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WingsToDiscovery (Offline)
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Join Date: May 2010
Location: Azabu-juban, Tokyo
08-06-2010, 03:35 PM

Quote:
Originally Posted by willgoestocollege View Post
Japanese for Busy People and Genki are popular books to self study Japanese but I'm not a big fan of them. Japanese for Busy People uses a lot of Romaji whiles Genki uses a lot of English. I have a friend who is a non native English and told me he learnt more English vocab than Japanese in Genki.
I've actually had a different experience with Genki. It really does push a lot of English on you at first, but what makes Genki a gem IMO is that it literally forces you to learn to read and write in Japanese to progress. In the very first few pages of the book, you're already hit with hiragana and katakana, and by the 3rd or 4th chapter you're learning kanji.
Genki transitions for the student. By the end of the first book, all of the material is written in Japanese (including exercise directions), and you're forced to learn it to progress in the book. That's worth it to me.


I'm not a cynic; I just like to play Devil's Advocate once in a while.
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