Customer Reviews

Japanese in 10 Minutes a Day

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Wanting to learn japanese I gathered up about ten books, programs and tape studies. After breezing through each I discovered this book was the best first step. Japanese is a very different language from the European languages, so it takes a lot of effort to really come to grips with the sentance structure (which is nearly backwards from English) and pronounciations (more vowels then English). By knuckling down and trying about 30 minutes a day of hardcore memorization i was able to power through a good deal of the book and gather a decent beginner vocab. Fun enough, the title is 'Japanese in 10 minutes a day' but it doesn't apply to anything in the book...there are no 10 minute regiments. You will just have to work through at your pace. The dialogue and vocab is laid out very well so you start with words that can identify things, and things to identify (colors, objects, destinations, food, buildings, etc). Then it branches out into verbs and adjectives. It has a very simple layout that makes the language as easy as possible for beginners. When done you should have about 1000 words under your command and a basic, usable understanding of Japanese sentace structure.

The heavier technique of Japanese Language doesn't come through the book- verb conjugation and explainations of the particle words that are so tricky. But this book ramps you up to begin studies in other books and programs that aren't as well laid out, or simple to follow.

This book is neat, it has many pictures, and ideas for learning things, like stickers you can put all over your house that label things in japanese, and a number of other exercies (crossword puzzes, short quizzes, etc) that force you to use as you learn. For this it is quite a good book.

I don't give it 5 stars because it seriously lacks in teaching actual comprehension. You'll learn a lot of words in this book, but don't expect to learn how to speak or understand natural sentances. There is very little mention of sentance structure or particles.

This is the first Japanese-language book I had ever gotten; the same year as it's first printing, 1998. At this time, I couldn't find nearly as many resources as there are now for Japanese, so this was all I had! It was at the height of my interest in anime and video games that I really wanted to learn Japanese. This book, though it provided the foundation for my continuing interest in Japanese, entirely left out many important points. It wasn't until my later, more serious study of Japanese that I realized what was wrong with this book.
But, first of all, the good points. For one, it has a sensible layout. It starts with pronunciation and from there moves on to key question words, naming locations of objects, rooms of a house, and so on. Every lesson is short enough to not be overwhelmed by (taking about 10 minutes or so to complete and ponder over), and yet provides you with a lot of useful words and phrases. Each lesson builds off of the previous one, so you probably won't forget what you were supposed to have learned before, since it keeps reminding you of certain important phrases (especially the question words). There are many exercises asking you to write each word a few times so you retain it as well as exercises that ask you to answer questions or recall previously learned information. One of the better features of this book is that it comes with over 150 "sticky labels" that you can attach onto objects around your house. These labels will help you to associate the Japanese word with the concept involved (kagami = mirror, for example). There are also flash cards to cut out, a "PocketPal" guide with essential travel phrases, and a cut out "Menu" section listing Japanese words for common foods and drinks.
Now for the bad points. It's first mistake is in referring to the sound system of Japanese as an "alphabet". It isn't an alphabet, it's a syllabary. Syllabaries are based around sounds, not letters. English is written in the Roman alphabet, which contains letters (a, b, c, d, and so on). Japanese is written in hiragana and katakana, which contains sounds (the sounds a, i, u, e, o, ka, ki, ku, ke, ko, and so on). The book does self-admit using romaji to represent Japanese; romaji is the use of the Roman alphabet to represent Japanese words. For example, everytime you type Japanese words like "sushi" you are already using romaji. I don't really have so much of a problem with their use of romaji, which is typical for this type of beginner's text. I just find it odd that they don't mention anything about Japanese being syllable-based instead of letter-based, because this is very important. They mention nothing about the writing system, except that "Japanese is written in pictograms"! All of their pronunciation information is correct, however.
Another big problem is that particle words are not explained. The book mentions that: "Japanese has many particle words...Often particle words cannot be translated into English. When these particle words have no English equivalents, they will simply be marked (P)." Though this simplifies the matter of learning basic Japanese, which is what this book was designed for, I really wondered about what these mysterious "particle words" were at the time I first was using this book. It seems that Japanese in 10 Minutes a Day could've at least mentioned that "wa" is a particle word introducing the topic of the sentence, "e" indicates direction, and so forth. They are just short little components of sentences, but they are essential to understanding how Japanese grammar works. I later found that almost all of the "10 minutes a Day" series is structured in the same fashion as the Japanese one, with little consideration for the nuances of each language. With this in consideration, it isn't surprising that the particle words weren't explained better.
I remember a lot of the vocabulary and sentences from using this particular book, but I really didn't "get" Japanese after using it. It is a book designed for someone that really doesn't know very much about Japanese and doesn't really desire to know more than the essential words and phrases, approach it in a "fun" manner, and perhaps it may be helpful for a tourist needing to know some degree of Japanese to get by. While this would be an ideal book to get for a young person with an interest in Japanese (it is rather easy to get into and isn't complicated), it's definitely not for someone who is serious about Japanese.

