My Plan to Learn Japanese, pt. III ~ Changing textbooks and finding the path forward

The last time I posted about learning Japanese was over half a year ago! My blog took a detour as I focused on the Narnia series, but it is not as though I have not been engaged in learning Japanese.. All along, I've been pressing forward, but have been busy with real life that my limited spare time has been focused on actually learning Japanese, and there has not been enough extra time to justify writing about the process on my blog... but... It's finally time! Here's my update.

If you've read my previous posts, you know that my primary way of learning kanji is through WaniKani..

On WaniKani, I've reached this many items at Guru+ : 390部首 999漢字 3274単語 

What that means is that I've learned about 380 radicals, but I don't really care about those numbers, because WaniKani's radical system is idiosyncratic. But what I do care about is that I have learned about 1,000 kanji and over 3,200 vocabulary words. I've also got several items at the Apprentice level. So, I'm approaching being somewhat familiar with 1,000 kanji and three times that many vocabulary words.

However, if you were to ask me how many of those I could actively use in a sentence of my own or 100% recognize and read accurately on a consistent basis, the number is a bit lower... but I've at least built up a pretty good base.

So, I've been focusing more on grammar. And I have an update on that. At first, I was using a combination of Japanese for Busy People 1 and Genki 1 to get my initial foundational instruction and to get me started. However, now that I've completed both of those, I've realized that parts of my foundation weren't built as strong as I would have like, so I've actually decided to take a different approach to move forward as I progress into the higher beginner phase/elementary. And that means that I've switched over to Minna no Nihongo. 

The thing about Minna no Nihongo that you'll always hear is that the text is completely in Japanese, and that's essentially true. BUT the companion Vocabulary, Grammar, & Translation booklet that serves as an instructional manual is solid. Also, what I've found is that it is actually easier to use a separate booklet than the trouble you have with Genki in flipping back and forth within the units from the practice sections to the presentation sections and back and a forth between the two. Also, I've found the progression of steps from simple grammar exercises to more challenging and communicative practice to be satisfying pedagogically sound.

I initially switched over to Minna Nihongo at the end of January and then completed all of Book 1 by the end of February/the beginning of March. So now I'm on Book 2.

I'm still using Genki for some of the audio samples and practice. The recording quality is inconsistent and occasionally quite poor. BUT it is helpful to listen again and again to get some of the patterns into my mind. I'm not always a fan of every pedagogical choice the authors and sound recorders made, but I value enough of the content to keep coming back to it. I've reached Level 18 in Genki, which means I'm about halfway through the book. I'm looking forward to moving on from it, but I'll definitely appreciate a bit of the aid it has provided. Minna no Nihongo is constructed more carefully and I'd argue it is a much better textbook on the path toward Japanese acquisition, but Genki has been an essential resource in my progress over the last year or so.

Next, I'll give an update on other resources, but I think this Kanji learning & textbook update was necessary!

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