(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best foreign dictionaries & thesauruses

Post Genki II Stuff

1. Watch Shirokuma Cafe on this website. Animelon is beautiful because all of its anime have subtitles available in English, romaji (latinized Japanese), hiragana, and normal Japanese -- start with English & normal Japanese for a few episodes to get used to how people talk, then turn off English and begin ganbatte'ing (doing your best). This anime is about a panda bear working in a cafe owned by a polar bear where they make food for guests and go on various adventures. It's great because the vocabulary is almost entirely every day (minus the polar bear's obnoxious puns), and it also has a variety of accents, so you'll begin getting used to Japanese sounds. If you like dry humor, you'll even enjoy the anime. I personally laughed so hard that I cried, twice.
   
   
2. Begin going through the N3 grammar videos from Nihongo no Mori, also feel free to check out their Dangerous Japanese (slang), and move on to N2 and N1 grammar as you feel ready. Their videos are great because they all have subtitles, they circumlocate to simpler Japanese to explain difficult words in the example sentenecs (explaining Japanese with simpler Japanese), and they have fun. These videos were personally the first "all Japanese" content that I consumed, and after I had been watching for a week or so I began with Shirokuma Cafe.
   
   
3. Buy Read Real Japanese Contemporary Fiction and Essays. These books are great: they present 7 short stories or essays that are 100% unaltered (except for adding readings to Kanji that appear for the first time in a given article), as a native speaker would see them. That's on the right page. The left page has a running gloss into English -- it's just enough to help you understand the meanings of parts you didn't quite understand, but not so much that you'd understand what was going on by only reading it. The real gem is that the 2nd half of the book is a running grammatical dictionary, as in the author devotes like ~130 pages to explaining all of the grammar that was contained in every single article that is more advanced than ~Late Genki II stuff. These are the holy grail of Japanese learning content for me; they're literally training wheels for reading read Japanese stuff. I read each one with a notebook: I went one sentence at a time, reading every grammar explanation, and writing down any grammar that I didn't know. Sounds time consuming, but I still went through a story in 1-2 days (2-4 hours? per story on average). After finishing the book I waited 2 weeks then read it again, highlighting the sentences that I still struggled with, double checking that grammar. Then I read it again a month later, not checking the grammar, and added any sentences i still didn't explain into Anki as Clozed Deletion Card.
   
   
4. I say again -- Read Real Japanese is training wheels to Reading Real Japanese. Written Japanese is quite different than Spoken Japanese, and this book really helps to iron out everything that might have not quite gotten through your system yet. When you finish the two books, begin looking for native books you can read on an e-reader/the computer. Just pick whatever you're interested in that has been written in the last 20 years. It's important to do it on a Kindle/computer because this enables you to highlight words to search them in the dictionary, rather than having to draw the characters out to search by hand in your phone dictionary. The Kindle is a pair of stilts that makes reading tolerable at a fluency level where it would normally be unbearable -- and I think this goes for any language, but particularly for languages like Japanese/Chinese where the primary writing system isn't necessarily phonetic.
   
   
5. In addition to reading, listen to lots of stuff. Find something that is interesting to you -- ie, something you find entertaining enough that you're willing to slodge through the beginning phase where it's not-pleasantly-difficult -- and stick to it. I personally liked/like Taigu Channel; a Buddhist monk here in Japan takes in letters from people struggling with life problems (what is happiness? what is freedom? How can I show the people around me that I appreciate them?) and then he answers them from a Buddhist perspective. Objectively speaking I think it's super for a first listening resource because he speaks clearly, somewhat slowly, a lot of the videos have subtitles, and he's talking about everyday-life problems meaning that the vocabulary is limited to practical things. If you're interested in Buddhism, I personally find the videos to be really enlightening. This is the ultimate goal of language learning, in my opinion -- to find a way to make your target language a medium; a gateway to knowledge or entertainment that you want, which just happens to be only in your target language... meaning that just by enjoying yourself and consuming content you want to consume, you naturally improve your language.
   
   
6. Check out Flowverlapping, find some music you like, and work at it to help you (a) learn the sounds of Japanese, (b) work into a more natural sounding rhythm/intonation, and (c) to (hopefully) get something of a feel for Japanese's two pitch accents. This is basically not necessary for being understood, but will definitely help you to sound more pleasant on the ears, and figured I might as well leave the link just in case you happen to be interested in pronunciation. Since it can be difficult to break into music in a new language, I'll also leave a few songs that I like in different genres. Yonedzu Kenshi-AiNekutai (indie), Mucc-Heide (visual kei), King Giddra-Bullet of Truth(uhh, hard? rap), Kohh-Don't Care If I'm Broke(uhh, soft? rap), Perfume-Flash(J-pop),Urashima Tarou - Voice of the Sea(makes me think of Japan) Kobasolo - Far, Far away (a playlist of soft music I gathered). Music is important to me, personally -- so if you enjoy music, I hope there's something you like here somewhere.
   

I learned Japanese for a few years a while back. I 100% agree with the recommendation for Tae Kim's Grammar Guide. It pulls no punches and gets you from nothing to the point where you can have basic conversations.

If you know what Kana and Kanji are keep reading. If not, just go through Tae Kim's Introduction and Guide to Writing quickly and then continue.
____
Now to learn Kana, how experienced are you with language learning? If you're a total beginner, Remembering the Kana is what I used, but just grind out the Hiragana and Katakana. There's like dozens of free guides. If you have prior linguistic experience Fluent Forever's Guide to Japanese Pronunciation is absolutely fantastic and a must-watch but it's pretty technical.

In terms of Kanji, decide if you want to learn it and how committed do you want to be. Are you determined to know all useful Kanji? Are you willing to only learn to read Kanji as you come across them? Do you want to ignore them all together?

If you want to "master" Kanji, Hesig's Remembering the Kanji is insane. In ~90 days I learned to write all 2000 Jouyou Kanji. The goal of the program is to get you to the same point of a Chinese speaker learning Japanese. So you know all the characters, but you know zero Japanese. So I couldn't read. I couldn't speak. All I could do was point to a character and tell you its English meaning. Then I just went through Tae Kim learning Japanese words as I came across them.

If you really want to "master" the Kanji, Hesig's way is imo the best. But it's a huge time commitment (3-4 months) for a payoff that only matters if you're into Japanese for the longhaul. If it's your first time learning a language or you don't wanna put in the time, either try another way to learn the Kanji or skip Hesig and just learn them as you go through Tae Kim. You can always come back to it if you decide later on that Kanji really matter to you. (Don't feel like this is a cop-out! I actively decided to not learn characters while I was learning Chinese because I care far more about speaking than reading).

_____

Best of luck! Japanese is a great language to learn :)

I'm gonna assume that you're starting completely from scratch, so just skip over parts that you already know.

Firstly, Japanese consists of three writing systems: Hiragana and Katakana, which correspond to each other/use the same sounds, and are syllable based. It is extremely important that you learn hiragana, and learn it well. Katakana is easy to learn later on as you'll already have the foundation/a basic understanding of Japanese phonology/sounds. Then there're kanji, which you've most likely heard of: Chinese characters. There are roughly 1700 of these used by the average Japanese person*. So:

1. Learn the kana. This can easily be done in very little time through this course. You can also use a course such as this: http://www.memrise.com/course/12/introduction-to-japanese/ , as it teaches some very basic (but very useful) vocabulary with the kana, which might be useful to you if you want to use the knowledge right away. I'd really recommend the first one I linked to though. If you are willing to spend money on learning Japanese, you can get this book but it's not really necessary with all the free resources available on the internet.
   
   1.5. If you have the money (or the means...) you might want to go through an audio course quickly in order to pick up the pronunciation/listening skills and some basic conversational vocab. Michel Thomas is supposedly good, though I favour Assimil myself. Assimil is made for being used over the course of 100 days (1 lesson/day), which can be really nice as it gives you somewhere to start and stop, so to speak.
   
   \2. Get yourself a textbook. Genki I and II are fine, but they can be a bit pricey, and are made for use in a classroom. I use Japanese the Manga Way myself, which is really neat if you're planning on reading manga in Japanese eventually, and isn't all that expensive. there are other alternatives as well, which I'm sure someone will tell you about shortly, haha. Tae Kim and TextFugu are, as far as I know, the only internet-based textbooks worth considering. Tae Kim is 100% free and will teach you about as much grammar as Genki I and II will, while TextFugu is a one-time payment and will teach you a bit more than Genki I, I think.
   
   \3. You might want to start learning kanji/vocabulary while going through your textbook. Wanikani.com is good, as it teaches both, and does it really efficiently. It is subscription-based, however ($10 a month I think).
   
   tl;dr: kana, textbook, kanji/vocab while doing textbook stuffs.
   
   Also, stay away from Rosetta Stone. It's expensive, not very good for non-European languages, and there are free resources that are several times better.
   
   がんばって！
   
   *some people will correct me and say 2000+ because that's what the Jouyou kanji say (don't worry about this for now), but fact is that the last 300-400 are not used a lot.

At least for me, I got started by taking some continuing education classes at a local community college. That can be a bit pricey, depending on one's budget - it's about ~$200 per semester for me - but the structure really helps make sure that you start off with a strong footing in the language. The text book series we use during that class is Japanese for Busy People, which is pretty good - I can't give a comparative analysis between it and other text books, since it's the only one I've used, but I imagine that you could get at least a little out of it. Though having a teacher there who speaks the language natively to whom to ask questions is also a big help.

In terms of memorization, I can't recommend flash cards enough. Anki is an excellent free resource for that - it repeats cards depending on how long it takes you to get them correct, so it really helps to reinforce things that you're shaky on while clearing things you find easy off your plate quickly.

jisho.org is the main Japanese-English dictionary that I use. It's not something that you'll find too useful just starting out, but it's an invaluable resource once you've got some basic grammar and vocab under your belt.

I hope that's helpful. :)

I am learning portuguese for almost two years now.
Lots of resources have already been mentioned here. You can also find some great lists here in the sub (e.g. here for Br-Pt or here for european Pt)

As you are already a language learner, I guess it's needless to say that making studying a habit for every day is key.

However, as some users here already reported, it sometimes can get overwhelming by all these resources that are available. So in order to get started I would recommend to find 3 or 4 tools to use on a regular basis and stick to them. I myself made the mistake to try out to many services/apps/tools in the beginning and also switched between them way too often.

That being said, in my opinion you need tools for the following tasks in order to learn portuguese:

1: Sound

Depending what you mother tongue is you might have difficulties to distinguish between "ã" and "ão" or to properly reproduce the "ão" or "nha" sound. Minimal pairs can help here. You can make them yourself for Anki or use some premade deck or a website that provides this functionality. I remember that /u/pedrosantos16 made a minimal pair collection on his website www.european-portuguese.info , but don't know whether he included the audio already. The Podcast Tá falado is great for sound and pronunciation, too. If you find some youtube videos that focus on sounds you can use those as well. After very short time you should be comfortable with the sounds of portuguese you you can simply drop the minimal pair exercises here.

2. Vocabulary

For obvious reasons. Focus on nouns and verbs (some verbs are beasts as they have a trillion different use cases). I use Duolingo and Anki. Note that lots of learners suggest to learn with pictures (at least for simple nouns) instead of translations and I highly recommend that, too.

3. Grammar

Duolingo explanes very little grammar, but has some exercises. So in order to get the basics and as a reference book I use Modern Brazilian Portuguese Grammar. Learn some irregular verb conjugation in present tense, make yourself familiar with the regular verb conjugation patterns. Learn the gerund and iperativo. After that past tense (preterito perfeito and imperfeito). Don't worry about prepositions too much, they will come over time.

