Customer Reviews

Japanese for Busy People I: Kana Version includes CD (Bk. 1)

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

How to learn Japanese: First, get a book and master the Hiragana and Katakana syllabary. This is a must and it shouldn't take you more than a month to do that. Japanese for Busy People has a Kana workbook and that works very well with this first volume since it includes vocabulary from chapters 1 through 10. That way, by the time you immerse yourself with this book, you can start focusing more on sentence patterns. Once you've familiarized yourself with the Kana syllabary, work through the activities in this book. It will give you a solid foundation on two things - mastery of the kana (since everything is written in kana), and basic sentence patterns. If you still have the time, get a kanji book and start working on the first few hundred kanji. I highly recommend Basic Kanji Book. This way, you can correlate the kana spellings of the new vocabulary words with the actual kanji. However, your focus should be more on the correct kana spelling. I always get confused with the long vowel sounds.

About this book: real excellent introduction to Japanese vocabulary, culture, and grammar. The exercises can be repetitive and are mostly substitution exercises. However, this is a great way to master the sentence patterns. My suggestion is to do the exercises and then to create one or two other sentences of your own based on what you just did. This way, you can further apply what you have just learned.

Once you're done with this book, skip volumes II & III. Move on to either the Genki series or Minna no Nihongo series, although I'm somewhat partial to the Minna no Nihongo series because it's more comprehensive albeit more expensive. It covers reading, writing, listening, and composition. At the same time, keep chipping away at the 1945 Joyo Kanji. In time, you will have mastered enough Nihongo to either pass the JLPT or order your favorite sushi.

Follow Up: It's been about a year since I worked through this book. I take back what I said about skipping volumes II & III. I think it's complements well with either Genki or Minna no Nihongo in terms of supplementing your vocabulary with more current terms.

I've heard so many good reviews about this book, that I finally bought it. I've learned more with this book about making sentences, than I have with all my other books. My other books start off with "This is a pen. That over there is a pen." Yeah ok, how useful is that really?

This book tells about Mr. Smith, the lawyer from ABC Foods, and his adventures in Japan. A couple of useful items are Mr. Smith's schedule, and giving directions to a driver. Both of which are great lessons I wish I had known when talking to Japanese friends months ago!! Other relevant subjects are shopping, going out to dinner or a movie. Ordering food, tickets or getting your size clothing is not mentioned. Hopefully that will be covered in future books.

This book is well thought out, and gives the definitions of words when they first occur. English translations are only at the beginning of the next lesson. After that, they expect you to remember the words and be able to read Japanese. My only complaints about the book, is I wish they would start introducing kanji in each chapter, and give you more room to write.

This series has been around for 10 years, and I'm glad to see a new version. I've been through the first kana edition, and own the Level II book as well (but stay away from that one). I've already leafed through this new edition at Borders but didn't want to pay the full comver price. It's a totally new format, and the CD is a nice bonus. Same for the workbook. I'm going to purchse this even though I already went through the old version Level I just for the additional practice. Genki is the other book you should have if interested in learning on your own or with a tutor.

If you're looking for a good book to learn Japanese language, you probably have too many choices flooding your mind and have no idea which one is for you, because every one of them seems good. So, why this one?

This book is very well organized. It contains 11 units to cover the most practical topics surviving in Japan, such as meeting people, shopping, gettig around, dinning out, visiting a japanese home, responding inquiries at office, and socializing, etc. Each unit is consist of a culture note, a specific grammar syntax and usage, and a couple of lessons. Each lesson starts with a short dialogue to illustrate the common conversation of the unit's topic. It also provides a detail explanation on the sentence usage and the new vocabulary introduced in the dialogue. Few exercises are followed to help readers to get familiarized and practice what they have just learned. An audio CD is also accompanied with this book to demonstrate the conversation addressed in each dialogues. At the end of the book, it comes with the Appendixes, which provides a summary of all the particles, sentence patterns, adjectives, etc. in a list with examples and reference to the book's units & lessons. In addition, it has a mini-dictionary with english to japanese and japanese to english. This book also makes use of a lot of pictures to illustrate dialogues and exercises. It really helps the reader to have a more relax and interesting learning journey. After finishing this book, you should be able to have the following skills: (i) basic usage of nouns, verbs, adjectives, (b) basic conversation for essential everyday siturations, and (c) reading and writing hiragana & katakana.

Well, although there's a romanji version of this "Japanese for Busy People I (Revised 3rd Edition)", I would still recommend the readers to get this "Kana" version to learn the real Japanese in a Japanese character forms. If you do not know about the Japanese sound system, hiragana and katakana. You can pick up the "Japanese for Busy People I: Kana Workbook", which is an excellent book for starters. After that, go for this "Japanese for Busy People I: Kana Version". Indeed, this is the best!

(Reviewed by Otto Yuen, 17-May-2007)

This book aims to share the Japanese language in a systematic, but introductory, manner. It is aimed at beginners, and does a fair job in the reading/writing portion. The audio has a little more difficulty in keeping to a pace conducive for a beginning learner. The workbook relies heavily on drawings to identify relationships and aid in memory, which was helpful to me.

