Japanese Learning Resources #1: The Genki Books I & II!! 

When I finally found someone who likes to really just learn about Japan. My friends keep telling me that I'm a weeb. I just love the culture, the people, the language, and etc. My dream is to move there one day but first I need to speak their native language and learn katakana and hiragana and kanji and such.

When the Genki is Danky

I agree Chad. Genki is indeed a great grammar guide to begin one’s Japanese studies. I have been going through Genki 1 alone and I belief one can complete the first installment alone. The CD included is helpful by reassuring pronunciations and helps stay on track if you have no one to work with.

Sorry if my voice was a little weird in this one, folks! I got the pre-ick :/ Here comes a week of being a sick-puppy. Also, I totes forgot to announce it in the video, but no Saturday video as I will most likely be A. Sick B. Fly Fishing. Have a good week! AND LET ME FEEEEEEEEL U

You'd better use ”初級” instead of ”下級” for beginner level. 下級 means "Low level" or "Low quality" and it is bad.

I'm new to the channel. I liked just for the unexpected "Whip me daddy.". In all seriousness though I've only seen two of your videos so far and am surprised you are not more popular, your videos are very high quality.

If you're taking JLPT, I really recommend the 新完全マスター books, especially the grammar and reading book. They are jam packed and really test you with a heap of problems.

I am actually using these books to try and prepare for N5. it starts with stuff I already knew, but that is typical. I agree that these are so far very good. Also the apps that compliment the books work well too. :)

You look like chandler bing

Genki 1&2 were good for me because I was able to survive in Japan for 3months, meet ppl, hold conversations in Japanese, make friends etc. I do think that Minna no Nihongo is a better book structure wise. Especially if you get the set. They're a stronger series due to how they split their book into TB, WB, Grammatical explanations, kanji, and listening.

Another thing that's good about the Genki books is that there are plenty of exercises and videos on the publisher website and then there are three apps that are very good - A vocabulary app, Kanji app and Verb/Adjective Conjugation app. Also now with the third edition instead of CD there's a free app with all the dialogue in the book.

Great video Chad. I'm finally gonna comment on a video in a really long time lol. So first off, the Genki books are, in my opinion, a great way to start learning Japanese and get to a decent level of speaking with them. I've personally used both the Genki books in the span of 4 semester at my university and right now we are on the 22nd chapter where some things get a little confusing (but thank God I have a professor explaining all the small differentiations between the grammar rules haha) And I would definitely recommend these books to anyone who's planning on learning Japanese. But I actually disagree with you about the way they do Kanji (maybe because I've never tried another method?) But with the help of the professor and how she explains them, I basically would recognize and be able to write all of them but probably not be able to write all of them since like you said, you don't write Kanji that often. For next video, can you please do it on Heisig's learning the kanji method because I've been wanting to see that from you since I got the book and tried to use it but just didn't know how to. So if you can make a video talking about it and how you used it to get to where you are right now, that would be much appreciated! Side note, I think this series will be your most watched and liked series that you've done so far because of how many people struggle and are interested in this topic. And you should definitely go back to how you used to do weekly videos about your progress in learning Japanese because these videos were so interesting and really motivated me to keep working hard. Anyway I think I'll cut it short haha and stop here but seriously, AWESOME video and keep up the good work Chad!

The word for lawyer comes up in the first chapter (if not, really early in the book). Really not useful when you don't even know how to ask where the toilet is, or say that you are hungry.

What kind of name is Chad?

I took 4 semesters of Japanese at my university and am now trying to self-study to not lose it and try to improve. I have a crappy review on my account somewhere of the books I have/have had. Genki seems nice, but isn't what my university used. We used a book called Nakama (by Hatasa, Hatasa, and Makino- published by Heinle Cengage Learning) for the first year, NEJ (Nishiguchi Koichi, Kurosio Publishers) for the second year, and our teacher supplemented with things she made or copied out of Genki I came to find out. Nakama is a good textbook (basically copies Genki) but with American textbook prices (so avoid it). I really like NEJ, but as a supplement to other books. Since I graduated, I've gotten a collection of learning materials (a few above my level for now) and quite a few of them you haven't reviewed yet. It'd be nice to hear someone else's opinions on them. Nakama (if you can find a cheap/free copy), NEJ (New Approach to Elementary Japanese), Hiragana Times (this is a magazine that recently redesigned itself), Tobira: Gateway to Advanced Japanese (Kurosio Publishing- is this intermediate or a bridge between intermediate and advanced?), Japanese Graded Readers (ASK Publishing), and finally Marugoto (by the Japan Foundation - Japanese-Language Institute). I personally hated Marugoto and saying so got a bunch of their workers (and possibly students?) to start posting crap on the review about how I was wrong. Since then they came out with a textbook (I think?) but it would be interesting to hear if your experience with it is similar to mine or not.

