Genki ll

As nerdy as it may be, I absolutely love my Genki 2 Japanese textbook. For the past three years I've been using the first edition of vol.1 and 2 to study the language. It was collaboratively written by Eri Banno, Yutaka Ohno, Yoko Sakane, Chikako Shinagawa, Kyoko Tokashiki, and was first published by the Japan Times in 1999. This textbook's strongest point is the organization of the content, which is structured in a way that is easy to read and understand. The table of content displays the chapters clearly and allows me to find grammar taught in a specific lesson quickly.

Each chapter begins with a dialog, then a vocabulary, grammar, and practice section. I think the main font used is Times New Roman, but other other serifs and san serifs are present throughout the book as well. The Japanese font used is called kyoukashotai (教科書体) Which was created in the Meji era for use in primary school textbooks.  It resembles hand-written characters, which helps to learn the Hiragana/Katakana alphabet and Kanji(Chinese characters).

Different fonts and italics are used to distinguish the translations between Japanese and English, as well as grammar structure explanations with corresponding examples. Compared to other Japanese textbooks I have seen, this one is by far the best in my opinion. I appreciate how cohesively intertwined the two languages are and I am grateful for such a wonderful learning tool.