Minna no Nihongo Elementary 1 (Third Edition) - Textbook (Shokyu 1)

Main textbook for Level 1 of the Third Edition of Minna No Nihongo.

Important!!!

This book is entirely in Japanese, but there is a separate book of translations and grammatical notes, which is not currently published. This book is scheduled to be translated into 15 languages, starting with English in November 2025 and Chinese and Vietnamese in February 2026. Other languages will follow soon.

Publisher's recommendation:

The Third Edition has almost the same grammar syllabus as the Second Edition, but the new vocabulary in each lesson is different from the Second Edition. For the time being, we will continue to sell the Second Edition, so we recommend that people use the Second Edition's supplementary materials with the Second Edition Main Text.

Compared to the second edition, the conversational scenes, vocabulary, and expressions have been revised to reflect current times. There are no major changes to the grammar programme or the structure of the individual lessons. Specific changes

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Minna No Nihongo is a comprehensive teaching material for learning Japanese, designed to be as enjoyable and interesting as possible for both beginner students and teachers.

Focusing on step-by-step grammar learning, the book provides functions and situations that lead to communication and aims to help students acquire speaking, listening, reading and writing skills.

Structure

Introduction: Japanese pronunciation, classroom language, greetings and everyday expressions, and numbers

The 25 lessons of the main text: syntactic patterns and example sentences, conversation, exercises A, B and C, and practice questions

Also included: reviews, comprehensive reviews, summary of adverbs, conjunctions and conversational expressions, verb forms and list of study items.

Audio: Available free of charge online and in the app.

Level: Lower beginner (equivalent to JLPT N5)