4. Listening Comprehension

In my eyes one of the most important parts, if not the most important. I don't know about you, but I like to actually use my portuguese in order to talk to people. Although you theoretically know the words, it is sometimes difficult to understand people, there are quite a lot of different accents, and some tend to merge words so it becomes a real challenge. I can recommend Semantica-portuguese (video based), portuguesepod101 (mostly audio based) and the podcasts of the texas university (e.g. lingua da gente). Semantica and portuguesepod101 are comple courses for beginners to advanced, so they can easily replace university classes. I started with a beginner course in university, but didn't learn much. It got me more curious about the language though, so I made the semantica course afterwards and was very satisfied with my progress.


5. Speaking

You should start speaking portuguese as soon as possible, even if you are not feeling comfortable about it yet. There are great tools available and people are very helpful. Hellotalk, iTalki.com, mylanguageexchange.com....there are tons


6. Slang

I noticed, that after quite a while I still was not able to follow conversations. That was because in spoken language, at least Brazilians use a lot of slang words, so over time you should make yourself familiar with them. Just add them to you preferred flashcard tool whenever you encounter some new slangs / idioms.


7. Reading and writing

Some people suggest reading childrens books such as the little prince or similar. Or reading along withe song lyrics. Since reading and writing is not my top priority I cannot give you solid recommendations. What I do is following a lot of portuguese twitter accounts (news etc), so I read at least a little portuguese every day. From time to time I head over to the website of a newspaper and try to decipher some articles. There are also reading tools available online such as lingua.ly but I haven't tried them yet.

8. Culture class

It always keeps me motivated, when I dive into Brazilian cultura. Food, music, city reports, history. There are great video podcasts and blogs available, some of them are listed in one of the other threads linked to above.

I guess that's it, your first year of learning portuguese should be covered by that. Boa sorte para aprender português!

tl,dr I use Semantica, Duolingo, Anki, Modern Brazilian Portuguese Grammar book on a regular basis, and throw in some podcasts, videos or newspaper articles from time to time

Wall of text incoming:

Al-Kitaab fii Ta'allum Al-'Arabiyya (al-Kitaab generally) is nearly universal for beginning and intermediate Arabic learning in the States. There are three books, and it teaches fusha, which is media Arabic. All educated Arabs are proficient in this dialect, though it is rarely used outside formal settings.

Only one dictionary you'll need: Hans Wehr is the Arabic student's bible. You won't find much use for it off the bat because it's not strictly alphabetical, it's alphabetical by root. So until you learn to spot the root of a word it'll be hard to look anything up. It's also only Arabic-to-English, but al-Kitaab provides more than enough vocab to get you on your feet and Google Translate can fill in gaps (ONLY use Google Translate for individual words, then Hans Wehr to verify; Google Translate will botch sentences).

The most widely understood dialect would most likely be Egyptian, though oddly it is also one of the weirdest/most divergent from Classical Arabic due to Coptic influence. Fortunately, because it's so popular, there are lots of materials out there. That said, probably best to start with fusha, and branch out into dialects after you have a good handle on it. It'll help you understand where a lot of dialectical words come from. Additionally, al-Kitaab has a small Egyptian lesson at the end of each chapter, so you can get some basic exposure without having to functionally learn two languages at once.

Farther down the line, you can get Media Arabic, which is a collection of short articles by topic, with little exercises and loads of really useful vocab. Not strictly necessary if understanding the news isn't in your wheelhouse, but if you're serious about learning Arabic it's a really good intermediate/advanced step.

If you get serious about Egyptian, Pimsleur's Egyptian course is a good jump start, but also not really necessary and hard to do right because of the time commitment. It gets expensive, too, so make sure you're going to use it.

Some of my favorite books for Egyptian come from the American University in Cairo Press:

the Kallimni Arabi series is basically al-Kitaab for Egyptian Arabic. Very useful place to start.

the Arabi Liblib series
gets really into the weeds of how Egyptian speakers communicate. They're basically dictionaries of dialectical adjectives, idioms, and proverbs.

In addition to books, check out Memrise. It's a great vocab tool, and entirely user-generated, so there's a lot of content.

I also like to listen to BBC Arabic Radio. It's 24/7 so you can just pick it up whenever. Both fusha and various dialects. Exposure is extremely important in language learning, and even moreso when learning a language as alien to English as Arabic is.

On top of all this, just putz around on YouTube and Twitter. Arabs are all over social media and it's not hard to get exposure there.

For learning Ancient Greek (as an autodidact), start by signing up for The Great Courses Plus and take the Ancient Greek course, taught by Hans-Friedrich Meuller:

Greek 101: Learning an Ancient Language | The Great Courses Plus

You can sign up for a free trial on The Great Courses, for just long enough to complete the Greek course. But I think it’s totally worth paying for ALL of the content.

I recommend downloading the guidebook and doing ALL of the homework. Copy and paste the exercises into a Word doc and type out the answers/translations. Take the course as many times as you can for mastery.

I’ve created a couple of free courses on Memrise for Ancient Greek verbs that (I hope) people may find helpful. I use (my best attempt at) Modern Greek pronunciation. Audio can be disabled by anyone who has a problem with that. My Memrise account (Diachronix) has some other Modern Greek courses.

Paradigms of Ancient Greek Verbs

Principal Parts of Ancient Greek verbs

Professor Al Duncan produced an excellent series of Ancient Greek videos (on Youtube: Learn Attic Greek with Al Duncan - YouTube), which follows along the exercises in chapters 1–10 and 30–34 of Cynthia Shelmerdine’s Introduction to Greek.

That textbook is a bit error-prone, but it’s still pretty good for beginners. I recommend using it to follow along in Professor Duncan’s videos, at least until they cut off at chapter 10. But you’re on your own between chapters 11 and 29. Again, I recommend typing out ALL of the exercises.

The Athenaze Book 1 and Athenaze Book 2 are good self-study resources for intermediate learners, with a lot of excellent reading material. I also have a Memrise course for the vocabulary in these texbooks.

Athenaze: Book 1

Athenaze: Book 2

Leonard Muellner (Professor Emeritus of Classical Studies at Brandeis University) has a Youtube series on Ancient Greek: Learn Ancient Greek, with Prof. Leonard Muellner - YouTube

Unfortunately the audio throughout most of this series is terrible. But if you manage to listen closely (and not fall asleep), it’s quite edifying. Meullner is a genius. The course follows along the Greek: An Intensive Course textbook by Hansen & Quinn. You could try getting that textbook and following along, but I would recommend this last. I just can’t imagine most people having the patience for it. And I’ve heard mixed reviews on Hansen & Quinn, which professor Meullner criticizes ad nauseam throughout his videos.

Another resource I really like is the online version of ΓΡΑΜΜΑΤΙΚΗ ΤΗΣ ΑΡΧΑΙΑΣ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΗΣ by ΟΙΚΟΝΟΜΟΥ. You can turn the audio in the bottom right and a robot reads it out-loud. It’s helpful to learn the grammatical terminology in Greek and, if you can manage reading demotic Greek, you can experience the way the Greeks approach Ancient Greek (and observe the notable differences). They have interesting grammatical category distinctions that we don’t have in the West, many of which are quite handy. But this textbook doesn’t have any engaging reading material, aside from bland descriptions of the language. So it’s not for everyone.

Most other learning material I could recommend is mentioned in the various links above. But here are some key items for building a collection of self-study material:

*Geoffrey Horrocks’ “Greek - A History of the Language and Its Speakers” (MUST READ)

Plato: A Transitional Reader

Kaegi’s Greek Grammar

Smyth’s Greek Grammar

Plato Apology

Homeric Greek - A Book for Beginners

Rouse’s Greek Boy - A Reader

Basics of Biblical Greek

A Graded Reader of Biblical Greek

Geoffrey Steadman’s Ancient Greek reader SERIES

How much study time do you have available per day? Have you ever learned a foreign language successfully before? Do you speak any other Romance languages fluently?

Assuming you can study at least two hours per day, I would recommend:

1. Get Assimil's New French with Ease with the CD, and do two lessons per day. Spend 30 minutes on each lesson, following whatever variation of the Assimil Dutch instructions pleases you. In 25 days, this will give you a good, basic intuition for how French works, and teach you some useful vocabulary. The nice thing about Assimil is that if you follow the instructions, it works well for almost everybody, and it produces solid results. If you want a grammar overview to go with Assimil, get Essential French Grammar, which is dirt cheap, focused only on the essentials, and an excellent complement to Assimil.
   
2. Since you need to speak very soon, get Benny Lewis's book, which has some good advice on efficiently mastering survival stuff and polite conversation starting very early on.
   
3. A week or two before you leave, skim How to Improve Your Foreign Language Immediately, which is the bible of dirty tricks for faking a better level than you have. Definitely do his "islands" exercise, and prepare 10 or so islands, getting them corrected on lang-8.
   
   If you think of yourself as a hardcore geek, and you're generally good with languages, there are also a couple of ways to boost your listening comprehension substantially in 30–100 hours.
   
   Total cost: Less than $100, plus some money for iTalki tutors if you follow Benny's advice. But expect to work really, really hard—faking intermediate French after 30 days is a bit like sprinting straight up a steep mountain with a heavy pack. You're trying to compress 350 classroom hours into a month, which means working very hard and efficiently.
   
   Anyway, if you can spend an hour a day on Assimil, and an hour a day on Benny's speaking advice, then you'll get some pretty useful survival French under your belt by the end of the month. Going further than that will probably require studying obsessively.

Honestly, neither of these are great sources, but if you've already invested money I recommend completing both and not worrying to much about the discrepancies, treat them as two dialects of the same language. You'll still learn something and you can revise your understanding later on with more experience. I've listed some better resources below. Hope that helps.

Here's a place to start.

If you don't already have a dictionary I recommend this one if you have a good grasp of English. You can also find it the some libraries.

For Listening you can use BBC as well as many songs, Al Jazeera is great too. I recommend finding a news item in English to familiarize yourself with the topic then reading the same story in Arabic.

I also recommend Duo Linguo for learning the basics.

Hey! Good to see someone interested in East Asian languages! The CJKV writing system normally throws a lot of people off.

CJK Writing System

I wrote a short little rant a while back on how the characters are constructed that you might want to read.

There are methods of learning the characters that make use of their structure. Heisig's RtK and RtH books (Amazon link) are the most well known books I think. Fansites such as Reviewing the Kanji and Reviewing the Hanzi also exist which you might want to take a look at.

Not sure if you like RtK? Here's the sampler. See if you like it after learning 276 characters~

Chinese-Specific

The only thing headache inducing about any Chinese dialect is the writing system and tones.

Note that though we call them "dialects", it is a matter of politics as most of them are mutually unintelligible. A Cantonese or Mandarin speaker is unlikely to understand a Hokkien speaker at all, for example.

Written chinese, on the other hand, is in Mandarin and only in Mandarin -- the other dialects do not have writing systems. Well... the notable exception is Written Cantonese, but that's can be seen as a variant of standard written chinese.

Oh! There are have two variants of the standard writing system: Simplified and Traditional. I had learnt the former in school, and I can read the latter after learning about the simplification process, so just pick one and stick with it.

I personally find Mandarin grammar to quite simple. This might be because it's an isolating language.

• Zhongwen.com -- I love the way he arranges related characters together in a tree.
  
• nciku.cn -- Online Chinese Dictionary
  
• Unfortunately I don't have that many online Chinese resources, and the physical ones I have are hard to obtain here in the UK.
  
• Reviewing the Hanzi has a nice list.
  
  Japanese-Specific
  
  Japanese folk have an easier time with Chinese characters. While 6000 Hanzi is roughly college-level (I think?) in Chinese, 6000 Kanji in Japanese is probably more-than-you-need-to-know-ever. There is a Kanji Aptitude Test which is pretty much the only reason one would learn that many.
  
  However, Japanese also have two syllabaries you'll need to know (~50 syllables each). These are phonetic, so they shouldn't pose much of a challenge; most who learn Japanese learn both of them in one or two weeks.
  
  Essential:
  
  
• Denshi Jisho -- Online Japanese dictionary (Basically WWWJDIC with a pretty interface)
  
  Beginner resources:
  
  
• TextFugu - An Online Textbook
  
• Tae Kim - Another Online Textbook, slightly more well-known. Free, unlike TextFugu.
  
