Living Language vs. Eleanor Jorden

[red_luthansa]

I'm a fairly advanced beginner (although still definitely a beginner) and am looking to buy a new course - I think I've decided between Eleanor Jorden's "Beginning Japanese" parts 1 and 2 with the tapes or the Living Language Basic/Intermediate + Advanced course. I know both are written in romanji but I am very confident with kana and will transcribe both myself.
Which do you think would be better - I am self-studying although I can talk to native speakers if I need help, and I prefer a more rigourous approach than the JBP series, which to the best of my knowlege, both of these courses offer.

Cheers for any help anyone can offer.

[dc_johnson45]

Just curious, what is your goal? I've used the "Reading Japanese" book, but found it... strange. Its transliteration seems out of date. I didn't like it much. Personally, I would recommend 'Japanese for Everyone' along with the tapes (if you can afford them... tapes are ~$100, book is only ~$20 - $30) Its heavy on grammar & vocab, and uses (practically) no romanji. Plus, it uses sentence structures that a native speaker might actually use :)

Poke around the forum & I'm sure you will see JfE comes highly recommended... the Genki series is also recommended (although I have not used it)

[rajs20]

Hrm, sorry I'm not really familiar w/ those courses you mentioned.

Anyways, I agree w/ dc_johnson45. Japanese for Everyone rocks... And actually now you can find the tapes for as low as $40, I think.

Genki is great too (I have used both Genki and J4E), but I like J4E more because it's more targeted to self-learners. All the exercises have answers in the back of the book so you can check yourself. With Genki, only about 30-40% of the exercises have answers on the audio tapes, and those which aren't on the tape have no answers given.

[red_luthansa]

I've heard many great things about this book but unfortunately I live in England and as far as I can tell it would cost be nearly ｣100 to get the tapes - and I really can't afford that - I don't suppose anyone knows where I can get them cheaper?

[rajs20]

Hrmm, sorry I didn't understand, did you say 100 US dollars, or 100 pounds?

In any case, here is the site I was referring to which has it for $40:
http://japanbookplaza.com.au/shop/product_info.php/products_id/22644