Customer Reviews

Japanese: The Spoken Language, Part 1

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

It's a shame to see so many people rejecting texts simply on the basis of them being written in roomaji. Now, I'm not here to champion roomaji, and personally I think a kana based text is better *all other things being equal* but some of the warnings about the dangers of using roomaji border on hysteria. We are told it's a dangerous crutch, that it will forever cripple our ability to read Japanese, etc. This must all come as a great surprise to the generations of people now fluent and literate in the language and who began learning with roomaji! And yes it IS funny to see people trying to sound informed whilst writing about "romaNji"!).

Yes, if you use roomaji as a guide to pronunciation you will have problems- but anyone who does that isn't using this text (or didn't bother to use it as directed). In addition, my lawyer assures me that there is no law against doing as the author suggests and using additional materials to learn how to read and write Japanese- so there you go. If you can accept the proposition that using a roomaji based text is not going to cause your brain to whither, then you can proceed to consider the text on the basis of it's content and methodology. If not- then you can now make your negative rating of this review and be on your way.

The explanations of grammar are consistently of a very high standard and in some cases simply superb. You don't have to take my word for it- as another reviewer noted, JSL is referenced in "The Structure of the Japanese Language" by Susumu Kuno, it is also referenced by Jay Rubin, in his much acclaimed "Making sense of Japanese" wherein he describes it as an "excellent text" and refers the reader to it for further information on at least a couple of occasions. Furthermore the predecessor to JSL, "Beginning Japanese", is referenced in Makino and Tsutsui's classic "A dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar", while JSL itself is referenced in the corresponding "Dictionary of Intermediate Grammar".

I'll provide just two examples of the approach to grammar taken in this text. First off- go and look through some introductory texts and find the first Japanese sentence presented. With depressing frequency the first sentence will be something along the lines of "watashi wa tanaka desu". Shortly afterwards we are presented with a sentence containing the particle "ga" and all too many students absorb the unintended lesson that "all utterances must have a wa or a ga (or sometimes both)" and the attendant difficulties in knowing when to use which of them begin. In JSL, however, the first 3 chapters contain a great many perfectly good Japanese sentences- and not a wa or ga anywhere to be seen. The advantage of this is that when wa and ga are introduced the learner can clearly see what effect their introduction has on the sentence. "wa" isn't just something that just HAS to be there- it has particular effects- if those effects are what you want to communicate- then you use it, otherwise you don't. Of course the same applies to ga.

The second example relates to the "particle" "node". This is usually treated as a single unit- a practice that introduces apparent random variations in the use of the particle (e.g for nouns you must place "na" before "node"). However, JSL treats node more correctly as a particular case of a more widely occurring phenomenon in which "no" (often abbreviated to "n") makes some shared non-linguistic knowledge the subject of the sentence. From this perspective the particle "node" not only makes more sense, but the requirement of following nouns with "na" also makes perfect sense. Another "mystery" of the language dispelled.

Patient and thorough reading of this text will be rewarded. Some people have suggested it is difficult to read- but unless you have thus far limited yourself to "books for the younger reader" you should not have any problems beyond perhaps (gasp horror!) re-reading some passages.

Another great strength of the JSL series is the audio drills. These are not simply hear and repeat exercises, rather they require a degree of manipulation of what you hear in order to provide an appropriate response. For example, you may
need to give the negative form of an adjective or a particular verb inflection, and all within the context of a brief conversational exchange.

I would also like to respond to some of the comments from past reviewers.

One reviewer below states that:

"Japanese is a phonetic language: what you see is what you say. All you have to do is learn the basic phonemes (syllables) as represented by hiragana and katakana, and you are on your way to reading and speaking Japanese."

This would be amusing if not for the potential for people to see this and believe it.
Here are different words "ame" and "ame" ("‚ ‚ß" and "‚ ‚ß") One of them means "rain" and the other means candy. They are written identically in hiragana- but are not the same when spoken. Or how about "hashi", "hashi" and "hashi" (‚Í‚µ�@‚Í‚µ�@and ‚Í‚µ)? The system of rendering sounds employed in the text alerts you to these differences. If you ignore them and just "say what you see", then your Japanese will sound- well- absurd. Now , it is at this point that many a student protests "but they can understand me from the context!" Well yes often
that's true. In the same way that when some Japanese people say
they "want to eat some lice" you understand that what they really mean is that they want to eat some "rice". If that's the sort of level to which you aspire then good luck to you. The text also takes care to point aout instances where the pronounciation (not just the accent) differs from what the kana would suggest.

