Colloquial Japanese: The Complete Course for Beginners

I learned to speak Japanese from this book, and recommend it to everyone who's trying or struggling to learn from any other text. I'd studied intro Japanese from at least two other well-known texts, but never got half as much from them as from "Colloquial Japanese."The explanations are clear and easy to follow, and are written in our trusty, readable Roman alphabet. So if you want to learn how to speak, you don't have to first get bogged down in hiragana / kanji .This book presents all the basic grammar needed for anyone to become comfortable with everyday, colloquial Japanese, along with a wealth of necessary vocabulary and common expressions. The serious student will probably want to follow up or supplement this with a kanji text and an advanced Japanese grammar book, but even for such students, the only place to spend the first 1-2 years is with this book.By the way, my first copy of this book was conveniently stolen by an acquaintance who "borrowed" it, then disappeared. She was teaching Japanese to some foreigners here in Japan, and after I lent it to her, I suppose she realized just how good it was. That was ten years ago, and I assume she's still getting good use out of it. I subsequently ordered a second copy, which I passed on to a good friend after it helped me become competent in the language. Don't waste your time with other texts. Buy this one and learn to speak Japanese.

I was impressed by this book. It manages to cover a pretty extensive bit of turf, and does it painlessly. The choice of vocabulary was good (separate concentration on honorific expressions in every lesson), the orthography used was comprehensive enough to show the tonal variations without being too despairingly technical, and the dialogues seemed to me to provide enough material to get the beginner started without killing his or her interest.The one drawback, not from my point of view but from the beginner's, was the almost total absence of information on the writing system - just some cursory information on kana. Well, after all, the title of the book is "Colloquial Japanese", isn't it? I am a great believer in the theory that it's too much work to simultaneously start the beginner on writing and speaking Japanese, but I realize that many students would not agree with me. In any case, I'd recommend this book, along with its tapes, to the beginner.