LLearn Japanese

Japanese from Zero vs Kanshudo?

I used Kanshudo to study Japanese and I liked it for its curriculum organization and comprehensiveness. I’ve been debating switching to Japanese from Zero because it seems easier to use and navigate.

I also have a Japanese tutor in italki to help me.

What do you think? What do you use?

3 comments

  1. I use Japanese from Zero. On the days I’m not in work I’m looking after my toddler child so the slower nature of the book really suits my lifestyle and limited study time. The Japanese isn’t as wooden as in some other textbooks and the author George has videos for each lesson on YouTube which are a fantastic supplementary resource. The pricing of the books is really competitive too.

    The only downsides could potentially be the slower delivery of information in comparison to something such as Genki if you like to burn through things quickly and the way Hirigana is introduced in the first book can be a bit jarring if you are already familiar with it (but it is called Japanese from Zero after all!).

  2. I haven’t looked at Kanshudo. I used Genki, but once I got a chance to look through JfZ, I wished I’d used that instead. It’s much better suited to self-study than any other book I’ve seen.

  3. I use and like Kanshudo a lot. It’s cheap. It took a lot of time to get used to and I had to message support to get some answers but once you know what you’re doing it’s very useful. The lessons will take you through kanji and some common words. The website is excellent at teaching kanji since it has the lessons and games for it. It’s also good for learning vocabulary. It has vocabulary lists from the JLPT and most common words. As for the grammar explanations I think it’s lacking there, and it doesn’t explain the conjugations and inflections that well.

    I’m following the beginner lessons then create flashcards from them. So I’m picking up kanji, some vocabulary and basic grammar. I also make flashcards out of the JLPT N5 words and do them. Since I’m not a fan of the grammar explanations on there I use an Italki teacher for that.

    I see my Italki teacher 3 times a week. My Italki teacher teaches me grammar. We also roleplay, read and translate things together as well as practice speaking and things like different forms of words. My learning pace is pretty fast doing both of these.

    I haven’t used JFZ so can’t say anything about that though.

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