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Please use this thread to recommend study books and CDs (NOT music CDs) for studying Japanese. Do not spam this thread: only post if you are recommending something.
Here is an example of how it must be written:
Title:
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Level: (beginner, intermediate, etc)
Why?: (your reasons for recommending this book)
Please also feel free to post a link to a place to buy the book (ie, Amazon) The more information about the book, the better.
Title: 日本語総まとめ問題集 [2級語彙編] (4 book set : vocabulary, grammar, reading comprehension/techniques, and reading)
Author: 佐々木 仁子, 松本 紀子
Publisher: アスク
ISBN: 978-4872176162 (vocabulary book)
Level: JLPT 2 (intermediate and up)
Why?: These are the best books for this level that I have found. They include images to help illustrate what they teach. Better yet, the instructions include English (as well as Chinese and Korean) explanations- this is uncommon as most are strictly in Japanese. No furigana!! The book is laid out with daily lessons and quizzes and well as a JLPT mock test at the end of the week. With a price like 1200 yen, why not buy all 4?! If you want more info, contact me directly.
at Amazon.jp
Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/Basic-Kanji-Bo...8664549&sr=8-1
This is the Kanji book I'm going to be using in my next Japanese course starting in about a week and a half. I've started looking through it and it has really good explanations of how Kanji were developed, which makes it easy to learn.
Title: Kana Cards
Author: Glen McCabe
Publisher: Tuttle
ISBN: 978-0804835503
Level: beginner
Why?: confused by hiragana and katakana? Get your kyo and kiyo confused? These cards include stroke order and simple words. Also in the set are vocabulary cards, so you can learn some words without having to worry about the kanji (yet!). Plus, the author is super cute. :)
Title: Elementary Japanese
Author: Yoko Hasegawa
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
ISBN: 0-8048-3504-7
Level: Beginner
Why?: It works on basic grammar points in an easy way to remember. It's very helpful if you really want to get a good start in the language. Plus it gradually introduces new kanji with each chapter, which helps with learning that part of Japanese.
Are any of these books good for beggining, I know zero japanese. Other than what I can pick up from subs, and that aint much
Check the "level" of each listing.
Title: Total Japanese (4 volumes: Conversation 1&2, Reading & Writing, Grammar and Conversation notes)
Publisher: Bonjinsha
ISBN: 9784893582782, 9784893582799, 9784893582898, 9784893582881
Level: Beginner through lower intermediate
Title: 聞いて覚える話し方 日本語生中継 (きいておぼえるはなしかた にほんごなまちゅうけい）
Publisher: Kuroshio Shuppan
ISBN: 9784874243398 (beginner to lower intermediate), 9784874243008(upper intermediate)
Level: Beginner through upper intermediate (Conversational Japanese)
Title: Japanese for busy people vol I, 3rd edition
Publisher: AJALT (Association for Japanese language teaching)
ISBN: -13:978-4-7700-3008-5 *and* -10:4-7700-3008-8
Level: Beginner--> Elementary
Why?: It's a good book. I study from it, and I found it to be really helpful. With great lessons and tips, it makes the grammar and sentence points easy to understand. Though the book is romanized, it has an incredibly good hiragana and katakana chart. (よ、ゆ, ", and that circle) It alsocomes with a free 70 minute CD containing dialogues and vocabulary.
The only downside is that its designed for those who want to speak Japanese... it doesnt cover Kanji at all, and aside from the Beginning dialogue at the beginning of each lesson/unit, there is nothing to practice reading and writing kana.
** I also hear that "Genki" and "Minna no Nihon go" are two awesome books! Im trying to get my hands on them now **
JBP (Japanese for Busy People) 3 3e is also really good. There's *A LOT* changed between the 2e and 3e, and having read both cover-to-cover, I think I can safely say I like 3e much more.
Also, JBP3 covers Kanji. Given the types of Kanji it covers, I'd bet JBP2 also covers Kanji.
From what I've heard and read, Minna Nihongo is really for advanced-level people looking to improve their skills, or for Japanese natives taking Japanese courses the same way Westerners take English. I've heard (never read the book or even seen it, but from rumours and reports) that it's quite difficult to learn from, especially for self-study.
Title: Japanese Grammar - Second Edition
Author: Carol and Nobuo Akiyama
Publisher: Barron's
ISBN-10: 0-7641-2061-1
ISBN-13: 978-0-7641-2061-9
Level: Beginner - Intermediate/Advanced
Why?: It explains things well, and it does not assume that you know the techincal terms of the English and Japanese languages. It places verbs into charts with their conjugations, as well as an explanation of the different conjugations. It also has a good section on Joshi, and their uses in a sentence, along with those that come at the end of sentences.
Cons: The only thing that bugs me is that they insist that you use Watakushi as the personal pronoun 'I', which I find to be too formal. Though other then that, there is not much I can fault with it.
Title: The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Dictionary
Author: Jack Halpern (I think)
Publisher: Kodansha
ISBN: 9784-7700-2855-6
Level: All Levels
Why?: It is very good for looking up Kanji, their readings, how to write them, and common uses of that kanji.
Title: A Dictionary or Basic Japanese Sentence Patterns
Author: Naoko Chino
Publisher: Kodansha
ISBN: 978-4-7700-2608-8
Level: All Levels
Why?: I found this book to be very easy to comprehend. It uses simple letters like "N", "Adj", and "V" to clarify the grammar of the sentence. and showing real exsamples of it with real sentences.
Example:
("N" would mean "noun", etc.)
N1 wa N2 desu.
N1 is N2.
Watashi wa Tanaka desu.
I am Mr. Tanaka
---
Sorting the sentences into different variations of basic patterns. The book also provides understandable formulas so as to give even more of an explination of what everything means. I got 100 pages through it in less than a few weeks.
It's a lot easier than most grammar books I've read where there's arrows going every which way; get's confusing.. lol.
I highly recommend this:
Title: A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar
Author: Seiichi Makino, Michio Tsutsui
Publisher: The Japan Times
ISBN: 4-78910-0454-6
Level: beginner level
Why?: It contains explanations of all basic grammar points you will encounter in your study of elementary Japanese
Actually, I recommend getting this as a 3-book set: A Dictionary of Basic/Intermediate/Advanced Japanese Grammar so you will always have a great reference no matter where you are in your Japanese language study :)
I also used Minna no Nihongo extensively when I was studying so I recommend that too :)