We've got a few quick lessons under our belts, have, hopefully, mastered all the kana and even have a little bit of basic vocabularly under our belts. I'm sure many of you are chomping at the bit with the desire to rush out and buy flashcards, dictionaries, grammar books and other useful language learning resources. Listen up all you beginners, as this is the best advice I will ever likely give you.Don't do it.
Seriously, you just started learning Japanese. Don't go out and drop a couple hundred dollars on books that are far too advanced for you. There is a high probability many will stop trying to learn Japanese after the first month. Some might last until they get to the kanji. Furthermore, you don't need those things yet. What's a kanji dictionary going to do for you right now? Unless you are pretty far along, it's useless. Grammar books? You don't know enough words, let alone have the verbs, particles or know how to conjugate in Japanese.
I'm not trying to discourage you from learning the language. Far from it. I'm just trying to save you some money. Those books will be there in 3 months time when you might start needing them. Don't overcommit when there are numerous resources on the internet available to you for the introductory Japanese lessons.
That said, you will need books eventually. Sadly, the online world doesn't have nearly enough resources to fulfill our Japanese learning hunger. Therefore, I've prepared a list of my recommendations for various Japanese resources and brief descriptions of them and when you would be best served in purchasing or using them.
Yosh, let's begin, shall we?
Asolute Pimsleur's Japanese
This is the best tool I have found in my quest to learn Japanese. I've learned more from these lessons in the past couple months than I did in all my previous attempts combined. I recommend these to anyone serious about learning Japanese. They are expensive, but far cheaper than any college or university course or private tutour would be.
Each of the three programs provides thirty thirty minute (roughly) lessons. Each lesson has a shorter supplimentary reading tape that explains small things, like honourifics or politeness and so on. Nice extra, but not really essential either.
The lessons consist of roughly the same formula each time. They start with a conversation, which is made up of words and phrases from previous lessons combined with one or two new words you'll be introduced to later. From there, it goes into a basic refresher course on the previous lesson or two before introducing new words and phrases. It then builds up the new words with more and more complex uses for the new words. It then ends with another conversation, similar to the first one, which reiterates everything you know from previous lessons and have learned in the current one.
The lessons contain clear and easily understood English and Japanese voice work. The Japanese features a male and female so you can get used to the different intonations and pitches from a male and female perspective. I have never found myself wondering what they said or what that last word's pronounciation was, as every new word or sentence is repeated numerous times, typically a regular speed introduction followed by word by word breakdowns into syllables.
If you're interested in picking up this series, you can follow the links below to Amazon.com, where you can purchase one or all of them.
Absolute Pimsleur's Japanese I
Absolute Pimsleur's Japanese II
Absolute Pimsluer's Japanese III
Kodansha's furigana Japanese Dictionary
This dictionary is perfect for beginners and intermediate Japanese learners. Furigana basically means that the kanji contain small hiragana characters above them that indicate how to pronounce them. As a dictionary, it functions fairly straightforward. It orders the words based on the hiragana orderings, which is how I listed them in my kana introduction post. It is also completely devoid of romanji. That means you must learn the kana in order to even use this dictionary. This is a good thing. As I keep saying, do not rely on romanji. EVER.
For a dictionary, it's fairly small and lightweight. You can't put it in a pocket, but it's not some 1000 page monster that you could crush a small child with either. It contains about 16000 words, which, while it sounds like a lot, is fairly small. However, it's a perfect first dictionary. It contains all the words you will likely be interested in while starting out and each word contains multiple sentences and alternate uses. Here's an example of how entries are handled (note - I can't do furigana over the kanji. Just know that it is above the kanji in the book).
As you can see, it's quite thorough, even on basic words, such as 'there'. The font size is easy on the eyes and the paper and print quality is excellent. It's soft cover and comes with a nice, durable cover jacket. I still use this dictionary today. It's great for practicing reading kana, randomly building vocabulary and the example sentences are great for learning from as well. It's not something you'll need right away, but will be useful shortly after learning the kana and will last you throughout most of your learning days.
Of note, the book comes in two flavours, as the links below show. One is half the size and contains only Japanese entries with English definitions. The other is double the size and, I assume, since I have the first version, contains the exact same Japanese entries as the other version. The second half is made up of English entries with the Japanese definitions. It's more expensive, but you get more as well. I went with the Japanese only version, but I kind of regret not getting the double sized one now.
Kodansha's Furigana Japanese Dictionary: Japanese-English English-Japanese
Kodansha's Furigana Japanese Dictionary: Japanese-English
Kanji Flashcards
Eventually, you'll be moving onto kanji, the bane of most Japanese learners' existence. Personally, I made my own flashcards from ruled index cards, which are simply a sturdy 3x5" card that most stores that carry school supplies should have. It's time consuming work writing out all the kanji, meanings, on and kun readings, strokes, stroke order and common compounds, so you might want to forego all that and just buy your own cards.
