Beginning Japanese: Part 1

I purchased this book (Beginning Japanese Prt.1) after having read many favorable reviews of it. I must say that I am quite pleased with what this has to offer for me, as a seasoned beginner when it comes to Japanese. This book will give you many practice conversations to try out and rip apart to create your own sentences, which is extremely helpful when trying to learn the structure of a Japanese sentence. There is a TON of practice given through this book, and as any language learner will tell you, if you don't practice you don't learn.If there is a problem with this text, it would the pronunciation and Romanizing of some of the Japanese Hiragana/Katakana. According to this book (published in 1962), there is a Hiragana/Katakana symbol for SI. Well, in the following text, they explain that it is ACTUALLY pronounce SHI (not "see" as it appears). If you look in any newer dictionary, they either omit SI or put SHI(SI) for the symbol in question as the Romanization. 2 more examples would be HU (pronounced more like FU) and TI (pronounced CHI). Had this book been written more recently or recently revised, all of the words in this text which use TI,TU,SI,HU etc.. would have been written with CHI,TSU,SHI,FU respectively. So any Romanization you see after learning from this book may look a little weird at first as it would use this method for Romanization, not the method in this text. Reading this text after having learned the pronounciations of Hiragana/Katakana, not Romanizations, made it kind of difficult for me to read the words properly without a little extra thought speak the practice samples and then to be able to write the practice converations in Hiragana/Katakana (a great way to practice and learn the pronunciations of the Hiragana/Katakana symbols... good luck with Kanji).Even with this little Romanization problem, this book gives you what you need to learn the Japanese language effectively; lots of GREAT explanations, lots of vocabulary and TONS of practice. I highly recommend this book for anyone wanting to learn to SPEAK (not read) Japanese. I also recommend you learn to speak then pick up another text to learn to read Japanese, as just speaking the language may prove difficult to cope with if you plan on travelling to Japan.

If you're going to study Japanese with any rigor, this is the book you need. Some people will try to use "Japanese for Busy People" or some other superficial junk like that. Trust me - find this book (volumes 1 and 2), use the tapes, find a teacher who is willing to use the book, and study it. I've investigated A LOT of time and energy looking into Japanese text books and this one has consistently proven its superiority over the competition. The American Foreign Service uses it to train its diplomats; Middlebury College uses it for their introductory courses at its summer language schools; and I have seen rapid language acquisition by all who have used it in conjunction with diligent study.I don't recommend this book lightly. If you are not serious about learning the language and don't plan on putting in long hours of hard work, than get a phrase book and enjoy some other aspect of Japanese life. That said, if you use the tapes (and I can't underestimate the importance of using the tapes), do the exercises, and practice, practice, practice, your investment will be rewarded. The ultimate result of your efforts will be the ability to speak without thinking. Just as you think about the content, not the mechanics of the language, when you speak English, you will have the ability to do the same in Japanese. Since you will have an automatic ability to manipulate the framework/structure of the language, your efforts as you move forward can focus on vocabulary acquisiton. And since the core will be established, your ability to use the new words you pick up will be dramatically increased. There is an expresion in Japanese, which basically says "the basics are vital", and this book is a brilliant manifestation of that sentiemnt. Will you be able to discuss philosophy in Japanese after using this set? Of course not, but you will have the fundamental grounding in the language that will enable you to pursue your studies in whatever field in which you specialize.Caveats to consider: 1) the book is in romaji because its focus is on rapid acquisition of spoken language skills, not reading. Speaking, reading and writing are all different skills that are not always complementary. The same author has a highly recommended book called, if memory serves, "Reading Japanese" which is supposed to be used once you hit chapter 10 of the Beginning Japanese book. More hard work. 2) Some of the language is a little "old". Your teacher should alert you to the phrases that aren't commonly used anymore. That said, the grammtical structures don't change.Welcome to the never ending, often frustrating, and very addictive world of Nihongo. Good luck.

Drills drills drills! If you work through the ubiquidous "Japanese For Busy People" published by AJALT without having perused this tome of a textbook, then you're doing yourself a huge disservice. Jorden and Chaplin here present one of the most exercize-intensive books you are likely to find, and any beginning or intermediate student of Japanese knows that is a good thing. Every chapter contains hundreds of example sentences and drills, each one just slightly more advanced than the one before, and while there is next to no kana here, consider it a boot-camp workout for anyone who wants to speak this most difficult language. When I recently went through my textbooks to thin them out, this was one book which I did not even consider getting rid of. Even though it's for beginners there is enough practice here to warm up second and third year students as well. This is really a classic text and workbook which deserves enduring status. You want to know about Japanese? This is probably not the best choice - but if you want to speak Japanese, you could do no better than this exhaustive collection.

I used this series to learn Japanese before going to Japan. Although I started from zero, my grammar was pretty fluent in about 5 months. After having basic speaking out of the way, I started studying reading and writing. And, a year later was able to pass the top level of the Japanese Proficiency Exam. I found that once I was a fluent speaker, the writing came much easier. On the other hand, I have known scores and scores of people who have studied Japanese from a written grammar based approach who have never learned to speak. Even after many years of diligent study. The Romaji in this series I think is a good thing, because it plays well into the method used in this series. It results in a speaking and listening focused approach, rather than a reading/writing focused approach. If that's what you're looking for, then this series is a good fit. The method recommends only using the book in order to help yourself understand what the tapes say and then immediately put it down. The exercises, in fact, should be done with the book completely closed. I can't recommend enough using this approach to quickly learn fluency in the language. This book however, has an updated version, it seems. Published in the late '80s. Another great alternative would be the Pimsleur approach.

Jordan's book (and tapes which are also available to accompany the text) are uncompromising and scholarly. Indeed, there are no kana in this series. The emphasis here is on pronunciation, *lengthy* drills, and thorough explanations which are best suited to those students who already have a good grasp on the principles that hold together English - i.e., sentence structure, verb tenses, particle functions, etcetera. This is probably not the best book for those who just want to learn "tourist" Japanese - there are no pictures, and the dialogues are not necessarily built around familiar travel/business situations. For me, the book has been an excellent supplement to the "Japanese For Busy People" series used in my classes at Loyola. The explanations fill in the "blanks" that my native-Japanese teacher is unable to address due to her limitations in English. Bottom line: highly recommended for the serious student of Japanese!