Japanese from Zero! 1: Proven Techniques to Learn Japanese for Students and Professionals 6th Edition

I really like the fact that the book is authored by someone who learned Japanese himself and understands how to explain the grammar to a non-Japanese. The learning is very progressive with an emphasis on daily situations. I use the book together with the fromzero website (for a fee!) which allows me study on the go, and there’s useful (and funny!) videos by George explaining/summarizing the key points.When learning a language, I think it’s important to write by hand and to read on paper rather than on screen, therefore I appreciate the book and the fact that it contains worksheets as well.I speak several languages but since I’m not living in Japan, I feel like I needed more immersion, so for those interested: I’m using also Duolingo (mainly for vocabulary learning as the grammar explanations, the learning progression and the pronunciation are ridiculously bad ); Maru Maru app for hiragana/katakana practice (really great!); and I’ve started private online lessons once a week with a Japanese teacher to challenge myself and to practice talking.

I love Japanese From Zero!JFZ is a good place to start learning, especially if you have no prior knowledge of Japanese and you cannot read or write any of the language (this includes anyone who is currently using romaji). This first book walks you through learning hiragana. By the time you get done with this book, you will know your hiragana front, back and sideways. You may even dream in hiragana. That's how good it is at reinforcing hiragana for you.The information is NOT presented in an overwhelming manner as it can be in a lot of other text books. The lessons are short, which makes it ideal for learning on your own, and being able to pace yourself. You can learn 1 lesson per week or 1 lesson per day. It's totally up to you. The book presents lessons with usable examples. By the time you complete lesson 5, you will know how to say hello, tell someone things that you like or don't like, be able to count, ask who someone is, what things are, ask someone what something is in English, and tell someone what one you want or don't want. You'll learn colors, some animals, etc. So you can say "I have an orange cat named Garfield." "I like to go shopping" "Japanese food is delicious" "That doesn't taste good" "My car is a purple and white Honda" "Sachiko and Toshiyo are my friends" etc lol And that's not even 1/4 the way into the book!!! They present information in a way that allows you to be able to insert whatever you want, instead of using very rigid sentences that can't be altered much. You begin thinking of all the things that you CAN say, which I think is pretty neat.You, of course, learn more as you progress through the series. It's more of a "what you need to know, when you need to know it" kind of book... They don't go into dipthongs and verb conjugation and all that other stuff that you don't really care about. They just say "this is how you say _______." Why people have a problem with that is beyond me. If you really wanted to study dipthongs and that kind of stuff, Japanese From Zero probably isn't for you. If you have a "I can do it" attitude and want a fun, simple way to learn Japanese, (learn how to read/write AND speak) and you don't really care what a dipthong is, then this is the series for you!As you progress through the book, the vocabulary list gets more & more useful, so you can ask people things and have a basic conversation. Enough to maybe start looking for a penpal and discussing things that you enjoy. I like how the book is set up, in that you get your writing practice, you get lots of vocabulary, and you get to learn how to write words that use the kana that you have just learned that are not in your vocabulary list. You get lots & lots of writing practice. There's even "blank" practice pages that you can copy & get more writing practice.The grammar is presented so that it's not overwhelming and make you think "oh my god I can't do this".. the lessons are short & not bogged down with stuff that you don't really need to know to just be able to talk with people. There are tests after each lesson, which are short, and I think that is great, because you can take your test & check the answers in the back of the book (YAY! No separate answer key to buy!) & see how you have done.. It is a nice confidence booster. Your vocabulary is shown in hiragana, katakana (when applicable, ie: with fruit : furuutsu) and kanji (if applicable).. then the meaning of the word is given.. but as you progress, the romaji gets less and less, so eventually you'll be reading hiragana. For things like "furuutsu" that are written in katakana, it's a good way to learn a little katakana while you're at it!In regards to sounds or having a CD... They have sound files on their website. I'm a member of the website AND I have the book. I like using them both. The website tells you how to say things and you get to hear different people say things at their normal talking speed. The forum has a lot of helpful people in it, and George will answer your questions himself. The website has flash games, online flashcards, and all sorts of resources available. They also have free shows you can watch & listen to people speaking Japanese.. This includes people from YouTube, like applemilk1988, Uminekomiami and Kemushichan. They also have their own shows, like Japanese Topics Mania, The George and Keiko Show, The George and Hisashi Show, George in Japan, George vs Chie, The George & Eri show, The YesJapan! Ask A Teacher Show, You SO Crazy Cooking Show and the 3 Guys In Japan Show.. As well as one that's called "The Super Sexy Sayaka Show." You can also transfer your unused credits from YesJapan to JapanFiles & download Japanese music. JapanFiles has a huge selection of music, everything from pop to metal to electronic stuff to jazz and etc.. They even have visual kei bands and some bands have free music videos you can download. So you get lots of stuff to listen to and watch in Japanese. On top of that stuff, the YesJapan forum has a ton of websites where you can get live streaming television shows, anime and etc from Japan for free, as well as online radio shows, and etc. There's LOTS of resources on that website.If joining the website is not your cup of tea.. The Japanese From Zero books are good companions for Rosetta Stone, Pimsleur's Japanese series, the "Let's Learn Japanese" videos & workbooks, LingQ, or anything else you would like to pair them up with, even other books, ie: Making Sense of Japanese: What the Textbooks Don't Tell You or All About Particles: A Handbook of Japanese Function Words.If you get this series, you won't be disappointed. It's simple, fun and really is wonderful!