• I would also strongly recommend grabbing Remembering the Kanji as soon as possible.
  
• Genki -- Textbook. Some will say to avoid this completely, but just for starting off I don't think it's /that/ bad. Get rid of it once you're past the beginner stage though.
  
  Books to get:
  
  
• Writing - Remembering the Kanji and Remembering the Kana
  
• Speaking / Listening - Shadowing Book 1, Shadowing Book 2
  
• Grammar - Understanding Basic Japanese Grammar
  
• Grammar - Japanese Sentence Patterns for Effective Communication
  
• Yes, I recommend both books.
  
  Mixed collection of Online Resources:
  
  
• Reading material - A list I posted a while back
  
• Listening material - Another list, though Koohii has a better one
  
• On Japanese flashcards
  
• Random learning resources from Koohii

In addition to university-level classes (where I started learning Japanese), I found that the Japan Times Dictionaries of (Basic / Intermediate / Advanced) Japanese Grammar were invaluable resources to get the core aspects of the language all up in my brain-meats.

Basic

Intermediate

Advanced

I can't comment with any degree of certainty about online learning opportunities, but I do know that Skype chats with native Japanese speakers are popular, as well as any number of browser and smartphone-based kanji flashcards that will help with listening / speaking / writing.

I highly recommend getting a Bachelor's Degree in anything (possibly with some study abroad in Japan), then applying for something like the JET Programme, which will give you more of an immersive opportunity to live and work in Japan. Japanese is one of those annoyingly alien languages to the English-language brain where the best study results will come from full immersion--and even then, it's faaaaar from easy. I've been studying the language for 20 years and fluency always seems out of reach. But you might brain better than I do, so don't let that discourage you!

I recently graduated but took Japanese in my freshman year. I imagine a lot of people in the class have learned hiragana before to some level independently since it's one of the more accessible things you can learn about Japanese without a class. That said, it's not a prerequisite for the class so I wouldn't be too worried about it (if it's the most beginner class)

If it bothers you that you are slower than others then my only advice would be to just do extra practice from a hiragana workbook (linked below) and in Genki. I really would recommend writing them as that would probably help you remember them better and then practice reading dialogues in the book, etc. In the end, all that matters is that you learn them and pass exams and such so I would worry about that more than how others are doing and I think you'll enjoy it more and actually learn more, which is the whole point :). Japanese is really a labor of love if you wanna get good, especially after the first courses. But don't let that scare you because it is also very interesting! Just find your pace and stick with it.

I used this book when learning and found it helpful by the way.

My wife has taken courses with GLN and I took a few courses at the KCC. From hearing about my wife’s courses with GLN, it seems more suited to a casual interest and particularly helpful for tourists or language basics. Courses through the KCC are well-handled but much more intense, at most half of those who start Beginner I sign up for Beginner II. Not to mention how insanely small the class sizes get for the later courses. I personally had to drop halfway through Beginner II, I did not have the time to prepare/study outside of class. Also, there can be strong differences between teachers, and that makes a huge difference in whether you are prepared for later courses.

Some of the students at KCC have a background in Korean, either having family members that already speak Korean or who lived in Korea. There were people in Beginner II that lived in Korea for a year or more, you will never catch up to them. You also have your students that are hardcore Korean drama, cooking, and music (K-pop) fans and they can also leave you in the dust. This all makes it even tougher for someone without these backgrounds to get left behind.

There are some excellent resources available if you want to get a head start, such as https://www.amazon.com/Korean-Beginners-Mastering-Conversational-Included/dp/0804841004/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1484328652&sr=8-5&keywords=learn+korean but stay away from Rosetta Stone, as that is more geared to learning romantic languages (IMO). Overall, I would say Beginner I at the KCC would be casual and fun enough for anyone to take, but you have to consider your commitment in moving forward.

I don't know of apps as I studied Thai before the invention of smartphones but I really like the youtube channel ThaiwithMod

I also know many foreigners who have done self study with this book and it helped them a lot with writing and reading.

Otherwise just learn some basic phrases about food and directions and try to use it. Thais love it when you try to speak with them in their language. You may get laughs but it is all in good fun.

โชคดี (Chok-dee) Good Luck!

Im just going to post my answer from a different thread. You do not really need a book but I like learning with mnemonics.

Now for the two Kana systems I can recommend Remembering the Kana if you like mnemonics.

Also I highly recommend two Anki (A SRS learning tool that is free) decks.
The first one being for Hiragana. This one has Rōmaji on one side and the Hiragana on the other side. It tests you both ways and also has pronunciation audio files with it.

The second one I recommend is for Katakana. This one has Hiragana on one side and Katakana on the other side. It also tests you both ways and has audio with it. This will cement your Hiragana knowledge and also help you learn Katakana.

Best luck with your learning efforts :D

https://www.amazon.com/Living-Japanese-Diversity-Lifestyles-Conversations/dp/030010958X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1469162331&sr=8-2&keywords=living+japanese

I think that is an amazing recourse. Natural, REAL conversations with people of all ages and topics. Its really good for getting exposure you can learn from easily to native speaking that isn't "dramatized" or too over the top like most anime and Japanese TV acting in general.


LingQ.com (is also a great recourse. and its free if you don't use the in site word marking tools)

https://www.amazon.com/Read-Real-Japanese-Fiction-Contemporary/dp/1568365292/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1469162459&sr=8-1&keywords=read+real+japanese

https://www.amazon.com/Read-Real-Japanese-Essays-Contemporary/dp/1568364148/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1469162459&sr=8-2&keywords=read+real+japanese

https://www.amazon.com/Breaking-into-Japanese-Literature-Classics/dp/1568364156/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1469162459&sr=8-3&keywords=read+real+japanese

the last three are good for written japanese, which is more polished and different than real "spoken" japanese (like any language). But they all 3 come with audio, grammar and vocab explanations and are an amazing recourse IMO.

A good starting point is the app LingoDeer and its Japanese practise sessions. The first course is free and has a ton of content. Its practise focuses on teaching kana, grammar and building up vocabulary with a variety of guessing games so it's a very natural and entertaining way of learning. This makes it better than a lot of the language apps out there since their main focus is usually flashcard learning and hard memorisation.

Beyond that, Tae Kim's Japanese grammar is considered by many to be a fantastic way to learn the language. It builds up the necessary fundamentals for learning the language in a rational, intuitive way that makes sense in Japanese. The explanations are focused on how to make sense of the grammar not from English but from a Japanese point of view (which means you think in japanese rather than english).

If you want to get a textbook the Genki guides are considered by many to be the quintessial classroom learning book. Japanese for Busy People is also a good one if you don't have a lot of spare time.

Beyond that, watch Japanese tv without subtitles to get used to them speaking. Japanese Children's tv is a great way to go about it. Try watching something like Chi's Sweet Home without subtitles on. There's also Japanese dramas on Netflix where you can turn the subtitles off.

>I'm not exactly in the best area of the city to meet other people as well

I'm curious, which part of the city are you located? When I lived in Bangkok, my apartment was in the Bangkok Noi area. It was walking distance to my university and to all the famous tourist attractions like the Grand Palace and Khao San Road. There was also free buses which allowed me to go to Sukhumvit, China Town, and Chatuchak market for free

>Can't read or write it to save my life

In my opinion, if you want to learn Thai, you need to know the alphabet first. Knowing the alphabet will enable you to think and pronounce Thai more clearly. Thai romanization systems are not legitimate so a knowledge of the alphabet is a must

This book is a must if you want to have a basic grasp of Thai. It teaches you how to read and write the alphabet and it will enable you to learn some vocabularies and build basic sentences.

I mean, as long as you are having fun - that's the most important part! =)

But for what it is worth, my advice is to not worry so much about finding the perfect book. Working through a mediocre book from beginning to end will typically put you further ahead than reading a chapter here and there in other, possibly better, books.

When I start a new language I look for a few resources:

1. A nice grammar that I can use for reference.
   
2. A frequency dictionary.
   
3. A graded reader (or any good selection of shorter texts).
   
4. A "course book" (possibly both textbook and workbook) that gives me some kind of structure.
   
   I only need one of each. It's not necessary to have the perfect books, as long as the books are decent and easy to understand. For example, this is my selection for French:
   
   
5. https://www.amazon.com/Essential-French-Grammar-Language-Guides/dp/0486204197
   
6. https://www.amazon.com/Frequency-Dictionary-French-Vocabulary-Dictionaries-ebook/dp/B0025CTGV0/
   
7. http://www.mondesenvf.fr/la-collection/
   
8. https://www.langenscheidt.com/franzoesisch/selbstlernen-sprachkurs/langenscheidt-franzoesisch-mit-system-set

I'll list all the stuff I'll be using!

I'm doing Brazilian Portuguese, so I'll be going through the Semantica course which I keep hearing is very good, although subscription-based.

Books that I got were:

1. Muito Prazer - just for learning in general.
   
2. [Modern Brazilian Portuguese Grammar: A Practical Guide] (https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Brazilian-Portuguese-Grammar-Practical/dp/0415566444/ref=pd_sim_14_2?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0415566444&pd_rd_r=ZXSC993J5ZY3NH6K3898&pd_rd_w=cSvFc&pd_rd_wg=tD8Wj&psc=1&refRID=ZXSC993J5ZY3NH6K3898) - which is supposed to be THE Brazilian Portuguese grammar book to have.
   
3. Pois Não - More technical approach for those with a Spanish-speaking background. Not 100% sure on this one yet, but I like a challenge.
   
4. 501 Portuguese Verbs - for all the conjugation tables.
   
   Websites:
   1. Hacking Portuguese
   
   
5. Brazilian Gringo
   
6. WordReference.com - Dictionary
   
7. Lang-8.com - AWESOME resource where you write diary entries for your target language and people will correct you. Did this/currently doing this for French and Spanish. I've gotten corrections in like, 5 minutes.
   
8. italki.com - For conversation practice. There are dirt-cheap community tutors who are patient with you, some for around $3.00 an hour.
   
9. BrazilPod - Free podcasts.
   
   Programs/Apps:
   
10. Anki - To make your own Flashcards. Everyone swears by this thing. I like it 1000% better than Memrise because the UI is super-simple and you don't have to force yourself to go through decks with stuff you already know.
    
    If anyone has more suggestions, let me know!

To be honest, a lot of the really good resources for etymology and so on are going to be written in Japanese. That said, here are a few things to try:

• Makino and Tsutsui's Dictionary of ~ Japanese Grammar series. They provide a really thorough resource for looking up the usage of various words and phrases. If you only get one of my recommendations, this is it.
  
  
• TSujimura's An Introduction to Japanese Linguistics. I don't know if this is the best linguistics text out there, but I've used it and it's serviceable. The main drawback is that Tsujimura insists on using kunrei-shiki romanization instead of Hepburn, which for me creates a surreal disconnect between the text on the page and the actual sounds represented. On the plus side, this is an introduction, so you're not expected to know anything about linguistics in order to read it.
  
  
• Naoko Chino's All About Particles. You don't get a cookie for guessing what this one's about.
  
  
• Helen McCullough's Bungo Manual - if you're interested in classical Japanese, it's another slim volume that will help out a lot.
  
  
• If you're feeling brave, try the Chibi Maruko Kyoushitsu series. They're in Japanese, but it's aimed at elementary-school kids, so it should be relatively accessible. I have the books on 漢字使い分け, 四字熟語, and 作文, and wouldn't mind picking up others when I get the chance.
  
  
• Beyond this, looking for resources at your local university library should give you lots of leads. Just search the catalog for a textbook name, go to the shelf where it's stored in the stacks, and look around for other resources in the same shelf - or ask a librarian to help you; that's what they're there for! Even if you can't check anything out because you're not affiliated, at many colleges it should be possible to browse a bit and make a note of things to find later on your own.