The book is a workbook, with space provided for writing answers, thus avoiding the need for another notebook. Though I usually am averse to writing in books - I felt quite comfortable and enjoyed the ability to drag this copy around without thinking I would need a book-bag to carry it and another notebook. However, the provided space is regularly not quite enough for the work to be done, causing some headache.

I did appreciate that this version is in kana. Though written Japanese is written with the addition of Kanji characters, making kana not as regular as this book might suggest to the uninitiated, I definitely appreciate the repetition that aids recognition. This workbook is offered in English, using transliteration; I would avoid that if this version is available.

This workbook is certainly not exhaustive. A few particles had yet to be covered, while many verb formations were never even touched on. Nouns receive treatment from start to finish. Both -i and -na adjectives were covered, but spread out over an extended portion of the text. Counters and numbers as well as calendar and time words are covered. Both sentence particles and clause particles are addressed, though I would say both depended greatly on examples and were not entirely clear on distinctions where a shared English preposition is used in translation (e.g. the distinction between the use of '/' for "at" and the use of '/'/' to express variation in the thrust of a sentence.

In most other Japanese books I've seen, verbs are divided up into many more patterns - based on the consonant in the final syllable. This book does not use that mechanism for distinguishing verbs, relying instead on a two pattern system with an additional category for the two irregular Japanese verbs. This made some of the descriptions on conjugation less than precise, and hard to follow and remember as a whole.

I really enjoyed it, but there were a number of issues (like the short amount of writing space) that sometimes made it difficult. The measure of a language book should probably relate to the proficiency of the reader at completion; I can say that I am much more comfortable with identifying katakana characters on sight (I was already fairly comfortable with hiragana). I haven't gotten any better in listening for comprehension or conversation. And as a final note, I feel that this book has made me hungry to learn and develop my Japanese more, to keep going rather than run screaming into the night.

I have used this text for my introductory course, and must say that compared to Genki, I find Busy People I to be lacking. The vocabulary is alright, and if you get the kana version it is superior to trying to muddle through with the romaji crutch. However, I find the exercises to be repetitive and non-educational. For each exercise, an example is given. All the student is asked to do is fill in the blanks to repeat the same thing with different people / places / things for the 3 exercises that follow. That is great for practicing writing kana--but not much else. A person can literally complete the exercises without learning the grammatical point that is supposed to be learned in the section.

Unless your class requires this book, I'd suggest looking at Genki or Minna no Nihongo--both far superior books that I've relied on as supplements. An added advantage with those texts is early introduction to kanji.

First of all, don't bother with the Romaji version - get a good Hiragana book (Mitamura's Let's Learn Hiragana or the one from Tuttle Library). You should be able to learn all hiragana within a month. When I first picked up this book, being all kana was a little scary, although now that I've been working with it for 2 mos. it's not bad at all. This book has a lot going for it, although now I wish it had some kanji in it so I could start getting used to seeing it. The vocabulary and dialogues in this book all seem very useful and I can envision myself needing to use the vocabulary, which is good. You don't want to waste time learning words you're not likely to use. The bad news is that (at least for the first few chapters) the exercises are not very challenging - they are all substitution exercises with the words you're supposed to replace already in Japanese so you could successfully complete the exercises without fully comprehending what you're writing. There are no translation exercises, nothing to really challenge your understanding. Vocabulary (and grammar) as stated in the book has been thinned down to 1/3 that of a typical college course, and I feel that there really could be more vocabulary included (e.g. when you're taught colors, you learn a total of just 4 colors, although if you look in the back of the book you'll find some more that are not incl. in the text). Although it's stated that this book is for the self learner as well as the classroom, the self learner may find that the grammar explanations are a little thin. I do like how the chapters are organized into units (2-3 chapters/unit) with a one-page grammar summary at the beginning of ea. unit (so you can see what you're getting into). The incl. CD is good although be forewarned that it does not start out at a beginner pace.

EDIT:
I have now been using this text for 10 months and am just about done with it. Many of my initial observations still stand: exercises are not very challenging, grammar explanation is rather brief and not very in-depth, and the lack of kanji is a real drawback. You'll find you need to supplement this text with others for additional grammar and some kanji. Also, some of the grammar could be better taught. When learning the -Te form for verbs, this book presents the reader with a short list and says "memorize these", while nowhere are the rules on how they are formed. Verbs are presented already conjugated into the -masu form, with no mention of the originating dictionary form, so consequently students would be unable to conjugate new verbs into the -masu form, let alone even find the known verbs in their dictionaries. Also, it takes about 1/2 of the book before you actually get into using verbs other than "to be". So, for those who are willing to study every day and want to be challenged, this book disappoints. For those who don't have the time to study, this book will not overload you too much.

When you begin learning Japanese, you'll hear the "Japanese for Busy People" book series mentioned quite a bit. It is hailed by many as the best learning tool for learning Japanese, and more specifically for JLPT.

Though I have been studying Japanese for a few months, I decided to pick up this and volume II at a Barnes and Nobles a week ago.

