What workbook is worth it for me(is genki any good)

9 comments

1. Genki was good for meand what was used in my college courses. However seems to me like ur too advanced for it.

2. The Genki series is aimed at absolute beginners, considering that you speak very well and know lots of words, I don’t think it would teach you anything other than giving you an English perspective on how Japanese grammar works (personally, I think genki fails as a textbook). Assuming you know the grammar, it seems like you’re just struggling with reading right? Only way to fix that is by reading more and using Anki to help you to remember the readings.

   If learning Kanji is important to you, there is always hesig remembering the kanji or any other one of the hundreds of kanji learning books/apps.

   If you really want a textbook go with tobira, it’s what’s normally recomended after Genki 1 + 2, it’s completely in Japanese but again, textbooks are more about teaching you grammar, if grammar isn’t a problem for you, immersion + anki is the way to go.

3. I would go straight for kanji textbooks. I like the kanji look and learn textbook/workbook. Not only do you learn how to write the kanji but they have fill in the blank sentences to test your knowledge and ability to write. It appears to be related to genki.

   If that you have you use kodansha’s kanji learners course textbook/workbook, there are graded readers…. I haven’t personally tried the readers but they seem to be a situation where you complete a certain amount of kanji and then can read them. The kodansha workbook only offers writing practice.

4. If you’ve got most of N5 down (and presumably a decent chunk of N4), then I have to recommend the [新完全マスター](https://www.3anet.co.jp/np/books/3624/) series. I have the N2 ones myself that I used to study for when I was starting to work as a JP->EN translator, and they helped me a lot with reading and stuff.

   I also really like the [大学・大学院留学生の日本語](https://www.amazon.co.jp/改訂版-大学・大学院留学生の日本語①読解編-アカデミック・ジャパニーズ研究会/dp/4757426313) series which is what I used to prepare for my master’s degree. Granted, these are quite a bit more advanced, but if you want to learn a lot about reading comprehension and writing in Japanese, you can’t go wrong with them.

5. I haven’t used them personally but I’ve heard good things about the みんなの日本語 series they are aimed at upper beginner/intermediate and they are completely in Japanese I think.

   I don’t know what level of kanji knowledge they expect, though.

6. I think you might be suited for books for Japanese children. There should be plenty of things you can find on the internet geared towards mothers trying to get their pre-school aged kids to read and write.

7. Why not try a modern approach and use an app instead of a textbook 🙂
   This app is my favourite for studying Kanji: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mindtwisted.kanjistudy&hl=en&gl=US
   Some of my favourite highlights: Organization by JLPT levels, vocab for each kanji, example sentences, and best of all, quizzes. You can also practice writing kanji in the app, but I skipped that. It’s not like other game-like apps out there, so it does not force you to complete “lower levels” before you can advance to advanced kanji/vocab. It’s more like a workbook-dictionary app.

8. Books are always great but can be slow as well, so be careful of that. You already have the vocabulary and (I assume) are familiar with the words, which is why I think doing RRTK and handwriting some of the kanji is enough, when you combine it with reading. Those of us who don’t have the vocabulary have to remember in several steps:

   1) how it sounds

   2) what it means

   3) which kanji is used

   You only need the last one, so learning what kanji make up that word, what the kanji means, and which other words contain that kanji is more than enough to remember it. Just learning a bunch of kanji (like RRTK or maybe even vocabulary decks? ) and reading a lot would be my suggestion. Also, you could use Japanese dictionaries/resources too.

9. I don’t think a beginner textbook series like Genki is the right fit for your skills and level. It sounds like your main problem is Kanji reading comprehension, and all textbooks I know are nearly useless for that anyway. They just throw a bunch of Kanji at you and expect you to memorize them on your own. There aren’t that many Kanji in Genki, because it’s a beginner textbook and tries to ease students into reading comprehension slowly.

   Imo, an app that focuses exclusively on Kanji training would be worth a try. I’d look into Wanikani if it isn’t too expensive for you.