Gunch is right, Koine is much easier, but it's also much less satisfying and less useful if you want to read anything besides the New Testament. There is actually a sub-reddit devoted to this, /r/IntroAncientGreek, that you might want to check out, and /r/AncientGreek will be a better place to crowd-source an answer for this. If you want hardcore grammar learning, I would suggest Hansen and Quinn but I also recommend Cecilia Luschnig's book Intro to Ancient Greek: A Literary Approach which will have you reading actual Ancient Greek texts MUCH sooner than Hansen and Quinn. It's a rather difficult language that will be difficult to learn without supervision and someone to answer your questions, so maybe get an answer key? Best of luck, and Χαῖρε!

I am very slowly learning Japanese! I started doing it because I got into watching anime online and it intrigued me. Even though I haven't gotten dreadfully far due to dipping in and out of study over the years, I mostly still do it because I find it fun. For years I've offically studied topics like History and English where there's lots of interpretation and less hard facts. So it does my mind good to learn something more... solid? It feels like avery different kind of learning regardless and I find it refreshing.

Grammar is by far my weakest area, mostly because I've found less... 'fun' ways of learning and studying it. Therefore a book about particles would be a tremendous help!

Songs! This is Arashi, they were my one and only boyband love. The level of my obsession was a little scary and I watched far more japanese variety shows than was possibly healthy. This is another song I like, which was one of the... ending? songs for Fullmetal Alchemist. I like how many cool songs by proper artists anime has. I've found so many groups via anime! and this is one I found thanks to Youtube ads!

Bad joke I stole but amuses me:

なぜハワイで歯医者がない？ Why are there no dentists in Hawaii?

ハワイで、歯はいい！Because in Hawaii, ha wa ii!

This is funny because the ha wa ii at the end means Teeth(ha 歯) are(wa は- topic marker particle) good(ii いい)

Edit: Forgot to add this, in Pokemon X and Y you have the choice to play it in one of seven languages! English, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, French, German, or Italian!

I heard Rosetta Stone is quite poor and expensive, but of course, naturally, I am not an expert :)
Here's what I bought on Amazon so far, still waiting for it to all ship to me:
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/4805311444/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B01M3STG9N/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/4789014479/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I am under the impression that it's a good use of time to first learn the Kana (Hiragana + Katakana.) As such, I am currently learning to recognize them by playing https://learnjapanesepod.com/kana-invaders/. Once I learn to recognize them I will move to "Japanase Hiragana and Katakana for Beginners" and drill them so I am able to write them and recognize them more seamlessly, while still continue playing the game to review. I think by the end of next weekend I should be able to recognize the Kana, and hopefully after another 2-4 weeks of drilling I can write them too (I'm not sure if this is realistic at all).

Once I am comfortable with Kana I am going to move to the Genki books, which seem to be highly recommended. I think I will do the workbooks and make Anki decks to memorize Kanji/vocabularly. I think this is approximately 2-3 years of University classes but hopefully this process takes 1-1.5 years of dedicated work? Again, not sure what timelines are reasonable.

I tried Genki as a complete self-learner but wasn't able to stick with it past a few chapters. I think it being classroom oriented was part of the problem. I kept skipping parts that involved practicing with other students. Overall I lost interest for some reason. I may try going back to it someday.

There were a couple books that were really helpful for me learning grammar. One is "Japanese Sentence Patterns for Effective Communication":

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1568364202/

It has 142 sentence patterns that cover a lot of practical grammar that I found useful when visiting Japan. I entered all the sentences into Anki, which ended up being 1160 cards. For each card I added notes about the pattern from the book. I found that using flashcards was the most effective way for me to remember the material.

The other book, which other people have mentioned, is Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar. This book is awesome and has great explanations that are hard to find elsewhere. I started with the Anki deck but suspended all the cards initially. When I encountered some grammar I didn't understand I would look it up in the dictionary, unsuspend the cards and apply some edits (there are some mistakes in the cards). I would also add useful notes from the book in additional fields.

Korean Made Simple is an awesome companion to LingoDeer and other resources like Talk to me in Korean. I wish I started with this book first, everything that I somehow wasn't taught from other resources were covered in the first couple of chapters in this book and cleared up a lot of confusion for me. There's also a companion YouTube channel that you can check out whether or not you get the book.

Another YouTube channel you should check out is Motivate Korean. This one is more focused on some of the more philosophical concepts of learning Korean, but there's also some good grammar and vocab videos in there as well. Especially check out the Motivate Korean pronunciation videos since you said you still need some help there, they are the best pronunciation resources I've come across so far!

So- in terms of learning Arabic, Rosetta Stone offers at least one program, of varying levels, but unless you only want to learn enough Arabic to order food and hail a taxi, it's not really sufficient at all. In my personal opinion, Arabic is a very hard language for Westerners to learn, and my biggest struggle throughout the course was the very rigid grammatical structure. Even with teachers in front of me and the availability of a tutor, Arabic grammatical structure has always been difficult for me, especially in reproducing it. And for this, it's definitely important to be learning it in person, I think, to query "Why?" and "How does such and such fit?"

I think it would be very difficult to learn any amount of useful Arabic solely through online learning. That said, it's certainly not impossible. A really useful text would be "All The Arabic You Never Learned the First Time Around" by James Price, but it's no longer in print. The PDF is available online (at that site) but to buy the book is $300 (which KILLS ME! because I had three copies of it from DLI and don't know where any of them are).

But before you can dive into that, it really is necessary for you to understand the script. The script can seem overwhelming, but I learned it in a matter of a couple days. It's really simple once you figure out how to read from right to left instead of left to write. I can't point you to a specific website to use, but Google will yield you a TON of sites, and YouTube has videos that go over the sound and look of each letter. If you treat Arabic writing like cursive (nearly all letters connect to each other in a given word) it's much easier. When I first started I would write the corresponding English letter (when there was one) over each Arabic letter and accustom myself to reading hte English letters backwards, eventually transitioning to just reading the Arabic letters themselves backwords.

Once you have the alphabet down, you'll need to learn diacritics (little marks that indicate what vowel sound something makes), and for this, an in person class is really strongly a plus. Diacritics only exist in the Qu'ran and when you're learning Arabic, afterwards they disappear and just become implied (a native automatically knows where they would go and as a student it sort of becomes second nature as well).

Once you can read simple words and sentences, then you'll be able to replicate them online (I use Arabic Keyboard and copy and paste them into Google Translate to get a (reasonably accurate) translation of a word you do not know.

Similarly, once you can read Arabic words (whether you know their definition or not) you should get two dictionaries. An Arabic to English dictionary, specifically Hans Wehr makes the best Arabic-English dictionary in the world (in my opinion) and an English to Arabic dictionary, I prefer Al-Mawrid and the linked one there is the cheapest Arabic-English dictionary I know (as well as being used by the Defense Language Institute).

From there, I would strongly suggest finding someone who gives Arabic lessons or enrolling in an Arabic course. If you're done with college or can't take it at your school, look into a community college. MANY of them offer at least one or two Arabic classes, and those would be extremely helpful in getting your feet wet at learning Arabic.

I hope some of this helped!

Edit: final note- there are actually several subreddits dedicated to learning Arabic, but I have not used any of them. You might try stopping by /r/learn_arabic/ and see if they have any advice!

I wouldn't go for something like Murakami to practice translation because, as atgm points out, the translators wouldn't be translating 1:1.

Why not try one of the "Breaking into Japanese Literature" or "Read Real Japanese" books (any kind of reader really)? They usually come with a direct translation and a more artistic translation. The texts are shorter which should keep your interest up for longer but there's still enough stories for you to have enough to do.

There's plenty of others but a few examples would be:

Breaking into Japanese Literature: Seven Modern Classics in Parallel Text

Exploring Japanese Literature: Read Mishima, Tanizaki, and Kawabata in the Original

Read Real Japanese Fiction: Short Stories by Contemporary Writers

Read Real Japanese: All You Need to Enjoy Eight Contemporary Writers

Read Real Japanese Essays: Contemporary Writings by Popular Authors

I think all of those had the "look inside" enabled so you can decide which style of translation you prefer.

If translation is something that interests you, I recommend heading over to /r/translationstudies to get a few tips on good books on translation studies.

http://www.thailanguagewiki.com/ is pretty good, but its jump in at the deep end type of thing

http://learnthaifromawhiteguy.com/

Also you can do Skype lessons from Thailand with

http://livethaiteacher.weebly.com/
and
http://www.learnthaiwithmod.com/

I also like the free thai alphabet flash cards for the free flash card app http://ankisrs.net/ (just search for 'thai' after you install the app)

I agree with the other regarding the Written language, also I'd recommend this book for grammer:

http://www.amazon.com/Thai-Reference-Grammar-James-Higbie/dp/9748304965

HTH

>There's a blue, textbook sized grammar resource whose name is escaping me that is a bit dry but very useful once you get past the Becker books.


Thai Reference Grammar

I agree, this book is is the most useful book I own. Really important for learning how to put the sentences together. Lot of times you know all the vocab but just can't figure out the right way to put it all together. Well this books has thousands of example sentences that are neatly organized. You will be able to say almost anything with this book.

> I was wondering if anyone has some solid, unbiased sources for serious Bible study?

They don't exist. Everyone has biases. The very best scholars are those who can divulge their biases and give reasons for them and reasons against the biases of others. That's part of the scholarly conversation.

For background stuff, maybe check out:
David Aune's The New Testament in Its Literary Environment

I liked Shaye Cohen's From the Maccabees to the Mishnah when it comes to understanding "Judaism" in the first century AD.

NT Wright's The New Testament and the People of God is very good.

I also really liked Brant Pitre's Jesus, the Tribulation, and the End of Exile - a reworking of his Ph.D dissertation at Notre Dame (under David Aune).

Mark Goodacre's work on Q is good. I read it early in my academic career and it has kept me from believing in the Q theory since.

The biggest journal in the field is probably Journal of Biblical Studies. New Testament Studies is another big one (from Cambridge).

Edit: Also, learn Greek. There are grammars specifically for New Testament Greek (Koine) like David Alan Black's Learn to Read New Testament Greek - which is fine for an NT Greek grammar (though he barely covers the optative since it's so little used in the NT). I would just learn Classical Greek using something like Hansen and Quinn. If you can read Classical Greek, nothing in the Bible (either LXX or NT) will give you a problem.

The best thing for me has been this grammar book, and a few books for conversation. and yes duolingo is bad at vocabulary and can be really frustrating a lot. It's also really bad at the order in which it teaches things. I never really got into memrise because it's a bit boring for me but to get started you need to learn the things that are the most common. I am also teaching myself french (and other languages), and believe me, there are a lot of shitty and useless learning resources. In my experience, the best pocket phrasebooks are langenscheidt, the best slang material is Hide This (french) Book, the best grammar books are Dover series, and when you are at the level, any easyreader should be good. I also strongly recommend listening to french being spoken, or else you will not understand anybody. Good luck!

Hammer's German and Usage

Hammer's German and Usage Workbook

German Grammar drills

Secondary grammar book

Personally, Hammer's Grammar book is quite enough. It is around 500 pages of dry grammar. It is very well constructed and very easy to understand, get it with workbook. It is logical, as it teaches you from the most essential and easiest structures. Nouns -> genders, -> cases, that way it is easier to learn.

Secondary Grammar book is not necessary.

Advice her to use Anki, its a very helpful tool i think for the most easiest words to learn. Especially it helps a lot with German genders.

I would be inclined to say yes. It's not a system without flaws, as a number of people have pointed out in this thread, but it can be tweaked and supplemented with Firefox/Chrome userscripts to customize it to your needs. If you have money to spare, you might also consider a subscription to Satori Reader where you can set unknown kanji to display furigana according to your WK progress.

If money is an issue, however, the Kodansha course is a pretty good alternative. I have been using the Kodansha Kanji Learner's Dictionary that the course is based on and it has been a really good supplement.

The best way to learn to read handwritten Chinese is to learn to write handwritten Chinese.

This book is an old but good introduction in English.

If you are comfortable with Chinese only text, then I'd recommend this book, which is far more comprehensive.