This book is great when used with their website fromzero.com. wasn't a huge fan of using romaji but with the website it works well.

Yes! 1,000 times, YES!!! At, least that was my answer. Finding a way to learn Japanese, successfully, was much more difficult than deciding I wanted to learn how. If your journey to find a teaching tool that would work for you is anything like mine was then you've already tried and failed to use other tools.In October of 2017 my sister and I decided we both wanted to learn Japanese together. So we set off on that journey only to fight with one another over the way to learn it which led us down different paths before finding Japanese From Zero!Now before finding Japanese from Zero! I had already successfully used RomanianPod101.com to learn how to speak Romanian and I liked the platform quite a bit. So I naturally headed over to JapanesePod101.com and shelled out around $200 for Premium Plus only to find that the language learning tools for Japanese were not very good once you got through the first 10 or so lessons. I had already bought and paid for Memrise ($49.99) which I had used for Romanian and German. So I tried progressing through the Japanese 1 course and what was clearly missing from that experience was context and the practicality of the vocabulary I was learning. The progression markers were encouraging and motivating but it just wasn't teaching me to "speak" Japanese but rather vocabulary and small phrases. I had concurrently used Kana Town to learn both Hirigana and Katakana yet I felt like I wasn't really getting anywhere near learning to "speak" Japanese.I decided to turn to Youtube for suggestions and it seemed that most people were suggesting utilizing Tae Kim's free grammar and video lessons or Genki. I found these suggestions from people who'd moved to Japan and were there teaching English or as students.The last thing I wanted was a textbook. I hated the language textbooks I'd used in high school and college and had always found them sorely lacking "real life" or "conversational" teachings. Knowing how Japanese culture has so many formalities, niceties, honorifics, etc I was concerned I'd learn how to speak Japanese like a foreigner from Genki. While Tae Kim's offerings were pretty good considering they were free I struggled to use his material for myself.It was while I was on Amazon looking at Genki that I came across the Japanese From Zero series. I took a look at the reviews, watched some of Georges videos, and was sure that I had found the resource that was going to work for me. My sister wasn't convinced based on my discovery.After having spent a few months on and off with Japanese because I was struggling with the tools I'd used I dove in head first into using Japanese From Zero! 1 and it just - worked! It's hard to explain but...I was...actually learning how to "speak" Japanese. Now as someone who had already spent hours and hours memorizing Hiragana and Katakana I wasn't thrilled with the progressive transition from Romaji to kana but had I just started with this it probably would have been so much easier to learn those characters than isolated drilling.The reason I found Japanese From Zero! 1 to be so much better than all the other resources I'd used is because the book was full of clear explanations about each topic, word, or phrase that was being taught. It seemed like for every question I had about the material the author had anticipated that and had an answer. Unlike the other resources I used I wasn't scouring the internet for clarification about what was being taught.Even better was finding that Japanese From Zero! has a video lesson that goes with the full book lesson where George helps his students make sure they really understand the topic and then he adds more knowledge and information that strengthens the learners confidence in their Japanese.I spent an entire weekend working through the first 4 full chapters of Japanese from Zero! 1 and I was actually "speaking" Japanese. I could say real sentences that were conversationally correct and didn't make me sound like I was a foreign learner. Could I walk around in Japan and successfully hold a conversation - no of course not but what I did have was the confidence that with this material, if I stayed dedicated, in the not too distant future I most certainly could.After that weekend of learning I forced my sister to try Japanese From Zero! 1 with me. We watched a few of George's lesson videos and then I actually taught her, with the Japanese I'd learned from the book, the material I knew. Yes, that's correct I taught my sister Japanese in Japanese.After that she was convinced and I bought her a book as well.As you can see I've committed myself to the whole series. I spent $155 after taxes for the five books that you see. When compared with the 2 Genki workbooks and the 2 Genki textbooks with at the time I purchased them were $189 after taxes these felt like a steal.I'm not sure the author would recommend this but I use Jisho.org for learning the Kanji stroke order and readings of all the vocab that appears in the book. It's amazing how quickly you start learning radicals, stroke order patterns, and general character recognition. I'd say that doing this is a big time commitment and is going well above and beyond the usage of the book. I have the aptitude for it this early in the learning process but not everyone does. So if you find it distracts from Japanese From Zero! then don't use it.At the end of the day, if you want to learn how to successfully speak Japanese that doesn't make you sound like a language learning foreigner then this is the resource for you!