Reddit reviews Tobira Gateway to Advanced Japanese -Learning Through Content and Multimedia (Japanese and English Edition)

The decision is up to you, and your final choice should pertain to your situation/interests, but if you do choose to learn Japanese, then I can give you some pointers:

Learning Material

Start by learning Hiragana and Katakana. This should take you 2 weeks tops. You can learn it through apps like Dr. Moku (apple and android), and practice with Drag-n-Drop.
After that, use the Genki textbooks I and II (make sure that it's the 2nd edition, which has more features added to it), which are the most popular by far within the Japanese learning community.
Japan Times, the company behind the books, also made some pretty neat apps to side with the book. Available for apple and android. There's also a workbook, which is a bit of a drag to buy after buying two $50 textbooks, so I uploaded the PDFs here.


Supplement your studies with Anki SRS (Spaced-repetition-system), which is essentially virtual flash cards.
There's also Tae Kim's Grammar Guide, which is pretty good as a reference, but not so much a sole learning material. His website is another good reference resource.


Please realize that it's okay to forget words and grammar points, and you're definitely going to have to revisit some of them along the way.




I should probably mention Kanji. Kanji are characters imported from China during the 5th century, although many have divulged from their modern Chinese equivalent. Genki I+II will teach you 317 kanji (image for scale (sorry for bad quality!!)), and Tobira (the textbook I'm about to mention) will teach you another. There are officially 2136 "Jouyou Kanji", or kanji used in everyday life (e.g. a newspaper). Some people use Heisig's Remembering the Kanji, which I wouldn't recommend since it only teaches you the meaning (which it sometimes lies about), and doesn't even teach the reading or any words that use it. I'd recommend learning words and then the kanji that they use. That way you're getting more bang for your buck. While I personally don't use WaniKani to learn kanji, I have used it in the past, and it's really good. Sleek interface, gets the job done, forums for questions. All the good stuff you'd expect out of a kanji learning site. The first couple of lessons are free, and then it's something like $8/month. Despite WaniKani and all its greatness, the creator behind it (named Koichi) also made an "online Japanese textbook" called Tofugu, which I definitely wouldn't recommend. It waaaay too much around the bush, and half of it is just "motivational talk" (which I'm pretty sure is just trying to get you inspired for a night or two, pull out your wallet, pay for a lifetime subscription, and then give up once you get to the 〜ます forms).


Edit: I also feel the need to mention that, despite what pop culture might tell you, only a tiny portion of kanji are truly pictograph (e.g. 川 (river), 山 (mountain), 人 (person), and 大 (big)). The more conceptual ones have almost no tie to their actual meanings, which is why kanji teaching resources that use mnemonics fall apart pretty quickly. After being written with a chisel on turtle shells (called "oracle bone script"), imported to Japan 1500+ years ago, written 1,000,000s of times from people in prefectures miles away, and reformed numerous times, almost all of them lost their original pictographic quality. Just take a look at 働, 色, and 起. What do you think those mean? The answer is: to work, color, and to get up (in the sense of waking up).

Edit 2: Learn the stroke order for the kanji, since it makes them much easier to break down in the long run. For that matter, learn the radicals, or parts, of the kanji. There's a list here.


To clear up any more misconceptions, Japanese is not like Chinese in the sense that a character alone can be a verb. The kanji "起" doesn't mean "to wake up" on its own; only when you add the "き" and "る" hiragana does it turn into the verb. This is called "おくりがな" (okurigana). There are also many different readings for each character, unlike Chinese where there's usually only one or two. For example, the character "日" (day, sun) can be read ひ (or び), にち, or じつ. One kind of reading is called 音読み (onyomi), literally meaning "sound reading" because when the Japanese came into contact with the Chinese, they didn't yet have a writing system (their language was called "和語" (lit. "native Japanese language"). So, they "borrowed" their characters and transcribed the Chinese pronunciation based on their phonetic system. The other kind of reading is called 訓読み (kunyomi), which literally means "riverside reading". This type of reading is native to Japan and was prescribed to the kanji that corresponded with the meaning. On the more extreme side, some kanji can have 10+ readings. Don't sweat it though (心配ないよ！), as you'll learn all of these different readings through context in your vocabulary.

Now to bridge the gap between "beginner"-ish to "intermediate"-ish, use Tobira (which literally means "bridge"). The book assumes you to have a certain level of knowledge, some of which might overlap with Genki and other words/grammar that you may have to look up. It's an uphill battle, but you'll come out triumphant in the end.