You don't actually have to remember how to write the characters long-term, just go through all the exercises in those books and you'll find you'll then be able to read most handwriting without too much difficulty.

Here's a pretty comprehensive list:

1. Mostly Lingodeer
   
2. Google, r/LearnJapanese and Tae Kim's guide when I'm unsure of something
   
3. Genki 1 textbook for listening and just to consolidate what I've learned from Lingodeer
   
4. Steven Kraft's Japanese Projects for Verb Conjugation Practice
   
5. Erin's Japanese is just an amazing comprehensive website for listening, seeing how native people speak, manga onomatopoeia, listening comprehension, native phrases, vocabulary, real life situations in Japan.
   
6. Benjiro's Conversations for listening practice
   
7. Memrise's Japanese counters' course
   
8. My Japanese friend as a sentence checker for sentence composition and speaking (though my crippling social anxiety prevents me so
   
9. jpmarumaru if you can navigate around Chinese/Cantonese (I mostly use it for their number quiz)
   
10. All About Particles Book to help me to understand the uses of particles
    
11. Easy Japanese video series for listening to native japanese people
    
12. Jisho.org and Midori --> Dictionaries on laptop and phone for fast searching.
    
13. Anki + Yomichan with the AnkiConnect extension so I can add terminology I found online
    
14. NHK Easy News to mine for terminology (the app on iOS and online both)
    
15. An N5/N4 workbook that I bought from Japan.
    
16. MLC Japanese for some amazing Japanese resources.
    
17. Duolingo (though I haven't started) for the sake of sentence composition and terminology, as they're more flexible with sentence structure than Lingodeer. Lingodeer's grammar teaching helps consolidate an idea of grammar, but Duolingo helps with developing it faster.
    
    Other resources that I want to use but is too much of a beginner to do so:
    
    
18. Daiweeb for Japanese subtitles for anime
    
19. My volumes of manga sitting on my shelf (Oremonogatari and Yotsubato)
    
20. Ameba on iOS (kind of a japanese social media website)
    
21. My plan to purchase Genki 2 soon (I've been saving)
    
    I'll add more as I think of more!
    Edit: Formatting

Agreed there. For day-to-day use, electronic dictionaries (that is, online dictionaries like Jisho.org, apps, Yomichan, etc. - not just one of these) trump paper dictionaries completely. Looking things up in a paper dictionary is incredibly time-consuming, and can also be frustrating because you will often forget something right after you look it up, especially if you're a beginner.

However! I think paper dictionaries can be great if you just go through them randomly, and for fun. I own a few Japanese dictionaries (namely this and this), and do just that, flipping through them, reading example sentences, making new connections, and occasionally having new vocab randomly stick by accident.

If I used my dictionaries to actually look things up every time I needed to, I'd go crazy pretty quickly, I think. But if I treat them like Wikipedia (ie, hopping all over the damn place because something new catches my interest every 30 seconds), then that's where I think their value is -- and I would argue that that experience with a physical book in your hands is hard to replicate in an electronic dictionary.

Though, to anyone who's new to Japanese, I'd still recommend going 100%-electronic and saving yourself some dosh. I'd only recommend the above if you like the "nostalgic" feeling of flipping through a book in your hands.

I don't really know why but the books are listed twice on Amazon... on the more expensive base listing (the 90€ one) the alternative shops are actually a bit cheaper (see here) so at least you could get the textbook for around ~50€ and I think the workbook is around 23€ here (the picture shows the second edition so it should be the right one), maybe if you get them from the same shop you could get lucky with cheaper shipping as well, but I don't know about that (same goes for the answer key )

Apart from looking for cheaper shopping on Amazon de you might also want to check Amazon jp (the shipping costs are pretty high but the base price is much cheaper). I'm a bit too lazy to look it up right now, but you can change the site to English so it shouldn't be too hard. Just don't forget to calculate the shipping in as well!

Gift.. MMMMMM. Probably my latest adoption. Mynah. My fluffy ball kitty cat of awesome cuddles and doom. My mom's friend paid for the fee's. She's AWESOME. and did I mention cute? She's HORRIBLY ADORABLE.

I nominate /u/OfMonstersAndSuicide!

one two I like suprises. You get to pick.

Primer of Ecclesiastical Latin by John Collins is what you're looking for. Make sure to grab the answer guide as well to double check yourself. There's also a really great site that has a lot of stuff in Latin to help you pray and what not.

The Lingua Latina series is good to immerse yourself in Latin and teach you the basics, in this sense there is little divergence between Classical and Ecclesiastical Latin when it comes to grammar. Where they diverge is the type of expressions and usage they have. There is also the pronunciation difference as well.

Well first let me tell you how much i appreciate the very thorough and helpful reply! I think i pretty much have it, the textbook i am currently using is this one. http://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Hiragana-Katakana-Beginners-Mastering/dp/4805311444/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1416891998&sr=8-1&keywords=japanese+book

I think the book mainly focuses on this type of characters 教科書体 which is pretty much impossible for me to imitate lol but you're saying as long as i use this font while writing 明朝体 then i am not doing anything incorrect? As long as i can tell the difference between the characters with serifs or without then ill be fine? i can see those websites being extremely helpful but how can i type in a kana or kanji on an american keyboard? as you can see i am very new and clueless lol sorry!

I also bought this book when I first started to learn, called Chinese Cursive Script: An Introduction to Handwriting in Chinese, by Fred Fang-yu Wang (non-affiliate Amazon link here). It's super old-school--it looks like a mimeograph and was written in 1958. If I remember correctly, it only includes traditional characters because of the date it was published. Regardless, many simplified/trad. characters look the same when written in cursive anyways. But it has great tips, and just helps you learn to read handwriting better anyways. I still have the book at home and I've been learning for 10 years.

I'm from the US and presently in São Paulo taking engineering classes taught in Portuguese after studying the language for less than 6 months, so I can share a bit from my experience:

Learn basic grammar/vocab from textbooks, read the news in portuguese (globo.com, folha de S.Paulo, etc) and create a vocab list from words you don't know, watch youtube videos from brazilian talk shows (the noite), meet someone who speaks the language (or read articles outloud to yourself if you can't find someone), find some brazilian music you like.. these are some of the thing I did.

Also, BrazilianPodClass is a great podcast to look into. For a grammar text I recommend the following + the complimentary workbook. I find it to be excellent:

http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Brazilian-Portuguese-Grammar-Practical/dp/0415566444/ref=pd_sim_b_1/192-2892797-9687731?ie=UTF8&refRID=0YS5KBCGWRDAYP8JE154

I never found a good cohesive vocab book, so just created my own lists.

Hope this helps! Boa sorte!

edit: Also, it's a beautiful language and I find it fun to speak, so I think you made a good choice! It's not easy to learn by any means, but it's worth it IMO

Thanks for the detailed post. I think the textbook-search site'll be especially handy, since I've never heard of it before.

And since you seem to know of a lot of good resources, I have a few questions (if you don't mind).

1. Would you happen to know the difference between these two Kodansha kanji dictionaries?
   
   

• Kodansha Kanji Learner's Dictionary
  
• Kodansha Kanji Dictionary
  
  I'm really not sure what to go for. I'm currently using the Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course, and it strongly suggests that Learner's Dictionary as a supplement. But at the same time, the regular Kanji dictionary seems to be the better deal since it has much more Kanji. Is there any point in owning both?
  
  

2. I'm interested in the All About Particles book, and other such supplementary texts, but is there a chance that the Dictionary of Japanese Grammar series might make them redundant?
   
   
3. How is Kodansha's Communicative English-Japanese Dictionary? Wouldn't it be redundant to the Furigana dictionary, which lets you do look-up in both JP-EN and EN-JP? Or is it nuanced enough to be worth it on its own?
   
   Thanks!

The workbook, "Japanese for Busy People" (get the romanji version) is good for when you're, well, busy.

I used it to study Japanese when I thought I was going to be teaching English there through the JET program before deciding to enlist instead. It's pretty good for basic stuff, it'll be helpful if you learn your katakana and hiragana on top of that as well. Just learn a few a day and you'll be golden.

issue with sentence order? Sentence order isn't important, as long as the verb is at the end it's correct. The rest is mostly subtle inflections and phrasing. That is the benefit of particles. English is very sentence order focused, Japanese is not. However if you want examples galore to help you garner a better understanding then i can recommend this book

http://www.textfugu.com/menu/ This website is pretty great for beginners. Its got good structure and the first "season" is free which will teach you hiragana and the basics of the language. Katakana used to be free too but I guess he changed it. I own a lifetime membership but I've long since finished whats available there. It will take you to about intermediate level if you finish the whole thing which can take a few months. I still jump back in and go over the things hes changed and the lessons hes added whenever I can.

This book series is also great, but its a little more detatched and really throws you right into the language, the first in the series teaches mostly survival Japanese and the next 2 really get into the meat of the language. I'm about 3/4ths through the second one.

> I don't really care if Hayashi did his homework or if the lady reading the newspaper is Tanaka and neither do the people I want to talk to.

At my undergrad school, I taught the language lab (1 hour per week required intensive practice session where we drilled the students) for three years. I was surprised at how surprised the actual instructors were that the students often wrote very similar criticisms on their course evaluation forms. No one gives a fuck what Hayashi is or is not doing. But, everyone was up on the latest chapter of whatever Shōnen Jump manga was popular at the time.

I'm a huge fan of manga. Even as a first year student I enjoyed plodding along in my favorite story with my trusty denshi jisho, and copies of my Yellow and Blue. (The Red one hadn't come out yet.)

Pick a story and go for it. Even if you have to keep a translated copy nearby to help understand.

When I first began learning German I relied heavily on Skype. I really believe that by talking with people who are natives you will really begin to get a feel for the language. I think using applications such as Duolingo, Pimsleur, AccelaStudy, Babble, and BYKI really do help teach you vocabulary (and you should absolutely continue using the ones you mentioned); there is no substitute with good 'ol fashioned communication. I used The Mixxer and SharedTalk to find natives to speak with.

I also used this book and this book. Although I'm sure any old grammar book would work just fine. If you want to practice I'm happy to help; even though, I can not offer the type of assistance that a native could.

Here is one approach to learning handwritten Chinese. And here is another resource, a book in Chinese about how to learn handwritten Chinese, and Amazon has something that appears to be similar. According to another Reddit post, " You can find a "preview" using a clever google search (add .pdf to its name). " One more book that may be helpful is the book from Yale UP on cursive Chinese.

Think of it like English, there are a handful of forms that are more or less standard. But everyone comes up with their own way of writing quickly, some closer to those "standards," others a bit farther away. But if an individual's writing gets too far away fromt the standard, then nobody can read it...it's like that. u/Luomulanren seems to be saying printed fonts and hand-written scripts naturally don't look the same, including variances like the "a" that you pointed out, as well as ornamental loops and how the letters are connected together.

There is a book 501 portuguese verbs. I have the Brazilian version but i believe the author wrote a European one as well. It has the 501 most common verbs that are used/spoken and every conjugation for them.

In the beginning of the book the first couple chapters are grammar rules and sentence structure.

Same author also wrote this book which goes over grammar pretty well with a workbook with exercises. Once again this is Brazilian but I'm sure the Grammar and sentence structure will be the same if not very similar

Modern Brazilian Portuguese Grammar: A Practical Guide (Modern Grammars) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0415566444/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_qXTADbCEGQ8D5

Boa sorte

There's lots of resources for Hiragana and Katakana, most of them for free so no need to actually buy anything if you don't want to. Here's some material I put together based on one such book:

Remembering the Hiragana in 3 Hours - Memrise Course

Remembering the Katakana in 3 Hours - Memrise Course

Remembering the Kana Video Series - Youtube

Remembering the Kana in 6 Hours by James Heisig - book

For Kanji, there's sources like Kodansha Kanji Learner Course, Kanji in Context and Remembering the Kanji. You should be able to check out PDFs for all to see which work for you.

