Genki 1 Second Edition: An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese 1 with MP3 CD-ROM

For best results:Genki textbook 1 and Genki workbook 1.Genki vocabulary app.There's a kanji app as well. This is useful later, not right away.Get aquatinted with the website - genki.japantimes.co.jp. -There is an answer key. Personally I recommend the answer key book. Initially I did think it was a waste of time as it's completely in Japanese, however later in the book you will know enough to use it and I'm glad I did.What the course covers - very brief summary.Reading/Writing Hiragana and katakana (collectively known as kana)Reading/Writing Kanji (later in the book)Lessons appear to range progressively from new beginner to intermediate beginner by end of the book (or there abouts)Correct Vowel pronunciationModified and extended soundsSpeech patternsSentence structure (correct and incorrect ways the structure can be modified)Vocabulary - I can't really sum it all up. There's loads, like tons and tons.The dictionary form of the words - and how they are used/modified in speech depending on situation and tense (it's explained in the book...I really can't break it all down for this little review...)Telling the timeDirectionsDaily objectsActivitiesNounsAdjectivesVerbsExample conversations and dialogue between colleagues, friends, strangers in different situations.Audio cd with listening tasks, volcabulary/pronunciation practice and example conversations.Also some information (generic but useful) on cultural/social behaviours or expectations.Things to expect from the course and things to be realistic about:The book expects you to learn to read and write in Japanese kana and kanji, not the English "Roman lettering" (aka romaji) English letters used to write out the Japanese words. The book has this at very early stages and it's good to see at the start, it is useful at the start, but, you must learn the kana to get anything at all out of this book. Enjoy learning it, make it fun, don't stress over it, the more you do it the easier it gets and you start to see the patterns develop in the kana.It's a beginners book, however, It needs you to understand a massive amount of information. This book will guide you through a structured learning process which is far better than randomly learning words from some free flash card app online and haphazardly googling how to actually speak/write in Japanese or from phrase books.This book and supplements can be used effectively to aid home study although it Is important you understand that this book is intended as a supplement to a language course and the assumption is that you are in a university/college/class environment with a competent native (or native level) tutor. Lessons in the book are planned and intended to be completed over 6 hour blocks each and include sections spread over sentence structure, vocabulary, listening, speaking and writing practice (kana and kanji). You can obviously work at your own pace in your own home but this is effectively a class curriculum text book so unless you are willing to put in some extra thinking then you may not get the full benefit. This is something you should be aware of prior to purchase. That and the fact that you are responsible for learning the content of the book, solely you and no-one else, if you don't try and put in effort then it doesn't matter what book you have. Good news however....The textbook and workbook has a support site - genki.japantimes.co.jp. - This has more content that the book can be used in conjunction with. Including more reading, writing and listening tasks. There are also a couple of Genki apps for iPhone/pad (costing around £5 each or at least that's about what I paid) which break down the vocabulary as per each lesson into flash card decks so you can focus on the vocab specific to your lesson and if you want create your own flash card deck as well. Handy, but it's not necessary. There are plenty of free resources out there, personally I paid for the apps for nothing more than lazy convenience.You should be aware that the book will essentially be teaching Japanese language largely in what's considered 'formal/polite' without complicating things much with varying dialect and colloquialisms. It is essentially giving you a foundation to work with. It's your responsibility to do the tasks, then re-do them, use the audio regularly, listen over and again to the vocabulary examples, redo the tests over and again, don't be shy in going back to the start of the text book and redoing the earlier tasks to see how you are progressing or as a refresher. I recommend write the tasks out in a notebook (more practice so why not...) instead of on the page so you don't need keep rubbing everything out.Some reading and doing a task once isn't enough to actually learn effectively. It's all on you to study and put the time in if you aren't prepared to do that or think outside the box then it'll be a flop. You can find Japanese bands to listen to, order some kids Japanese books to read over (Amazon.co.uk funnily enough has a ton of actual story books in Japanese format from their own stock or third party sellers) find Japanese TV programs to watch with and without the subtitles just to get your ear tuned to different voices and accents using the language, yes, even though you don't understand any right now. As you study and re-read and re-listen to these things you will start to pick out the different words and slowly begin to understand the language a bit better each time. You will also begin to see some of the differences in formal/informal of the book and the other media and the modifications of the language. Hard to explain but when it all starts coming together you will understand.Beware the intermediate "experts"!! There are a lot of people that will study Japanese using this and similar text books, then, during later or more advanced stages of their language learning process (or even living abroad or communication directly with a Japanese person) decide that those 'foundation building text books' are rubbish because they don't cover general daily informal or colloquialisms very well and there has been what feels like another laborious or frustrating learning curve. There is no one single book out there that will do it all. To say this book isn't any good is fine when you have already studied these books, been given a foundation and then started to actively learn and immerse yourself your own way in to learning Japanese, at your own