First of all, I love that this version is all kana. Kana need to be learned and used as early as possible in your Japanese learning experience. I like that they also have a Romanized version, for people who may be using "Japanese for Busy People" as their first tool. I do wish that they would include a better description of Kana and Romanji in the description though. I can see how it would be easy for someone to purchase this version online without knowing that they needed to be able to read kana.

The book first introduces a series of nine characters, all of which are somehow connected to the fictional "ABC Foods" store. These characters are rather pointless however, as there really seems to be no ongoing story or any reason why the reader needs to know about these nine characters. It's just a little thing that bugged me.

The twenty-five lessons span across eleven units, each unit sort of piecing together similar grammatical ideas. Each lesson contains a script of a short conversation between two people and a translation at the bottom. This is followed by a series of notes that explain certain concepts in the conversation. After this, the book delves into some vocab terms and finally it tests your knowledge by asking for you to write example sentences. Each unit is ended by taking a test, the answers to which are in the back of the book. The overall layout is good, but I was excited to hear about the "Culture notes" at the beginning of each unit. I was disappointed to see that the notes are about two paragraphs describing VERY basic information (Talks about bowing in one unit, another describes Sushi and Tenpura). If you want an idea of Japanese culture, you will need to get a book specifically aimed at that.

Let me say this: If you hate taking classes and reading textbooks then this book is NOT for you. This is basically a watered downed school textbook, in fact I understand it is often used as a textbook for Japanese classes.

But if you a truly committed to learning the Japanese language, then this textbook is a great way to do it. If you pull your hair out at the thought of taking a Japanese class to do it, you should probably find another method of learning :).

Positives:
-Twenty-five lessons that cover nearly all the needed grammatical information.

-Example sentences and tests that help the reader test their abilities to write and speak Japanese.

-Glossary, index of particles, and sentence structures make it easy to find exactly what you're looking for.

Negatives:
-Reads like a textbook. Not for users who are looking to learn Japanese but hesitant to go to a classroom.

-So-called "Culture notes" are really just a few paragraphs that talk about very basic info that most people probably already know.

-The blank spaces they give you to write example sentences are often much to short to fit the whole sentence in. At least for me.

I've just finished going through this book and can really recommend it to anyone beginning to learn Japanese. The lessons are based on a common structure:
- a target dialog which you'll expect to understand by the end of the lesson.
- some vocabulary.
- Several written exercises which involve you using the new things you've learnt in the lesson. These are a little repetitive but they help to reaffirm the things you've learnt instead of reading something once and then forgetting it the next day.
- A listening exercise where you have to hear what's being said and answer a question about it.
- A couple of short dialogues as examples.

Each lesson ( there are 25 in the book ) takes an hour or two if you're going well, some took a bit longer for me. But they're pretty managable in an evening, which is helpful. The clever thing about this course was that the lessons build on what you're learning, so lesson 2 will include some of the things from lesson 1. I'm sure this is how all language courses work but it struck me how well done it was in this book.

The CD is also good, with a good range of voice actors. This is actually quite important, as there are variations in the way people speak in Japan, and some of these are picked up in the different actors.

Another reviewer noted that the book doesn't teach you the kana (the basic Japanese characters). This is sort of true, there are no exercises in the book to learn these characters, but there is a large chart of them on the back page so it's easy to remind yourself what's what. Also the only real way to learn the kana is to get a chart of them and memorise them, so I'm not sure the book could do too much more in this regard.

Like others I would strongly recommend that you get this version of the book instead of the Romajji one. It looks a little more intimidating at first, but the kana really aren't that hard to learn and it'll make everything so much easier. Learning Japanese in Romajji is potentially problematic, because there are characters which can sound the same but are written differently in kana. If you're only learning the Romajji it's impossible to tell them apart.

Overall, this is an excellent course for the self-learner, I'm on to book 2 now....

You will not learn any kanji in this book but, assuming you purchase the Kana version of JfBP I, you will get plenty of practice reading hiragana and, to a lesser extent, katakana, since all of the dialogues and exercises employ those scripts. Nota bene: the kana version assumes that you have already learned hiragana and katakana: there is a workbook for this purpose associated with this series. Kodansha also publishes "Let's Learn Hiragana" and "Let's Learn Katakana," two texts with which I am unfamiliar but about which I have heard favorable comments. Do not try to use this text before learning hiragana, at the very least.

The authors claim that this book is for "survival Japanese" and they deliver on that promise. The student will learn the basic vocabulary and structures to function well on a vacation or during an extended homestay.

Because of the limited vocabulary and grammar covered--and because the exercises are answered in the back of the book--JfBP I is great for self-study. Another helpful feature is the DVD that is included with the text. The dialogues are clearly enunciated by native speakers at near-natural speed. It is good practice to listen to them to accustom yourself to the rhythms of official (ie, Tokyo) Japanese.

Finally, I noted that the book is great for people planning a vacation or an extended homestay. It would also be a great text for first-year non-Japanese residents. This group of people will find the demands of living in a foreign country materially lessened by the skills this book teaches. I can easily see how a city-hall based language class could use the text as an introduction to both the language and the beautiful country in which it is used.

I learned Japanese using a previous edition of this book and bought this text out of curiosity. It is a real improvement on an already excellent text.