Customer Reviews

Japanese in Mangaland: Learning The Basics

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I've never had much luck with Foreign Languages. I'm an intuitive writer to begin with, and so generally build my writing structure by "ear". What sounds like it could be spoken naturally is the way I construct a sentence. Because of this, I virtually wasted three years in High School French. The net result of which gave me very little knowledge of the language, save a few remembered words.

Now I've spent the last six years collecting anime (in both dubbed and subbed versions), and a little translated manga. An appreciation of the Japanese culture derived from watching and reading, inspired me to want to learn some of the language. Still, it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks without some sort of gimmick that makes it seem easy. I tried the special tapes and courses that were supposed to be so great, but for the most part, they were boring. I listened, heck, I even tried sleep-learning with the audio CD's, still when the track ended, and I hardly learned a thing.

Then I saw a book coming out on "TheRightStuf" anime site, so I thought I'd check it out on Amazon. It hadn't been released yet, so I found this one instead. Pretty good reviews, so I thought I'd give it a try. I was pleasantly surprised with the results, after the first few lessons, I'm beginning to recall not only the spoken word, but the hiragana characters that write it in Japanese!

What's typical of most "gimmick" type books are that they focus only on the "gimmick", and beyond that are not very good. They are often not written by very knowledgeable people on the subject, just someone with a unique point of view. Often after a good start, they degrade into a boring reference. Those of you who've read those "...Dummies" books know what I mean. The real dummy is someone who thinks a reading a thousand-page book, is learning something the "easy" way! This book is not like that. While still a basic book on Japanese, it covers the subject very well. It manages to maintain interest with not only the manga "hook or gimmick", but with well-written, well-supported examples.

In addition, it gives the history of the Japanese language, how it's taught in Japan, and displays each phrase covered in five or more different equivalents. One of the most important but often missed in other texts is the literal English translation and the suggested proper translation. Too often, I've seen the suggested translation, and could not relate it back to the written Japanese characters, because the translated words are now out of order! Just that little detail helped me to start learning some written Japanese characters.

For a relatively small book, they go the extra mile. A guide for how to construct the written characters is included within the lessons. Each new lesson has interesting information on the Japanese culture as it relates to the language, and illustrated examples using manga. While I know you won't get a very comprehensive view of this complex language, I believe the foundation; will enable you to build on what you have. This will enable you to do well with more intermediate and advanced texts.

On the book itself, an exceptional bargain is to be had. The book is soft covered, but bound like hardbound books. The paper is smooth, likely acid free to last a long time without yellowing, much like the pages in an expensive college text. The graphics and print are easy to read with appropriate breaks and use of bolding, italics, and different fonts and sizes to accentuate the learning experience. I rarely see this quality of book in print these days. It was printed in Spain, they must have some very good print shops there.

I've been studying Japanese for several years, completing 3 years of Japanese in college and even studying and taking the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Tests). However, in most Japanese Language textbooks, you learn formal Japanese which is fine if you are going to be using it for business. If you want to watch Japanese TV programs, anime, read manga or talk to your Japanese friends, you are in for a rude awakening, because they don't speak the same Japanese you just learned out of a textbook.

Thank you, thank you for Japanese in Mangaland. Even though I've studied many Japanese textbooks, with this book I was finally able to learn some of the missing pieces of the puzzle of understanding "informal" or conversational Japanese. I don't mean rude or vulger slang that some other gimmicky books might teach you, but real Japanese that the everyday person might use.

However, I don't recommend this book as your primary text. Other textbooks like "Genki" or "Japanese for Busy People" have good exercises and audio tapes that go along with the text. Japanese in Mangaland is an excellent suppliment because of it's explanation of informal Japanese.

Get it, it is worth every penny.

