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'Real' self-study book for beginner

Guregori

先輩
25 Aug 2012
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Hello everyone!

Newbie here. I started teaching myself Japanese a few months ago and am making steady progress.

I'm looking for a good self-study book for Japanese but I'm having trouble finding one. For example, everyone mentions Genki, which I've downloaded in PDF to try out before buying, and I'm not a great fan; mainly because it's not a self-study book; it's primarily designed for use in colleges and a lot of it involves working with a teacher/other students.

Other books I've seen / read about seem to be a bit overly simplified and skirt around anything remotely difficult (like kanji) in order to avoid scaring off the readers (i.e. Japanese for Busy People, which I understand doesn't introduce kanji until the second book) and I find them slightly patronising in tone.

I should mention I am naturally able with foreign languages (or I like to think I am) and have studied languages at university to post-graduate level, so I'm not fazed by getting down to the nitty gritty of the language. I actually find learning grammar really interesting.

So, my question is really, is there a book that is 1) Written completely for self-study, and 2) is a general course covering the four skills, that doesn't shy away from the more complex aspects of the language.
Thanks in advance!
 
1) Written completely for self-study
I could imagine such book for math or science ... but for language.
IMHO, any book worthless without conversation skills, which includes
speaking and listening. That is why classes are.

Sorry, I do not know such book. :?
 
I could imagine such book for math or science ... but for language.
IMHO, any book worthless without conversation skills, which includes
speaking and listening. That is why classes are.
Sorry, I do not know such book. :?

By 'completely for self-study' I don't mean that it is the only book I will use, I mean that the book is specifically written for people to use alone at home, without a teacher or without other students. Of course to be able to learn the language completely, one will have to supplement it with other materials, speaking practice, etc.

Books like this do exist for languages, there is a brilliant book for Russian I used in the past, and I know several for English (I'm an EFL teacher).
 
there is a brilliant book for Russian I used in the past

Если Вы знаете русский язык, то могу порекомендовать учебники Л.Т. Нечаевой, существует два: для начинающих и продолжающих. Очень интенсивные курсы японского языка, по ним все послы и гэбисты обучались. Их можно найти в интернете в pdf формате.
 
Спасибо ewww! Я нашел первую часть в интернете, сейчас ее скачиваю. Судя по образцу мне кажется очень хорошо.
 
Wisdom says: Think carefully before making a post.

しつれいします. Thanks for the warning.
 
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Mojibake 文字化け

Dear valued Members, due to the recent forum conversion a lot of threads in the 日本語 section still display garbled Japanese characters. We are aware of the situation and work hard on resolving this issue. As all the corrections have to be done manually, this will take some time. We thank you for your patience and understanding!


You can find so many posts/threads that contain mojibake. If you want to read them, you can ask for that in the following thread. By the way, I already fixed this thread. (Actually, it's Russian, not Japanese, after all.)
Mojibake (文字化け) fixing - info and requests | Japan Forum
 
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