Minna no Nihongo （みんなの日本語）series

[danieru_s]

Has anyone used these series to augment JapanesePod101? I bought the first book (all Japanese) a while ago when I was in New York. I just finished going through Japanese For Busy People -- and I'm on chapter 2 of Minna no Nihongo 1. Minna no Nihongo seems to move at a faster pace than Japanese for Busy People.

[NickT]

I used those textbooks for my beginners (mnn1) and lower intermediate (mnn2) evening classes. That was before I really discovered jpod101 though, but they should give you a pretty good grounding in grammar.

I definately rate them over JFBP.

[newobsorder]

I'm using Minna no nihongo for two years now at the university, I don't have JFBP but being at the lesson 30 of minna no nihongo, I have a pretty good idea of what it can offers I think you should DEFINITIVELY work with both Jpod and minna, because minna is way too old... I don't know if you've seen the movies but it's hilarious, you're back in the 70's!! It's ok in class because our teacher tells us what has change in the language habits since the book was made but working with it alone you may take some bad habits... so try to use it only during your classes
that's why you must have jpod to get the "actual" japanese (an a little more fun too!).
hope it helps, がんばって！

[hairlet]

Agreed.

Minna no nihongo has a lot of old fashioned terms in there.

Although I'm new to JP101, it seems a lot more contemporary.

[j_evenstar]

Hi, does anybody have a copy of the translation and grammatical notes of minna no nihongo II from lessons 41-50? I'm preparing for the JLPT 3 this year and I really want to finish the Minna no Nihongo series. any help is appreciated, thanks!

[untmdsprt]

I'm using the Minna series and actually prefer it better over the JFBP series. Mainly it's because everything is in Japanese, and they have more dialogs than the JFBP series.

As for it being outdated, I usually look the words up in my dictionary, and make notes in my book.

I'm thinking about skipping the 3rd Minna book and just getting the Intermediate book everyone keeps recommending. The 3rd book has the same format which makes me wonder why they didn't update it to look more modern.

My Korean classmates have a Korean version of Minna that looks way better than what I'm using. I wonder why anyone else can't redesign the Minna series?