Japanese From Zero

3 comments

1. I’ve used them. I fell off learning, honestly, but I liked their books when I was invested. They also have a YT channel and tons of videos on the topics in the books. I’d def reccomend checking that out in addition to the books 👍

2. Japanese from Zero Books are great, but it takes it really slow, so make sure you pace yourself and take your time. The accompanying YouTube videos are also great. I also use the website, but mainly for the quizzes.

   It’s all really good stuff. Let me know if you have any questions, I’ve been using the books for the past year or so.

3. The books are full of typos, that’s my only real criticism. They worked very well for me, and I probably wouldn’t have learned any Japanese if I had chosen a different approach. Genki just seemed too classroom-oriented and I did not have it in me to memorize 80+ kana before I even knew how to speak a word.

   I used anki alongside the books for learning kanji and vocabulary, and by the end of book 5 I was able to listen to podcasts like Nihongo con Teppei (both beginner and the normal version) with no problems, and even started working my way through some games.

   A lot of people criticize the books for the progressive kana system. Hiragana and katakana are taught in groups, and substituted into words as you learn new characters. So initially ねこ is written as neko, but once you learn the かきくけこ set it will be written as neこ and eventually ねこ when you learn ね. I think the online course allows you to disable this if you want and just use kana from the get go, so if it sounds like it’d bother you then that might be worth looking into.