Should I use NativShark or a textbook?

NativShark teaches all aspects of the Japanese language.

This sets it apart from textbooks, which present rigid textbook Japanese as the only Japanese that exists while not telling you how Japanese is used in everyday life.

Teaching both and letting you know the difference gives you a huge boost when you use Japanese in the wild. Not only to your comprehension but your ability to communicate and even read.

Firsthand experience

In my first years of learning Japanese (Ty here!), I went through a lot of different resources. I read a grammar book or two, went through some anki decks for vocab and listened to all the audio in them.

I even read through two separate Japanese grammar dictionaries— twice.

I thought I was doing great. Then I started speaking to people.

It was like I was a beginner all over again.

It was brutal. I had no idea what anyone was saying.

Words were being shortened, particles were flying off of sentences left and right, and I think someone just called me stupid. Or maybe they were asking if I wanted a bag. I don't know 😅

Anyway, I experienced two major issues when going through these resources…

The first major problem

Textbooks were teaching me unnatural language without telling me while not giving me context.

This led to me not understanding everyday Japanese how it is used in real life-- written or spoken.

Being a native speaker of English, I wasn't able to piece together how to speak naturally in Japanese or prepare myself to understand natural language when I saw it.

Since these resources didn't teach me it, I was simply lost instead.

What's worse is that some textbooks such as Genki might give context, and then have a conversation that doesn't represent how real people would speak in that situation, only confusing us learners more.

Let's open up "A Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese Grammar" to a random page and take a look. I landed on page 160.

An example sentence from that page:

None

待つまでもなく妻は買い物から帰ってきた。

My wife came back from shopping without my having to wait for her.

I asked Chie, one of our native speakers at NativShark, about what situation she would expect to see this sentence.

Before I tell you the answer, what do you think she said?

A: At a bar with your friends
B: In a novel
C: During a casual conversation with your coworkers
D: When talking to your boss
E: When writing a blog
F: In a video game

☠☠ Thinking space ☠☠

☠☠ Thinking space ☠☠

☠☠ Thinking space ☠☠

☠☠ Thinking space ☠☠

☠☠ Thinking space ☠☠

☠☠ Thinking space ☠☠

The answer is… B. But just barely.

She told me 誰だれも言いわない (dare mo iwanai // nobody says that) at first. I had to be very specific to get "a novel" out of her because she was pretty adamant about that being a weird sentence to see.

If we were to say it in real life, it would likely look something more like this:

None

めっちゃ早はやく帰ってきた

[She] came home really quickly.

To be clear, this is not to say that the sentence I picked out is necessarily wrong.

It's just that most resources don't tell you that nearly everything they're teaching you sounds like it's from a novel, even if they present it as otherwise.

But wait there’s more

Textbooks and grammar books also don’t teach you kanji until they deem you’re “ready”.

This results in oddities that you wouldn't see in language outside of the classroom, with things like words being not written in kanji when they normally are. This makes Japanese harder to read because kanji contain a lot of information that is now being dropped.

On top of that, avoiding kanji tends to lead to learners being afraid of them for longer than they have to be.

This is unfortunate because kanji are one of the most powerful tools out there for quickly parsing Japanese once we get used to them.

The second major problem

The audio I was listening to was recorded with a learner in mind. It's much slower than normal. Sometimes it was generated by a robot. (Sometimes I didn't even have any audio.)

That said, speaking slower and more clearly is an understandable thing to do. Right? You don't want your students feeling lost, so you try to make things level-appropriate for them.

Unfortunately, slowing down speech results in overpronouncing words and sounds. When we go back to full speed, it sounds completely different.

So how do we fix this?

We have to make sure the Japanese that people use in everyday life and media is being taught in the learning environment.

This is why we made NativShark.

We have specifically instructed all of our voice actors to speak at natural speeds, which means there is no transition to overcome when you use your Japanese in the wild.

We also teach context with our example sentences. You'll learn what words you can you when and where, and how to say them naturally.

This also translates into knowing what words to expect and listen for when someone is speaking to you as well.

Here's an example from one of the Units in the platform:

I don’t think you’d find anything like that in a textbook. Especially because context is so important in explaining the use of this sentence.

Are textbooks a waste of time?

No, actually. But it's good to know their limits.

Textbooks and grammar dictionaries are good for classrooms because, well, it's a classroom. It's the nature of things and grammar books are fine as references.

They can turn into good supplements and references for your learning, but they are best used in conjunction with ways to make sure you're getting exposure to natural language and audio in context.

For example, if you're going through NativShark and want to use other resources like these as a supplement, I think that's a perfectly fine thing to do.

At the same time, I tend to recommend that if you're using NativShark, going out and trying native materials tends to be far more helpful than doubling up on learning-focused resources.

📚

We have a guide on how to study with native materials

For more information on learning-focused materials and why I tend to recommend native materials over doubling up, please check out this section of the native materials guide.

We also have an article on Genki specifically.