Genki I & II Textbook covers 80-90% Japanese Grammar?

[7daytrial]

Just wondering if the Genki I and II textbooks covers almost all grammar used in normal Japanese conversations? As well as the level of grammar in terms of JPLT level?

If not which books are recommended for sole verb/adjective conjugation book?

[mieth]

not even close. Genki is a little tiny chip off the tip of the tip of the ice burg. Just a heads up there are books called the dictionary of japanese grammar beginner intermediate and advanced (just recently released) each having approximately 700 pages. Extremely condensed and no non sense explanations. In genki you will see stuff like basic verb conjugations and such.. probably some weak conversations between an exchange student from korea and india talking about how the number of trees are decreasing. anyway good luck. my advice just dump the genki books and listen to 10 japanese pod lessons a day. The following day stagger the lesson by one and do ten more. so monday lesson 1-10. Tuesday lesson 2-11 and so on and so on. after doing this straight for about a year you will be able to understand about 10 percent of normal japanese tv. If you happen to be concerned with that other 90% either give up now or get married to a japanese woman who doesn't speak english and ummm move in with her family... and um I also recommend getting a job at a ramen house where after mastering the language japanese society will allow you to get a job serving edemame and kirin beer. speaking of bear when you order one you should 1 ru-bi please... sounds just like the gem.. whee. anyway good luck with your study.

[retropunk]

I believe the Genki I and II will probably get you through your first 2 semesters of an University-level of Japanese class. If you're looking for a book for adj/verb conjugation, you may find the Oxford Japanese Grammar And Verbs book of interest. However, I do not know all of the material in the Genki books nor do I know all of the grammar in an average conversation.

[Psy]

I'm going to cite a few words of wisdom that one of my teachers gave me in regards to language learning:

You will never finish learning a language. Yes, there will come a point where you could become proficient enough to interact with the society and culture much as a native speaker would, but even still the learning continues. Do you know everything about your native language? Even though you have been raised with it and had your entire thought process molded by it, you could easily spend the rest of your life studying it and still only have scratched the surface. So when you decide to study a language, it's fine (even ideal) to have a goal in mind, but don't ever think you can learn it all, because that is an impossible task for even the greatest scholar.

For conversational Japanese, I'd argue that basic grammar textbooks cover a good deal of the common language, by virtue of the fact that the more difficult grammar is more the stuff of the literary world. This isn't to say, however, that you don't run into difficult grammar in the spoken word-- surely you do. However, having a solid understanding of basic grammar along with a good vocabulary can take you a very long way with the language.

[7daytrial]

Thanks for the replies.

I found a page about the book: A Dictionary of Advanced Japanese Grammar

Also has anyone been over at JLPTstudy.com? I was looking for grammar and it seems like grammar is only covered in level 3 and 4 but not at level 2. Does that mean level 3 and 4 covers 80-90% grammar (that is to say almost all conversational grammar)?

JLPT Study Level 3 Grammar


I plan on becoming fluent in Japanese, if not then very close to it (but no timetable). I also was curious about the difficulty in reading technical (engineering) documents in Japanese. Is the grammar any more difficult, the kanji more difficult, or both?

[Psy]

Also has anyone been over at JLPTstudy.com? I was looking for grammar and it seems like grammar is only covered in level 3 and 4 but not at level 2. Does that mean level 3 and 4 covers 80-90% grammar (that is to say almost all conversational grammar)?

No. The jump from grade 3 to 2 is a big one, and the jump from 2 to 1 even bigger still. Grade 1 (simply known as "the ikkyuu" by students) has a notoriously low pass-rate, and is significantly more difficult than any of the others. It is also said to grow more difficult every year. You'll not only need to study a ton of "so rare it's useless" grammar before you can think of passing it, but also work really hard on improving your reading speed. The ironic thing is you needn't speak a word of Japanese.

I also was curious about the difficulty in reading technical (engineering) documents in Japanese. Is the grammar any more difficult, the kanji more difficult, or both?

I only have a small amount of experience with the more technically-oriented stuff, but from that I've found that the grammar is generally easier than the vocabulary. You will need to study a lot of specialized words to be able to swim through this stuff.

[Belton]

I think the omission of Level 2 grammar at JLPTstudy.com is because the author hasn't gotten around to it yet. It's a big task and as he comments on his site it can be very hard to find out exactly what the syllabus for JLPT is. (I'm glad he got the official Japanese book and made his site. It makes it easier for everyone else.)