If you opt to buy the cards, White Rabbit Press is the way to go. I don't own these, but I've read reviews and looked at the various example images of all the cards and these things are beautiful. Currently, they come in two sets. One contains the JLPT 4 and 3 kanji, which are the ones you need to prepare for those tests. The other contains all the JLPT 2 kanji, for that level test. The kanji have different coloured fonts to represent which JLPT test they are for, so you can easily separate them if need be.
These cards are made of sturdy stock cover with a beautiful finish that makes them easy to hold and almost impossible to smudge or stain. They are also rounded, which, if you've ever used stacks of squared flashcards, is a definite plus. They also come with a neat little box for carrying them in so they don't get damaged.
White Rabbit Press Japanese Kanji Flashcards, Vol. 1
White Rabbit Press Japanese Kanji Flashcards, Vol. 2
Kanji Dictionaries
Much like the flashcards, people will quickly find themselves in need of kanji dictionaries. I'm a firm believer in Kodansha. The quality of their books is above and beyond the other Japanese publishers and I pretty much recommand anything by them.
Case in point, The Kodansha Kanji Learners Dictionary. This is an excellent first kanji dictionary. It uses an excellent and easy to understand look up system (kanji don't have an alphabetical ordering, just radicals and strokes) that is a godsend for beginners that don't even know what a kanji radical is or how to count the number of strokes in more complex kanji. The only flaw in it is something that goes against everything I've said so far. It has no kana, just romanji writings.
I want to write this book off for that simple fact, but it's just too good with everything else in the book. It's not crammed in little kanji with short definitions like other books. It features easy to read fonts and kanji sizes, detailed stroke orders, example uses and compounds and is pretty much perfect in every other regard. I assume you'll be fluent with your kana by the time you are doing kanji, so I'm willing to let the romanji slide just this once. Most every other publisher uses romanji in their kanji dictionaries too, but know that this is the only romanji you'll ever use.
Next on deck, again from Kodansha, is the Kodanshas Essential Kanji Dictionary. It is your standard dictionary. It doesn't contain any stroke orders and looks like the typical Webster's English Dictionary with crunched together words one after another and brief definitions.
This is a much more robust dictionary than the The Kodansha Kanji Learners Dictionary version and features far more words and a less forgiving look up method than the SKIP system used in that one. The other one is a 'learners' version for a reason and it's mostly for simply kanji and mastering how to write them. This Essential version is just that, essential. You can wait until you are more advanced, possibly after going through your first couple hundred kanji, before you pick up this book. It's worth it though and you'll be using this one forever. It's ordered by radicals and each radical is broken into On- and Kun- readings and then strokes. Each has the kana readings for the word after the kanji and that is followed by the numerous English translations for each set of kanji. A must have book for anyone at the kanji stage.
The Kodansha Kanji Learners Dictionary
Kodanshas Essential Kanji Dictionary
Grammar Related Books
To be honest, I don't have much experience with many grammar books. I'm just not that far along. I'm busy learning more and more kanji and vocabulary, but I do have a few books and of those, the ones by Naoko Chino are head and shoulders above the rest.
All About Particles: A Handbook of Japanese Function Words is my top choice for any grammar book. It's about a 150 pages, but pretty damn cheap as well. Price be damned though, I'd pay double the listed price for this book as it is infinitely useful. Featuring quality page and binding capped with a durable cardstock cover jacket, this is a great little book you can take anywhere with you and not have to worry about it getting damaged. Fonts are clear and easy to read as well. This one features full kanji and kana mixed sentences and has romanji below it for any that fell to the darkside or if you don't know the kanji (most are basic kanji though, nothing rare). This is all capped with the English translation of the sentence. These sentences are used to explain and give examples of about 70 different particles used in Japanese sentences ranging from the simple は and が to でわ and ところ. All are covered in full with several different uses and variations of the particle with multiple sentences for each variation. Don't buy this right out of the gate, though. It's a must have book, but not until you need it. If you're new, you'll end up just sitting on the shelf or desk for months on end wondering why you bought it or getting discouraged because you can't even understand the book you bought. Get it after about three months of solid hard work.
I have one other book from Chino and it is top notch as well. I haven't read the other two listed books, but if they are half as useful as the first two, then they are better than just about any other book you could pick up.
