Victory Manual

I’ve been through a lot of Japanese textbooks in my studies, some of them good, a lot of them not so good. When buying a new book from a site like Amazon.com, a lot of people rely on the review system, or just buy the most-purchased book, but there are a couple of problems when you do that.

One problem with the review system is that it’s difficult to really gauge what perspective the reviewer is coming from. Many reviewers post their opinions of the book after they’ve worked through at least some of it, but they leave out their initial expectations and personal goals. If you don’t know what their ultimate goal is for learning a language, you can’t estimate the utility of the book for your own studies.

This list of recommended books is a guide for serious learners of Japanese. These books are targeted at learners who want to eventually acquire fluency. If you want a quick-fix resource of set-phrases, this is not the list for you.

Beginner-level book

I looked for a book that uses only target-language native-characters (where the Japanese is written in Japanese and not the English alphabet), and provide at least 200 or 300 basic kanji (Chinese characters).

Genki is the book to introduce you to Japanese. If you want to power through the book with maximum retention, mine all of the sentences from it and put them in your SRS. If you want to know more about my SRS study method, please read about this successful language study method.

If you decide to study from a different book, I suggest that you stay away from Japanese for Dummies or Idiots Guide to Japanese, or any other book with a title that insinuates you are unintelligent.

Pre-intermediate and intermediate-level books

After getting through the fundamentals in a traditional textbook approach, I suggest a package of various texts that compliment each other. You don’t need to rigidly complete the texts in sequence, but can jump back and forth between various sources. The important thing is that you study at least a few minutes every day, and not just once a week.

The Japanese in MangaLand series is a refreshing take on Japanese language learning. One extremely useful tool that I suggest even to advanced-level students is the Google Image Search used as a dictionary. Learning a language through imagery is both efficient and beneficiary in solidifying the language in your memory. The Japanese in MangaLand series does what the Google Image Search does – It gives you images to associate with terms. It’s a powerful mnemonic that reinforces what I call “memory tags”. Imagine them as small flags that are placed on small chunks of language memory. The more flags there are, the easier it is to see.

Basic Connections and Making Sense of Japanese are must-have additions to your expanding personal Japanese language library. Jay Rubin, the highly acclaimed translator of Murakami Haruki books into English, is behind Making Sense of Japanese. Basic Connections is a grammar book that you can read through like a novel. The book provides two or three example sentences for every grammar point. Those example sentences should go directly into your SRS.

The Read Real Japanese series will help you jump into “live Japanese”. What I mean by “live Japanese” is Japanese produced by Japanese for Japanese. Up till now, we’ve been using materials designed for students, but it’s important to jump into live Japanese as soon as you can so that you can get a good feel of the language in use.

Breaking into Japanese Literature is also a good jumpstart into Japanese literature (as the name implies), but the readings are sometimes a little antiquated, and there are some uncommon kanji that may not be immediately useful for you. I prefer the Read Real Japanese series, but if you’re looking for expansion this book is good as a supplement.

Pre-advanced and advanced-level books

For advanced level books, you should be looking into Japanese novels. You’re going to have to get a feel for an author that speaks to you on a personal level; I can’t tell you who that is. A couple of my own favorites are Yoshimoto Banana and Murakami Haruki. Yoshimoto Banana keeps her sentences simple and succinct, while Murakami Haruki paints a vivid fantasy landscape in a pop-culture post-modern setting. Both of these authors provide a good look into the Japanese social psyche.

Besides novels, run searches on Google’s Blog Search function, and browse the Japanese Wikipedia Site. Both blogs and Wikipedia offer more live Japanese to devour. Blogs offer a unique feature of colloquial speech, so you have a chance to try and process Japanese as you might hear it spoken. The best part of both blogs and Wikipedia are their price tags – Free.

Deciding on what to buy

For serious learners, you should be buying texts that highlight language use and give a good amount of examples in context. Although you may be a baby in the language, you should not settle for being treated as one.

If you’re considering a book to buy, look for less lists and more full-sentences. Mine them. Put them right into your SRS and make the effort to review them every day. Power through a book, but don’t overlook anything. I guess what I’m saying is that you should be die-hard yet meticulous. Grab the bull by its horns and analyze it from the hooves up. Don’t buy into any “speak Japanese in two weeks” promises – It’s not going to work, and your motivation is going to take a hit.

By no means is this an exhaustive listing of texts, but it’s where I recommend you start from in your own language-learning journey. I’m looking to update this page every now and then with more, new recommendations.