GENKI - Japanese books series

An integrated course in elementary Japanese

GENKI is a series that is praised by most elementary Japanese language students. The two volumes of these popular series balance its lessons on four different fields, which are reading, listening, writing and oral expression.

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Textbooks and Workbooks

Genki I

The first volume of Genki contains 12 lessons. Each lesson of the textbook features a “Culture Notes” section. This segment is designed to boost students knowledge of Japan through materials about Japanese society and everyday life.

The workbook for Genki I contains grammar exercises, listening practices, and kanji drills. Moreover, there are questions sections that allow students to build their own answers with what they learned with the textbook. Genki 1 books were revised with new 3rd editions in February 2020.

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Genki 2 An Integrated Course In Elementary Japanese Textbook Cover page

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Genki 2 An Integrated Course In Elementary Japanese Workbook Cover Page

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Genki II

The second volume of Genki includes 10 lessons. Lessons of this manual and its workbook are divided in two parts in this second manual: “Conversation and Grammar” section which includes English explanations and plenty of examples, and “Reading and Writing” section which challenges your reading, writing, speaking and listening skills you learned in the previous section.

As for the first volume, the workbook for Genki II includes several exercises that will help students improve their understanding and writing expression. The Genki 2 Revised 3rd edition textbook and workbook were released in September 2020.

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Genki Workbook Answers

The answers of both workbooks of the third-edition Genki are in a single book. With it, you will be able to check your answers and correct the exercises you did. As a bonus, this key also contains the workbook listening practice scripts for extra study or review.

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Features

文法

Grammar

Each book has a section called "Dialogue and Grammar". This part is named like this because you will be confronted with Japanese texts written with kanji (with their furigana) and kana to help you assimilate grammar. These texts will also help you to practice your reading comprehension.

語彙

Vocabulary

Genki I and II include approximately 1700 Japanese vocabulary words you can use in everyday life. For every new word, you will find readings in hiragana and English translations. Practice dialogs and texts will help you understand the meaning of the vocabulary in common situations.

聴解

Listening Comprehension

CDs (with MP3 tracks) are included with each textbook. These audio discs, and their files, can be used with any music player.

漢字

Kanji Practice

The two volumes of Genki are 317 kanji, including 254 of the 284 kanjis needed to pass the JLPT N4.

Self-study plan

The Genki series is perfect for self-studying Japanese. The book is structured really well so you will rarely have to check for extra explanations on the web.

Required time

In order to get the most out of the Genki series books, you will need to spend a total of 9 hours on each lesson. To go into more detail, you will have to grant 6 hours to the "Dialogue and Grammar" sections and 3 hours on the "Reading and Writing" parts.

The estimated total time to finish the two volumes is about 200 hours. After this time you will have a level equivalent to JLPT N4.

Student reviews

“Having worked with Genki over the last months, I can highly recommend it for beginners. I especially liked that romaji aren’t used for long so you get fluent in reading kana rather quickly.”

-Hana

“All kanji presented in the Genki textbook have furigana to help understand pronunciation while you are learning them - something I find that a lot of textbooks tend not to include.”

Jade

Complementary series for GENKI

Even though GENKI is the most successful series made by The Japan Times, this publisher also produces other collections. These series can be used in addition or to continue learning Japanese using GENKI's own method.

Genki Tadoku Books

"Graded readers" are thoughtfully selected reading materials designed for learners of varying proficiency levels. The "Genki Japanese Readers", also referred to as "Genki Tadoku Books," cater specifically to learners of Japanese who are using the Genki textbooks.

Each volume in this series corresponds to the grammar and vocabulary covered in a single lesson from the textbook featuring its characters. This distinctive integration aligns the GENKI Japanese Graded Readers as an excellent supplementary resource for individuals already familiar with the GENKI series, providing a customized way to practice and enhance their reading skills.

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An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese

An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese are a textbook and a workbook edited by The Japan Times. This is the direct sequel to the Genki series. That's why we recommend that students who have finished Genki's two volumes use these books to deepen their Japanese language skills.

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Progressing from Intermediate to Advanced

Progressing from Intermediate to Advanced books series help you progress from an intermediate level to advanced Japanese. This is the direct sequel to the Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese series. We invite you to look at this book if you want to reach a level in JLPT N1 and you start learning Japanese with the GENKI series.

Buy Progressing from Intermediate to Advanced

A Dictionary of Japanese Grammar

These series of three Japanese dictionaries are the most comprehensive resource for Japanese grammar available. It contains in-depth explanations in English and Japanese of approximately 200 grammatical concepts that make up the foundation of the Japanese language.

Buy A Dictionary of Japanese Grammar series