Textbooks

[chinotenshi]

Just a question for any of those who are studying Japanese in school (be it high school or college)...

What textbook are you using?

My university uses Japanese: The Spoken Language and Japanese: The Written Language. Both are written by the Japanese professor at Ohio State University, who my professors are very good friends with so we are almost required to use them. Personally, I don't really like the format sweatdrop  

[Nyx408]

I'm in year 12 and my class has been using the Wakatta! text book this year and last year. It's really good my only complaint is the book is really badly bound so everyone's pages are falling out randomly xp lol  

[chinotenshi]

Nyx408

I'm in year 12 and my class has been using the Wakatta! text book this year and last year. It's really good my only complaint is the book is really badly bound so everyone's pages are falling out randomly xp lol

Wakatta!? That's one I haven't heard of before. I'm going to most likely be teaching Japanese at a high school when I graduate next December, so I'm just looking for input on what textbooks people are using and if they're liking them. I'll have to look Wakatta! up now. Thanks whee  

[Yilei]

Both in high school and now we're using the book Yookoso! which is made by the University of California, San Diego. It's pretty interesting, but it uses a different school of romaji than probably most other textbooks. The emphasis on the romaji in the textbook is on proper pronunciation so things like "ou" will be written "oo" to emphasize more how you'd actually say the word. 3nodding  

[chinotenshi]

Yilei

Both in high school and now we're using the book Yookoso! which is made by the University of California, San Diego. It's pretty interesting, but it uses a different school of romaji than probably most other textbooks. The emphasis on the romaji in the textbook is on proper pronunciation so things like "ou" will be written "oo" to emphasize more how you'd actually say the word. 3nodding

That's the romaji you see in most textbooks I've noticed. It makes the transition from romaji to writing your own Japanese a lot harder because it's harder to tell when something is "ou" not "oo" in hiragana sweatdrop That was my biggest beef (besides the outrageously diffcult English) with the textbooks I used in college.  

[Yilei]

Yah, that's pretty much my biggest qualm with it as well. It's helpful for getting fluency and all, but in actuality I think it makes things a bit more difficult since you'll only use romaji for a short while before transitioning into really using kana and kanji all the time, so for me it just made things more confusing. I picked up on hiragana and katakana myself though before ever taking a class, so I might have a bias because of that, but to me it seems more difficult. I've TAed for a first year Japanese class in high school too, and the system focusing on pronunciation really doesn't help much with fixing students' pronunciation, so I don't see the point of it. sweatdrop  

[Vincent Valentine-Jenova]

I have the Kimono books....

they scare me more then my Japanese teacher does.  

[chinotenshi]

Vincent Valentine-Jenova

I have the Kimono books....

they scare me more then my Japanese teacher does.

Kimono is sooo cheesy domokun We had those at my high school for a few years. During my second year though they switched to whatever textbook my teacher was using in her college Japanese course she took to keep her certification up.

I actually miss the cheesiness that is Kimono sweatdrop

Yilei

Yah, that's pretty much my biggest qualm with it as well. It's helpful for getting fluency and all, but in actuality I think it makes things a bit more difficult since you'll only use romaji for a short while before transitioning into really using kana and kanji all the time, so for me it just made things more confusing. I picked up on hiragana and katakana myself though before ever taking a class, so I might have a bias because of that, but to me it seems more difficult. I've TAed for a first year Japanese class in high school too, and the system focusing on pronunciation really doesn't help much with fixing students' pronunciation, so I don't see the point of it. icon_sweatdrop.gif

I started with hiragana right off the back. Kimono required hiragana knowledge right from the start so I had to use it. We switched to a book with romaji the next year, but it didn't bother me that much. After I got back from Japan and started using the JSL and JWL books, I couldn't stand the romaji. I still can't. They don't go all the way to pronounciation like most books. It has "ou" as "oo" but it has "sha" as "sya" and "ja" as "zya" which confuses the hell out of me.  

[Nyx408]

None of the text books I've used have ever had romaji in them. We had to learn hiragana from the beginning so it's really confusing sometimes when I speak to people in japanese over the net or something in romaji sometimes sweatdrop lol. It's another reason I'm bad at writing down pronounciation. We never got told how to write that down either...the teacher told us how to say it and we said it and remembered it and that was it lol. Vincent wrote down the pronounciation in the posts next to the romaji or what ever to make it easier to read for newbies and I can't understand any of it xd  

[Vincent Valentine-Jenova]

chinotenshi

Vincent Valentine-Jenova

I have the Kimono books....

they scare me more then my Japanese teacher does.

