Customer Reviews

Easy Kana Workbook: Basic Practice in Hiragana and Katakana for Japanese Language Students

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a practical and useful workbook that teaches the hiragana and katakana characters. It uses a combination of learning by rote practice in tandem with self-test examples. The self-test examples have good variety and range from writing down sentences in kana to correcting sentences that have deliberate errors in them. I found the book's approach of practicing the kana along with reinforcement of what I learned to be an effective one-two combination. It helped me avoid that dreaded "I did it and then promptly forgot what I did" syndrome that some language students tend to have. I am glad that the authors recognized this. Of course, the authors have experience in teaching and their practical experience was reflected in the design of the book.

The book does have effective physical design. The lessons conveniently fit on each page and have enough space on them for you to write down the kana exercises. Each page can be easily photocopied onto another regular-size paper for repeated practice so that you don't damage the original book's pages. Each lesson also fits nicely on each side of a page so that you don't get a example that fits halfway on one side and continues on the other side of a page. That is very thoughtful of the authors.

Importantly, the book starts out by teaching hiragana as it is the most important of the two kana. I've seen other books start with the katakana simply because it had fewer brush strokes. I think that is a mistake. The brush stroke order is prominently shown on each rote lesson page which is a plus as it makes each lesson page self-contained and useful to practice if you are on a bus, in the library, or elsewhere so that you only need the individual sheets you are practicing with (no need for the rest of the book to serve as reference material).

If not for the additional thoughtfulness of the authors in providing an effective physical design of the book so that you can use it in versatile approaches, I would award FOUR stars.

This is a great book! Many people who learn the Kana. Think that once they memorize all the characters. They can fully read the Kana. Which is wrong!!!! This is why I love this book. It teaches kana grammar with kana writing, and has plenty of exerices.So by the end of the book you won't forget anything. I really recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn kana.
I never thought I could read and write kana, until I bought this book. Now it's off to kanji :(.

Also, don't be afraid of kana grammar. It is 100 times easier than english grammar.

Methodically works through all the charachters. good writing guide. if followed through, you will be able to read and write in hirigana and katakana, quickly and painlessly. includes translations of text.

Primarily, this book teaches the proper way to write hiragana and katakana. It excels at this because it gets you to practice, practice, practice and practice some more. Personally, I made photocopies of all the practice pages so I could more easily practice.

Secondarily, it covers basic pronunciation, reading, and writing sentances. Just the basics, concepts are explained simply and it provides a good platform for further study. I'm certain the authors intended readers to study other books for these skills.

Its one minor drawback is not including info on why machine-made characters sometimes look significantly different than hand-written characters.

Simply put, if you get this book and work through it, you will learn Kana.

I'm a busy guy and have had the book for a little over a month. I learned hiragana and am halfway through katakana. No flash cards neccesary, just write the characters over and over.

The reading exercises are especially excellent and will have your eyes tuned to reading speedily in no time.

A+.

this book is definitely what u want if you want to learn hiragana and katakana. if there was a kanji version i would buy it. i would use this book more than once just because it has been the best i have tried so far.

This is a basic workbook for learning Hiragana and Katakana. Each character is given to you to trace to learn stroke order. There are then nine boxes you write the character in. Repetition is crucial in learning the characters, and this book stresses that. The two sections (Hiragana and Katakana) end with exercises in memorization and translating. The back of the book contains an answer key.

One thing missing from the book which helped me are memorization pictures for each character. These are extremely helpful in telling the differences in characters so they don't "all look the same." Google "The Japanese Page" and go to the Beginners section to find useful memorization images for each character.

Flash cards will reinforce what you are learning. I use online flash cards at Real Kana and it is really helpful.

Last but not least- Hiragana and Katakana characters are given to you in a lump sum. Split it up. Do not try to learn more than two rows (ex. ka, sa, ta) in one day. Be patient and you will learn it more efficiently. Review and repetition are key.

It came on time , that's great ! It does everything it says it's going to do and helps you learn fast! I 've had no problems with shipping or the product itself!

I have been using the Easy Kana Workbook in conjunction with Remembering the Kana by James Heisig to learn both hiragana and katakana. Remembering the Kana gave me ways to easily remember the symbols and this book gave me the means to get a lot of practice. Not only is there practice with the symbols, but also with writing words and sentences both vertically and horizontally. The book also includes exceptions for when symbols should be used for different sounds. Finally, there is further opportunity to get practice transcribing between romanji to hiragana/katakana as well as from hiragana/katakana to romanji. Within a one month period I have become very comfortable with hiragana and am well on my way to doing the same with katakana. These two books are all you need.

This book SOUNDS like a great idea because its the complete Kana - all in one book, however some important points are left out.

THE BAD

1. Stroke TYPE is not covered. As you may or may not know, unlike English,the characters in Japanese have very strict ways of writing. This may sound harsh but its a good thing (my handwriting in English is illegible - even to me, but my Japanese is pretty impressive (again, to me, lol). This book DOES cover stroke order, but doesn't describe the stoke type, different types of strokes are used and its very important (talking about the little flicks on some characters etc).

2. No vocabulary practice. After being forced through the entire hiragana there is some writing practice, but not enough. In other books, such as "Lets Learn Hiragana" (and the corresponding katakana book), there are practice works after each (of 5) groups of Hiragana - what does this mean? You get MORE practice and exposure to some common words, which you are not going to memorize but will continue pop up in your beginners Japanese course/book. BUT THIS BOOK DOESNT DO THAT! As i said there is SOME practice, but no way near enough and worst of all it doesnt even tell you what the word is (ie no english translation, so no meaning).

3. Not enough writing practice of individual characters - note thats supposed to be the purpose of the book!

4. No imagery to remember the characters. This sounds childish, but you will find your self making up your own little ways of remembering the characters, its much easier if the book would supply these.

5. Overall presentation is not pleasing, ugly font and square boxes around points


THE GOOD

Basic sentence structure is covered (inc. basic particles), although not in a very effective way.


THE VERDICT

If you have never ever tried kana before (Hiragana or Katakana) then this will probably do, but you will need to makes some improvement later on, i think its better so spend a little extra time (and money) and learn the most correct and complete kana from day one.

I would not recommend this book to anyone.
I would recommend Let's Learn Hiragana: First Book of Basic Japanese Writing (Kodansha's Children's Classics) and Let's Learn Katakana: Second Book of Basic Japanese Writing(Mitamura)
I believe those two books have been compiled into one, but i cant find it, so just get them separately, or even put off the katakana cause you probably wont need it for a while.
I ended up borrowing those two from the library after buying "Easy Kana workbook".
The only thing "Lets learn..." is missing is the imagery. There is also Japanese Hiragana for Beginners: First Steps to Mastering the Japanese Writing System which has imagery, however i have not used the book so i dont know if the vocab practice and sentence practice is as good.

Learning the KANA should be the very first thing you do (once you have decided to learn Japanese), even if you only want to speak Japanese, you should be away of their syllables.
I would like to have a look at the "Japanese... For beginners" books to compare, but so far it seems the "Lets learn..." books are the original and the best.