Yookoso! =

The workbook is the perfect companion to the intermediate Japanese text. It reinforces the lesson and provides extra practice.

For those who expect to learn Japanese in less than a year, be fluent, and a master of the language... this book is not for you. It goes at Japanese (though this is the manual for Part Two) with a student-approach. It has everyday life scenarios, has written and reading Japanese activities, introduces Kanji practice exercises in the workbook, has available listening comprehension, and cultural notes. This Japanese learning series is based on a student-learning level. It is not for someone looking to study Business Japanese, or someone with an extreme cultural focus. This book focuses (and the other in the series) on teaching basic, practical Japanese. In the second book, it goes into more detail and harder forms of verbs, tenses, and so forth. Both plain and polite language is discussed, and it gives vocabulary words at easy-to-grasp levels. There is a glossary in the back, and a thorough index. I studied Book One on a High School school level (a level which, curriculum wise, is only allowed to move slow) for four years. Later, I continued with Japanese, and went through the second book. This is not the type of book that will teach contemporary Japanese in an instant. It is not the type of book that NEEDS to make the learner love Japanese more or less. A stutent of Japanese (or any language) should go into the field with a desire to learn. Japanese is very different from much of the English language. It is a hard language, but, the book is correct on one matter. Japanese is elegant, beautiful, and a language that everyone should be proud to study. It takes perserverence and a great attention to practice and detail. It also takes a good instructor. The book cannot do all the work FOR you. Therefore, with careful study, practice, diligence, a good textbook, and a teacher who is up to date in Japanese, a student can learn and become fluent. You can't blame a textbook for what your class was lacking. But, Youkoso (both Volume 1 and 2, and the accompanying workbooks) will be beneficial to a student of Japanese and are good tools for learning and mastering a different language.

I used the first Yookoso in a Japanese class I took before I came to Japan. Because I liked the format and grammar explanations, I bought this book. It's been a big help in my struggle to learn Japanese. Many texts throw a lot of unrelated vocabulary at you expecting you to memorize every word. Yokooso groups the vocabulary by theme (e.g. work related words, health words, etc). Thus you're learning in a sensible manner.