Kimono is sooo cheesy domokun We had those at my high school for a few years. During my second year though they switched to whatever textbook my teacher was using in her college Japanese course she took to keep her certification up.

I actually miss the cheesiness that is Kimono sweatdrop

eek you miss it?!
want me to scan in a couple pages?

Nyx: thats because I try to relate it like I did when I first started, what it sounded like it should be writen in English.  

[chinotenshi]

Vincent Valentine-Jenova

chinotenshi

Vincent Valentine-Jenova

I have the Kimono books....

they scare me more then my Japanese teacher does.

Kimono is sooo cheesy domokun We had those at my high school for a few years. During my second year though they switched to whatever textbook my teacher was using in her college Japanese course she took to keep her certification up.

I actually miss the cheesiness that is Kimono sweatdrop

eek you miss it?!
want me to scan in a couple pages?

Nyx: thats because I try to relate it like I did when I first started, what it sounded like it should be writen in English.

Thanks, but I think I can probably steal one from my high school teacher when I go in to help her Tuesday or Thursday. They don't use it, so I doubt they'll really miss it if they still have copies.

I miss the tapes the most ;_; The inflections were just hilarious for some of the manga at the beginning of the chapters domokun  

[Vincent Valentine-Jenova]

chinotenshi

Vincent Valentine-Jenova

chinotenshi

Vincent Valentine-Jenova

I have the Kimono books....

they scare me more then my Japanese teacher does.

Kimono is sooo cheesy domokun We had those at my high school for a few years. During my second year though they switched to whatever textbook my teacher was using in her college Japanese course she took to keep her certification up.

I actually miss the cheesiness that is Kimono sweatdrop

eek you miss it?!
want me to scan in a couple pages?

Nyx: thats because I try to relate it like I did when I first started, what it sounded like it should be writen in English.

Thanks, but I think I can probably steal one from my high school teacher when I go in to help her Tuesday or Thursday. They don't use it, so I doubt they'll really miss it if they still have copies.

I miss the tapes the most ;_; The inflections were just hilarious for some of the manga at the beginning of the chapters domokun

hehe so far my favorites are where Teri says that the kiddy pool is the reall pool, then someone yells at them for lying and theres the slasher music in the backround. (first book)

then the whole Teri babysitting thing. (second book)  

[chinotenshi]

Vincent Valentine-Jenova

chinotenshi

Vincent Valentine-Jenova

chinotenshi

Vincent Valentine-Jenova

I have the Kimono books....

they scare me more then my Japanese teacher does.

Kimono is sooo cheesy domokun We had those at my high school for a few years. During my second year though they switched to whatever textbook my teacher was using in her college Japanese course she took to keep her certification up.

I actually miss the cheesiness that is Kimono sweatdrop

eek you miss it?!
want me to scan in a couple pages?

Nyx: thats because I try to relate it like I did when I first started, what it sounded like it should be writen in English.

Thanks, but I think I can probably steal one from my high school teacher when I go in to help her Tuesday or Thursday. They don't use it, so I doubt they'll really miss it if they still have copies.

I miss the tapes the most ;_; The inflections were just hilarious for some of the manga at the beginning of the chapters domokun

hehe so far my favorites are where Teri says that the kiddy pool is the reall pool, then someone yells at them for lying and theres the slasher music in the backround. (first book)

then the whole Teri babysitting thing. (second book)

Hehe. The pool scene is awesome. My personal fav was when Teri tries to trick his friends on the train. The train master just says "sukeeto boodo desuka" in absolutely horrible intonation. we listened to that line repeatedly for about 5 minutes before going on with the class domokun  

[Tenzin Chodron]

My University uses Nakama 1 and Nakama 2 for its first few Japanese classes. Nakama 1 takes you from Japanese 100, through Japanese 101, and into 102. Nakama 2 starts you at Japanese 200 and goes from there. There's also workbooks that go with the textbooks, which are very helpful, I find.  

[Jamans]

Heh.
I haven't started college yet, and I don't know what Japanese class I'm in next year, so I have no clue what textbooks to get for that...
but, in high school we used the Obentou books. My teacher fell in love with them in Australia, and despite the cheesyness of the books, they were fairly decent. The first two had mangas at the beginning of each section (including an on-going romance with two of the characters). The tapes had people speaking with Australian accents in Japanese which amused us to no end.