more along the lines of adult content. Over a third of VNs on jpdb have it which I guess is a good ballpark for adult content in general.
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That’s for sure! 洗脳 and possibly 睡眠, which I still see way more often 
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Pomax’s guide (one of the Tae Kim alternatives mentioned at the end of the rant that Fryie linked) seems very nice at a glance! I’m surprised I hadn’t heard of it earlier. I just had a chance to check it out now and wanted to highlight it since it’s free and wasn’t mentioned in this thread earlier.
And I appreciate everyone’s input; I’ve learned a lot from this thread so far. (Not that I’m surprised - I already knew the WK community was great after lurking for a few months.)
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Did you mean 催眠 lol
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Yes, betrayed by my own IDE 
Well it certainly points you in the right direction much faster than say “pure immersion” would. Most people start with the text books to get a sense of direction but if you already have laid some sort of foundation I would recommend just kind of reviewing via YouTube and searching up the grammar points individually. If you want a real challenge I recommend the Minna No Nihongo Text books since they force you to use the language more. Genki is a little too hand-hold-y IMO, especially if you have experience with the language at this point.
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Right, and a good textbook will also be “well-rounded” in the sense that it gives you a curated list of useful words in a variety of contexts. With pure immersion you tend to learn the words that are used literally everywhere and a bunch of context-specific vocabulary, but it can take a long time to come across all the contexts that would be covered by a textbook.
Last night I had a chance to look at Irodori, the free textbook mentioned by DasHannes, and that might be exactly what I need to complement what I’m already doing. Every section has a pragmatic learning goal that’s explicitly stated at the beginning, starting with “Can exchange greetings when you meet someone”, so it’s at least initially all about useful vocabulary and phrases for a wide variety of real world situations.
I didn’t expect to learn anything new at the beginning of the first book, but I was pleasantly surprised that apparently every sentence (chapter titles, instructions, etc.) is provided in both Japanese and English. Just reading the two sentences 人に会ったとき、あいさつをすることができる。and 会話を聞きましょう。with their English translations on the first page taught me a lot:
- Oh right, the way to say “X when you meet someone” is “hito ni atta toki X”; I remember seeing this in that “complete sentence modifiers” chapter of JtMW
- But wait, why is it atta instead of au? Hmm, apparently the examples that I remembered from JtMW are all present tense i-adjectives like “ureshii toki”, so I guess it doesn’t have to be past tense in general. Is it atta because the au action is already complete when you get to the point of greeting them?
Like au is to run into someone, and when you say hi you’ve already run into them, so it’s atta? Should look into this
- But wait, why is it atta instead of au? Hmm, apparently the examples that I remembered from JtMW are all present tense i-adjectives like “ureshii toki”, so I guess it doesn’t have to be past tense in general. Is it atta because the au action is already complete when you get to the point of greeting them?
- …And then the entire sentence “hito ni atta toki aisatsu o suru” modifies “koto”, so that the sentence becomes a noun that can be the subject X in the sentence “X ga dekiru”
- Oh yeah, I vaguely remember someone explaining that “kikimashou” doesn’t always mean “let’s listen”, but it can also be a request like “please listen”. Maybe that’s what’s going on here? I should look this up.
And I didn’t even get to the vocabulary yet. 
Oh yeah, and I also ended up buying Human Japanese and Human Japanese Intermediate for my iphone. I think most of the content will be at least somewhat familiar to me at this point, but (based on the first few chapters of HJ) it’s such a pleasure to read that 15 euros felt like a steal even if I only learn a little here and there. And I’m pretty sure that I will at least learn some useful vocabulary and get to review a lot of grammar points that I’ve only been exposed to briefly during my whirlwind tour of Japanese.
Personally I would say that only “あいさつをする” is modifying “こと” here, in the same way that in “When you meet someone, you can exchange greetings” it’s “exchange greetings” that is modifying “you can”.
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Right, thanks!
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I came here to say this, bunpro has genki 1 and 2 all of the grammar only part all laid out that you can use to check if you understand that grammar point. It also has options to double check with other books and resources with links to the usages of various grammar points. I highly reccommend it as a suplemental check list
Glad you’re finding things that work!! Those brainstorming parts of the beginning and having things click are definitely the most fun imo
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A bit late, but in English you can also say “let’s listen to the conversation” in the context of a textbook. I guess it’s just a common way of phrasing things in an educational context.
I think you wouldn’t generally want to use -ましょう for requests (e.g. when scolding a student who’s not listening), there are a variety of other ways to express requests (most commonly -てください).
I hear teachers tell students who aren’t listening 聞きましょう all the time, actually lol
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If you need the pdf (both books, workbooks and also all the audio files) let me know * wink *
I used the genki series + tobira when I took formal Japanese classes and quite liked them. Genki in particular isn’t as dry as a lot textbooks can be. Like other people have said they’re tailored to a classroom setting with a separate book for hw assignments but they’re still easy to go through on your own.
I’m actually skimming through the genkis right now before starting N3 prep so I can give better feedback in a few weeks, but regardless I’d say definitely skip Genki 1. It’s really basic vocab and grammar that you would already know if you’re able to read or hold a basic conversation.
Hm I wonder if this is just like in English you could also say “let’s try to listen, OK?”, which can come across as a bit patronising. Generally, there’s a blurry line between suggestions and commands in English too. Don’t know how exactly it plays out in Japanese.
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Right, when I looked up the details on -ましょう, the closest thing I could find was “let’s do X” or “why don’t we X”, so that’s my current interpretation.
Incidentally I ended up buying the Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar too, and I love it! It complements JtMW and other resources very well. I may even get the intermediate one in the not too distant future just for fun (for fun because I’m guessing that it will be a while before not knowing stuff covered by the intermediate dictionary will bottleneck my reading comprehension )
My Yotsubato volumes arrived this week and I started reading the first one. So far it feels like I can understand almost everything if I consult the vocab sheet, so I probably won’t bother with textbooks for a while. If I end up visiting Japan in the near future, maybe I’ll flip through Irodori or something for practical vocabulary and phrases that I might have missed. Otherwise I think I’ll stick with WK, grammar geekery and native content for now. (I may consider adding an anki deck for vocabulary at some point, but for now I think I’d rather continue spending my entire SRS grind budget on WK.)
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I’ve also since had the chance to look into it. I haven’t yet made it to the “main topics” section, but the stuff before is already very good.
I would recommend learning grammar from this book - it’s way too dense for that - but it does appear to be good for solidifying and unifying what you already know.
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Now that I’ve had a bit more exposure to both Tae Kim’s guide and other resources (I mostly read other stuff but occasionally end up reading Tae Kim too), I find that this だ issue is even worse than it seemed at first because it makes explanations of other grammar points confusing. You end up with seemingly arbitrary rules of “you must add だ” and “you must not add だ” in various situations that could be greatly simplified if you understand that だ is the copula. Probably the が issue bleeds into other grammar points similarly although I haven’t run into it as often.
Just thought I’d come back and state this for posterity if someone reads this thread later.
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I just came across this https://selftaughtjapanese.com/2015/02/17/the-japanese-volitional-form-しよう、〜しましょう-more-than-just-lets/ and realized that this is where I got the idea that the volitional form can sometimes be used to tell (or suggest) someone else to do something (“use 2”). Apparently it doesn’t have to be patronizing.
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