Customer Reviews

Japanese in MangaLand 2: Basic to Intermediate Level

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

 

 

I'm a big fan of the first book in this series. Japanese in Mangaland seemed like a good jumping off point for those looking to do some self study in Japanese and I thought that the second book would really expand upon the ideas laid out in the first book. Not so. Book 2 is more of the same featured in book one which is, I guess, a mixed blessing. You'll have a grammar, vocabulary or culture lesson for a couple of pages, these can include a chart or two and possibly some pictures and the lesson is followed by several ONE PANEL manga examples of the ideas introduced in the lesson. What's the problem? Well, for the second book I would've liked to have seen more than one panel and the manga used aren't any I've ever seen before making the examples harder to relate to or even remember often. I think having some of your favorite characters (or maybe even some you're familiar with) can help he ideas stick in your head. Also, anybody who's studied japanese can tell you that context is VERY important as the language itself is rather vague. So, getting one panel where a character is yelling out a sentence that is TOTALLY dependant on the panel above or below it for context isn't going to help you understand it. You'll just have to rely on Bernabe and his translation choices. I think that "Mangajin's Basic Japanese through comics" does a better at this aspect of the book. There you get an entire section or page of manga which is then broken down and analyzed by whatever topic was introduced in that lesson. I've honestly retained more from being able to preview that book here at Amazon than from several of the lessons in JiM 1 or 2.
Another thing that's a HUGE, HUGE step down from the previous book (and one that I find very misleading, mind you) is that this book claims to teach you Kanji and that together with the first and third books you'll have learned about 400 or so Kanji, but in books 2 and 3 ther is NO STROKE ORDER for the new kanji being "taught". WHAT? How important is stroke order? Critically so! Most people learn kanji the way they learned their ABCs. Repitition, repitition, repitition. This book provides the various On and Kun readings and the typical example compound, but if you're learning these charact ers for the first time and this book is your ONLY source of info than your out of luck. The first book was also bigger and had more lessons so for the money you got more in the first book.
So here's my run down:
PROS: If you liked the first book, this is the more of the same.
CONS: Should include more information. Uses Manga that I've never seen or heard of. Not enough manga for a book that's supposed to teach you "through" manga. The Kanji are "taught" with no stroke order. It's only 3 bucks cheaper than part 1 but has WAY less info making it less valuable in my eyes.

Continuing this excellent series, "Japanese in Mangaland 2" brings up the level to intermediate, eliminates the training wheels of romaji, and teaches several real-life common scenarios that one might encounter in Japan.

Following the same style as volume 1, the lessons are presented with a grammar point, vocabulary, and then follows up with examples from various manga and finishes with a review quiz. The covered topics alternate between pure grammar, like "the -te form" and particle lessons, and scenario-based lessons like "At the airport" and "In the hotel of ryokan."

"Japanese in Mangaland 2" is a serious study book, and not just a way to memorize a few cute phrases of your favorite manga. The author assumes familiarity with the topics covered in "Japanese in Mangaland 1" and continues forward with each lesson. While not a complete study course, as no language should be studied without conversation practice and listening skills, it is an excellent addition and study-aid that can be used to support language acquisition.

The main drawback of this series is that the manga used is not well-known or popular. True otakus would probably rather learn from their favorite characters, but the rights to those are too difficult to acquire. In fact, the manga examples are original to this book, and while clearly mangaesque they are often not Japanese in origin.

However, this should not be a barrier to the purpose of the book, which is to teach Japanese in an authentic environment of manga with real-life situations and conversations.

This series is the best I've found after floundering off and on for years. I am a visual learner and the best way to learn for me is to read, but reading Japanese has always been presented as something difficult and fearful. Traditional courses put it off as long as possible and you are always taught "polite" language first. However, most of us who want to learn the language are used to hearing the extremely colloquial language found in our favorite anime and/or reading manga. This course does just the opposite. Polite language is not ignored, but colloquialisms that would only be taught to advanced students elsewhere are brought up right from the first.

More importantly, this course hits reading head on from the first page. While it's true that they hang on to romaji throughout the first book, it is eliminated in the two that follow. As the author warns in the preface to Vol. 2, it's time to strap on a headband and get to work after you've made it through the introductory first volume.

I'm now nearing the end of the second volume and ready to tackle the third in preparation for the JLPT in December. The author claims that you should be ready for the level 3 after Vol. 3, and I intend to put that to the test...literally.

Frankly, I would like to see this series repackaged for college use with more workbooks like that accompanying the first volume (and the answers only found in the teacher's edition!), it's that good and most college course books that I've seen are that BAD. (Don't even get me started on the dense, dry style and confusing romaji in "Japanese: The Spoken Language". It's horrible, and is yet one of the more commonly used series. *sigh*)

The format changes slightly after the first volume, with in depth work with those evil particles and verb conjugations. But to get to the heavy hitting work, you first must make it through the first volume.

My suggestion is to buy all 3 and the workbook for volume one and give yourself the goal of passing the level 3 JLPT (there are 4 levels with 4 being the easiest and 1 the hardest). With a definite goal and a once a year testing schedule with a definite date that YOU have no control over, it's much easier to buckle down and study.

It's working well for me, anyway. I've already noticed myself automatically reading the signs in pictures I took on vacation in Japan a few years ago..and not just the ones in English or kana!

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This series of language books is the best I own. I have university textbooks for both Italian and Japanese. As usual they are comprehensive, but dry and impossible to use for self study. I purchased the Japanese for Busy People books, but found them also to be dry and difficult for self study. But the Japanese in Mangaland series is amazingly entertaining. I have found that my motivation to study and comprehension of the language have both increased since buying these books.

The main reason this series succeeds where others fail is that it is truly geared toward the self studier. The grammar is presented in simple stages along with plenty of examples. Vocabulary in introduced slowly and in line with the grammar. But, the most compelling aspect is the examples are all drawn :) from manga. This gives a visual context in which to understand and remember the language principle's being presented.

Excellent way of learning Japanese, through the popular medium of Manga, my original enticement towards learning the language since I was a little kid.
Not only does this book bring all those pleasant memories flooding back 2 me but gives more motivation in finally understanding what each manga character is saying.
I've ordered the rest of the series already! Thanks a mill!!

I was really looking forward to this book based on a review at a Japanese news site. Previously I enjoyed the great manga based lessons in the monthly Nihongo Journal but it's no longer being published. So I was looking for something to replace it.

I thought Japanese in Mangaland would feature a page or two of manga and then explain the grammar that goes along with a story. However, there is no story. What you get is a grammar book with one panel manga as examples. This might have been fine for the beginner book but the intermediate level should be expanded to more panels to show a conversation.

The grammar lessons themselves are extensive and detailed. Each panel of manga illustrates the point being explained. The manga is interesting although I really don't recognize much of it. Don't expect to see Goku, Naruto, or any well known characters.

Since the manga is so obscure, why not use original created manga instead? I would have preferred to have a short manga story with several grammar points worked into a useful conversation. As it is, Japanese in Mangaland offers a lot of grammar lessons but the manga doesn't do much except to break up the lines of text.