Articles on Japan | Sencha Tea
Although it is traditionally the green tea of Japan, Sencha Tea can satisfy the palate of every individual. Read on to find out more.
Kobe Beef
People love the different Japanese cuisines that are cooked and served in the traditional style, especially recipes cooked with Kobe beef. These are mouth-watering, introducing exotic flavours to the mouth like you've never tasted before. Kobe Beef is one of the world's top grades of beef, produced in Japan and raised from the finest Waygu cattle. Read on here |
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| Japanese for Busy People: Kana Version Bk. 1 (Japanese for Busy People Series) |  | Author: Ajalt
Publisher: Kodansha Europe
List Price: £18.99
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Rating:  9 reviews
Media: Paperback
Edition: Revised 3rd Edition
Pages: 288
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 10.4 x 7.5 x 0.8
ISBN: 4770030096
Dewey Decimal Number: 495.683421
EAN: 9784770030092
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Product Description
A course for 'busy' students who want to learn natural spoken Japanese. This series is prepared by a working group of experienced Japanese language instructors who reviewed and tested the material in a classroom environment.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 9
 effective time-saver May 21, 2009
Richard Almasi (Europa)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
First of all, this book/series is mainly aimed at two sorts of people:
1. business students learning Japanese with hopes to work in Japan or work for a company who do business with the Japanese
2. working professionals who do not have 2-3 hours to spend each day on learning Japanese and want to learn the most important bits as efficiently as possible
The three books in this series cover pretty much the same things as Japanese For Everyone (JFE) and Genki I+II.
It has audio-material that has to be bought separately.
The vocabulary it covers emphasizes professional vocabulary such as business terms, as well as practical vocabulary for actually living and working in Japan. It is aimed at mature learners who either plan to work in Japan or do other business there.
If you get the Kana versions there is no romanization at all, not even the vocabulary lists are in romanization - just Kana and English. Therefore you need to know how to read and write Hiragana and Katakana before you start with this book.
But you can easily learn Kana in just a month, so don't panic !
I recommend either Japanese for Busy People: Kana Workbook Incl. 1 CD or the (usually) cheaper Guide to Learning Hiragana & Katakana (Tuttle Language Library).
The exercises are varied, in each chapter are word substitution, reading comprehension, translations etc.
The grammar is explained in a straight-forward manner, but it does not go into the same depth as JFE and Genki. It shows you the most important bits and moves on to the next part.
What distinguishes this book from the others is that you can go through one chapter within 30 minutes and "master" it within a week. So if you can only spend 30 minutes a day studying then this series is a good option for you.
The appendix of each book has tables of all verbs, adjectives etc. covered in the book - which is good for those who like to have everything in one place.
There are extra workbooks that accompany the main ones if you have more time to spend, but they are not essential in my opinion.
Another thing that distinguishes this series is that it is directly aimed at self-learners as there are no group-exercises: it only contains exercises that you can do individually.
Also, there are no audio-exercises in the books, so not buying the audio material will not affect you when using the textbooks. This is different to JFE and Genki, which have extensive audio exercises in each chapter.
This series takes a slower/more gradual approach than Japanese For Everyone, so if learning the Japanese language feels intimidating to you then this series could be a good option.
For example, Kanji are not taught until the second book in the series, this is to get you confident in reading hiragana and katakana first.
The other two books in the series explain both individual Kanji as well as compounds: words made up of one or more Kanji characters, and Kanji + hiragana words.
Many people really like this gradual approach, but others complain that it feels too slow, especially with introducing vocabulary and Kanji. There are also complaints about the grammar-topics being too spread out across the books.
It is true that the chapters in the books do not focus on a specific grammatical concept - like most language books do. Instead they focus on the dialogue-situation: giving a gift to someone etc.
this book works and is worth the money! January 27, 2008
N. Miller (Amsterdam)
This is a great book, a great series of books even! They work - the chapters are short and you get given the basics of sentence structure early to begin building. Verbs are laid out plainly and in a logical order which aids memorisation. If you can't attend lessons where they use this book the CD covers all the dialogues, short dialogues, exercises, and vocabulary for every chapter! The repetition of exercises is not boring, and can be done anywhere. Good for someone who wants to speak and/or read Japanese. I used this book to watch anime and read manga... oh and to talk Japanese of course :D
Couple this with a book to teach you hiragana and katakana and you'll be away in no time!