Here's a Memrise Course I made based on an optimized list of RTK. Includes videos and stories to help. Good skills to you on whatever choice you make.

The Foreign Service Institute puts Thai as a Level 4 Language difficulty (source: http://www.effectivelanguagelearning.com/language-guide/language-difficulty), which means around 1100 hours to be proficient in speaking and reading. If you are in Thailand and motivated, I think that you can develop some serious Thai skills in 2 years.

Anki flashcard decks to pick up vocab + a good textbook for grammar (https://www.amazon.com/Thai-Reference-Grammar-James-Higbie/dp/9748304965) and daily drilling will get you proficient quickly.

I'm actually in the final stages of development of a Thai language digital textbook/app for iOS but I don't think that it will be released until sometime in the first few months of next year.

Best of luck on your learning!

Buy a copy of Essential French Grammar.

This book always gets recommended and for good reason. It has been such a fantastic reference for me while learning. Everything is simple and very to the point.

Plus this shit is only like $2. Well worth it.

The most concise, efficient, and easy to read grammar book I've found is by far Essential French Grammar by Seymour Resnick. There's a great cheat sheet in the back to help you remember specific grammatical terms, a list of cognates, and the book is easy to read in short doses.

Yes, I have a copy of Japanese For Busy People (Romanized Edition) to offer up. It is a pretty good intro for beginners. なかむらさん has an amazing voice in the attached CD.

I'm in the same boat. I'm using the book right now and it is very good. Modern Brazilian Portuguese Grammar: A Practical Guide

What's also good about it (unlike most BP books) is that it tells you what you need to know colloquially. It doesn't dispense with literary and formal usages but it will tell you beforehand which is awesome. I don't want to write a book in portuguese, I just want to understand and speak the bloody language colloquially. This book is perfect for that.

if you are still at the level where you feel like you need English translation, maybe try something like satori reader or the Read Real Japanese books. They will have information on the grammar and explain nuances to you which is a lot better for learning than trying to compare to the English translation. As other have said translation isn't literal, and I don't think it will help you know if you got it right in all cases. That said I do sometimes read stories which I have read in English as at least I know the basic premise and it helps me figure things out in a broader context.

Whoa it's out of print and hard to get a hold of? That's interesting. (edit: I just checked Amazon, it seems to be in stock.) Anyway, I have that book, and it was amazing. It was instrumental in helping me with grammar a few years back when I was actively going to the JLPT. I highly recommend it.

I have another book, 'A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Sentence Patterns,' which is similar. It covers a lot of the same topics as Effective Communication, but it's unnecessarily complicated in its presentation, IMO. Still a good alternative if you can't find Effective Communication.

Your comment—and the general consensus around here—convinced me that I should get that series of grammar books. However, I'm not sure I found the right series. If there's any chance you could confirm it's these (basic, intermediate and advanced, seems to be all for ￥11,130) it would be highly appreciated. :)
Thank you!

Go to nciku.com, they have an application that can show you the correct stroke order.
Something that you need to understand, though, is that even if you make your handwriting look exactly like the printed font, that's going to be considered "bad" by most natives. It'll be kind of equivalent to what a 2nd graders handwriting in English looks like. What you (probably) want to work towards is being able to read/write handwritten characters (which is in fact a totally different skill than being able to read printed font).

http://www.amazon.com/Chinese-Cursive-Script-Introduction-Publications/dp/0887100333

This book is generally considered the best for teaching that skill. You'll learn how to make your characters look like an adult wrote them, and you'll learn to read handwritten characters instead of just printed font.

It's not targeting you in particular, but I've seen posts like this before and well, I don't understand why people interpret the Kana as a lengthy step that needs to be supplemented. It's 48 characters with no meaning besides sound -- pure memorization. If one needs to supplement additional readings or lessons with this, you are ignoring the issue at heart, memorize 48 characters.


If you sit down and completely focus, Hiragana is a 3 hour memorization job, naturally, if it takes you a few days, so be it, but the point is to have it internalized first. I bet many can do it in even less if they really applied themselves. Sit down, grab a coffee, pull up a table and just memorize it. Don't do anything else Japanese related until you have this down (Notice I'm not even asking for Katakana here, just Hiragana--think about what namasensei said! "Just effing write it down!!"). If you're really struggling, this book is fantastic.


Once you memorized it in however amount of hours it takes, just test and test yourself over and over again.


Anyways, I think you get my point. To me, learning Hiragana is like learning the alphabet. It's the first thing anybody does before anything else, there's no supplement to it, there's no complimentary grammar lesson that fits nicely with it, it's just a straight up 48 character memorization process we all have to go through to get our foot in the door.

A couple more tips for your upcoming trip:

Learn hiragana & katakana in 3H A quick & dirty way to read the two Japanese phonetic alphabets (you could probably easily offset the cost of the book by betting skeptical friends or acquaintances a pitcher or two of beer):

• http://www.kanjiclinic.com/riverainterview.htm
  
  The book is Remembering the Kana: A Guide to Reading and Writing the Japanese Syllabaries in 3 Hours Each (I'm linking to amazon uk as you indicated you are from there) by James Heisig
  
  The upshoot is that mastering the phonetic alphabet won't make you fluent in Japanese but it could make the difference in you looking up and spotting a sign indicating "capsule hotel" or "sauna" during your trip. Plus, it'll give you an advantage when trying to communicate with locals who don't speak English.
  
  
• Japanese Youth Hostels
  link: http://www.jyh.or.jp/english/index.html
  
  Also, sites like:
  
  
• AirBnB http://www.airbnb.com/
  
  
• Couchsurfing http://www.couchsurfing.org/ and Reddit CouchSurfers http://www.reddit.com/r/couchsurfing/
  
  
• Wimdu http://www.wimdu.com/
  
  
  
• Y100 Stores are your friend.
  Look for the largest Y100 store franchise, DAISO to fill up on travel items especially if you are doing the 'ultra-light travel' method as I previously mentioned; also, you can often score good prices on snacks and colas at prices lower than regular convenience stores (eg. a 350 mL can of cola might cost Y105 in a convenience store but sometimes you can get 500 mL for the same price or 2 colas - often off-brand - for Y105)
  
  Also, when you plan your trip, if possible, try and concentrate the long-haul bullet train (Shinkansen) trips within the same period you activate your Japan Rail Pass. Otherwise you may find the Pass is not as economical as assumed if you end up using it to make short trips on local lines for 3-5 days. Hell, I don't know - not having done the calculations, but if you were not in a rush and looking to travel the country in a month using local buses (eg http://willerexpress.com ), trains and ferries, it might not be worth it to get a Rail Pass. However, if you are pretty certain you'll be doing at least one or two Shinkansen runs - down to Fukuoka or Hiroshima for example - the Pass would probably make sense. Try calculating costs using Hyperdia http://www.hyperdia.com/en/#

I've found the Dictionaries of Basic/Intermediate/Advanced Japanese Grammar to be the one of, if not the most useful thing, I've found to help with learning Japanese.

Sam Martin's Reference Grammar of Japanese is also excellent, but good luck finding a copy.

The most helpful thing for me has been the Pimsleur language tapes. I'm almost finished with all 90 lessons. They're great.

Also good is this site, which has lots of dubbed and subtitled movies.

This book is really good: http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Brazilian-Portuguese-Grammar-Practical/dp/0415566444

I find Duolingo so boring that I struggle to keep at it.

I have do admit I don't have much experience with Hadamitzky dictionaries besides looking up kanji info in an older one a while a go. But I have to say, if it's jukugo you're interested in, get this one instead, it's hands down the best kanji dic/jukugo list I have ever used. I'd go so far to say, I have never seen such a well made dictionary in any language. Thanks Jack Halpern!

http://www.amazon.com/Kodansha-Kanji-Learners-Dictionary-Expanded/dp/1568364075/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1414756817&sr=1-1-fkmr0&keywords=The+Learner%27s+Japanese+Kanji+Dictionary+%28Bilingual+Edition%29

As for dictionaries, I'm sure you've heard of Hans Wehr—it's less of a dictionary and more of an encyclopedia of information on Arabic roots and word forms.

Another good dictionary I use on a daily basis is Aratools Arabic-English Dictionary. It's concise enough to be useful, but it gives helpful information like the root of the word, and it's able to detect the inflection of a particular word.

Japanese Sentence Patterns for Effective Communication was my favorite grammatical resource when I was an intermediate student. It's a great way to brush up on and get a feel for all the basic grammatical patterns.

Yes, you should definitely learn the different levels of formality if you want to speak like the Brazilians. This one is extremely good:

http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Brazilian-Portuguese-Grammar-Practical/dp/0415566444

These books are more geared towards writing, but one of the side benefits of learning to write is it improves your cursive reading skills.

https://www.amazon.com/Chinese-Cursive-Script-Introduction-Publications/dp/0887100333

http://detail.bookuu.com/2528718.html

Download a bunch of handwritten fonts. They are out there. Take a segment you can read in a regular font and see what they look like in the HW fonts.

Try writing in semi cursive w/o lifting off paper and you'll understand why some words are written the way they are.

I don't have an online resource for you, but there's this AWESOME dictionary that I like called the Kodansha Kanji Learner's Dictionary and they have all you need to know about kanji, from its base meaning to common compounds to stroke order, etc. I love the way it's structured and how much I've learned from just looking up a single kanji.

LOL if you want to speak at least conversational Korean with the ability to construct sentences correctly and properly as well as know the right usage of grammar and honorifics, don't use K-Drama/K-Pop!

I recommend this book called "Korean for Beginners: Mastering Conversational Korean". It's a short book with only a few hundred pages but by the time you finish you will have an in-depth understanding and knowledge of how to speak/write/understand/converse in Korean.

You can do self-study with this book (it's what I did), but if you want to improve more, you can go on English-Korean student exchange forums to converse and learn with native Korean and English speakers.

http://www.amazon.com/Korean-Beginners-Mastering-Conversational-Included/dp/0804841004

Anyone ever read the "Read Real Japanese" books?

http://www.amazon.com/Read-Real-Japanese-Fiction-Contemporary/dp/1568365292 Fiction

http://www.amazon.com/Read-Real-Japanese-Essays-Contemporary/dp/1568364148 Essays

I was looking at them in the bookstore, and they seem to have interesting authors. But I couldn't tell if it is really any help in learning, or if it is something you need to be pretty advanced to get anything out of.

I purchased the Genki I textbook, workbook, and answer key. However, reviews seemed to indicate I'd be better off knowing how to read Kana going in..so I purchased Japanese Hiragana & Katakana for Beginners, which has been really helpful thus far.

Just studying in my free time at work I've quickly familiarized myself with reading and writing Hiragana; about to move on to Katakana. Pronunciation may be a little spotty, but I've yet to use the CD included.

Yet to embark on Genki I (waiting until I finish the aforementioned Beginners book), though I've read nothing but good things about it..so I'd imagine it's a good resource as well.

Welcome fellow Canadian!

Learning Thai is definitely worth the effort. The hardest part about it is the pronunciation; there are a lot of 'ng' sounds at the beginning and middle of words and that can be difficult to speak correctly.

There are some books that help with learning Thai: Thai for Beginngers is the first. It is authored by Benjawan Poomsan Becker. You can find it in any Asia Books store here in Bangkok.

I used this book as well as the intermediate version and, though I don't speak fluently, I definitely have a working knowledge of the language and I can read it. The book teaches you both reading and vocabulary, if learning to read it doesn't interest you, then skip it. However, knowing how to read it (which is not that difficult once you understand how the vowels and a few consonants work) improves your pronunciation quite a lot. Thai has no official transliteration like Mandarin does (pinyin) so every book has a different method and it can get confusing.

Is it the read real japanese series? I remember someone mentioning it to me a while back but i forgot about it until your post.

WRT grammar i don't know what it is but I always end up overcomplicating what should be a basic sentence. Especially when i'm not actively trying to think of the most efficient way to say something. It's something I do in English too but since I'm not a native Japanese speaker it just comes off as super awkward, rather than me being relatively long-winded.