A number of people have complained of or noted a lack of cultural insights in the text. It is true that there are no potted accounts of Obon or Japanese weddings etc- complete with dinky little cartoons. Well those are nice I guess, but they can be found elsewhere. Instead, there are a very carefully explained cultural insights that are tied to the use of the Japanese language. One example is that of the in-group out-group
distinction. Most, if not all texts, note this, but few make it quite so clear how important it is to your use of Japanese, or explain it so well. The fact that many students just don't appreciate this aspect of Japanese is revealed in some of the comments related to the text's treatment of polite Japanese. Being a non-Japanese in Japan you will be speaking to members of out-groups most of the time. That means many people will speak to you more politely than you probably expect. A common complaint by foreigners with some Japanese ability is "I can't understand what people say because they speak too politely!". Consequently the Japanese interlocutor has to use progressively less polite phrases until you do understand. Now, even if you don't have the decency to be embarrassed by that, there is every
chance the other person will be. It's understandable if someone finds
themselves in that situation because they never had the chance to be exposed to polite language- but to actually make the conscious decision to put yourself in that situation and whine about it when a text tries to educate you? If it was trying to teach you the correct forms for addressing members of the Imperial family, then you'd have a point, but this is simply stuff that you will at least hear.



So what are the bad points?

It is a little dated in parts- mainly in some of the vocabulary items.

I previously wrote here that the tapes were of poor quality- which was true, but- there is a new CD ROM available that has excellent quality audio and I would know give his book 5 stars without hesitation.

It's obvious that Ms. Jorden and Ms. Noda know their stuff. The explanations that went along with the core conversations and grammar notes were enlightening, if a little complicated (especially the grammar notes). In addition, the markings provided to help out with pronunciation were very helpful.

Unfortunately, the good points are overwhelmed by the bad.

*Vocabulary- I found the amount of vocabulary learned in the series to be terribly lacking. Learning vocabulary seemed to be way behind grammar structures in priority given by the authors. Without a substantial vocabulary, however, learning all of those grammar structures is like putting the cart before the horse.

*Romaji- Romaji is used very rarely in Japan. And when it is used, the system used is not the system that JSL teaches. Sure, the JSL's system might be more linguistically accurate, but I for one can't bring myself to say (with a straight face) that the tallest mountain in Japan is Mt. "Huzi".

*No self-checks- If you are trying to learn Japanese on your own, DO NOT USE THIS SERIES. I highly recommend "Japanese For Everyone," I used it before going to Japan and felt ahead of the game when I arrived in Japan for a year as an exchange student. I've also heard good things about the Yokoso series.

*Lack of Writing Emphasis- I hate romaji. Learning to read it is a nearly worthless skill. Why JSL insists on using it is beyond me. There are separate books (2 I believe) called "Japanese the Written Language" but those books are so lacking that they make the JSL series look good. I used the JSL and JWL series in college after a year in Japan and found it alarming at how limited the reading and writing abilities of my classmates who had learned Japanese just through JSL and JWL was. It goes without saying, literacy is a big part of fluency.

*It's boring- Learning a language should be fun. Bridging cultural differances, expanding ones own intellectual abilities ... I can think of few things as stimulating and exciting. Another reviewer compared JSL3 to a chemistry book, but quite frankly I'd rather read the Chemistry book. There is no reason why the serious learner of Japanese should not enjoy what he or she is doing. In fact, if you aren't having fun, you're probably wasting your time.

A final word: if you're reading this review, chances are you're interested in learning Japanese or are a student of Japanese like me. I love the Japanese language. No, it's not easy. Yes, it is a never-ending challenge. But you should be having a lot of fun while you're at it. I simply cannot recommend JSL when there are so many better options out there. Do not waste your time or money on this series.

