Hello, everyone. I’m finishing up my JLPT N4 studies, and I’m deciding between AIAIJ and Tobira.
I looked at both Paths on Bunpro. AIAIJ has ~150 grammar points, and Tobira has ~250.
I would like to know why there’s such a large difference. Does Tobira cover N2 material, for example? Thanks!
Tobira certainly convers N2 material to some extend - even Genki dipped into what is N3 on Bunpro.
Also, the Textbook Comparison Table over at RTKWiki states about 5-10 Grammar points per chapter in AIAIJ, whereas 15 per chapter in Tobira, with both being 15 chapters long. Many Grammar points furthermore only reference Tobira in the reading section, suggesting they were added specifically for the Tobira path and do not appear in AIAIJ. However, the opposite holds true as well.
Tobira isn’t made specifically to challenge the JLPT, so while there is a lot of overlap, it isn’t a 1 - on - 1 mapping, this is especially clear in many of the texts, where they use a lot of vocab and kanji that would only appear on the N1 for example. If I personally had to choose between the two texts I would go with Tobira anyday, as it is more interesting in my opinion and gives you a better foundation in Japanese. However if your goal is specifically the N3 instead of improving your Japanese, I personally think AIAIJ is possibly a better match.
Note : I have only used both as references and to read through, I haven’t used them for dedicated sole study though, so take my words with a grain of salt.