Quote:
Originally Posted by mercedesjin
Hm... It's been a while since I used nakama. I used it when I was in high school for independent study. Maybe I'm not remembering it correctly, but I thought it was pretty helpful. I think genki is the same when it comes to strange teachings of grammar patterns, though. A lot of textbooks are like that for some reason.
Tae Kim is definitely one of the best resources for studying alone. I still go back to that site all of the time.
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Heh, I have Tae open in another tab right now.
The problem with these textbooks is they try to teach you how to JUMP right into talking to Japanese people so they can 'ooh' and 'ahh', but you will not be proficient in the language. You will not last more than 7 seconds in a conversation, and you will only know proper Japanese, which is not really used in casual situations (which is why, from learning from Taekim, I could only speak very slangish Japanese. My Japanese teacher has a no-slang policy, as she is a native from Kansai and feels you should LEARN the language. But upon hearing me speak, she found it hilarious for an American to speak like 'the teenagers' as she said, and allowed me to continue, waiting with baited breath for me to respond humorously.)
I don't know, it may just be my own personal problem, but I don't like the really simple books that try to keep the student from being overwhelmed. Let's put it simply, Japanese is not an English speaker's dream language in terms of simplicity, so at one point or another, you'll probably be overwhelmed, whether it be with Kanji, Counters, etc. But that doesn't mean you should dumb down the student in hopes that they can take in everything easily.
The Japanese around the university stray away from the students who speak to them as if they were God, I don't think it's Japanese in general who do that, but the ones here like to speak to the speakers who speak to them relaxed.