Japanese From Zero! 3: Proven Techniques to Learn Japanese for Students and Professionals

My teen son was homeschooled since eighth grade. One of his main interests turned out to be languages. In his first couple years of homeschool, he attempted to learn Japanese using Rosetta Stone (he went through the full first level and most of the second), using the first Genki book and workbook, various other beginner books (as I scroll through the popular books on Japanese language in Amazon, I see we own many of the titles...), and by doing a few other things like us just going through flashcards of hiragana and katakana.Halfway through his Junior/11th grade year (Jan 2017), he told me he felt like he learned a lot of Japanese, but said he wouldn't be able to put together even the simplest sentence - written or spoken - if he was put to the test. As with all things homeschool, there's some trial and error, and we occasionally try something that doesn't work. This was definitely one of those things. I knew he was frustrated, but not at all ready to give up.At that point we came across Japanese From Zero! Book 1. When he started using that first workbook and discovered the hundreds of free videos the author, George Trombley, put on YouTube, I mean, this kid was transformed. He ate that book up, and book 2. By the end of that school year (June 2017) he'd gone from saying he couldn't say "How are you?" to being comfortable enough to converse with teens in Japan. In the summer he completed book 3. Senior/12th grade year (starting September 2017) he completed Japanese From Zero! 4 and Kanji From Zero! 1. He kept up with the supplemental videos from George. When George asks a question, I'm continually impressed at how my son replies correctly, without fail, before George supplies the answer.My son is telling me to say he didn’t feel he started actually learning Japanese before he opened the first From Zero! book.These books and the free supplemental videos are by far the best system we've found for any English speaker who wants to learn Japanese.UPDATE MAY 2019:My son graduated homeschool Spring 2018. He asked if he could take a placement test for Japanese at the university he was planning to attend. Recall he’d only gone through George Trombley’s Japanese From Zero! books 1-4 plus Kanji from Zero! book 1 and the free YouTube videos. From the placement test, he was put in 3rd semester Japanese. He likely tested into 4th semester, but as that class is only offered each Spring, he was happy to go into 3rd semester.How did he do? He got straight As - a 4.0 in both 3rd and 4th semester, and he’s continuing with his Japanese studies this coming year. Each class was worth 5 credits, and for the two classes he skipped, he was given 4 credits each. So for 3rd semester he got 13 credits for his one Japanese class, and another 5 in 4th semester. Just from self studying these books in homeschool.

*Edit: I just opened it up and noticed something was a little off. It didn't have an introduction like the other books, but I continued and finished lesson 1. I felt like something was missing, so I went back and noticed that my book starts on page 13! I think I just got a misprint, as none of the other comments seem to have this problem. I still love the series though!I finished books 1 and 2 over a year ago (I had a baby and got a little side tracked), so I am so pumped to finally get started with book 3! It arrived early, which is always a plus. I just received it today, but I am so excited to start learning kanji! I have already watched the corresponding YouTube videos so I know what to expect, but I'm glad I can actually sit down and do the workbook activities now. For those who have watched the videos but you aren't sure about getting the books, it's a complete game changer. The videos are only a fraction of what's in the books, and they are meant to supplement/enhance, not replace. Definitely worth it! I'm looking forward to getting 4 and 5 soon 😁

I found out about the JFZ books after I'd been already progressing with a few others, so I expected a lot of things to be just a review, but I couldn't be more wrong. Mr. Trombley has a lot of experience with using and teaching the Japanese language which shines through his easy to understand and memorable explanations, and because he keeps learning new languages, he really knows what may frustrate the learners and what questions they might have. And he does an excellent job in answering and resolving those. Also, I find the practice questions, activities and reading practices a great tool for reinforcing the concepts, which is especially helpful for self-learners like me. So even if you're an advanced learner and you think you're familiar with a lot of the topics from the Table of Contents, I really recommend checking out these books. (Also, don't forget to check out his lessons on YouTube!)

I finished this book about a couple months ago, and it's by far my favorite book yet. This book and all the other books in the series are very well written and explain grammar concepts in a way that's very easy to understand. There are some noticeable typos, but nonetheless this is a fantastic learning tool. It has valuable lessons with VERY valuable grammar.JFZ! Book #3 is a great continuation from book #2 in terms of difficulty and content. You learn Kanji and more advanced grammar/vocabulary. I highly recommend book #3 to anyone who is on the fence about buying it or not. You won't regret it. It brought my Japanese to the next level.

Japanese from Zero has been the best japanese learning experience I have had so far, thank you George!

I bought this a while ago but I'm here to review after I have finally completed this book. All the lessons are fairly easy to comprehend and give you lots of examples which is the same as the 1st and 2nd book. However, there are quite a bit of typos that I saw when using it. It's a really good book for those wanting to learn Japanese. If you have completed book 3, you should already be nearing towards the JLPT N-4 level. You would just need to review a few extra grammars on other web sources and build up your vocabulary. Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with the content inside of this book given that it's "From Zero". The easily learning path suits the name perfectly.

I love this series, especially the video series that accompanies the book. I would love to have bought the rest of the series but unfortunately, the rest of video series are not out yet. As I sorely rely on the book and the video series to learn, I had no choice but to purchase other textbooks so I can continue to learn Japanese. It only took me just one year to become an advanced learner of the language and I want to thank George (the author of JFZ) for making it fun to learn Japanese and start me on this journey. I highly recommend this series.