Physical Media

Textbooks

TL;DR: We recommend Genki

GENKI

The most commonly recommended textbook series in /r/LearnJapanese, published by Japan Times. Genki is a comprehensive textbook series designed for beginners; no previous knowledge is required to use Genki (although it won't hurt). Genki is also known for being very affordable compared to other textbooks. The companion workbook is recommended but not required.

Description from Amazon: Second edition of the most highly regarded teaching text book on the Japanese language, covering speaking, listening, reading, and writing to cultivate overall language ability. Each lesson in the revised edition features a new section dubbed Culture Notes," and now includes the audio CD companion which is in mp3 format ready to install on any music player. In Japanese/English. Distributed by Tsai Fong Books, Inc.

Genki-Online | Amazon.com Purchase Link

Nakama

Description from Amazon: NAKAMA 1 is a complete, flexible introductory program designed to present the fundamentals of the Japanese language to college students. Presented in two parts, NAKAMA 1A and NAKAMA 1B, the program focuses on proficiency-based language learning, emphasizes practical communication and student interaction, and fosters the development of all four language skills and cultural awareness. Thematically organized chapters focus on high-frequency communicative situations and introduce users to the Japanese language and its three writing systems: hiragana, katakana, and kanji. Maintaining the program's balanced approach, the new edition features updated technology resources, new authentic art, and practical, contemporary vocabulary to enhance learning.

Tobira

Description adapted from White Rabbit Japan: The "Tobira" textbook combines the practice of all four language skills (reading, listening, writing, speaking) and is designed for use by students who have completed a beginning Japanese textbook or, in terms of classroom time, somewhere from 250 to 300 hours of Japanese study.

The primary goals with this textbook are to solidify the grammar, vocabulary and kanji foundation studied during the beginner level and to develop all 4 language skills. Included is a link with which you gain access to the multimedia kit on Tobira’s official website. The menu holds various materials for audio learning, video learning, Kanji, grammar and writing practice. With this Language Partner Online, you can follow scenarios of everyday conversations, repeat single section or completely take over one part and interact with the other person.

The book holds 15 chapters, covering up everything from reading, vocabulary list, dialogues, conversation practice, grammar notes, kanji list to culture notes. The book is popular and has been used by many university courses worldwide.

Amazon.com

Kanji Learning

Remembering the Kanji

One method of learning kanji pioneered by James Heisig in Remembering the Kanji, is to use keywords that are made up of smaller components(radicals) called "primitives". To remember the meaning of a kanji, a mnemonic story is then constructed based on the primitives. As the learner becomes more familiar with kanji, the goal is ultimately to be able to recognize the meaning of a kanji while also being able to write it, eventually losing the need of the mnemonic.

• Remembering the Kanji, Volume 1 (6th edition) is the original book by James Heisig.

• Kanji Koohii is an independently created companion website to Heisig's Remembering the Kanji, making reviewing easier.

The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course

This book provides a system for remembering kanji meanings and understanding how these meanings are used in generating actual words. Kanji are introduced in building-block fashion, and sample compounds contain only previously learned kanji. All 2300 kanji are annotated with mnemonics and often other tips such as how to remember readings and/or how to distinguish between similar kanji. Can be reviewed with Memrise.

• Kodansha Kanji Learner’s Course (book)

• Memrise deck for meanings

• Memrise deck for illustrative vocabulary

Dictionaries

Japanese-English

Kodansha’s Furigana Japanese Dictionary

Kodansha’s Furigana Japanese Dictionary includes both Kodansha’s Furigana Japanese-English Dictionary and Kodansha’s Furigana English-Japanese Dictionary and is designed specially for non-native learners. Words are sorted by reading, and are first given using hiragana and katakana before appropriate kanji (e.g. くる 来る {Irreg.}). Includes labels for speech level (e.g. colloquial, formal, humble, etc.) and example sentences.

Amazon.com

Japanese-Japanese

Sanseido Kanji Dictionary offers large-print Kanji dictionaries originally intended for children, but generally helpful to anyone wanting to see clearly defined Kanji, their common compounds, and Japanese readings. No English translations are given because it is meant to be used by Japanese children in a Japanese classroom, the same way Merriam-Webster is used in American, so a good Japanese-English dictionary is also suggested. Sanseido Kanji Dictionaries can be found in some US bookstores, or at Mitsuwa locations Link throughout America.

Grammar

Dictionary of {Basic/Intermediate/Advanced} Grammar

Please use this space to describe the Grammar Dictionary Series.

Basic Amazon.com Purchase Link | Intermediate Amazon.com Purchase Link | Advanced Amazon.com Purchase Link

Before the subreddit went private I was able to make a backup of the wiki. As far as I'm aware Lemmy does not currently have a community wiki functionality, so I will be posting the pages from the old wiki here as individual posts.

This might not be the ideal way to do this, but I like that people will be able to comment on resource pages directly. People could ask questions or make suggestions without having to make individual posts.

Cure dolly materials are good but some people has issues with the pitched up voice, so I found a way to pitch it down using a combination of virtual audio and a daw; any will work but for this guide I'll explain it using reaper and blackhole on osx, as easily available for anyone and they exist on other os as well and setup is similar for them.

Disclaimer: Reaper is not free but has a 60 day trial and you can buy it later if you desire, it will show nag screen to remind you (or use another daw, if you do I assume you know how to route audio and pitch down audio in your daw); black hole has a donation box on their site.

Requirements: 0) homebrew: follow the "install homebrew" command you find at brew.sh

1. install blackhole driver Open a terminal and type each line followed by return:

brew install blackhole-2ch

sudo launchctl kickstart -kp system/com.apple.audio.coreaudiod

2. Install reaper daw from reaper.fm/download.php

Now you're ready:

• Press cmd+space and type system settings, press enter
• select "Sound" on the left menu
• Under output & input select blackhole 2ch (all your system audio is redirect to blackhole this way, so you should hear silence now until next steps)
• open reaper (either via cmd+space or click on launchpad/reaper)

It will ask to configure your audio:

• Click on "Allow use of different input and output device" -at the top you' ve input device, from the dropdown option select "blackhole 2c" -On output select "macbook pro speaker" or your usual device on your mac -press ok.

Now you're seeing a very empty reaper, right click on the left side area below the icons and insert new track.

Click on the red circle, this allow now to hear sounds again.

Click on the fx button, search for "pitch", from the fx listed select "VST: ReaPitch" with a double click, now here the first horizontal slider say shift(full range) just click on the right side of the slider in the textbox that has "semitones" next to it and write -6

Now if you start a cure dolly video, it will be pitched down, and it should solve the issue some people have with it.

You can add some more filters to make it better, or use a different value for pitchx but I think this is already enough for most people.

When you finish just remember to go to system settings/sound and restore your output to your speaker (of course if you're using headphones select headphones)

That's it, I hope the people that couldn't follow now can with this trick.

Happy learning!