Hello! What are the best books to help me get started?!?

[Sirocco]

Hello! New premium subscriber here A lot of told me japanese for everyone! by Gakken is a good place to start along with 'Human Japanese" to learn the alpahbet. However i heard the tapes for 'japanese for everyone' are hard to find! Anyone got any other suggestions/outline for helping me to learn? Thank you!

[Psy]

I'm not familiar with either of those but a quick look on Amazon told me you're on the right track. A lot of my resources are online, but if I had to recommend anything:

Japanese Step by Step by Gene Nishi (dry but the only text I've ever seen that incorporates pitch-accent from the get-go.)

and

All About Particles by Naoko Chino (Not a tutorial but a reference, and one you will find useful for years.)


For online resources, you can't beat these:
Language/Culture: http://japanese.about.com/
Dictinoary: http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/wwwjdic.html
Links Galore: http://www.sabotenweb.com/bookmarks/
Grammar: http://www.guidetojapanese.org/
... grammar: http://www.jgram.org/
... and more grammar: http://www.gwu.edu/~eall/vjg/vjghomepage/vjghome.htm (watermen first mentioned this one on the forums, and while it's quite a dry tutorial it is liberal with explaining usage and nuance. Check it out but go slow.)

Oh yeah, not that I really need to mention it... but J-pod 101 is also a pretty good way to learn.

[Sirocco]

thanks a lot!! this is very exciting

[sinbadx81]

In university I used the Genki series from the Japan Times. I think it gives a good grounding in the basic grammar and some of the more common vocabulary.

Other texts that I've heard are good are the Japanese for Busy People series and the Minna no Nihongo series.

As far as listening goes Japanesepod101 is one of the best I've found. You can't find the relatively natural conversations here anywhere else. The grammar and vocab used are also extremely useful in my opinion.

[Sirocco]

ohayu! (EST)

I decided to go and buy "human japanese" to get me re-acquainted with the kana and more from a friends reccodmendation. i already remember the first 20 or so after an hour. this is a great program and every word is pronounced along the way - big advantage i just want to memorize all the kana before i get into any type of grammar or word memorization type stuff

[watermen]

Honestly speaking you don't need to spend extra money on any books.

From the first day you learn Japanese, all you really need is a table of katakana and hiragana. Memorize all of them. You can find it in Wikipedia which is free.

Later on, all you really need is JapanesePod101. Listen to every single lessons and read all the PDF.

With Jpod101, all you need is online supplement, those mentioned by Psy are the ones that I used too.

Therefore, you no need to spend a single cent on books.

[Javizy]

I disagree with watermen. I have learnt a lot from textbooks. The problem with jpod and other online resources is that they are to "bitty", that is, they don't go into depth on a particular subject (not to say they aren't extremely useful). Unfortunately, I don't know any books for complete beginners except the one Psy mentioned All About Particles, which I only bought recently funnily enough. There are a few that you should definitely consider buying at some point though:

Kodansha's Furigana Dictionary -- no cursed romaji in sight, so pick this up as soon as you finish learning kana. Also packed full of example sentences and constructions that help you use words naturally.

Making Sense of Japanese by Jay Rubin -- extremely useful in better understanding a lot of topics that you take for granted. It's hard to explain how useful it is without you reading it.

Basic Connections: Making Your Japanese Flow by Kakuko Shoji -- addresses a lot of common mistakes made by learners, and has great explanations for things that I again took for granted. Also covers lots of constructions that I haven't seen anywhere else.

Japanese Core Words and Phrases by Kakuko Shoji -- great explanations of ko-so-a-do words, and enough idioms and other constructions to keep you busy for a long time.

Jazz up your Japanese with Onomatopoeia by Hiroko Fukada -- goes into detail on this tricky subject that is an important part of the language. Gives you a systematic way of approaching the words.

Building Word Power in Japanese by Timothy J. Vance -- a reference book of kanji prefixes and suffixes, characters that you add to words to give them extra meaning. Essential knowledge to improve your vocabulary and when reading.

All these and almost all of my other books are published by Kodansha, it seems like they publish pretty solid stuff, so maybe see what they've got in ways of beginner books.

[Psy]

Honestly speaking you don't need to spend extra money on any books.

No.

From the first day you learn Japanese, all you really need is a table of katakana and hiragana. Memorize all of them. You can find it in Wikipedia which is free.

No...

Later on, all you really need is JapanesePod101. Listen to every single lessons and read all the PDF.

... and no. Javizy is completely correct about the 'bitty' aspect of online resources. There are good sites out there, but that doesn't mean you should ignore the spectacular books that are also out there. For any sort of language study (though Japanese is easier online than many since it's so popular), you need to take advantage of all the resources that you can. Limiting yourself to only the internet is a bad, bad plan.

For kana, as a man who has learned 9 alphabets to one extent or the next, I can tell you that to learn any foreign set of symbols, you need more than just a chart to consult. In order to learn them well (enough to know them all from memory), use flashcards to drill and practice sheets to write, write, and write some more. Once you know enough start writing words, then phrases, then full sentences. Just being able to read the symbols isn't enough-- for true proficiency you must also be able to write them unaided.

Regarding that last quote about "only needing jpod101 later on," it is completely backwards. As useful a resource as we have here, its primary purpose is for teaching conversation. This is great to start out with, but as you advance, you're going to want to branch out.

Sorry to rant, but watermen, if you yourself follow the methods you encouraged above, you will eventually hit a nasty wall.

[Sirocco]

i mainly came to this site to get some "modern cultural" references as well as learn handy phrases and build up vocab - its an amazing compliment to my other readings. the old books are very stale and blah -- and dont get me started on Yans adventures lol

[Javizy]

I forgot, there's loads of great unique stuff at http://www.whiterabbitpress.com/catalog/index.html for beginners (as well as other levels). You might want to take a look around.

[watermen]

So far I have not buy any books. The only money I spent to study Japanese is subscribing to Jpod101 for 1 full year. And I think it can be done without book, you just need to know how to make use of online free resources and forum.

[chat_noir]

I have genki II, and I have to say, as great as this site is, it's nice to have a text book which not onlygoes more in depth of the various uses and naunces of grammar points, but also has exercises to suppliment.