I heard here and there that some people are planning to study / are currently studying Tobira「上級へのとびら」 (Gateway to Advanced Japanese, not the Beginner books) as a textbook for intermediate learners, and was wondering if anyone would be up to form an informal study group for motivation, help with questions, or partner exercises.
Note: Recently a planned revision of the textbook was announced, where the contents of the chapters would be split into two books (Lesson 1-8 and 9-15). The first is supposed to come out in July 2025, the second one in summer 2026.
What is Tobira?
Tobira is a textbook aimed for intermediate learners. The content spans approximately JLPT level N3 and parts of N2. It is often used as the next textbook after beginner textbooks like Genki or Minna no Nihongo.
Study Pace
Self-paced, i.e. there is no schedule, everyone can join from every chapter and use the study group to track progress / check-in, ask questions (please mention the relevant chapter/page).
Chapter audio files
Anki deck
Kanji writing sheets
Kanji exercises (~4p/chapter)
Grammar exercises (~2p/chapter)
Short videos with worksheets (pretty outdated, feels like the early 90s)
Language Partner Online (dialogue practice similar to the 会話練習 in the main book, does not have anything to do with actual online partners)
You can check off your completed chapters here. I added an extra column in case you want to link a dedicated progress/details post (e.g. for your own checklists, study plan etc)…
To the ones that are interested, would you prefer to have separate sub-threads for each lesson or do you think doing it like the informal bookclubs and just mention the current lesson when posting is sufficient?
At the moment I tend to the latter to keep engagement higher if we’re still a small number.
This is a rare instance where I think having a single thread makes sense, even if more ppl jumped on board
But I have no objection either way. Just the problem with multi threads is people who might be able to answer questions won’t necessarily be looking at threads, for chapters they’re not on.
(Sorry, wrote this earlier then didn’t realize it drafted it instead of replying)
Yeah, I think that’s a good idea that way people can work through it at their own pace.
I am off for several weeks in February so may end up doing more per week at that time but to begin with I’m looking at trying to do one chapter or section per week, I haven’t looked in the book much atm but was going to try an intensive series of study sessions across a week similar to the one linked in Taiyousea’s post in the textbook learners evangelize here! post.
I agree with “everything in one post” for now. I think it makes sense. That way anyone that’s on the main thread is more likely to be aware of any new posts if there are questions looking for help. Personally though I have very little experience of something like this so if anyone thinks something else works better, I’m happy either way.
Finally getting started on this. Deciding I’m giving myself a “1 pg per day (minimum)” just to build the habit, and starting from unit 1. Will just do whatever parts seem relevant or beneficial (which should be most of it, otherwise why am I doing it? )
Since I’m going through in order, this also means I can update my progress on Natively too: Tobira | L22
I added a participant wiki for everyone to edit if anyone wants to track their progress.
I will start with chapter 5 today or the coming days, aiming for 2 weeks to finish the chapter (after that re-evaluate)
Checklist for myself:
Chapter 5
Week 1
Do Introduction pages
Listen to the main text audio only
Read main text without looking anything up
Read through vocabulary, highlight unknown words in the list
Read main text again, highlight unknown words/kanji and look them up
Listen to the dialogues audio only
Read / shadow dialogues and vocabulary, highlight unknown words
Answer the reading understanding questions
Work through grammar section, 2 pages or ~5 grammar items each batch
Cross-lookup grammar in A Dictionary of Japanese Grammar and Bunpro
Highlight grammar structures in main text/dialogues
Do the grammar exercises per batch
Do the kanji writing sheets (just tracing and memorizing)
Week 2
Do the application grammar exercises
Read / shadow the dialogue practice dialogues
Do the kanji PDF from the website
Do the extra grammar PDF from the website
Do the expansion grammar exercises
Do the pairwork exercises
Do video and LPO questions
Read the extra cultural note
Review by re-reading all the texts and focusing on grammar
Review some exercises online on Seth Clydesdale’s Tobira page
On the off-chance anyone doesn’t know this: there are audio files that can also be downloaded for all the reading passages in the book here: 音声教材 | 漢字・語彙・音声・文法 | 上級へのとびら
Makes it much nicer to get through some of those sections
Thank you! There are also pre-made Anki decks with audio files on their website too, which I find very helpful. Right now I don’t have much time to create my own deck, so I plan to use these as a base and add some examples or whatever I need.
Completed my Week 1 schedule in 4 days so it looks like I’m good in time
間に合うような気がします╰(´︶`)╯
I think generally the crossreferencing of grammar resources helps to understand nuances, but sometimes it confuses me more. Bunpro says there’s an important difference between をもとに（元に）and に基づいて whereas DoIJG lists them as interchangeable
What they probably want to say is that if you translate the phrase the meaning is the same, but in an actual sentence you can usually not replace one phrase with the other just like that, as one is a て-form and the other is not. You‘d have to rephrase the sentence. But I didn’t read the articles, so this is just an assumption.
But now I think what bunpro was actually saying was that depending on the meaning you need a different kanji.
を元にして it seems you can actually use either 基, 元, or 下 . If you use を基にして then it’s apparently interchangeable with に基づいて … Anyone correct me if I’m wrong.
基 seems to be when something is based on some concept or fact, whereas 元 is used when it’s the origin or template (I think).
)