I do need to brush up on certain rules that I understand when heard, but tend to fuck up when i'm trying to use though...(causative form comes to mind)

also ty

I can understand where you're coming from if you have a full time job and a family.

Back when I learned the kana I was 19 years old in college. I had all the free time in the world so I think I practiced for close to 16 hours spread over the first few days so I could get it all down. I used this book which worked very well for me.

Then after my initial memorization I had opportunities to practice by doing work in my textbook for class. That was 2009.

After the class was over I didn't try to learn Japanese further for nearly 5 years. I had a friend back then who would give me his Jump manga and I would read the stories in them even though I couldn't understand a single sentence. All for the sake of kana reading practice.

Once I started going through a textbook again and taking it seriously back in 2014 I still remembered how to read kana because of my effort.

Books are good too. I think the organization of this one is excellent
Collin's Primer of Ecclesiastical Latin
https://www.amazon.com/Primer-Ecclesiastical-Latin-Collins/dp/0813206677/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1487218100&sr=8-1&keywords=collins+ecclesiastical+latin

Granted, this is church Latin. It may be the flavor for you, or not depending on your interests

My coworker is getting me the genki books in Japan since he’s going there this week. More than happy to work with you when I get it.

I don’t know your level of Japanese but I’ve been using the below guide to get me through self studying. Not to the T because I discovered it after I started studying.


https://www.tofugu.com/learn-japanese/

I used the below book for hiragana and katakana, although you could use free charts online


https://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Hiragana-Katakana-Beginners-Mastering/dp/4805311444/ref=mp_s_a_1_5?keywords=learn+hiragana+and+katakana&qid=1570587326&sprefix=learn+hi&sr=8-5

Right now I’m using WaniKani.com to learn kanji. I’m on level 4. That guide says not to touch a text book till I’m on level 10, but I’m going to start early cause I’m hard headed and love to suffer...

I just dumped all this info lol And you probably don’t need it or already know

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/4789014401/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1452975070&sr=8-1&pi=SY200_QL40&keywords=genki&dpPl=1&dpID=51FXpMajKOL&ref=plSrch

I also recommend the work book: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/478901441X/ref=pd_aw_fbt_14_img_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=1Z7QM6FRR2AVB1XWNP2F (more practice is always better)

And the answers to all the questions: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/4789014479/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1452975133&sr=8-1&pi=SY200_QL40&keywords=Genki+answer&dpPl=1&dpID=41dA6oHl-KL&ref=plSrch (just to make life easier if you get stuck)

Make sure to download the audio files from the cd and always listen to the accompanying audio while going through it, even a little listening will help you out.

This one is pretty good:

https://www.amazon.com/All-About-Particles-Handbook-Japanese/dp/1568364199/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1475182255&sr=8-2&keywords=japanese+particles

But I found the information in this book more helpful:

https://www.amazon.com/Kanzen-Grammar-Japanese-Language-Proficiency/dp/4883196941/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1475182306&sr=8-5&keywords=jlpt+grammar

With good mnemonics you can learn each in a day. Buy this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Remembering-Kana-Reading-Japanese-Syllabaries/dp/0824831640

...it's full of great imagery like け="cape and dagger" and の="no parking sign".

​

I like this one Korean Made Simple: A beginner's guide to learning the Korean language It's pretty straight forward and helpful

Free glossed readers: http://www.faenumpublishing.com/available-texts.html

Ancient Greek Alive: https://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Greek-Alive-Paula-Saffire/dp/080784800X

Teach Yourself Ancient Greek: https://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Greek-Teach-Yourself-Publishing/dp/0844237868

Intensive Course: https://www.amazon.com/Greek-Intensive-Course-2nd-Revised/dp/0823216632

Athenaze (as metioned by others):http://en.bookfi.net/book/710288

AND FOR INSTANT MOTIVATION: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5fA6dTnyrE and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NX_MSrE9WtE

Probably one of the best and most user-friendly self-study resources on the market right now would be GoBilly Korean's "Korean Made Simple"

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Korean-Made-Simple-beginners-learning/dp/1497445825

Independent Site: http://www.gobillykorean.com/p/learn-korean-with-korean-made-simple.html

Enjoy!

Chase and Phillips is pretty decent (though definitely reflects the period when it was written):
https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0674616006/ref=mw_dp_olp?ie=UTF8&condition=all

Hansen and Quinn is also good:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0823216632/ref=mw_dp_olp?ie=UTF8&condition=all

I’ve taught with H&Q and used C&P as a supplement when I started to learn Greek.

Duolingo hope to release a Latin course on September the 15th. I hope the beginning of your Latin studies won't prove too sorrowful. >!(Sept. 15th is the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows. Not funny if you have to explain it I guess...)!<

What are your reasons for wanting to learn Latin? If it's mainly for Christian texts, the best textbook is Collins's Primer.

My personal favourites are (German Grammar Drills by Ed Swick) and (Grammar Workbooks by Heiner Schenke and Karen Seago), not to forget (Intermediate German: A Grammar and Workbook by Heiner Schenke and Anna Miel). All are great book for practice and really fun exercises to do.

​

​

I used Greek: an Intensive Course as my last textbook (of 4) in college and found it very useful. It’s not specifically biblical Greek, however. If you’re just trying to get a head start or just want to focus on biblical Greek, another option like Mounce may be good.

https://www.amazon.com/Greek-Intensive-Course-2nd-Revised/dp/0823216632/ref=asc_df_0823216632/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312242453238&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=9067174210130564718&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9011805&hvtargid=aud-799728744414:pla-449076143506&psc=1

Hello!

I'm interested in taking genki too, i would like to know if you bought only the book

or if you also bought the exercises ( question and answer)

thank you!

Buy this book. It walks you through all the basics assuming you know nothing, building your skills one type of sentence at a time: Korean Made Simple: A beginner's guide to learning the Korean language https://www.amazon.ca/dp/1497445825/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_1ogGAbZ90R657

For example they cover hangul and then each chapter is dedicated to how to say or ask something. The chapter starts by showing you a basic conversation between two people. It then proceeds to break down each sentence/word in the convo. At the end of the chapter there are some review sentenced where they swap out some words to test you. Honestly the best book I've come across for a total beginner.

Pair this with the app Lingodeer and you will be set.

Other apps and books tend to be too difficult or include romanization with English characters - you don't want that.

I've found this book to be pretty helpful http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0887100333/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1411917173&sr=8-1&pi=SL75

It's intended for western students of Chinese who want to learn to write like an adult, and was originally written for the army.

I used this book a while ago and really liked it.

This one also looks like it would be good.

Grammar is just a way to formalize/describe the language usage patterns.

Babies learn those patterns without formal rules, and adults can as well.

Knowing the rule can sometimes be a useful shortcut compared to having to hear 100 examples and only have a vague sense of the pattern. My favorite Thai language learning book is a reference grammar.

The problem is that specific grammar rules are easy to write down and learn by rote, as well as test. Real language proficiency is much harder to pin down.

Therefore, language teachers with low confidence in their own proficiency or teaching ability (which is most of them!) tend to emphasize grammar rules and use them as a crutch... so students end up learning the grammar rather than the language.

A language teacher needs to know the grammar rules to better explain the common patterns (and to focus on them), but students don't have much need or use for those rules.

I was also learning informally by talking to people.

The book Thai Reference Grammar was helpful in filling gaps in structure/usage. The title sounds dry/technical/academic, but don't let that deter you. The book provides many examples and is remarkably practical in explaining common Thai language patterns in a way many teachers would not be able to.

If you can't read/write much, but can listen well, Thai2English provides a dictionary with good lookup by approximate transliteration (e.g. you can write nam/num/nahm and get a definition for นำ).

I've had a good time with this so far, but I already knew a bit from talktomeinkorean.com. possibly worth going through their level 1 before getting it :)

The bible was translated from Greek!

If you're still interested here's an awesome book:

http://www.amazon.com/Primer-Ecclesiastical-Latin-John-Collins/dp/0813206677

The late great John F. "Jack" Collins, an adjunct at the Brooklyn College Classics Department who taught at the Latin/Greek Institute, wrote A Primer of Ecclesiastical Latin, which might be a good way to re-introduce yourself to Latin from a different period.

Not a "course book" but it's one of the best books for learners of brazilian portugues "Modern Brazilian Portuguese Grammar". It's not the typical grammar book and the author is incredible. https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Brazilian-Portuguese-Grammar-Practical/dp/0415566444/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1503251046&sr=8-3&keywords=portuguese+grammar

I found it easier for a physical book for the kanas as well. This book was good for me and cheap enough to justify the purchase.

Suh-too-waat

Tell-lee

Learning a little Thai will make your trip here more fun and enjoyable. Pick up this book, and practice before you arrive.

/r/korean has a Beginner's Resource Thread in their sidebar.

Personally, I wholly recommend Korean Made Simple by Billy Go of GO! Billy Korean. It's what I use and is a textbook of sorts designed entirely for self-study. It has practice, vocab, and extensive grammar sections, as well as other nice tidbits.

As always, I suggest putting the vocab into Anki and studying it, because he provides a LOT of vocabulary. Billy Go also teaches Korean online on youTube.

If you find that you remember better with a physical component, like writing, you can try a book (I'm using this one and my handwriting is terrible but I get a better memory result if I am writing it and saying it at the same time. There is not enough room in the book to copy a character enough times to memorize it, so use notebook paper once you have the idea, and do them in groups of five.

The Anki (or AnkiApp for iOS if you can't afford to donate $25) is also a very useful and important tool. SRS is a magical thing.

The third thing to try is drag & drop hiragana or real kana which you can also use for Katakana (and learn different font recognition, which is very difficult at first, but very important!!)

I highly recommend this book , it is my go-to for particles and it is amazing.

There are loads of apps if you have a smartphone. This and this are usually recommended.

Definitely make flashcards! And learning to write them will help recognition too.

The textbook everyone seems to use is http://www.amazon.ca/Greek-Intensive-Course-Hardy-Hansen/dp/0823216632 -- my friend the classics professor and my friend the classical philosophy professor both learned ancient Greek from the Hansen and Quinn.

This is a nice basic little grammar book to have on hand, only 2 bucks from Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/Essential-French-Grammar-Language-Guides/dp/0486204197

I also find the "Coffee Break French" podcast very helpful, it starts out with your basic greetings and phrases to use while travelling etc. but moves on to cover fundamental grammar in a more systematic way in approx. episodes 40-70.

Thank you everyone for your feedback. After reading through everyone's comments, I think I'll be buying Tobira after finishing Genki II and KKLC for Kanji. Out of curiosity though, what book do people normally buy after completing Tobira?

Edit: However, I did want to ask though, is there a workbook and answer key for the Tobira textbook? Is this the Tobira workbook, it doesn't specify? https://www.amazon.com/Tsuku-Bumpo-ryoku-Grammar-Japanese-English/dp/4874245706/ref=pd_sim_14_1?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=4874245706&pd_rd_r=VEM2VE5J676CC8QW2S4M&pd_rd_w=gshdr&pd_rd_wg=AqZNA&psc=1&refRID=VEM2VE5J676CC8QW2S4M

Also would anyone recommend these books with KKLC?

1. https://www.amazon.com/Kanji-Learners-Course-Green-Book/dp/069272799X/ref=pd_sim_14_1?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=069272799X&pd_rd_r=JGW26SZJNHW2VM6FCV81&pd_rd_w=UTrpG&pd_rd_wg=jhxlf&psc=1&refRID=JGW26SZJNHW2VM6FCV81
   
   
2. https://www.amazon.com/Kodansha-Kanji-Learners-Dictionary-Expanded/dp/1568364075/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_3?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1568364075&pd_rd_r=P8VTKK1GKNJK4Y7HHW7R&pd_rd_w=30P1X&pd_rd_wg=ElvBB&psc=1&refRID=P8VTKK1GKNJK4Y7HHW7R

For a real "nuts and bolts" approach, I would use Hanson and Quinn's "Greek: An Intensive Course". It's intense indeed, but it shows you everything behind the curtains since it is a grammar based approach. The are a lot of other books. Some like Athenaze try to use a more intuitive (and slower) approach, with a lot more vocab. I'm sure people here will have other suggestions, but I don't have experience with Reading Greek.

