Books for learning Japanese

• GENKI I Textbook (3rd Edition)

  Beginner

  A popular first textbook used in many university courses. Each lesson has a dialogue, grammar explanations in English, and plenty of practice.

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• Minna no Nihongo Beginner I Main Textbook (2nd Edition)

  Beginner

  Written entirely in Japanese, with lots of sentence-pattern practice. Use it together with the Translation & Grammar Notes book.

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• Minna no Nihongo Beginner I Translation & Grammar Notes (English)

  Beginner

  The English companion to the Minna no Nihongo main textbook, with word lists and grammar explanations for every lesson.

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• Japanese from Zero! 1

  Absolute beginner

  Starts from zero. Romaji is replaced by hiragana as you learn each one, so you are reading kana before you know it.

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• Remembering the Kanji 1

  Beginner and up

  Learn the meaning and the writing of over 2,000 kanji by building each one from its parts with a short story. Readings are not covered.

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• My First Hiragana Practice Workbook

  Absolute beginner / Kids

  Simple tracing pages for writing each hiragana. Made for young learners, so it is a good pick for families learning together.

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• Japanese Short Stories for Beginners

  Beginner

  20 easy stories set in everyday Japan, with an English translation, a summary, and a word list for each story.

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Study tools

• Amazon Kindle 16GB

  All levels

  A light e-reader with a glare-free screen. Lots of Japanese learning books and graded readers are available as Kindle e-books.

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• Kobo Clara Colour eReader

  All levels

  A color e-reader from Kobo. A good choice if you buy e-books from the Kobo store or borrow them from your library.

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• Time Timer (visual timer)

  All levels

  A visual timer. The colored disk shrinks as time passes, so you can see your 25-minute study block at a glance.

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• Mitsubishi Unistar B Pencils (12 pack)

  All levels

  Japanese pencils with soft, dark B lead. Easy to write clear kana and kanji strokes.

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• Tombow MONO Eraser (3 pack)

  All levels

  The classic Japanese eraser. It erases cleanly, so you can fix one stroke without smudging the rest of your kanji.

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• Deli Electric Pencil Sharpener

  All levels

  An electric sharpener that keeps your pencils sharp for small, neat kanji.

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