Reddit reviews An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese (2 CD-ROM), Revised Edition

Depends on what exactly you mean by "intermediate". The general consensus is that if you've went through all of Genki (or other resources of similar level), Tobira picks up very smoothly from that point. Tobira can be a bit pricey, especially for the complete set - certainly it's a bigger investment than Genki, which is usually very cheap, especially for a "textbook" - but I would think that it's worth it. Although, if you're really serious and dedicated about self-study, that begs the question of whether or not you even really need a textbook at this point? There are plenty of free intermediate and advanced resources out there that you can learn a tremendous amount from without paying a dime.

If you really feel that you need a textbook, the next best option from Tobira would probably be An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese, which can be found for pretty cheap, maybe even as low as $30 in some secondhand stores (though be sure that you are able to get the audio that comes with it - you might be able to find that part online if nothing else).

Try some other schools? Usually you don't need to come in at rank beginner level if you already know a lot of Japanese. (I haven't been to one, but I am going to one in October).

The advantage of a school is that it offers you a 2 year visa. If there are other visa options, I'd recommend those - working holiday visa is available for some countries, etc. Then you can self-study and practice conversation. Assuming you're sufficiently motivated!

As for books, I did this book. It overlaps a bit with Genki 2 but it's a natural step up. Towards the end it gets quite difficult as it uses native texts. I'm now doing Tobira which is really fun and is placed between N3 and N2.

Integrated approach is a textbook that kind of picks up where Genki leaves off (not as good imo but for learning new grammar in a logical progression it does a decent job). Here is the amazon link https://smile.amazon.com/Integrated-Approach-Intermediate-Japanese-Revised/dp/4789013073/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1524849771&sr=8-1&keywords=integrated+approach+to+intermediate+japanese . From what I've seen the two best ones after Genki are this and Tobira. But, I also read that Tobira is a little further than just Genki and and while I might have been able to do it, I think I am just going to finish Integrated Approach and then double back and do Tobira and if I learn the same topics twice, that's just review. I think that will put me near the end of N3.

Also unrelated but for Kanji, I am using Kodansha and am at about 1400 and slowing down to make sure I fully know all of them (at about 90% recognition right now on them).

Lots of people here are mentioning Tobira, which I don't have any personal experience with, but I just wanted to chip in by saying that my university/universities went from Genki I and II to An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese + its workbook and almost all of the the JLPT N3 books. After that there were a bunch of different textbooks in Japanese; can't remember that well, but I can see if I can dig something up later.

Edit:

One of the Japanese universities used the 中級を学ぼう books which was...okay. But at least the first one could be comparable to the Genki level, though.

They also used this, but that would be for later, when you start wanting to write more advanced reports/essays.

Had a look at someone's 聞いて覚える話し方 日本語生中継 books, which was quite rubbish and/or very basic.

Some also bought these and these but I can't vouch for them.

I'm an international student who came to the US for college and grad school, so I've learned Japanese as a 3rd language through a 2nd language, English. (Btw, my mother language is not Chinese.) As for the level of skills, I passed the JLPT N2 in December 2015. This gave me confidence to seek a job in Japan. I did some interviews entirely in Japanese and got offers from two Japanese companies. I cannot say that I was able to say all that I would like to say, but getting offers proved that my proficiency was at a level where they decided to tolerate it.

I started learning Japanese in college in 2003. However, I have not been studying Japanese all the time in the 14-year span from then and now. I did:

• 3 years of Japanese in college,
  
• and another 3.5 years in grad school. (However, the courses I took were undergrad courses.)
  
  Outside class:
  
  
• I proactively had conversation with Japanese speakers. Both my college and grad school have communities of native Japanese speakers and students of Japanese who meet weekly to have lunch or dinner. I joined most of these meetings. I also had weekly conversations with a language exchange partner over Skype.
  
• I have been listening to radio shows from Japan while working.
  
• I have been trying to read novels (well, light novels, to be exact) and books.
  
  My Japanese improved the most when I took classes, and I found that I got a much better hang of the language when I'm forced to write long prose (essays, interview reports, presentation scripts, etc). Self studying other than reading books did not quite help probably because I'm bad at keeping a steady schedule. Reading books, on the other hand, has exposed me to new vocabularies and idioms.
  
  I'm fortunate that I took classes that required me to speak in almost every session. In my first four years of taking Japanese, I was supposed to practice in a language lab and remember "core conversations" before coming to class. Once in class, the teachers would do the live drills of those conversations with each of us individually. Thanks to this, I have no fear of speaking Japanese and making mistakes because I made so many mistakes before (and will continue to do so for a long long time).
  
  While a number of Japanese native speakers have said that my Japanese is "pera pera," I cannot that I can completely understand the language. The Japanese vocabulary is very large and I only know a sliver of it that I cannot get through reading a manga or a news article without a dictionary. There are many grammar patterns that I'm not familiar with, and I always struggle trying to communicate complicated and/or technical ideas. Of course, I will continue to learn, but I honestly don't know how many years it would take until my Japanese is as good as any other languages that I speak.
  
  Resources used:
  
  
• My undergrad courses were taught using Japanese: The Spoken Language up to Part 3. While the treatment of grammar and its cultural contexts is solid, the books themselves are extremely dry. I wouldn't recommend them for self studying.
  
• The first two Japanese courses I took in grad school used An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese. I enjoyed the book as it contains good reading passages and optional cultural notes.
  
• The next two classes was taught with トピックによる日本語総合演習　テーマ探しから発表へ 上級用資料集. This one has reading passages based on real newspaper articles and introduces N2-level grammars and vocabularies.
  
• I prepared for the N2 exam using the 日本語総まとめ series of books. I worked through 4 of them (grammar, vocab, kanji, listening), and that was super effective.
  
• The last three courses I took did not use any textbook. Our teacher chose the materials and the class activities herself. These include interviewing Japanese we could find on campus, watching episodes of Closed-up Gendai, debating, giving formal presentations, and reading newspaper articles, short stories, and novels ("Hiro-kun" by Okuda Hideo and a part of "Potos Lime no Fune" by Tsumura Kikuko).

1.An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese

2.シャドーイング 日本語を話そう 初〜中級編

3.聞いて覚える話し方 日本語生中継・初中級編〈1〉

4.中級日本語文法要点整理ポイント20

5.新・中級から上級への日本語

From the list, 1,2,3 and are fine for intermediate, but book #4 may be kind of difficult for lower/beginning intermediate. And if you look at the pages in book #5, that may also be difficult, so maybe hold off on something like that. Look inside the books and see what you think you'd use, but I think 2 and 3 may be better to use at first.