Product Description

This new edition of the popular Japanese course for beginners has been completely rewritten to make learning the language easier and more enjoyable than ever before.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1411116 in Books
• Published on: 2003-02-28
• Original language: Japanese, English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Audio CD

About the Author
Hugh Clarke is a Professor of Japanese Studies at the University of Sydney, Australia
Motoko Hamamura is at the University of Sydney, Australia

Customer Reviews

Very good
As opposed to another reveiw I'm past the 5th chapter and I've yet to find more than one instance where the vocabluary wasn't comprehensive. Then the word was still available in the glossery in back. In the forward the author does say that in later chapters they will deliberatly not include a comprehensive vocabulary because part of learning the language is learning to utilize the appropriate reference materials. But I haven't reached that point yet. Though, even then, the glossary in the back is comprehensive.

There are however a number of typos throughout. Most are rather obvious because they are nearly all in the vocabulary sections where romaji and kana are in parallel text. Thus, the romaji will nearly always be correct and kana characters will either be missing or misplaced. I'm sticking with a 5 though because I find these typos obvious and they didn't confuse me.

The rest of the book is great. I've found each chapter leads into the next very well with comprhensibile explanations and each section just the right size. Kana and Kanji are introduced from the beginning slowly and reinforced each chapter.

Unfortunatly, it makes everything so comprehensible that many will press on before fully learning each chapter. So I recomend going back to the beginning and reviewing everything at least once every other day until the book is complete. I'm doing this and every time I see some detail I missed all the other times. So it may feel tedious but it does pay off. Also, It's a good idea to keep each study period under 30 minutes so you don't burn out. Review, review, review.

My favorite feature about this book is it is not a "japanese for business" book. If your interest in learning japanese is more for leisure purposes then this is a really good self study course. It is also one of the very few courses that teaches Kanji from day one. So it is at least in the top 3 courses for those who feel learning to read japanese is a high priority.

My only real gripe is the CD is sold separatly. It isn't in any of the bookstores I go to, so I must order it.

Very well designed course
This book is fantastic, I love the way it eases you into the different scripts and the realistic dialogs in each chapter. Unlike some other books it's also easy to follow and learn from. It teaches you some very usefull sentence structures right off the bat and then eases you into different grammatical concepts.

Of course Anyone using this book would find having a japanese dictionary, grammer reference and kanji dictionary very helpfull to fill in any gaps that pop up. (I really like the Oxford starter japanese dictionary, Oxford Japanese grammer & verbs and Kodansha Kanji learner's dictionary). This book does a way better job than my $100 university text and 2 other self study guides I have had the misfortune of wasting my money on but there are still a few topics that could use more in depth explainations.

I've had a year of formal Japanese instruction in university so I didn't have any problems grasping the early dialogs. Allthough It doesn't look like the author intends complete beginners to understand every word since there are some fairly advanced grammer in them. I guess some people will find this an interesting prelude and others will find it annoying. I personally liked it because it kept things interesting.

The only real complaint I have is there are quite a few obvious spelling errors throughout the book, hopefully they get corrected in a future edition.

Great buy
For the money, you cant go wrong with this one. The books and tapes cover material at fast but easy to follow pace. The method really helps the means of retention. It's a great buy for any beginner.