pace with a focus on your language requirements to suit your needs. Until then though, these genki books are great and shouldn't be overlooked due to not satisfying everyone at different stages in the process.This text book is not a learn all solution, it's a beginning. If I I say enthusiastically that this book is 'amazeballs' you likely know what I mean, even if you need to think about it for a second, however, an abc English speaker won't, they'd likely nod enthusiastically based on your excited tone and body language because they don't have the agility within the language to piece together wtf you are talking about....did you catch that there? made my point yet? :)Where you take the knowledge after words is up to you. Depending on your situation, once you have gone through the book, you still won't be a fluent Japanese speaker, you will however have a solid understanding of the foundation points of the language and enough to hold a good, basic conversation, ask questions and understand answers and vice versa. Likely any interaction with native Japanese speakers will still leave you feeling that you just haven't quite got a natural conversation flow (and yes it will likely feel like having to re-learn things) however, you will learn how to change some of the speech patterns or structures or learn to modify the politeness level of a statements or how to conjugate words to express more natural sounding Japanese in your situation over time or with further intermediate/advanced study.This is no different from the way people would be generally taught to speak English in school while talking differently with your friends outside of that environment, work or home life. There are certain things you would say to your friends but not your manager at work. You do these things, changing your tone or wording on the fly as a native speaker. This learning curve isn't generally noticed in great detail when your young learning your native language because it's just how things are, you learn what's appropriate for what situation, you learn to mimic and don't over think it. Example you were not taught that "was not" can be shortened to "wasn't" within the same lesson in school, that comes later. Likelihood you were able to use "wasn't" in a conversation before it was explained to you why "was not" and "wasn't" had the same meaning and how to write it on the page...There are many written elements in Japanese (and other languages) that are completely negated from verbal communication, this book explains those omissions.Remember Languages are for the most part, ever evolving and open to individual interpretation as well as influenced majority social behaviour. Just look at some of my glaring spelling mistakes and poor grammar and misuse of punctuation and I'm a native English speaker!!! :) <insert smiley face to reinforce the playful self deprecation and light humour>, won't find that in a "learn English" textbook, doesn't mean it's not a good book.The basics in this book will take you from the basic "a wa b desu" sentence structure and build up from there. It will introduce you to new vocabulary regularly (you're responsible for your own revision of the vocab provided in the book....and there's tons!) and how that vocabulary is used in different situations. The book encourages you to write out the majority of content several times with different variations on subject matter, teaching you how you can utilise the same structure and apply to different tasks or topics.The book etc are enough for self study and basics but I can't stress enough of how beneficial it is to find a class, native speaking (or non native but fluent Japanese) tutor if you want to learn to hold a conversation with someone. That said, once you have even a small foot hold with the basics of the language then everything about it becomes a less intimidating and in general bit easier. The initial jump into the language is a lot to take in, but, you need to do it. No point humming and hawing about wether you should or not, just do it, worst case scenario you wasted some hard earned cash, but at least you made a choice and got it out your system or you've found yourself a new passion. If not then just don't scribble in the books and maybe you can sell them on as "nearly new" and recoup some of your money.How useful you that feel this book has been to you will be based on the reason you want to learn Japanese and what your end goal is with the language although you need a foundation. For example, you want to read manga, light novels or play through Japanese video games. Maybe you want to be able to watch anime without the subtitles or maybe you want to eventually live or work in Japan. Either way you need to start somewhere.It's a good buy and will have you reading, writing and speaking Japanese at a very basic level at least. However!! Big however, Speaking and listening are a completely separate entity from reading and writing when it comes down to it and no amount of book study will prepare you for the first native sentence that gets spoken to you outside of a controlled or scripted environment. That is fine, and it's up to you practice listening and get confidence...likely by making an effort to find a tutor. It is likely that your reading and writing will far outrun your conversation ability, and that's fine. Use it as it is intended as a supplement. On its own, it will teach you enough so you can grasp the basics and write and speak at a very basic level. With that foundation though you can experiment with other teaching resources ideally some form of one to one or group conversation specific class.Ultimately if you if you don't put in the time and effort (possibly money) you will struggle. There's plenty out there to support learning Japanese but you need a starting point and the Genki curriculum won't put you wrong.I really hope this helps. It's hard to sum up this book up because it contains a lot, it really does. How useful it is is going to be down to your goal. For me eventually living and working in Japan, for right now I can comfortably read through a lot of lower level manga, light novels and watch anime and programs. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I understand it all, it's just comfortable and I'll pencil and paper to scribble notes or new words down to check on a site like jisho.org. Or bounce of my tutor. Hopefully this is a little more helpful a review than "arrived on time, great service" or something like that. Happy studying :)