On a side note, I'd recommend Jisho.org as your go-to online dictionary, even if some of the example sentences are riddled with errors. "Imiwa?" is a great Jp<->Eng dictionary for android and iOS. If you're really serious, then get "Kodansha's Furigana Japanese Dictionary".
Also check out /r/learnjapanese. There's a lot of great questions/resource links on there, and you can ask any questions you might have.


Duolingo has opened up alpha testers for its Japanese course as well. I'm so-so on the quality of Duolingo, since it doesn't even really teach you grammar, but just in case.

There are a lot of great resources posted up on the Kanji Koohii forums, which is where I found ヨミちゃん for Google Chrome.


To go further, read 4chan's /int/ guide.
Oh, and in case you didn't know, stay away from Rosetta Stone!!

Native Material

After Genki II, give a go at よつばと！ (Yotsuba!), a simple children's manga with furigana, which is kana above the kanji (intended for little kids). There's quite a bit of slang in it, and almost always uses the casual form. Even in a simple manga like Yotsuba, there will still be words and advanced grammatical constructs you haven't even touched yet. You can get the "Yotsuba Learning Pack", which consists of an Anki deck and vocabulary list here.


You can practice speaking with native speakers on a wonderful app called HelloTalk (available for apple and android). It's pretty great.


There's also iTalki, where you can write journal entries in your target language (so you can do this for Italian too) and have them be corrected by native speakers. You can also correct journal entries in English.

About the JLPT

The "Japanese Language Proficiency Test [Number X]", commonly referred to as "JLPT N[X]", is the standard Japanese test. N1 (Number 1) is the highest and most advanced, while N5 is the most basic. You can see how ready you are for each one here. Honestly, N5 and N4 are so easy, they're really not worth the money you have to pay to take it. N3 is a good warm up to N2. Passing N2 will look pretty damn good on any business related Japanese job. I wouldn't worry about these tests until a good way into your studies.

Conclusion

While Japanese might not be the easiest language for an English speaker to learn (far from it, it in fact), and quite daunting due to the scores of kanji you're required to learn, the rewards are numerous. For one thing, you get 130,000,000 more people to converse with on this planet. You're also opened up to the world of anime (Japanese animation) and manga (Japanese cartoons), and the original language of the haiku (俳句). Not only that, but you're also introduced to the literature world Haruki Murakami and other such Japanese writers. Most importantly, you should enjoy it. After all, nobody who doesn't enjoy learning something gets very far into it. If you ever feel incredibly discouraged, take a break for as long as you need. Revisit the material when you feel ready. Never study something if it pains you to do so. PM me if you have any more questions.

I went looking and couldn't find much. There's its web site, which has an overview (incl. contents) and videos about it (note: these start in Japanese, but students talk in English later), but I couldn't find actual sample pages. There's this video review where she shows a few pages and talks about it, but that's it really.

It's been a while since I used it, but basically each chapter is somewhat self-contained and tend to be on a general topic. So I'll take Chapter 1 as an example.

Chapter 10 has the topic 日本の便利な店. The chapter starts with some preparatory stuff before going to the reading about vending machines (自動販売機大国ニッポン), which is deliberately low on furigana apart from some difficult words, but has a list down the bottom of key kani compounds. The reading is about two pages long (earlier ones are shorter) but not especially difficult. Next is a detailed wordlist with the word, its reading, type of word (verb, noun, etc.) and English meaning indexed with its location in the reading passage.

Up next is the transcript of a conversation about convenience stores and how they're different between countries (Japan and America, specifically), the audio of which is online. This also has key kanji compounds at the bottom of the page and is followed by another wordlist. After that there are a series of questions relating to what was in the reading and conversation. Then there's an exercise to write your own conversation based on prompts and paying attention to politeness and stuff. Then there's a conversation with partner roleplay type exercise.

After that is one of the things I found best about this book, the grammar notes. This chapter has 17 grammar points lifted from the readings (with references to where it was from), with explanations of when you might use it, ways that it's translated into English, how it's actually used and example sentences. One issue is that the sentences from the reading and example sentences don't have English translations, but I didn't really have much trouble with that myself. The explanation in English was usually enough to understand what the examples mean, and you can of course look it up online if you're really struggling.

