An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese II: Banno Eri (English and Japanese Edition) [Paperback]

Eri Banno (Author), Yutaka Ohno (Author), Yoko Sakane (Author), Chikako Shinagawa (Author), Kyoko Tokashiki (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1999 | ISBN-10: 4789009823 | ISBN-13: 978-4789009829

This is a widely used textbook for beginning Japanese covering the four basic skills - reading, writing, listening and speaking. Genki II covers lessons 13 to 23.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Ideal for beginning students of Japanese.

Product Details

• Paperback: 353 pages
• Publisher: The Japan Times (October 1, 1999)
• Language: English, Japanese
• ISBN-10: 4789009823
• ISBN-13: 978-4789009829
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 7.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #229,886 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I love this part as well!!, February 17, 2006

By 

H. M. van Dooren "Martijnathome" (Netherlands, Europe) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese II: Banno Eri (English and Japanese Edition) (Paperback)

This book is the second part of Genki and contains lessons 13 to 22. Just like part 1 I really liked it. Only thing is that grammar sometimes seems to be a bit short. For example the explanation of transitivity is too short. Maybe they did it to avoid difficulty while learning, but I think it is quite important and a good and thorough explanation is preffered here.

I started using 90 days of Japanese Language simultaneous, and actually liked those books even better. The grammar is explained better (I needed this book, to get a firm grasp of what transitivity actually is) and the vocabulary is more extensive.

Besides this, it remains a great book, and is good preparation for the JLPT 3 test. After this book I started learning the book Approach to intermediate Japanese by Akira Miura & Naomi Hanaoka McGloin I couldn't find it on Amazon.com ut it is a great book also published by Japan Times. This is the book that should be studied after Genki II.

27 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not great, not awful., December 8, 2003

By 

lemonzest "Jenn" (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Genki II: An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese - Workbook (English and Japanese Edition) (Paperback)

Reading reviews of Japanese textbooks has led me to conclude that no one ever agrees that any one system works best. I think the best option you have is to combine several different books to get the best possible coverage of grammar and vocabulary (assuming you can afford it). Having used other textbooks before, I feel that Genki has its good and bad points.

The good: Lots of useful vocabulary, easy to understand for the most part, "bonus" pages of real-life grammar usage at the end of each lesson, lots of exercises to practice the grammar forms, the kanji sections are well-done.

The bad: Very inadequate grammar explanations (many students in my class had no idea *why* they were using certain grammar, or what it actually meant), poor coverage of grammar forms (i.e., they teach you half of the things you can do with a grammar form, but completely skip the other usages), the coversations at the beginning of each chapter have little to no practical use.

I think that this textbook could only be used effectively in a classroom setting, with a teacher to provide more thorough explanations and grammar examples. In my past experience with other textbooks, I've had to memorize a great deal of conversations and sentence structures (all of which turned out to be extremely useful, despite the tediousness), but with Genki, it leaves you somewhat underprepared to use the knowledge you've gained for anything deeper than low-level conversation.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It was great for me!, January 8, 2006

By 

Lulu Stulino "dadystootoo" - See all my reviews

This review is from: An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese II: Banno Eri (English and Japanese Edition) (Paperback)

I like the genki books. As you move through the book, the grammatical structures definitely build upon previously learned structures. The vocabulary is very practical. After just using the Genki books, I was able to go to Japan and communicate pretty well considering I only had three years of studying under my belt. The previous reviewer mentioned that it is hard for her students to remember the grammatical structures. I find that all the students in my class and I have been able to recognize structures and use them. This is mostly because we incorporate conversation in class so much. As long as you keep on using the structures, it will eventually come naturally. Hope that helped a bit!