Here's my testimony. It will probably be marked "not helpful" by people who are determined not to like JSL 1. However, I did want to share this discovery with people who are truly looking to learn. My accelerated Japanese class used this book. I dropped the class after a month, overwhelmed from learning the spoken and written languages concurrently. For some reason I kept the book, and it sat in my collection. I then picked up "The Structure of the Japanese Language" by Susumu Kuno and taught myself the kana using the Tuttle books. I was surprised to find that Kuno referenced Jorden's JSL! I had already paid for the JSL book so what was there to lose? There I went again, back into JSL.

Here is what I found after reading the introduction to JSL 1(very important to read the authors' introduction) and then applying the techniques.

Jorden approach works. She tells you what she's going to do, why she's going to do it and then proceeds to actually do it. That's why the inroduction to the book is important. How many of your teachers have ever explained why they do things a certain way and where it will lead? Her whole approach is centered on teaching Japanese in a way that would make sense to a native Japanese speaker. She uses terms like Nominals, Verbals and Adjectivals because conceptually, to a native Japanese speaker, the English concepts of Noun, Verb and Adjective DO NOT apply exactly. No where else had I seen this distinction explained. What's the point? Well, when you try and apply English grammar concepts wholesale to Japanese you are more likely to get it wrong. They are two distinct languages. Again and again, she makes the point of not getting trapped into "decoding" the language into English. "Decoding" the language is one thing. Knowing the language instinctively is completely different. Jorden gets you on the road to the latter.

She tells you why she uses a different romanization scheme. Why you ask? Well, the original schemes tried to map Japanese to English. Jorden's romanization tries to map English to Japanese. She factors in the phonetic profile of the Japanese language, how it actually sounds. Some students do not like the accent marks that are found throughout the book. However, you ABSOLUTELY need to know where the accents fall in a word or phrase, otherwise YOU ARE NOT SPEAKING JAPANESE. Japanese, like other East Asian languages, is a tonal language. If you mess up the accents, at best you will confuse your audience, at worst deeply offend them. Isn't it great that someone took the time to write the accents out? It's up to you to learn them. Also, once you've learned them, you've learned them!!!

There is no kana/kanzi in the book itself. That is not a big deal. I taught myself the kana using the Tuttle books. The kanzi will take separate dedicated study no matter what. Do you really want to learn the spoken language and a pictogram/ideograph based writing system simutaneously? Learning kanzi will actually slow you down because at the stage, you are still trying to learn to listen and speak, the HARDER skills. There are plenty of books and online resources for practicing kana/kanzi. Why not master one set of skills, the harder skills, and then move on to the relatively easier skills, reading and writing? Say you learn the kana/kanzi without first mastering the spoken language and someone asks you to read aloud. You will have no concept of what the language sounds like. Also, compare the number of opportunities you have to speak Japanese and the number of opportunities you have to read and write it. Which skills should get the most focus? Here's another analogy. There are a lot of musicians who can play music on sight but can not sing the notes without the help of an instrument. Learning how the music sounds before you ever touch an instrument is the hardest skill, but the most valuable in the long run. Learning the instrument itself is comparatively easier. In this case, you want to have the sound authentically in your head before you use your instrument, your voice.

The vocabulary is relatively limited. Again that is not a big deal. You can buy a Japanese-English dictonary and fix that problem easily. Jorden makes the point that learning new vocabulary only makes sense if that vocabulary is constantly enforced. Otherwise, YOU WILL FORGET IT. Again, why make your learning complicated? Learn what's in the book and you will get constant reinforcement in the tapes(a must have!!!!)

Also, don't be distracted or discouraged by the lack of pictures, etc, about Japanese life and culture. There are plenty of resources on the web that can remedy that. You probably want a book that will help educate you. There are already plenty of books that will entertain you with pretty pictures and such. However, does that honestly help you to hold a conversation? Lastly, while the conversation may be dated, again, that's not a big deal. How many native English speakers honestly have trouble understanding English movies and books from the 40s-60s? I would prefer to sound dated then wrong. People may respect the former but will ridicule the latter. What you should focus on is learning the harder skills first, Speaking and Listening and then move on to Reading and Writing. Jorden clearly announced her intentions by calling this: Japanese THE SPOKEN LANGUAGE.


A few final notes:

1. You absolutely, positively need the audio tapes(containing Core Conversations and Drills) for this series. The video tape is only useful for the Core Conversations so you can see the vocabulary used in text. The video tape of the Drills is a nice to have but isn't really worth the price because the audio tapes cover the same material.

