As a student of Japanese until I die. I have used and abused many text books and have come to let you know what My favorites are!

For begining learners of Japanese I highly suggest the text book:

Japanese for College Students

It has 3 levels and covers reading, writing, grammer, role play and more.
My favorite and I think most important part of the book is the fact that it uses Kanji fromt the first lesson??????kore wa nan desu ka.
the cool thing is that it uses furigana for any new kanji introduced but drops it after the kanji has been used in at least 3 lessons great for having to memorize the kanji you learn. It dosn't drop a bomb of kanji either the the essentials in the begining by the end of the 3 books you can read a Japanese editorial in a newspaper.

For kanji dictionaries:

Kodanshas learners dictionary

faster to find a kanji then an a-z dictionary and faster then my electronic drawing kanji dicitonary. It takes an average of 9 seconds to find an Kanji and also list the most common compond kanji words.

Hope this helps anyone enjoy!

That sounds interesting! I've just started taking my first japanese class at college and we're using "Japanese for Busy People". I've also ordered "Genki" through j-box because one of my friends uses it in her class so I thought I'd do some extra study on the side.

My very first book was Japanese for busy people which is commonly used throughout North America. In Japan the common book is Minna no nihongo. But I dislike both. In the future when you want to read a write you will have to start basically from the start! With Japanese for college students you are forced to read and write Kanji right from the start!

I sound like a sales man. :icon_rolling_eyes: but I after living in Japan for 6 years and seeing tons of books out there this was the best one I've used. You can get them here.

I based my Japanese lessons in this style of learning. Take a look at them although I only have 2 lessons up I am getting them done. hehe

When I started to study Japanese I used "Minna no nihongo". I liked it, but guess it might be a bit difficult for people who study Japanese by themselves.
As for kanji I used "Basic kanji book", it is divided into two parts and contains 500 basic kanji.

i used minna no nihongo too
i tried to study by myself and failed miserably..
got myself a tutor and it was pretty eay

yeah i am glad that i have japanese at my high school or else i would be miserable.....We are using all sorts of stuff....mostly this text book for college students