I would very much like for the three Dictionaries of Japanese Grammar (Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced) to be digitized to make searching easier.

Forget the Mangaland books, Japanese the Manga Way is much better, well-structured, covers a great amount of grammar, and deals with the politeness levels.

You should get a reference book (A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar) with it, and The Kodansha Kanji Learners Dictionary.

> talktomeinkorean.com

I will definitely check out this site. Have you used other books/programs? My dad got me Rosetta Stone Korean for Xmas one year. I have been on and off again doing the lessons. I also read a Korean for Beginners book, which was a really good introduction and summary of things. Lots of different insights, slightly overwhelming, but at the same time, just enough to spark interest.

I used [NihongoMaster] (https://www.nihongomaster.com/14-1-1-5.html), as it taught the kana, simple vocab and then quizzed you on it all. The Introductory part where it teaches all this is free. I kept up with this to continue learning grammar and kanji.

For books I used Japanese Hiragana & Katakana for Beginners for mnemonics and writing practice.

To perfect my knowledge, I used http://iknow.jp/home. I'll be continuing with this to learn more kanji/vocab.

I read the Heisig book last month, just out of curiosity, by this time I knew my kana very well.

There's three great books out there that I can think of off the top of my head.

[Read Real Japanese: Short Stories by Contemporary Writers] (http://www.amazon.co.jp/Read-Real-Japanese-Fiction-Contemporary/dp/1568365292)

and

[Read Real Japanese Essays: Contemporary Writings by Popular Authors] (http://www.amazon.co.jp/Read-Real-Japanese-Essays-Contemporary/dp/1568364148)

and

[Breaking into Japanese literature: Seven Modern Classics in Parallel Text] (http://www.amazon.co.jp/Breaking-into-Japanese-Literature-Classics/dp/1568364156)

PS: if you are "fresh out of Genki 2" level, I'd say these books may be fairly advanced for you, but to each their own. Some people don't mind. There are english translations after all.

This post is perfect for me, thanks for it!

For writing and some basics in Hangul I bought a book on Amazon that had good ratings. Not sure if this sub will love or hate it, but it has given me a lot of practice in how I should actually write out the characters when I do them:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1497445825/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

What about this grammar dictionary?

I feel it's level is above N2, so it should be interesting for him.

Read Real Japanese is also very good. (2 books actually)

Not exactly...there's the al-mawrid app for iPhone/Android that at least will sometimes link to words from the same jithr. I know you're looking for a website, but I can't recommend Hans Wehr dictionary enough. It has exactly that function, excellent organization of words via jithr and wizn. I've found it to be an invaluable resource!

My Greek professor strongly recommends against using Athenaze, and I'm not a fan of the "Reading ____" series myself. (I'm currently using the "Reading Latin" books.) I would recommend Introduction to Greek by Cynthia Shelmerdine.

Edit: Here it is if you're interested: http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Greek-Cynthia-W-Shelmerdine/dp/1585101842

There is also this book: http://www.amazon.com/Greek-Intensive-Course-Hardy-Hansen/dp/0823216632. I haven't personally used this one, but a couple professors have recommended it.

I'm gonna chime in and vote against the Ehwa books as well. When I was studying on my own I found Korean Made Easy and Korean For Beginners to be very informative.

If I recall correctly (because I've since lost the book), Korean for Beginners throws A LOT of (helpful) information at you kind of all at once. The Korean Made Easy book didn't have as detailed explanations, but paired with the other book it made it easier to parse things down and learn step by step.

I've been using German Grammar Drills and German Verb Drills
Both are really good resources with plenty of practice. I think the verb drills book has an online component as well.

Similar! :D I want to learn all the languages in the world. Right now I'm learning Korean because I want to move to South Korea. this would help a lot. oh there's more. I forgot. song and funny.

This is a great book if you have some extra cash.

LINKY

Sure. If you don't particularly need the older 3rd editon, this version is a bit cheaper: http://www.amazon.com/Arabic-English-Dictionary-Modern-Written-Arabic/dp/0879500034/

Although, I have the paper version, and end up leaving that one on the shelf and using the online version instead. It is both easier to look up words (type in the root and voila), and also more portable assuming you have a smartphone.

http://www.amazon.com/Chinese-Cursive-Script-Introduction-Publications/dp/0887100333/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1370364920&sr=8-1&keywords=cursive+chinese

for calligraphy I strongly learning 楷書 or 篆書 first, then getting good at 楷書, to master the principles behind calligraphy correctly, only then will your 草書 reach its full potential...

Thai for Beginners by Benjawan Poomsan Becker

Does a great job explaining tones and pronunciation.

I reccomend this book to learn to read and write the kana. It is pretty cheap and worth it.

Collin's Ecclesiastical Latin will probably be an excellent start for you, along with its accompanying answer key.

Even though the grammar will be mostly review, the vocabulary is geared toward ecclesiastical readings.

Aside from that, also consider Sidwell's Medieval Latin. The back of the book contains a guide to the most common idiosyncracies of medieval and later church latin.

I have Essential French Grammar and McGraw Hill's Complete French Grammar. I find them both to be great, but Essential French Grammar is very cheap via Amazon.

First, you need to decide whether you want to learn European Portuguese or Brazilian Portuguese as they have different resources (there are more for Brazilian). Probably it will be decided by which one your university course teaches.

I've been learning Brazilian Portuguese for about 6 weeks now using a combination of methods:

Duolingo and Memrise for apps
Lingua da Gente podcast
Semantica video series

If you want a book, this seems to be the one to get:
http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Brazilian-Portuguese-Grammar-Practical/dp/0415566444?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=ox_sc_sfl_title_2&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

Of course there are many more resources and it's worth browsing around to see what you like.

Except if you're writing by hand, you shouldn't be writing the print version of the characters with all those strokes. You might want to learn handwriting. It'll save you some time on all of that nonsense.

that one does look great! i have this one:

http://www.amazon.com/Korean-Beginners-Mastering-Conversational/dp/0804841004/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1313638124&sr=1-1

its good but it doesnt have any subsequent ones, so ill have to switch to some other series once i finish this one.

I primarily use German Grammar Drills and Hammer's German Grammar and Usage. Also look up Practice Makes Perfect series on German.

I used to know all hiragana and most of the kana because of this book. (Reviews are right, btw: hiragana section is excellent, katakana section is meh.)

Now I can only remember a few of the mnemonics, so it's back to "short two character A+ ranked" and "really long name with stars and that nose-looking thing intended to be a nose."

These 118 lectures are free, and if you want to also have a book, the lectures follow the structure of this one.

You could start with Japanese for Busy People. There are two versions one that has romanized letters and the other with Kana (I have both versions). Also, Genki.

These are the textbooks and workbooks that I've had for classes. They are pretty thorough and they come with CDs so you can hear things properly pronounced..

I am a beginner as well and I am probably not as far along as I should be, I am teaching myself in my spare time of working 2 jobs and full time student so I only get like 40 mins a day to work on stuff. But here are some methods I used, I started on duolingo, but I also have these books from amazon that really helped. ( I left the link below). If the library dosnt have them the first 3 are on Youtube.

https://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Hiragana-Katakana-Beginners-Mastering/dp/4805311444/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2/131-1360910-3742552?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=4805311444&pd_rd_r=f9db01fd-7454-4f44-9c2c-36fe50c1f395&pd_rd_w=9TX8q&pd_rd_wg=QOKOy&pf_rd_p=a2006322-0bc0-4db9-a08e-d168c18ce6f0&pf_rd_r=E8KBA7WMS9EF5YD9BJAS&psc=1&refRID=E8KBA7WMS9EF5YD9BJAS

Apologies, the book is actually titled Thai Reference Grammar

There's another book on Thai grammar which is supposed to be good but which I haven't read. I might've gotten the titles confused, not sure.

Anyway, Thai Reference Grammar is an excellent book.

For forming sentences, you need to start with some basic sentence patterns. This is a good book: https://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Sentence-Patterns-Effective-Communication/dp/1568364202.

Reading, writing, speaking, or a combination of the above? Why are you studying Japanese? How advanced do you want to be?

I'm currently learning some Japanese through self-study because of overseas work. Here's where I started:

• Hiragana: https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-hiragana/
  
• Katakana: https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-katakana/
  
• Basic Conversational Japanese: GENKI | Japanese for Busy People
  
• Other tips: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfCc00zmPZI

> 病院はどこですか,どこが病院ですか？ one sentence uses the は, the other が

https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/55657/difference-between-x%E3%81%AF%E3%81%A9%E3%81%93-and-%E3%81%A9%E3%81%93%E3%81%8Cx

は is usually used for general information, and が is usually used for more specific information. That's not to say that's the only difference between は and が, there are lots of other subtleties and exceptions when to use one or the other.

I recommend https://www.amazon.com/All-About-Particles-Handbook-Japanese/dp/1568364199 if you want a book to explain it.

I found this and this very helpful.

Not free, but a friend of mine taught herself using this book. Used copies are pretty cheap. I've been meaning to get one myself once I have the time to actually use it.

To all those who are struggling to read the cursive script, try this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Chinese-Cursive-Script-Introduction-Publications/dp/0887100333/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266575220&sr=8-1 It's a little dated but still useful.

You'll have a better experience with this book.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1497445825/ref=s9_psimh_gw_p14_d2_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=1BNDM0EJE80DEJ56RWW8&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1688200382&pf_rd_i=507846

I would recommend purchasing the Dictionary of Japanese Grammar series (Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced), and then entering the plethora of example sentences into Anki.

In my opinion it's harmful to directly memorize grammatical explanations, as it's contrary to the way that a native's cognition works when producing sentences. Instead, one should use grammatical explanations to gain intuition for how the moving parts of the example sentences add together to produce the meaning (as illustrated by the translation), and then forget the specific grammatical explanations while reviewing only the sentences (looking at the translation if necessary but otherwise just trying to visualize the meaning).

I like the following book for handwriting.

​

https://www.amazon.com/Chinese-Cursive-Script-Introduction-Publications/dp/0887100333/ref=sr_1_6?keywords=chinese+handwriting&qid=1563310119&s=gateway&sr=8-6

I have this one and recommend it https://www.amazon.com/All-About-Particles-Handbook-Japanese/dp/1568364199/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=japanese+particles&qid=1569616553&sr=8-1

You're young. You'll have a much easier time learning Japanese if you start now.

http://ankisrs.net/

http://smile.amazon.com/dp/0824831640

http://smile.amazon.com/dp/0824835921

Start off with Hiragana for Beginners and then move onto Katakana

I used the first one.. It comes with flashcards. Then I moved to the Katakana. Same author..

http://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Hiragana-Beginners-Mastering-Writing/dp/480530877X/ref=pd_sim_b_58
or
http://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Hiragana-Katakana-Beginners-Mastering/dp/4805311444/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324364592&sr=1-2

These books have vocobaulary that has the letters you are learning. So as you learn the letters, you can learn words with the letters youve already learned.

Then you can move onto books like :

This one focuses more on dialogue

http://www.amazon.com/Integrated-Course-Elementary-Japanese-English/dp/4789009637/ref=pd_sim_b_2

Sentence structure:
http://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Sentence-Patterns-Effective-Communication/dp/4770029837/ref=pd_sim_b_2

I used this book and really like it. It's one to consider.

http://www.amazon.com/Thai-Beginners-Benjawan-Poomsan-Becker/dp/1887521003

What's your level at? I recommend the Dictionary of [Beginner | Intermediate | Advanced] Japanese Grammar, which my program uses as a supplement for material taught in class. It was originally written back in 1995, but it is packed with explanations and examples for a wide variety of grammar structures.