I love manga, and I wanted to read manga in japanese, because there's far less manga in any other language than there is in japanese. So I started looking for good self-study books, because I didn't have not the time, nor the money to go to japanese classes (I'm a university student, not much free time). I decided to buy this one, Japanese in Mangaland, and I'm glad I did. This book is fun, easy to study with, and it works! I really have learned the basics: verbs, grammar, expressions, 160 basic kanji (with 5 kanji compounds for each kanji, that's really useful!), particles... There is no need to know any japanese before studying this book: it starts from the real basics, how to read and write hiragana and katakana.

The good thing about this book is that if you study it, you don't learn the standard japanese spoken and learned in class, not too useful when you read manga: you learn real japanese, just the way they really speak and write, with real japanese manga example sentences. So, after studying this book, and using a good dictionary, you can even read and understand easy manga such as Shinchan. I was so happy when I saw that I was able to understand what they were saying...

I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn japanese, or anyone looking for something new, amazingly interesting... I'm a japanophile now :)

Marc Bernabe, the author, lives and works both in Japan and in Spain, and he's well known and loved here because of his great job as a manga translator: thanks to him, we've read in spanish wonderful manga such as Karekano, Blame!, Saikano, Say hello to Black Jack, Crayon ShinChan and so on. He's translated and adapted "Remembering Kanji" (James W Heisig) to spanish, too.

I recommend this book for the basics (grammar, verbs, vocabulary and so on) along with "Remembering Kanji" (James W. Heisig) for learning the writing and meaning of the 2000 basic kanji (if you already understand and know how to write the 2000 basic kanji, it will be far easier for you to understand any text, because everything written in japanese is filled with kanji!!!). For exercises and more practical japanese language learning, Minna no Nihongo is one of the best. Practical, perfect also for self-study, but as the textbook is only in japanese, don't forget to get the translation and grammatical explanation book too!

Japanese in Mangaland is the english version of a Spanish book, "Japones en Vinetas", (also by Marc Bernabe, of course) which has been such a success in Spain, that has just been released the 4th edition! And has just been released its second part too, "Japones en Vinetas 2", with lessons 31 to 60. Studying both books, you're ready for the Noken levels 4 and 3. I'm sure that you will soon have "Japanese in Mangaland 2" in english.

If you know spanish, it would be great to visit the author's website, www.nipoweb.com , it's very interesting. It speaks about japanese culture, books, movies... And sorry if there's any mistake, I'm just a student of english and japanese, my mother tongue are basque and spanish. But, after everything Marc Bernabe has done for all of us who love Japan in Spain, I had to review this book :) It has been so useful for me... You won't be dissapointed, I promise.

Japanese in Mangaland + Minna no Nihongo + Remembering Kanji = winning trio.
ganbatte, tomodachi!

Learning Japanese through the medium of manga is a no-brainer. Many Japanese learners first interest in the language originally stems from an interest in anime and manga, and want the ability to go beyond English-translated merchandise and be able to pick and choose from the massive ocean of material that is untranslated in Japan.

"Japanese in Mangaland: Basic Japanese Course using Manga" accepts this, and builds a solid learning system based on usage and mis-usage in Japanese comics. Originally written in Spanish for Spanish learners of Japanese, it was so successful that the book was re-formatted for English learners, and it works just as well.

The book follows the format of introducing a grammar point, then following it up with manga examples taken from real Japanese comics. A serious study aid, it begins with learning the kana, both hiragana and katakana as well as basic kanji, then begins vocabulary building with repetition and increasing difficulty. Each section then concludes with a quiz to test yourself on what you learned. There are also cultural lessons in each chapter that give the necessary background to understand some of the subtleties of Japanese.

This approach has been tried before in "Mangajin's Basic Japanese Through Comics," but that book lacked a structured approach to language learning and instead focused on "cool phrases" and was unsuitable for beginners. "Japanese in Mangaland" is much more of an actual study course.

The only drawbacks to "Japanese in Mangaland" is that the manga used are not particularly famous, and will probably be unfamiliar to Western audiences. It may not even be their idea of "manga,' as generally only one style is imported to the US. Also, although the emphasis is on kana, romaji is used throughout and it may have been more challenging to slowly eliminate it as the course progressed.