All About Particles: A Handbook of Japanese Function Words
A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Sentence Patterns
How to Tell the Difference between Japanese Particles: Comparisons and Exercises
Japanese Verbs at a Glance
Conclusion
That's all for now. It's a short, but varied list of invaluable items. I could probably list a half a dozen other useful items, such as Japanese For Busy People or Minna no Nihongo, as well as numerous dictionaries and grammar books, but I wanted to keep it concise and filled with resources I know to be of high quality. I have some more books in the mail as we speak, so if the need arises, I might update with another post or add onto this one with more additions to useful resources for our mutual journies to mastering Japanese.
This is the best tool I have found in my quest to learn Japanese. I've learned more from these lessons in the past couple months than I did in all my previous attempts combined. I recommend these to anyone serious about learning Japanese. They are expensive, but far cheaper than any college or university course or private tutour would be.
Each of the three programs provides thirty thirty minute (roughly) lessons. Each lesson has a shorter supplimentary reading tape that explains small things, like honourifics or politeness and so on. Nice extra, but not really essential either.
The lessons consist of roughly the same formula each time. They start with a conversation, which is made up of words and phrases from previous lessons combined with one or two new words you'll be introduced to later. From there, it goes into a basic refresher course on the previous lesson or two before introducing new words and phrases. It then builds up the new words with more and more complex uses for the new words. It then ends with another conversation, similar to the first one, which reiterates everything you know from previous lessons and have learned in the current one.
The lessons contain clear and easily understood English and Japanese voice work. The Japanese features a male and female so you can get used to the different intonations and pitches from a male and female perspective. I have never found myself wondering what they said or what that last word's pronounciation was, as every new word or sentence is repeated numerous times, typically a regular speed introduction followed by word by word breakdowns into syllables.
If you're interested in picking up this series, you can follow the links below to Amazon.com, where you can purchase one or all of them.
Absolute Pimsleur's Japanese I
Absolute Pimsleur's Japanese II
Absolute Pimsluer's Japanese III
Kodansha's furigana Japanese Dictionary
This dictionary is perfect for beginners and intermediate Japanese learners. Furigana basically means that the kanji contain small hiragana characters above them that indicate how to pronounce them. As a dictionary, it functions fairly straightforward. It orders the words based on the hiragana orderings, which is how I listed them in my kana introduction post. It is also completely devoid of romanji. That means you must learn the kana in order to even use this dictionary. This is a good thing. As I keep saying, do not rely on romanji. EVER.
For a dictionary, it's fairly small and lightweight. You can't put it in a pocket, but it's not some 1000 page monster that you could crush a small child with either. It contains about 16000 words, which, while it sounds like a lot, is fairly small. However, it's a perfect first dictionary. It contains all the words you will likely be interested in while starting out and each word contains multiple sentences and alternate uses. Here's an example of how entries are handled (note - I can't do furigana over the kanji. Just know that it is above the kanji in the book).
そこ that place, there
(Like other Japanese demonstartives beginning with そ-, そこ has two uses. One is to refer to aplace which is in sight and is relatively far from the speaker but relatively close to the listerner. The other is to refer to a place not in sight which is familiar only to the speaker or only to the listener.) [<--> ここ ; あそこ ]
*note <--> means other words that sound similar*
そこで何をしているの
What are you doing there?
そこの生徒に聞きなさい
Ask the student there.
*there are about four more example sentences for this excerpt, but I'm only listing these two. Most have between two readings. All have at least one.*
As you can see, it's quite thorough, even on basic words, such as 'there'. The font size is easy on the eyes and the paper and print quality is excellent. It's soft cover and comes with a nice, durable cover jacket. I still use this dictionary today. It's great for practicing reading kana, randomly building vocabulary and the example sentences are great for learning from as well. It's not something you'll need right away, but will be useful shortly after learning the kana and will last you throughout most of your learning days.
Of note, the book comes in two flavours, as the links below show. One is half the size and contains only Japanese entries with English definitions. The other is double the size and, I assume, since I have the first version, contains the exact same Japanese entries as the other version. The second half is made up of English entries with the Japanese definitions. It's more expensive, but you get more as well. I went with the Japanese only version, but I kind of regret not getting the double sized one now.
Kodansha's Furigana Japanese Dictionary: Japanese-English English-Japanese
Kodansha's Furigana Japanese Dictionary: Japanese-English
Kanji Flashcards
Eventually, you'll be moving onto kanji, the bane of most Japanese learners' existence. Personally, I made my own flashcards from ruled index cards, which are simply a sturdy 3x5" card that most stores that carry school supplies should have. It's time consuming work writing out all the kanji, meanings, on and kun readings, strokes, stroke order and common compounds, so you might want to forego all that and just buy your own cards.