There is no single book that can teach you Japanese, but building your learning around Genki is a very strong way be successful.I've been learning Japanese for about a year and this book has made the single biggest impact for me. It is complex and the pages are incredibly dense with information and exercises. Expect to spend 10-15 minutes working through a page. This is where your money is going. This is probably the most expensive book I've ever bought, but the value is obvious once you start learning from it.I would say this book would not be appropriate for a casual learner. You need to be committed and you need to have a reasonably high standard of English grammar. The approach is technical throughout. Other reviews have commented on the book being unintelligible. I would say if you have a good technical understanding of grammar, then this book will get you fluent in Japanese quicker than anything else.For what it's worth, I have combined this book with  Oxford Beginner's Japanese Dictionary  and  Japanese Grammar (Barron's Grammar) . I also use the Memrise app (for which you can download the Genki 1 vocabulary), the Wanikani app for learning Kanji, and Japanese lessons at my local college and via Skype on iTalki. Genki is the glue that pulls all of that together.

I love this book. I was taught Japanese by a man who is Japanese himself but he only had so many lessons so I looked on YouTube for textbooks when a British YouTuber who speak Japanese fluently mentioned Genki, I thought I would give it a try and its amazing. I'm learning alot and I'm not making as many mistakes. I'm only on the first one so hopefully il be on the workbooks and the 2nd lot soon. Even though its a textbook for classrooms and much you can still learn on your own. Like pair work. Just put answers to the questions yourself. Its great.

Half way through this book. Has some very good points. Lots of exercises. Clear explanations. I like that it uses Hirigana/Katakana rather than romaji. Also introduces a decent amount of Kanji. Two significant negatives: there are no answers to the exercises. Perhaps not a problem if you are using the book with a taught course but if you are trying to study by yourself you need it. The accompanying CD not good either. It is not the quality of the dialogues more that it doesn't play like a normal CD (on my computer) and I don't seem able to load it up as an album on ITunes (so I can put on my phone). Expensive too.

I hate it really, but it's the best way for beginners to learn if they have a tutor to do the exercises with. I hate it because I hate books, I would rather have an e-book or website. I need an illuminated magnifying glass to read the furigana. Fortunately I have a pdf as well for day to day use so I don't bother with the actual book much. I use Memrise to help learn the vocab initially, and then Renshuu to take it to a higher level. I use WaniKani to learn kanji. If you don't have a tutor you may find this book hard work and might be better off with something else.

I'm using this book at the moment for my studies at university and it's really helpful.The advantage this edition has over the last is that this one comes with an audio CD (you can't play it on a CD player but you can use it on your computer), it has 20% more information and cultural notes as opposed to the first edition.It is expensive but it's worth it as it's highly detailed and relatively easy to understand (as Japanese goes!) without being one of those books where most of it is taken up with pictures.I would recommend any beginner to buy this book for the above reasons. I hope this review is helpful and good luck with your studies ^_^