Advise on tackling tobira textbook?

3 comments

1. Japanese Major at Uni here!

   The best way to tackle Tobira is to memorize all of the given Kanji, Vocabulary and Grammar before you start reading the texts. I‘d recommend aiming for 1 chapter a week with roundabout 2-3 hours of study every day. I usually went ahead and prepared my flashcards on sunday and started memorizing vocabulary on monday so I atleast saw every new word 2-3 times. Tuesdays,I would start with the Kanji and establish a routine of consistently studying the flashcards for both till thursdays. I‘d give the grammar lesson a proper look on Wednesday, as by then the workload of the memorizing aspect would be reduced by a significant amount. It also helped me quite a bit to thoroughly read and translate every sentence from that text. If your translation doesn’t make sense or seems ham fisted, try and really understand how the grammar section describes different use cases for each piece of new grammar. Also, don’t refrain from looking at the examples given in the grammar section, as they illustrate the way in which said grammar can be used very well. From then on out it’s just about putting the different concepts to use with one another. If something still doesn’t make sense to you, there is no shame in punching the sentence into a program like deepl and looking at how a mediated version of the sentence looks.

2. The book is structured in somewhat of an odd way. They present the main reading material at the start of the chapter and then provide the vocabulary list at the end of it and the grammar at the end of the chapter.

   The idea is that you read the main reading material once at the start and go back to it with hopefully more understanding at the end of the chapter. You’re kind of meant to stumble a bit with it at the start. Especially if you’re moving from something like Genki, you’re going to struggle at the start , but it will get better.

   My advice would be to first, before starting a chapter, go through and download the anki decks for the chapter you want to tackle about a week or so in advance. You’ll have seen all of the vocab and at least remember some of it so you’ll have to reference the vocabulary list less. It’s available here on their site, link below. [https://tobiraweb.9640.jp/contents/%E6%BC%A2%E5%AD%97%E3%83%BB%E8%AA%9E%E5%BD%99%E6%95%99%E6%9D%90/%E3%81%A8%E3%81%B3%E3%82%89anki%E3%83%87%E3%82%B8%E3%82%BF%E3%83%AB%E3%83%95%E3%83%A9%E3%83%83%E3%82%B7%E3%83%A5%E3%82%AB%E3%83%BC%E3%83%89/](https://tobiraweb.9640.jp/contents/%E6%BC%A2%E5%AD%97%E3%83%BB%E8%AA%9E%E5%BD%99%E6%95%99%E6%9D%90/%E3%81%A8%E3%81%B3%E3%82%89anki%E3%83%87%E3%82%B8%E3%82%BF%E3%83%AB%E3%83%95%E3%83%A9%E3%83%83%E3%82%B7%E3%83%A5%E3%82%AB%E3%83%BC%E3%83%89/)

   Secondly, if you’re really struggling you can go ahead and check out the grammar at the end of the respective chapter first.

   Finally you can also go through the reading with the provided audio tracks, it’ll help with kanji reading and sometimes its just easier in general to follow along with a voice. Again its available on their site, link below.

   [https://tobiraweb.9640.jp/contents/%e9%9f%b3%e5%a3%b0%e6%95%99%e6%9d%90/%e7%ac%ac1%e8%aa%b2/](https://tobiraweb.9640.jp/contents/%e9%9f%b3%e5%a3%b0%e6%95%99%e6%9d%90/%e7%ac%ac1%e8%aa%b2/)

3. The first thing I did with Tobira was to put it on the bookshelf. After another 6 months of expanding my general vocabulary (and the kanji that came with them) I found it a lot more approachable. Remember that pausing Tobira and doing something else for a while is always an option, now or later on, if you find it too hard.

   I’ve done many other things parallel to Tobira. This means that when I open up a glossary list I would already know maybe half the words. That helps a lot.

   When starting a new chapter I would just listen to the audio, follow along, and hopefully understand at least something. Then I would start crunching vocab and return to the text later. The first text of each chapter is usually the toughest. The dialogues are easier.

   The grammar explanations in Tobira are very brief and example sentences would frequently include new vocabulary or would in my opinion be unnecessarily long and complex. I often found myself searching for more indept explanations or better example sentences and would end up on JLPTsensei.com again and again. Eventually I would start using the grammar sections in Tobira mostly as lists of things I should learn and then I wouls head straight to JLPT sensei and had them explain stuff. (Obviously there are other good grammar sources that could be used just as well.)

   I didn’t bother with the book’s lists of which kanji to study in what way. I just crunched through the vocab lists and learned new kanji as they came along. Obviously knowing a bit more kanji before starting the book than the authors expect, helps a lot. Words not listed in bold in the vocab list that contained kanji I didn’t recognise, I would often skip putting into Anki, I’d just study them by listening to the audio of the vocabulary list, repeating the words out loud. All other vocab I would learn properly.

   Obviously there are many ways to use this book and I’m an untypical learner in some ways, but to me personally it has mainly been a collection of approachable texts I can read and listen along to while reading, that comes with convenient vocab lists. In this way I would imagine Tobira could be quite useful even for people who use another N3 textbook as their main form of study.

   Tobira has been with me for a very long time. I’m currently at the next to last chapter and am looking forward to when I can finally say I did it all.