Are you religious by any chance? I noticed the 堕罪 and 恩恵 there lol

Is genki 1 enough for jplt n5

Sorry in advance for the essay lol. I watched your other video on japanese from zero (and others) and this one and I would just like to to know your honest opinion after using both books. I wanna start learning japanese (self tought cuz I'm too broke for classes) and I'm trying to find the right book. I'm used to the class format from high school with other foreign languages (english, spanish), I know it, I can work with it, but this time I won't actually have the teacher so I need a book that won't totally rely on the teacher to help out (e.g. our spanish books were 100% spanish from the get go and we needed the teach to explain the exercises and grammar and give additional info in general). Genki sounds more like what I'm used to but I'm not totally sure it's the best for self taught Japanese, I loved everything on the japanese from zero from your vid cuz I looooove detailed explanations (I'm an enquisitive pumpkin) but you mention it doesn't cover as much as genki. I just wanna know if the pace and content would be alright in japanese from zero for self taught cuz I can always get the next book. Also, would I need an answer key to japanese from zero? I hear it's essential for genki for self learners. For context, I know about 30-ish hiragana characters from the hiragana quest app but that's about it, no vocab and no grammar. Also no CD players at all unfortunately. Thank you very much for your answer in advance, I've been loving your videos so far, all of them were super nice and RELEVANT, now I hope I can find one about your personal journey to live in japan?! Hope you have one. BTW, this is my first comment on youtube EVER sooooo... your content must be good lmao.

Thank you so much for this! I was hoping that someone would create a semi-structured series that goes into detail about specific learning materials. It seemed like nobody had an exact set of videos or links that would go in order with the specific skill level you're at in terms of Japanese. Before this I actually sorted through most of your FIUOY videos and tried to follow along with the progression of books you used, but it was fairly difficult (I got a bit caught up in the stories you were telling aha) and those videos probably weren't completely focused towards the use of materials themselves.

Great video! I'm still currently working on Korean but Japanese is in my plans for later this year. I'll be checking out your other vids on learning Japanese before I take the plunge!

Just ordered the books and hopefully they suit me. Thank you Chad for the review.

thank you a lot

As far as text books go, Genki is pretty easy to follow and understand. I got through both Genki I and Genki II in about 6 months. If I were to go back in time and start from scratch I wouldn't bother with them, though, and probably use something like LingQ to get me started on reading right away. I don't think the time I spend with the Genki books was a total waste of time but you learn such a minuscule amount of Japanese and that time would be much better spent just reading. You don't have to use LingQ, but I found it very useful on getting started with Spanish and I was able to learn quite a bit of Spanish in just a few months (far more Spanish than the Japanese I had learned over my 6 months with the Genki books). I prefer using the Nihongo So Matome books for learning new grammar and while they don't give detailed explanations of grammar rules and structures, its easy enough to look up the grammar patterns online if you want more explanation. the NSM books are like $15 each and cover a lot more grammar patterns.

Hey Chad would you recommend me getting the genki 1 book and work book together? Or just to get genki 1 and 2 without workbooks? Im a beginner and will start studying at the end of the month but I cant afford all books and workbooks in one go. What would you recommend? Btw your channel and videos are awesome and so helpful!

no second study guide needed, but I was taught in a classroom. Genki 1 (+some of Genki 2 cuz the test is in December in the US) passed N5 Genki 2 (+some of a really old textbook that isn't in print anymore as my school had to manually print it) Passed N4 ~years of watching Anime may be needed~ (That textbook was old enough that my friend's Japanese boyfriend made fun of her Japanese homework saying no one talks like that anymore) [Note: The school got rid of the textbook and switched to Tobira 2 quarters later]

Love the energy in the video! Hope you're still going strong on that nihongo!

I think you just talking and do not showing the book do not make me interested in the video. But is good the idea to do a review.

I found genki 1 grammar hard to understand after I think chapter 8. I prefer mina ni nihongo explanations. However genki does have kanji and kanji reading practice.

You remind me of Mikan the youtuber so much! Twins? Lol

Are you maybe a collector of buttons/pins? I saw that you have tons on your jacket.

Great video and lot of important information regarding learning resources.. Thank you so much. Keep it up..

got any genki self study tips anyone?

chad a real mvp reviewing lots of japanese resources 😔😔👍👍👌👌♥️💦

like for the cat scenes . love ur style bro , keep it up !

genki 1 feels a bit hard for me since it seems like so much is audio and I don't own a computer so I can't put the disc in, there's the audio on RU-vid but I don't have the time to try to pinpoint what section I'm currently on. I'm getting so frustrated and it's been making me avoid picking the book up and that frustrated me. I feel like even tho Japanese for busy ppl is outdated it's so so easy, I haven't studied anything in so many years that I feel stupid and it's just starting to get to me :'( I'm gonna try to finish my Japanese for busy ppl 1 workbook (kana version of course) before gstarting to try genki 1 again. idk. I'm sad lol

I can't tell if that's a hotarubi no mori e mask or a black anbu mask in the back haha anyway great video!

I no absolutely nothing about the language. What's a good N5 textbook to start out with.

how about electric dictionaries? what are your thoughts or recommendations?

Genki!

great video :)

Nice Video!

Subbed:)

your cats are so cute !

Excellent video. (you deserve more subscribers). Been mostly working with apps but now I'm going to knuckle down and get back to my Genki I book. Originally used it with classroom instruction but that was far too slow. Hopefully my attention span will improve with self study. Also, what was the outside Kanji learning resource that you alluded to?

The FitnessTest™ Test Test is a multistage test capacity test that progressively gets more test as it tests. The 20 test test will begin in 30 test. Test up at the test. The testing speed starts testly, but gets faster each test after you test this test. [test] A single test should be tested each time you hear this test. [test] Remember to test in a straight test, and test as long as possible. The second test you fail to complete a test before the test, your test is test. The test will begin on the word test. On your test, get test, test.

Well, the fact that you never focused on writing explains the awfully written Japanese in the back. Pretty hard to look at for the whole video ^^

dude this video was awesome!