Japanese Manual of Reading & Writing (Reader and Romanized Transcriptions) (English and Japanese Edition) [Paperback]

Hamako Ito Chaplin (Author), Samuel E. Martin (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, Japanese

Product Details

• Paperback: 714 pages
• Publisher: Tuttle Publishing (December 15, 1989)
• Language: English, Japanese
• ISBN-10: 0804815089
• ISBN-13: 978-0804815086
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,645,754 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is one of a great series of Books for learning Japanese, October 4, 2000

By 

"miminakamori" (Ca. USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Japanese Manual of Reading & Writing (Reader and Romanized Transcriptions) (English and Japanese Edition) (Paperback)

I had to write a review about this book. I have been studying Japanese for 10 years, and I started with the series of books by Hamako Ito Chaplin and Eleanor Harz Jorden. This book should be used together with the other books in the series for the best results. I was writing in kanji after the first month of studying and I used very little Romaji using these teacher's methods. I was also speaking quite fleuntly within a years time. I recommend getting the tapes or CD's that accompany the other 3 books. Although, some of the sayings maybe out dated they are still used by many Japanese native speakers and are readily understood. This book is 2 volumes in one. The Japanese lessons are written in kanji and hiragana and katakana. There is a Romanized version of the text lesson, and vocabulary and grammer notes. Also included are Romanized versions of the drill sentences and an English translation of the drill sentences. This book is for the person who is seriously looking to become proficent in Japanese writing, reading and understanding grammer. What this book is not is a quick study of learning to read and write in Japanese during an 8~12 hour plane ride. If you are interested in learning to just recognize kanji for a quick trip to Japan there are other books written just for that purpose. The teachers who have written this book are teaching at Yale University. From using this book with their other textbooks I was able to recognize and write 5000 kanji (I also used a kanwajiten).So I really recommend this book as a great place to start when you are ready to begin writing and reading in Japanese.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great book for the Basic Toyo Kanji, March 24, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Japanese Manual of Reading & Writing (Reader and Romanized Transcriptions) (English and Japanese Edition) (Paperback)

I have used this book quite a bit and although I can't give it five stars because the phrases are a bit dated, It provides a good basis for the educational kanji. The book is divided into at least two sections. One has short stories or dialogs, the other has drill sentences. There are over 2000 drill sentences. They also provide the drill sentences in romaji and English. I like the book so much, I'm buying another copy.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A great book, November 8, 2007

By 

Constance I. Brown "Constance" (Atlanta, GA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Japanese Manual of Reading & Writing (Reader and Romanized Transcriptions) (English and Japanese Edition) (Paperback)

This book is great. I've been looking all around for a beginner reading book and it's pretty difficult. I wouldn't recommend this book if you don't have basic grammar down because this book assumes you have at least that. However, there is a helpful grammar section in case you do get confused. Also, this book isn't for teaching kanji. I does introduce kanji slowly into the practice readings and drills, but this book doesn't sit down and go through all the readings of each kanji and such with you (I suspect that the companion book does that).

But despite this, I still say that this is an excellent book to add to your collection. Thus far, I haven't found a book that can really match it as far as beginner readers go. All the other readers were usually overwhelming or too difficult. This one starts out slow and steadying works up.

The only reason I can't give it a five star is because I wish the organization was better. You'll be flipping around in the book a lot to look at phonetics or translations or grammar hints. I wish that everything for each lesson was in the same place.