Genki I: An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese I

Rating:
Summary: Genki I: An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese
Review: This is the best book I have found so far (I tried 3 others) for someone learning Japanese from scratch. The grammar explanations are the best I have seen in any Japanese text, and the exercises are varied enough to keep you interested. The book is divided into two sections that are studied concurrently; dialogue, vocabulary and grammar; and hiragana, katakana and kanji. This system seems to work well, and the exercises for learning all the scripts introduce the characters in small chunks that don't overwhelm you. Luckily, romajii is dropped after lesson 3. I wish someone had told me about this book earlier.