I needed to learn basic Japanese fast, and by scheduling a lesson a day about a month before my trip to Japan, I was able to complete each lesson in the book (although admittedly, to say it only took 10 minutes a day is a bit of a stretch).

The best things about the book are the friendly font and that instructions are written in an engaging, non-academic tone. Often, the lessons substitute one Japanese word for a common English word until you become accustomed to that particular word, even in the middle of a sentence. For instance, "Doko is the bathroom?" ("Where is the bathroom?")

There are really handy yellow stickers that you can put on objects in your house and the like to help you remember things, and you can cut out ready-made index cards, which were quite portable and helped me en route to Japan.

What's missing from this book are more Hiragana/Katakana/Kanji written clues. Although that might be too much to ask for from a beginning textbook like this, the essentials could be presented so that one could recognize basic signs in the midst of being lost in the Tokyo subway system.

Don't buy this, however, thinking you'll be fluent. It's meant to be, and is, a survival tool for travelers.

I have now completed four books in this series and in this one Japanese book, have learned more than I have learned in several computer programs. These books are great, they start out with very simple words such as "Where" or "Who". Then by the end of the book the reader should have the ability to translate complicated sentences. Going through the whole book took me about a month and a half, and I was able to travel to Japan, get to my hotel, book a reservation, eat out at a restaurant, ask for directions, utilize the subway and train system, and much more. I was thouroughly impressed by this book. Unlike most learning material I purchased, this book doesn't make you memorize necessary sentences, but teaches you basic words, and grammar, so you can build sentences. I was even suprised how they mixed in some culture which makes each book unique. I recommend this book to absolutely anyone, erspecially those with no previous Japanese experience.

I had 1 month before heading to Japan and this book was great in learning the basics. The content is clear, simple, and easy to follow. The cut-out cheat sheets came in handy while in Japan and I wasn't afraid to interact with my broken Japanese. It covers context for a wide range of everyday situations such as transportation, dining, housing, siteseeing, etc.

I think this book is a great introduction to the Japanese language and especially for introducing it to kids because it is a fun format for learning a language. But if you want to be a serious student of the Japanese language, I suggest you pass this book up and invest it in something more in depth...and one book is definitely not enough. Japanese is a very difficult and complex language and it takes many years of constant study to start to really get a grip on it...this book is barely a drop in the bucket.

This is probably the best beginning. You don't really want to dive into the deep end (sentence structure, verb conjugation, difference forms, etc.) when you can barely swim. You want to learn some words and some adjectives and some very simple sentences to get you by when you visit. Japanese people don't expect thier language to be perfect out of your mouth, so beginning with this simple and easy book should not be a fear!

I bought this book, and I give it a four star because it's not the type of book that you can easily be committed to. The self-assigned study was a bit hard for me to commit myself to, but once I got the hang of reading it everyday, I was able to name everything in my house and recognize situations when I went to the store. If you are just deciding to learn Japanese, this is the best way to start.

This is probably the best guide that I've found for starting Japanese. I used it before entering my first year of college where I majored in Japanese and E. Asian Studies, and it helped me tremendously. I combined it with "Essentail Japanese Grammar" by Everett F. Bleiler, which I also highly recommend.
The one place that it is lacking is in Kana and Kanji, which are the written forms of Japanese. I wouldn't order books for this on-line, I would go to the store and find ones that are organized in a way that best suits your personal style of learning.
Once again, for anyone who is just starting Japanese, I think this is one of the best options--and trust me, I've used them all.

I have used many different products to try to learn Japanese. From cassets to internet programs, this book was the most fun, quick, exciting, and understandable method I've seen! I'd recomend this product to anyone who wants to learn Japanese for any reason. Other methods easily got frustrating, but this book kept my attention and intrest from cover to cover. I especially like the sticky labels. They make it easy to learn words for everyday objects in Japanese--effortlessly. Overall, I'd say this book is a great way to learn Nihongo! (Japanese)