Customer Reviews

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

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

 

 

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.

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.

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.

I first encountered this volume many years ago at a library, which allows me to write a review soon after purchasing it. The edition I received has a different cover than the one pictured on Amazon and the one at the library, and came with a cardboard slipcover, but the content is much as I remembered it, except I don't remember it being quite as fragmented so I am likely remembering it somewhat through rose-colored glasses. "Part I" of "Book I" can be safely ignored except for curiosity's sake. If you need work on your hiragana and katakana the relevant portions are "Book II, Part II, Kana Practice" and "Book I, Part VII, Key to Kana Practice" chiefly in that order. This is due to what I see as what might have been a poorly thought out attempt to put the part you'll eventually use the most at easiest access while at the same time maintaining traditional book layouts for both the English and Japanese sections. This results in the "Parts" of both books not corresponding. There are two remaining groups of note. The first, which if you are like me, you'll be spending most of your time is the "Text Lessons" group. This consists of "Book II, Part I", Book I, Part II, Romanized Versions of the Text Lessons", "Book II, Part III, Vocabulary and Grammar Notes", and "Book II part IV, English Translations of the Text Lessons". The second group is the "Drill Sentences" group, which is composed of "Book II, Part III", "Book I, Part V, Romanized Versions of the Drill Sentences", and "Book I, part VI, English Translations of the Drill Sentences". It is useful to not that only the "Text Lessons" group contains "Vocabulary and Grammar Notes", the order of the "Kana Practice" and "Drill Sentences" are swapped between "Book I" and "Book II", and the "Kana Practice" Romanizations and English translations are combined into one "Part". Once you get used to those shortcomings, the book becomes quite useful and the divisions can even be thought of as a tool to help you keep from "cheating" and try harder to rely on memory.
The book starts out covering everyday words. People who enjoy anime and want to go deeper may find this book useful in that regard.
I must confess I haven't worked through the entire book, but to the extent that I have, I believe that it is enough for anyone to be able to judge if this is a worthwhile buy. If you can live with the aforementioned shortcomings, this book may be right for you.

I bought this book right before I went to Japan, and the only time I read it was when I was on the plane. It is not an easy book to read. The book is split in half, one side is all Japanese, and the other half is all roma-ji. The main problem is that one side looks so nice with just Japanese characters, but the other side is just a mess. I learned to read and write the romanized characters differently, so it is confusing for me to try and read the roma-ji. Some of the translations feel a little bit strange to read as well. I don't know anybody who talks the way sentences are translated into English.

This book was first published in 1987, but if you look at it, it feels like it was made in the 60's. Don't waste your time with this book. It is just frustrating and you'll get annoyed flipping back and forth trying to learn.