As with all language learning, this should not be your only course, as speaking and listening practice is irreplaceable. But, as a fun supplement, it is an excellent book that still managed to teach me a thing or two even after several years of Japanese study.

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.

I don't, however, give "Learning the Basics" a 5 star rating. It makes one mistake by using romaji for the entirety of the book. If as intended this is for the learner of Japanese who is motivated to read and understand manga then I believe there is really no place for allowing the student the crutch of romaji past the 3rd or 4th lesson. The series however redeems itself in parts 2 and 3 by using exclusively kana and kanji (except in a few places where typos have crept in).

This book has an excellent format. I love how they translate first 100% direct and then translate to a more by-the-meaning translation. I think their charts are laid out in an easy to understand way, and really show the patterns that, once spotted, are a big help. However... There are errors. I am not fluent in Japanese, and even I spotted errors in the Japanese text. There are also English errors and sometimes paragraph-layout errors. A lot of the pronunciation key is wrong.(the opinion of myself, 3 friends who have studied Japanese, and 2 friends that are from Japan and fluent in both languages.)

DO NOT USE THIS BOOK AS YOUR FIRST JAPANESE LESSON. But as a supplement to anything you are already doing, it is a great addition.

...is the main goal of this book. To the Western ear, Japanese could be Martian, for all its complexity and strange rules about grammar and pronunciation (you might know that there is no L sound in Japanese, but did you know they don't have a V sound, either?).

Mark Bernabe does his best to help the "average", non-collegiate person understand this complicated-yet-simple language by incorporating black-and-white images from various Japanese comics (such as Phan and Lost Youth)into the lessons in a fun and engaging way. First comes the basic ideas, then the image examples (coupled with English pronunciation and Japanese writing), followed by the ways in which the expressions are used, and at the end of each lesson he concludes with one-page "self-tests", using word balloons as answer lines.

The most amusing section (to me, anyway) is the lesson regarding profanity, which is widely used in anime and manga but avoided in the rest of the ultra-polite Japanese society; while you could use "chikusho!" or "kuso!" in writing comics, it just might get you kicked out of the local restaurant.

A good book to start you on your linguistic journey.

So when I ordered this book, I thought it would be another run down of limited japanese phrases, limited kanji descriptions, and a whole lot of romanji. Lucky for me though, it wasnt like that at all. The stylish excerpts from japanese manga seires novels helped not only to transistion my brain from one language to another, but also aided my grammatical sense. (Seeing as how kanji can be spoken in either Onyomi or Kunyomi depending on its structure.) They only reason I didnt give it a five was because after reading 20 chapters, with 10 more to go, I have to admit it got kind of boring. It read more like a text book than a witty how to book. Hopefully they can improve on that.

Hi,

I don't usually write reviews too often unless I feel the need to let someone know whether or not they're about to make a purchasing mistake.

This review is mostly going to be tailored to people (like myself) who are obsessed with anime and dream that, one day, they too will be able to watch an anime without subtitles and understand everything, among other things.

With that in mind, this book is by far THE best beginners' Japanese course I have ever found. I have purchased many of the popular titles you may have already heard of... (ex: Japanese for Busy People) and I was so frustrated at myself for never sticking past the first chapter... blaming myself for my lack of discipline. Now it is no longer a mystery to me--it wasn't my fault! These books are extremely dull and boring to anime fans. "Where is the train station? Thank you, Tanaka-san, for the rice. Would you like to sit down? Okay. Nice to meet you. Thank you very much! What time does your train leave? etc etc..." Not only that, but you never learn anything interesting / in style, and you are pretty much reduced to learning "Watashi and Anata" as the only way to address I and you, respectively. Jeez, what were they thinking? Doing that completely takes the fun out of Japanese learning and gives me the mistaken impression my hopes of Japanese as a cool language were simply pipe-dreams.

