I have been using Genki for 1 1/2 months. While I find the lessons easier (albeit boring) to follow than other textbooks, I’m frustrated with the inconsistent use of kanji and hiragana.
For example, the word 帰る is introduced in Lesson 3. It would first appear in the lesson’s dialogue with hiragana readings, which is okay. However, when the same word appears in subsequent lessons’ writing practices (the ones at the back of the textbook itself), it would be in its hiragana form かえる and not the kanji 帰る. I find this annoying since we have already learnt this word (and how to write it in kanji) previously – why can’t they just be consistent and use the kanji continuously throughout? There are also other examples of their inconsistent use of kanji throughout the textbooks and workbooks that annoy me too.
Anyone feeling the same? I still love Genki though! Just wished they could improve on this.
P.S. If anyone is using Genki at the moment, please share how your study routine is like! Do you guys use any other books to supplement like 単語 for vocabulary? Do you guys religiously memorise the vocabulary in Genki itself? Let me know 🙂
4 comments
To warn you in advance, once you start reading Japanese books you will find that authors use kanji and kana as they please. Sometimes for stylistic reasons, or to increase readability, etc. There is absolutely no consistency and it pays off to be able to read both.
Genki is a great textbook for grammar. It’s very much not great when it comes to vocabulary and kanji. I definitely recommend supplementing your studying with other resources for kanji and vocabulary, and stick with Genki just to get the grammar down.
get used to it, a lot of words are sometimes spelled out instead of kanji. in this particular case it’s probably just a copyediting issue, but being able to read both the kanji and kana is important. you’ll get plenty of opportunity to read 帰る in the future, don’t worry.
>it would be in its hiragana form かえる and not the kanji 帰る. I find this annoying since we have already learnt this word (and how to write it in kanji) previously
Genki does not expect you to learn the kanji for all the vocab in each chapter, only what they introduce in the reading/writing sections at the back.