When the war broke out, the program was transferred to Colorado, and was eventually condensed to one year as an emergency measure. It was a full-time program that took three years to complete! The objective was to attain complete fluency. Department of the Navy, prior to WWII, used to run a Japanese language training program for its personnel stationed in Japan.
But there's no denying that Minna is serious and well-thought out, and provides more learning material than others in this space.Īs an aside, I read that the U.S. There definitely is a bit of quirkiness to the "Minna method", and the series does NOT spoon-feed the learner. I think this benefit, however, is a source of irritation among some Western students, as I have read book reviews from such students where they seem quite upset that they have to buy another book just so that they are able to use the main textbook. Minna is a practical choice for schools with students of various mother tongues, as they can all use the same textbook (in Japanese), but each have a grammar book in their own language. My Chinese and Korean friends overseas all have used Minna, as that seems to be the choice for second-language instruction in Asia. In the UK, the esteemed SOAS, (Peter Barakan's alma mater), uses Minna. Wisconsin-Madison has a very solid and highly reputable Japanese undergraduate program, and I was surprised that they use Genki. I think University of Hawaii might also use it, but I'm not sure anymore. Among the pretty solid Japanese undergraduate programs, I can only remember for sure that Columbia uses Minna, and Columbia arguably is among the strongest Japanese programs anywhere. Unfortunately I don't live in an area where I could meet up with a person face-to-face, which would be my preference.Īkmatsu-san, I too have noticed that Genki is very popular in the West. Once I get to the Lower Intermediate level I would like to supplement my studies with an online tutor. My goal is to continue with Minna through the four textbooks in the series, (Beginner 1 & 2, and Lower Intermediate 1 & 2). So I've decided to go slower and also review older material until I can start reabsorbing more vocab for new lessons. I can see how a self-learner could easily get through one chapter in Minna per week, including all the additional material that was in fact my rate of progress for a long time, but now I'm finding that there is a saturation point with assimilating and retaining new vocabulary, which eventually becomes a choke point. The main textbook can also be supplemented with more audio CDs, which I think for self-learners is really essential. In addition to the main textbook and grammar book, you can also buy a writing workbook, a kanji workbook, a chapter summary/review book, (the pages of which detach so I'm assuming teachers could use this book as an end-of-chapter quiz), a listening confirmation book with audio CD, and a reading book. And Minna does offer a lot of material compared to other textbook series. Despite my eagerness to zoom through the material as fast as I can, (which is probably a temptation many of us have), I am making sure I do all the exercises thoroughly and understand the material before proceeding to further chapters. I'm now on Beginner 2 and I can say I am loving Minna. I understand there is a Japanese word for my hobby: 積ん読Īt any rate, I made a decision to try to confine myself to one learning method, and so I made a commitment to stick with Minna until the end of the first textbook, (Beginner 1).
I like collecting books of all sorts, and I own quite a few that were included on this list.