If you opt to buy the cards, White Rabbit Press is the way to go. I don't own these, but I've read reviews and looked at the various example images of all the cards and these things are beautiful. Currently, they come in two sets. One contains the JLPT 4 and 3 kanji, which are the ones you need to prepare for those tests. The other contains all the JLPT 2 kanji, for that level test. The kanji have different coloured fonts to represent which JLPT test they are for, so you can easily separate them if need be.
These cards are made of sturdy stock cover with a beautiful finish that makes them easy to hold and almost impossible to smudge or stain. They are also rounded, which, if you've ever used stacks of squared flashcards, is a definite plus. They also come with a neat little box for carrying them in so they don't get damaged.
White Rabbit Press Japanese Kanji Flashcards, Vol. 1
White Rabbit Press Japanese Kanji Flashcards, Vol. 2
Kanji Dictionaries
Much like the flashcards, people will quickly find themselves in need of kanji dictionaries. I'm a firm believer in Kodansha. The quality of their books is above and beyond the other Japanese publishers and I pretty much recommand anything by them.
Case in point, The Kodansha Kanji Learners Dictionary. This is an excellent first kanji dictionary. It uses an excellent and easy to understand look up system (kanji don't have an alphabetical ordering, just radicals and strokes) that is a godsend for beginners that don't even know what a kanji radical is or how to count the number of strokes in more complex kanji. The only flaw in it is something that goes against everything I've said so far. It has no kana, just romanji writings.
I want to write this book off for that simple fact, but it's just too good with everything else in the book. It's not crammed in little kanji with short definitions like other books. It features easy to read fonts and kanji sizes, detailed stroke orders, example uses and compounds and is pretty much perfect in every other regard. I assume you'll be fluent with your kana by the time you are doing kanji, so I'm willing to let the romanji slide just this once. Most every other publisher uses romanji in their kanji dictionaries too, but know that this is the only romanji you'll ever use.
Next on deck, again from Kodansha, is the Kodanshas Essential Kanji Dictionary. It is your standard dictionary. It doesn't contain any stroke orders and looks like the typical Webster's English Dictionary with crunched together words one after another and brief definitions.
This is a much more robust dictionary than the The Kodansha Kanji Learners Dictionary version and features far more words and a less forgiving look up method than the SKIP system used in that one. The other one is a 'learners' version for a reason and it's mostly for simply kanji and mastering how to write them. This Essential version is just that, essential. You can wait until you are more advanced, possibly after going through your first couple hundred kanji, before you pick up this book. It's worth it though and you'll be using this one forever. It's ordered by radicals and each radical is broken into On- and Kun- readings and then strokes. Each has the kana readings for the word after the kanji and that is followed by the numerous English translations for each set of kanji. A must have book for anyone at the kanji stage.
The Kodansha Kanji Learners Dictionary
Kodanshas Essential Kanji Dictionary
Grammar Related Books
To be honest, I don't have much experience with many grammar books. I'm just not that far along. I'm busy learning more and more kanji and vocabulary, but I do have a few books and of those, the ones by Naoko Chino are head and shoulders above the rest.
All About Particles: A Handbook of Japanese Function Words is my top choice for any grammar book. It's about a 150 pages, but pretty damn cheap as well. Price be damned though, I'd pay double the listed price for this book as it is infinitely useful. Featuring quality page and binding capped with a durable cardstock cover jacket, this is a great little book you can take anywhere with you and not have to worry about it getting damaged. Fonts are clear and easy to read as well. This one features full kanji and kana mixed sentences and has romanji below it for any that fell to the darkside or if you don't know the kanji (most are basic kanji though, nothing rare). This is all capped with the English translation of the sentence. These sentences are used to explain and give examples of about 70 different particles used in Japanese sentences ranging from the simple は and が to でわ and ところ. All are covered in full with several different uses and variations of the particle with multiple sentences for each variation. Don't buy this right out of the gate, though. It's a must have book, but not until you need it. If you're new, you'll end up just sitting on the shelf or desk for months on end wondering why you bought it or getting discouraged because you can't even understand the book you bought. Get it after about three months of solid hard work.
I have one other book from Chino and it is top notch as well. I haven't read the other two listed books, but if they are half as useful as the first two, then they are better than just about any other book you could pick up.
All About Particles: A Handbook of Japanese Function Words
A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Sentence Patterns
How to Tell the Difference between Japanese Particles: Comparisons and Exercises
Japanese Verbs at a Glance
Conclusion
That's all for now. It's a short, but varied list of invaluable items. I could probably list a half a dozen other useful items, such as Japanese For Busy People or Minna no Nihongo, as well as numerous dictionaries and grammar books, but I wanted to keep it concise and filled with resources I know to be of high quality. I have some more books in the mail as we speak, so if the need arises, I might update with another post or add onto this one with more additions to useful resources for our mutual journies to mastering Japanese.
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