Japanese for Zero?

So my friend is picking up Japanese from zero and I was also interested in learning the language and wanted to know if it was a good tool to help learn or if I should stay away?

Thank you in advance.

13 comments
  1. Yes it’s great for beginners. George is great on YouTube.

    Only downside it takes two books to learn kana.

  2. It’s gets way more hate than it deserves. It is excellent for self-study. It’s slow but the material sticks. I used it to get a strong foundation.

  3. It’s great for self-study but IMO the online course is better than the books because 1) you can configure how fast you want to learn kana and 2) you get native audio everywhere.

  4. He’s a really good teacher
    You can go on his discord and talk directly to him as well. Super passionate

  5. I’ve explored a lot of texts through the years, and I think JfZ is absolutely the best choice for self-study.

  6. I didn’t use the books but I watched/listened to his videos on the side. Paused and rewatched moments that I needed more help on. If you want to learn the Kana use japnesepod101s hiragana and katakana videos

  7. Check his youtube channel to see if you like the author’s lessons

    https://www.youtube.com/@japanesefromzero

    Also if you buy his book, make sure to buy it directly from Amazon and not a third party seller because some third parties have been reprinting his book in lesser quality and selling it there and he doesn’t see a penny from it.

  8. Also, just recently they revamped the website, and in my opinion it’s a huge improvement.

  9. For my taste it’s way too slow.
    Learn Hiragana and katakana and then pickup Minna no nihongo. It’s my favorite because you’re learning much very fast + Kanji are at the start introduced which is good because they’re very useful.

  10. I’ve been using it as my main resource – I’ve finished the first two books and I’m on Book 3. It’s a great resource overall – there are tons of good reading/writing exercises in every lesson and the pace is perfect for self learning. I feel I’ve made great progress already in the first two books.

    If cost isn’t an issue, the books plus a subscription to the new FromZero site so you can get audio plus quizzes, is probably the best way to self learn Japanese. I’ve tried Genki and some other things like Rocket Japanese and Pimsleur and I keep going back to JFZ

    Edit: Forgot to mention I use Memrise flashcards to help me remember everything. You can find user created courses on there for the JFZ books

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