Following that is a table of kanji split into "things you should learn to read and write" and "things you should learn to read", again with where they were. This pretty closely follows the kanji compound lists at the bottom of readings.

The chapter then ends on a "Grammar note" explaining a general grammar principle (as opposed to the specific points in the grammar section). This one talks about dialects and has a little map of Japan with how they say すごくおいしい in different places.

With copyright I don't really want to include scans of pages (seeing as I can't find them anywhere I'm assuming you can't upload them), but the videos at least put up shots of the pages. If you really need to check it out before buying, see if you can find it at a local library or even better find out if any university libraries near you have a copy and check it there. I really like this text myself, and the grammar pages in particular are way better than any other text I've seen.

EDIT: There's a sample chapter on Amazon JP, just click on the picture of the cover.

I've found that Japanese textbooks do tend to go cheaper on amazon.co.jp then else where. Just make sure the ISBN of the book in question is the same and go for it! Some items wont be able to ship out of japan but most books that I've seen do!

I would switch the language from Japanese to English on the site just to ease the purchase (日本語 with the globe under it, just hover over it.)

And even if you've used the free prime trial on regular amazon you can get the trial again on the Japanese version, so free shipping!

EDIT:

For example this book and this book on the Japanese site both have the same ISBN 4874244475 which you can see in the Product Details so they are exactly the same book.

The full title is Tobira: Gateway to Advanced Japanese and I think it's pretty good.

http://www.amazon.com/Tobira-Advanced-Japanese-Learning-Multimedia/dp/4874244475


ISBN 978-4874244470

Is the tobira book you're describing the one listed below:
https://www.amazon.com/Tobira-Japanese-English-Mayumi-Oka/dp/4874244475/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1499474116&sr=8-1&keywords=tobira

Also, what's the difference between this tobira and tobira "grammar power?"

If u can, try to get this book. Its a good book.

https://www.amazon.com/Jpn-Tobira-Japanese-English-Mayumi-Oka/dp/4874244475/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1517496852&sr=1-1&keywords=tobira

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.

Try satori reader, from the guys who made human japanese.

If you really need a textbook you should probably go with Tobira, it covers more advanced stuff than genki but you can probably handle it since you finished Human Japanese.

I can also recommend ["Making Sense of Japanese"] (https://www.amazon.com/Making-Sense-Japanese-What-Textbooks/dp/156836492X) by Jay Rubin, it's a short read but gives you a deeper understanding of a few different topics.

Imabi is probably the most complete japanese resource in english and it's free, definitely give it a try.

Can't really say for an actual order between all of the books but you should learn hiragana and katakana before doing anything else (it's not so intimidating to do), and you can probably go on to use Genki 1 then Genki 2 after that.

That said you did pick several well recommended books so assuming you can get a study plan going (and stick with it) you should be on a good footing.

As far as other recommended resources, I've heard (but not tried it myself) Tobira mentioned as a good way of moving on after finishing Genki. For Kanji and (to a lesser extent) vocab you could also use Anki (free) or Wanikani (subscription / one off payment), or if you prefer textbooks KKLC.

Just found it on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/4874244475/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=4874244475&linkCode=as2&tag=xedi-20

It's a relatively new book. It seems that my school imported it in bulk and sold it to us. Hopefully the price will go down as more classes use the book and more copies hit the used books market.

It's only $40 on Amazon though

Japanese textbook. I thought I could get away with not spending money on textbooks this semester. I thought horribly wrong.

So I'm going to acknowledge that I feel dumb in asking this, is this the workbook for Tobira?


I want to order Tobira but I also want to get the workbook in the same order (so that way they ship together) and there's a couple Tobira books. Also, does anyone else recommend the Tobira kanji book?

And in case this causes any questions, where my understanding that it has a workbook is from is from this post.

There's a few different textbook options for continuing after げんき, but it seems that the most common choice here is とびら. I use it myself and I know several other members do as well, and I've found it to be quite comprehensive. Just a warning though: it is a pretty big leap in difficulty from what げんき had you doing, so be prepared to struggle a bit in the beginning.

It's at thirty bucks on amazon.co.jp.

Honestly, in my opinion, unless it's a very specialised language institution, don't even bother with traditional classes. The majority of them will do little more than go through the beginner textbooks at a pace 10x slower than you could on your own. All the information you need to learn the language is freely available as long as you have the discipline to go through it without being forced to.