This book takes care of all that. You will learn how to say "You bastard!!!" like you hear so often in Anime. You will see examples of beautiful anime girls asking if they can bathe with guys they like. You will so cute cartoons express themselves in silly ways. But that's not all! It is a beginner's book too, so you will learn how to say days of the week, calendar days, seasons, how to count and the different systems, etc... all the critical stuff. Even a few swear words! You will learn how to read and write Hiragana and Katakana right off the bat (you do not need to purchase anything else for this either, as it is all succinctly explained in 2 chapters, even stroke order.. etc).

You also may be wondering how they teach this information. 1. Charts. 2. Explanations... and 3... Real manga examples! What better way to learn casual day to day conversation-style that's so apparent in Anime and everyday life? I can't think of a better way. I really don't want to learn Japanese from a hoity-toity course and speak like those geeks wearing lawyer outfits you see around town with their "the Queen's" Japanese. No, none of that, though you will be able to speak like that if you choose to. To illustrate, I was even saying some of the things in this book to Japanese waitresses with excited and happy results, such as: "You speak exactly like a Japanese man!!! Oh my God! Where did you learn?". Nowhere, no formal education, just many hours of anime, this course, and a sincere desire to be able to speak it fluently.

There is one complaint about the book... (another reviewer was correct in pointing this out). There is no stroke order to draw / write the kanji. I do find this quite irritating, as I'd like to go along with the book and learn these simple kanji without developing bad habits. (hence the 4-star rating). Thankfully though, all hope is not lost, and it's not that big of a deal. Get Heisig's Remembering the Kanji set which will teach you 2042 Kanji and their readings, stroke order, etc etc. Book 3 of 3 has another thousand or so).

In conclusion, if you love Anime / manga, and haven't purchased any other books looking for a beginner's Japanese course to do on your own, then this it. Look no further. I am extremely grateful to the author for deciding to use this radical yet effective method of teaching me Japanese.

Thank you.

The idea of learning japanese by reading manga is really great. Manga is, after all, one of the reasons that make many people want to learn the language in the first place. So this book looks promising, but it's actually just somewhat less boring than traditional textbooks.

The book's content originated from a column about the japanese language that was featured in a spanish magazine about manga. It's reasonable to suppose that its aims were quite unambitious at first: help manga fans learn a few words and set expressions that were used very often in the comics. The format of the lessons were: "here are some words and expressions, memorize them" along with very superficial explanations and examples from a few manga panels. This format is adequate for a magazine, with its space restrictions, but really not optimal for a book.

Unfortunately, the lessons were not improved when collected to make a book. One can say they were actually worsened, by replacing real manga panels with some generic manga drawn especially for the book. It is quite boring to try to memorize a lot of vocabulary in each lesson, the explanations rarely do more than scratch the surface, and the examples and exercises are very few and unenlightening. In most examples, there are a lot of words and parts of the sentence you don't understand, and the book doesn't explain anything beyond what's the topic of the current lesson. I'd be very surprised if I'd manage to really learn some japanese from this book, aside from some words and set expressions, after a lot of boring memorization work.

Now, it's not all bad. I've been learning japanese for more than a year now, and in this time I've used this book mostly as a reference. The short lessons make it easy to locate some specific word or expression, and the examples help to put them in context. I'd recommend it mostly as a supplement, not as a main book in any way. You'll finish the first volume, with 30 lessons in all, knowing very little japanese, and will have to resort to other books, like the other volumes of the same collection, with the same problems. If you want a "learn japanese with manga" book really well-done, try Japanese The Manga Way: An Illustrated Guide To Grammar And Structure, it's a complete, organized japanese course illustrated with real manga, well explained and with all examples completely analyzed. I can't praise it enough.

If you have some money to spare, buy this book for additional content, like the lesson on curses and swearing, but don't expect too much from it. It may be good for getting some words memorized, but to get a real sense of the japanese language you'll have to go somewhere else. Again, Japanese The Manga Way: An Illustrated Guide To Grammar And Structure is a good suggestion.