Covers the language well but perhaps a little too hastily January 2, 2007
David Fox (London)
18 out of 19 found this review helpful
I first came across this book as recommended by my Japanese teacher as she sometimes uses it as a compliment to the lessons I take weekly. Now, although this book does cover a lot of the important base points of the Japanese language (particles, useful vocabulary etc), I do find that it doesn't really put enough time into drilling these essential grammar points in.
For example, at the beginning of each chapter, you're given a quite nicely laid out page of points on how the proceeding chapter's main grammar points will be used and the formation of it's sentences. Sounds great but it's just one page! To me, that's just not enough. My teacher puts a great deal of (I think necessary) time each week into these points as they really are the building blocks of the language and to just skim over these key points in one page doesn't give the language the respect it demands.
Aside from this, I also find it's techniques of teaching vocabulary a little rushed as well. Now I know the title is "Japanese For BUSY PEOPLE" but there are some sections that need to have time taken over. Generally, this book just lists new vocabulary in a tiny bar at the bottom of the page each time it's used in one of the book's (I'll admit, very useful) target dialogues. Vocabulary is my weak point in Japanese and I find flash cards, repetition etc essential. Just listing words without even putting a picture next to them (in MOST cases) feels like they've written out the dialogues and then just casually mentioned the vocabulary. To me, this leaves me feeling left behind and so, the rest of the book can become slightly daunting. If I didn't have my Japanese lessons to back up the material, I think I would find this book very frustrating.
All in all, Japanese is a difficult language. That point coupled with the fact that there's so many Japanese books on Amazon that can be daunting to someone starting off has led me to be very critical of this, and any other language book. None-the-less, JFBP is, for me, the perfect compliment to a night class as it serves well as a summary and I can't stress enough how much this has helped me.
Just a quick warning though: This version is the "Kana" edition which means it's written in the language's two most basic character sets; Hiragana and Katakana. This means you'll have to be able to read these sets of characters before this book will make an ounce of sense so bear that in mind! There is a "romanized" version which writes the Japanese in it's English syllables but to really progress in Japanese, I recommend learning the Kana and then using this version. It may seem daunting but it's really quite easy especially if you use an amazing book called "Remembering the Kana: Hiragana and Katakana" by James Heisig.
The bottom line is that this really is a great book but it's lack of attention to grammar and the way it teaches vocabulary unfortunately warrants taking it down a star. Still essential though and probably the best book I can imagine when used alongside a properly tutored Japanese course.
David Fox
Best spoken Japanese book for BUSY people October 20, 2009
J. Axup (England)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
If you want to learn a solid base of conversational Japanese and have a small taster of what a couple of kanji characters look like, then this book is for you! I'm absolutely delighted that a CD is now included in this version (it wasn't with the first one).
It still baffles me why some students would want to study some kanji characters but not all of them. This kana version gives enough characters to keep students happy, but not enough by any means to enable them to read real Japanese. In fact, when I go back to these books I start to get confused because in most places kanji characters are replaced by katakana. It is an excellent start for busy people though!
I would say that the Rosette Stone language software is FAR FAR better at teaching spoken Japanese. But sadly it costs nearly $500 through Amazon USA. Dig deep...
If you are series enough about Japanese to want to learn some kanji and are not a 'busy person' then why not try the college student version of this book? It's just as good as this one, but doesn't assume you are tooo busy to spend much time learning Japanese:
Japanese for College Students: Basic Vol 1
Excellent series of books October 6, 2009
NChick (UK)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Japanese is one of the most difficult languages for an English speaker to learn, but this series of books makes it accessible.
Pictures demonstrate how the words and phrases in question are used, and detailed but understandable notes on pronunciation (very different to English) are given. The book in question even comes with a CD, featuring native speakers - a must for truly accurate sounds.
The text is clear and a good size. Both the romanised Japanese (Japanese words and characters written using the letters A-Z) and the Japanese syllabaries are presented well.
(It should be noted that this is the Kana version - although what you need to do [insert the correct sentence ending, etc] is in English, all the exercises use native Japanese characters [hiragana and katakana]. If you can't read at least hiragana, don't buy this book. Do buy it, however, if you're also buying the "Romanised" edition - it may help with the learning process)
I'd recommend this series of books to anyone wanting to learn either via their own, or via a class or private tutor.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 9
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