Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

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