There is quite a leap from JLPT3 to 2.
JLPT3's grammar fits in a nice little A5 book. JLPT2 from the same publisher seems to span 3 bigger volumes from what I can see.

Textbooks like Genki and Grammars attempt to do different things.
My experience is a textbook tries to get you using Japanese in many different ways in manageable thematic chunks. Grammars on the other hand are usually reference works. Best for expanding topics you've already encountered and checking points when writing.

Grammar is the structure and very useful but you'll find you need lots of other skills to use a language. Vocabulary being a big one. I'd start out with a good general text like Genki or Japanese for Busy People.

That said the series of grammar dictionaries are the best laid out grammars I've seen. Unfortunately they're a little expensive in the UK.

Kodansha publishes a range of small books on Japanese grammar topics. I think Taeko Kamiya's 2 handbooks, one for verbs and one for adjectives and adverbs, are quite good. So are Naoko Chino's books on sentence patterns and particles. The whole series is well worth a look. There are books on particles, on onomatopoeia, on conjunctions, etc.

You sound like you are at the beginnings of your studies. I wholeheartedly agree with Psy-san about how language learning is an open-ended never ending task. (Indeed everything is. Cooking, Photography, Science, When you meet people who are good at what they do they are always learning, always curious, always enthusiastic. )
While having the target of fluency is good, I'd recommend you set yourself some more medium term waypoints like sitting JLPT4 before worrying about JLPT2; exchanging email before writing software manuals. And even these tasks you need to break down further and as you go along you need to review your goals and progress from time to time.

There is no Game Over unless you say so, that's what's good about learning.
頑張って〜♪

[7daytrial]

I think the omission of Level 2 grammar at JLPTstudy.com is because the author hasn't gotten around to it yet.

Ah, I hadn't thought of that.

I've covered only up to chapter 17 in the genki textbook series and so far verb/adj conjugation seems pretty straight forward. Memorizing vocabulary and kanji is the hardest part as I always forget.

I've been exchanging emails in japanese and there are times where I don't know the verb/adj conjugation which is not found in the genki textbook series. This lead me to finding a japanese grammar book.

I found the books Belton mentions: The Handbook of Japanese Verbs and The Handbook of Japanese Adjectives and Adverbs on Amazon.com for $12 and $16. Looking at the table of contents it seems the two books overlap the grammar in the genki textbook series, though, I'm not exactly sure.

I'm not concerned with learning up to JLPT level 2 now, but I just wanted to gather the resources just in case I happen to stumble upon level 1/2 grammar during email exchange, reading translation, spoken japanese...etc.

[Belton]

I understand now.

Those grammar dictionaries are the most comprehensive books I've seen. (Someday I might find the £40 plus each they cost here.)

Mostly I first turn to Japanese Grammar and Verbs published by the Oxford University Press.
It could be laid out a bit better and sometimes it's hard to find what you want but it covers most of what I need usually. If not or if I want more detail I hunt through other books.

Online
There's Tae Kim's grammar which is useful.
And a scarily comprehensive grammar coming from a Classical Japanese viewpoint I think.
If you're a premium member here the grammar bank is a good resource.

And...
Usually if you post a question on the forums here someone will point out what the unknown grammar is and explain it to you.

[Javizy]

You won't find conjugations and such like in them, but I definitely agree that A Dictionary of Basic/Intermediate Japanese Grammar are excellent references that you'll probably look to for answers for years to come. One of the books' strongest points is that many grammar points have a 'related expressions' section that helps you understand where one grammar point should or shouldn't be used in place of another, or the subtle differences between them.

I didn't know an advanced addition had been released

[zakojanai]

I'm not getting all the Genki hate. I think they are great textbooks. I used them for my beginner's course in college and I like them a lot better than Minna no Nihongo or Yokoso. Genki will essentially take you through 3kyu. If you master those books, you should pass 3kyu.
The grammar dictionaries that everyone is recommending are great, but for me they're too expensive. A nice alternative is "Donna Toki, Dou Tsukau" (どんな時どう使う）. It has all the grammar points through 1kyu listed and tells you what level of the JLPT tests each grammar point. There are a number of example sentences with succinct explanations in English, Chinese, Korean and Japanese of each point. And it only costs about $30. I'm not sure where you can get it outside Japan, but they have it in bookstores in Japan and on amazon.jp. You can probably order it through White Rabbit Press.

[Rod Wadd]

I would guess genki 1 and 2 would probably get you to about 3kyu level, JLPT-wise. That's about where the Minna no Nihongo books 1 and 2 end up I believe.