The first step will be to learn hiragana, then katakana. After that you'll want to tackle grammar basics, beginner vocabulary and kanji, and then begin getting exposure to simple native content while exploring the more intermediate and advanced material.

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For kana:

Use mnemonics to familiarise yourself with hiragana and katakana.

Then drill yourself with a tool like DJT Kana until they are burned into your brain.

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For grammar:

The single free resource I most recommend in the beginning would be Wasabi's online reference, but there are plenty of other resources out there, including Tae Kim, Imabi, Maggie Sensei, Cure Dolly, etc...

For paid resources the most commonly recommended beginner textbook would be Genki. And then Tobira for more intermediate material. My most recommended resources to purchase would be a book called Making Sense of Japanese and the Dictionary of Japanese Grammar series, with emphasis placed on the first volume.

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For kanji and vocab:

Wanikani will automate the process for you if you have the cash to pay for a yearly subscription.

If not you can use Anki with either Kodansha's Kanji Learner's Course or with Remembering The Kanji.

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All my Japanese knowledge was acquired through self-study, starting with resources similar to these. After I had sufficient experience with the basics I went on to learn primarily through reading native material and using native linguistic resources.

It took around 3 years before I was able to begin reading light novels.

TBH The easy news can be too easy, and it's not really going to launch you much further in reading comprehension. It's not a bad resource by any means, but if it isn't challenging you, look for something that will. Reading will require you to know a ton of kanji (RIP), so I advise just getting books and going to town. There's also several styles of writing, so academic/news/similar read pretty differently from manga/light novels/etc. I am personally quite fond of the Gakken elementary school books. They cover science, autobiography, folktales, so on. They run from 1st~6th grade on the Japan scale, so the content and furigana are all in line with what's expected at that grade level. For reference, the 4th grade list. The 5th grade book I'm reading covers why we have a belly button, why albino rabbits are different from non-albino, why humans can't breathe underwater, why stinkbugs stink, and a ton of others. It's pretty easy to read, and it definitely challenges my vocabulary. Plus, it's a lot of things I'm at least vaguely familiar with in English, so it's easier to catch on.

I definitely recommend the Tobira textbook. I much prefer reading from paper (computer eye strain 2 real), so I have a lot of books. Concerning Tae Kim, I haven't treated it as a text by any stretch of the imagination: I use the search function and ctrl+F to get what I need and close the tab.

Also, the JLPT is... a test. And if you get 50%-ish of the material, you pass. IMO, it's not really worth anything unless you need the N2 or above to get a job in Japan (or where ever). I just passed N3 and I was genuinely surprised at my results. It's a good resume builder, but it doesn't test your ability to use Japanese, just if you understand it. It doesn't really help you much with anything besides reading.

Genki is the most commonly recommended beginners textbook over on /r/learnjapanese (definitely use this sub). Other options like Minna No Nihogo pretty much require a teacher or don't have the same availability genki has.

Tobira is an intermediate textbook that's pretty popular. The other option is An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese which is published by the same company as Genki, basicaly a Genki 3, but doesn't follow quite the same format. Personally I think Tobira is better but maybe is a little harder to use at the start for someone straight of Genki 2.

A lot of people move on to Tobira. That's what my college does, too.

As far as I can tell, there aren't any other editions.

Japanese Amazon doesn't even make mention of the edition on the page:
https://www.amazon.co.jp/%E4%B8%8A%E7%B4%9A%E3%81%B8%E3%81%AE%E3%81%A8%E3%81%B3%E3%82%89-%E2%80%95%E3%82%B3%E3%83%B3%E3%83%86%E3%83%B3%E3%83%84%E3%81%A8%E3%83%9E%E3%83%AB%E3%83%81%E3%83%A1%E3%83%87%E3%82%A3%E3%82%A2%E3%81%A7%E5%AD%A6%E3%81%B6%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E8%AA%9E-Advanced-Japanese-Multimedia/dp/4874244475/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1518034431&sr=8-2&keywords=%E3%81%A8%E3%81%B3%E3%82%89

Is this the correct version of Tobira to order? I'm looking to finish Genki II in about 6ish weeks (hopefully) and I wanted to ahead and get this book on order.

https://www.amazon.com/Jpn-Tobira-Japanese-English-Mayumi-Oka/dp/4874244475/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1519529443&sr=8-1&keywords=tobira