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Holiday is near and it’s the month of love & gifts!
If you have someone special who love Japan stuff and currently doing their best to study Japanese language, these items below will be a very wonderful gifts (and a great study booster) for them!
1. Japanese Electronic Dictionary (Denshi Jisho)
Price: $$$$$
Perfect gift for: Above beginner learners
This one is a bit pricey but it’s a precious treasure for every serious Japanese learner. Even a local Japanese teacher have one in their pocket.
Powered by 2 AA battery which can hold up to 3 – 6 months depend on the usage, this handy tool is a must have! Not to mention that this stuff has a great life expectancy. Some report around 5 years of usage in general and some report up to 10 years of usage.
If you are unsure about the model to buy or if they need it or not, you can read about it here: Do I need a denshi jisho?
Notes:
• Please note that only 9800 series and 10000 series are useful due to the Kenkyūsha’s New Japanese-English Dictionary (The Green Goddess) content. If one only want to buy 1 Japanese – English dictionary, this is the only one they need to buy.
• The dictionary maker require panasonic evolta / eneloop battery to be used with this device since they won’t leak. So be sure to include them with the gift 😀
• Japanese beginner learner might have a hard time figuring out how to use the device. In that case you can send them this link here: How to use Denshi Jisho?
• If you could get your hand on older model such as XD-D9800, it’s all good! The latest one in the market is XD-G9800 but XD-K9800 is as good with lower price!.
Equipped with kenkyusha. There are newer models, but older models do just great and have lower price.
2. Japanese picture books!
Price: $$
Perfect for: Beginners to intermediate learners
Not all Japanese picture books are made equal. Some has so few page with high price (12 pages!). Some doesn’t have furigana (reading helper for Japanese beginner learner) . And some are not interesting at all.
But… all these below has a lot of page (over 150 pages!), furigana and interesting! (especially for Ghibli lover). Ghibli Japanese picture books are one of the best gifts! And if you know their favorite movie, you can always pick that up to give them one of the best gift of the year! yay!
Great picture book with over 150 pages for beginner’s reading practice
Great picture book with over 150 pages for beginner’s reading practice
Great picture book with over 150 pages for beginner’s reading practice
Great picture book with over 150 pages for beginner’s reading practice
Great picture book with over 150 pages for beginner’s reading practice
Great picture book with over 150 pages for beginner’s reading practice
Great picture book with over 150 pages for beginner’s reading practice
Great picture book with over 150 pages for beginner’s reading practice
Great picture book with over 150 pages for beginner’s reading practice
Great picture book with over 150 pages for beginner’s reading practice
Great picture book with over 150 pages for beginner’s reading practice
Great picture book with over 150 pages for beginner’s reading practice
Great picture book with over 150 pages for beginner’s reading practice
3. Japanese study books!
Price: $$ – $$$
This gift set is best to be given to Japanese learner who love to do self study, haven’t started to learn yet or people who don’t know which books to get.
Foreigner First HandBook:
Perfect gift for: Japanese beginner learners and people who want to go & live in Japan.
Easy & fun to read. Packed with essential material for survival conversation & basic Japanese grammar pattern.
Genki Set:
Perfect for: Beginner who can’t read Japanese alphabet (hiragana/katakana)yet.
Genki set is one of the most popular books around for beginner – intermediate learners. The lessons in these books are written in English so it help to comprehend the lessons much easier compared to the other popular Minna no Nihongo set, which is a fully immersive learning with no English at all.
The workbook is less important, but the core book questions doesn’t have any answer sheet. The answer is sold separately as an answer book for the core book and all workbook.
Easier to read than Minna series. If you do self-study, make sure to get the answer book too.
Workbook for Genki 1. If you do self-study, make sure to get the answer book too.
2nd part of Genki set. If you do self-study, make sure to get the answer book too.
Workbook for Genki 2. If you do self-study, make sure to get the answer book too.
Answer key for all questions in all Genki 1 & 2 and their workbooks. You need this if you’re going to do self-study.
Try! Learning Set:
Perfect for: Japanese learner who already able to read Japanese alphabet (hiragana/katakana) and want to start learning Japanese grammar. Try! is the grammar lessons book with simple but effective English explanation. The shin500mon is a review & practice book. The yellow Japanese grammar dictionary provide thorough explanations of basic grammar. They are wonderful when used together as a whole!
TRY! is less popular than Genki or Minna no Nihongo outside Japan, but most Japanese teacher would agree that these books content are great (or even better) for studying Japanese. Be careful though since this series are also provided in Thai & Chinese. These links below are links for English version.
Recommended Japanese textbook
based on JLPT material.
N5 & N4 are beginner levels
Recommended Japanese textbook
based on JLPT material.
N5 & N4 are beginner levels
Recommended practice book to be
used together with TRY series.
N5-N4 are beginner level.
Great supplementary for self study. Written technically, filled with lots of example & thorough description.
Conversation Practice Set:
Perfect for: Japanese learner who want to hone their speaking & conversation skill.
These book below is perfect for practicing Japanese speaking skill. The sentences written are very practical in real life. The green one is simple stuff for beginner while the blue one is advance conversation for intermediate learners.
Book filled with practical conversational sentences & translation. Imitate the sound files until you master the sentence.
Book filled with more complex practical conversational sentences & translation. Imitate the sound files until you master the sentence.
Buying one of these items above will surely make their day!
Wishing you all a wonderful happy holiday!!!
°˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖°
I love so much all your posts!!! They’re brilliant. You give good advice and recomendations. It’s cool that you don’t stick to minna nonihongo, there are lots of interesting material out there. I’m gonna try to find ghibli’s books for a good price (shipping taxes are too high right now)
You’re welcome!! *hug* Yes, the key to get motivated while learning is to find materials which are interesting to you! Happy learning~
Hi!
What’s the difference between N4 and N5?
Which one is more difficult?
Thanks
Long time ago there was only N4. Ah… Okay, it’s actually not that long 😀 Anyway, somehow it’s decided that N4 material will be divided into 2 parts, and thus N5 was born 😀 N5 is easier than N4.
Finding this site is best thing happened to me in a long time. Thank you so much.
You’re welcome! We’re glad we could help~ Happy learning!
Without this site I don’t know what life would be but all these great materials are helping me improve my japanese, thank you so much!