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Yeah, don’t use a book that relies on romaji. Nakama uses romaji to teach hiragana, but drops it completely after the first chapter. There is some logic to “tu” and “ti”, though, in that they fit the pattern. Ka-ki-ku-ke-ko -> ta-ti-tu-te-to. Et cetera.
Speaking of kanji, though, there is one minor downside to Tobira: all the kanji lessons are in a separate book.
I… don’t really understand quite what it is you’re trying to say. It feels like half the main clause is missing. Is there context I’m not getting?
As for his comment on ですよね, it’s something like “you don’t use it if you’re not talking to a companion”.
“It’s not easy to read that large Japanese textbook when it’s a beautiful day. I do not want to do. I want to play. But I can do it.”
Yeah, but I think only Doctor Seuss actually writes like that. =P サム・アイ・アムさん、緑の卵とハムがきらいですよ。
Anyway, I kinda think starting over from scratch with Nakama would be a bit of a step back, but if that’s what you want to do, then go ahead, though it might be worth considering Japanese for Busy People. Either way, the Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar is certainly worth getting, even if you don’t actually read it cover to cover. Maybe even the Intermediate and Advanced volumes too…
I couldn’t say, to be honest – I’ve actually never gotten around to doing about half of TextFugu. Like I said, my self-study’s been rather poor lately. I’m inclining towards “yes”, with the caveat that Tobira is a fair jump up from either TextFugu OR Nakama. It’s not a direct sequel to Nakama, obviously, so it covers a bit of the same material here and there, but you’d want to be fairly confident of your reading ability, because it’s verging on Japanese-all-the-time – the only English in the book (besides the introduction “how to use this book” section) is in the lists of new vocab and grammar. Helpfully, there’s a list of assumed-knowledge kanji on the Tobira website ( http://tobira.9640.jp/tobiralogin – though I don’t know how much you can access without registering).
Welcome! I didn’t know there were any members of the New Zealand military stationed in Japan. When are you going?
I’ve been using Tobira in my third-year course at uni (since Nakama has only two volumes, hah). It’s got fifteen chapters, each with a couple of passages to read, and about fifteen to twenty grammar points explained with example sentences. Thing is, I’d hesitate to call many of them actual grammar – they’re more like a special usage for specific words… though I guess that’s what grammar is, when you think about it. You can also buy a separate grammar workbook… which I’ve not touched at all. Actually, I’ve not really been doing enough self-study this year…
I kinda think there’s no real difference between the meanings. It’s something like “this Saturday” versus “next Saturday” – to some “this Saturday” is the Saturday of the current week, while “next Saturday” is the Saturday of next week, while to others “next Saturday” is the Saturday that comes next, regardless of how many days come in between now and then. It’s a terrible example because it’s confusing, but the point is that “this” and “next” can refer to the same day in different circumstances.
Plus, context is important. If you say 今度、私は勝つ right after losing a game to someone, it means “I’ll win next time”, whereas if you say it right before playing, it’s “I’ll win this time”. Notice, both are referring to the immediate next time you play, just it happens sooner in one example.
I’m sure SOME people actually read it cover to cover.
Are you implying something, perchance? =P
Anyway, I find Japanese for Busy People to be fairly good. You’d basically be starting over from scratch, though, but it does focus on slightly different grammar to Koichi – it’s geared a little bit towards businessmen.
Maybe there’s something wrong with the card itself? For example, it’s been blocked, or reached some limit.
So far as I know, there aren’t any officially-released lists of JLPT kanji, just (very) educated guesses. You can’t go too far wrong with a hundred or so kanji under your belt, though.
I use an iPhone/iPad flash card app called Sticky Study – it’s got collections of kanji and vocab from N5 to N1, plus the Joyo kanji and kanji from school grades 1 to 9. And yeah, I know that list of collections involves the same kanji sorted three different ways. =P
Yeah, that thought had crossed my mind. However, I can’t paste in these forums while using my iPad, for some reason. Also, the auto-correct function goes completely haywire if I try to correct my own spelling mistakes. Something else for Koichi to fix while he’s re-enabling the search function…
It’s fine to use it for others, but I’d hesitate before using it for myself. The key is that you don’t want to sound too polite about yourself, because it makes you sound arrogant. “This person hails from the almighty nation of Manhattan” or something.
I think it’s fairly safe to say that いなりずし is about as un-cute as sushi gets. =P
Welcome! That’s not, admittedly, much of an introduction. =P Where are you from? Why are you learning Japanese?
Also, gotta be a bit careful when using IME – you’ve somehow managed to write “syonara” =P
七 is a bit of a weird one in that its readings tend to be fairly interchangeable. 四 as well, to a lesser extent. For the rest, you’ll only see their kun’yomi in fairly specific situations.
It’s not a stupid question, just Koichi’s stupid order of doing things. Confuses pretty much everyone.