2. Jorden makes the point that if you master the first chapter, you've built up all the skills to master the remaining chapters. Isn't that reassuring?

3. The books is actually 371 pages long.

4. Listen to some of the webcasts/broadcasts of Japanese from NHK and listen to how often you can pick out the vocabulary in JSL. I was suprised at how often they said "Soo desu nee/Soo desu ne", phrases which Jorden explained to death.

5. The JSL series represents a core. If you do not know this core, can you say you know Japanese?

As a student taking Japanese in a well-known University that uses the JSL series in its Spoken Language track, this book has become my CRUCH in speaking Japanese. It uses conversations as models to learn from, drills to teach you ways to utilize your new vocabulary and grammar tools, a listening section and translation section (unfortunately without an answer key). The most helpful aspect of the book though are the in-depth grammar explanations; they really help you internalize the meanings and usages of honorifics, conjugations, special words and compounds, speech styles (careful/casual, direct/distal, gentle/blunt...) and so forth. The idea is to help you learn to create these sentences yourself, to the point where it seems natural (although this ideal cannot be achieved without an extended stay in Japan), or at least to the point where you will know the right thing to say in certain social contexts.

While the grammar explanations are stellar and offer students a chance to construct new sentences through logic (a very linguistical approach to language-learning), I have found some problems with the series:

1) It's all in romaaji. Let's face it. When you go to Japan, almost everything will be in evil but beautiful scribbles called 'kanji' -- even with JWL - the written language accompaniment - you won't even have the reading capability of a 1st grader.

2) You NEED a GOOD teacher to help you through the series. I did the entire third book myself (by far the most difficult) and I didn't learn it nearly as well as I learned the previous lessons.

3) The slow but exponential learning curve. Things won't "click" until you're more than half-way through the series. There are 30 lessons and around lesson 19 I was able to start constructing complex thoughts in a managable time-frame. However, after that I could start to have basic conversations pertaining to everyday life.

4) This series was originally written for DIPLOMATS during Japan's bubble-economy era, and it really shows. You learn American Consulate in Lesson 7 and air in Lesson 30. Subsequently, you're language will be EXTREMELY formal and stiff compared to today's standards, but it's better to be polite than rude, right? Moreover, slight problem, a few words here and there are outdated (ie Monbusho should be Monbukagakusho, or Monkasho for short).

5) Although the grammar explanations are great, you will probably need a tool to fully understand it... I suggest google-ing Tae Kim's Japanese page. Amazing.

In response to the 'huji' review: Jorden has a very good reason for changing a couple spellings for consistency's sake. It will limit the number of exceptions to the already-overloaded conjugation rules. Just deal with it. English has 37 vowel sounds and only 5 vowels!

Conclusion:
If you're learning this in a class-setting, I say go for it, but still make sure that you're getting a good bit of writing in on your own; luckily, there's a writing portion added to our class. If you're attempting to learn the language alone (um good luck!) you should use a WIDE VARIETY of sources. No single textbook will be your cure-all. Furthermore, make sure you have good listening materials: JSL can provide that. In finishing the third book of this series alone, I have found it useful to do all the drills and use other textbooks to help me. This includes Miura's 'An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese' and 'Breaking into Japanese Literature' by Giles Murray. In addition, it wouldn't hurt to have a good kanji dictionary (I suggest 'Kanji Learner's Dictionary' by Jack Halpern).

Update:
If you're a beginning learner and doing it alone, I would recommend the Genki series... It's a good balance of reading speaking listening and writing and CAN be done alone. Check Tae Kim's Japanese Grammar website for help too.

Finally, I hope I have been fair in my review of this book, and more so, I hope that this helped!

ganbatte kudasai!

Jorden and Noda's beginning Japanese text is quite different from the typical American intro language textbook. It eschews illustrations and rote exercises, rather focusing on the deep structure and linguistic terminology of learning Japanese, which is wonderful for professors, but potentially confusing for the non-linguistically oriented student. Since American language learning is based on visual principles and fun exercises, I cannot give this text a full rating. Also, the book's utilization of the New Standard System of romanization is confusing, since most Japanese texts and other surces tend to use Hepburn. However, on the other hand, if you ARE linguistically inclined, this is probably a superlative text for you. I would leave a cautionary note to professors to consider their American students' background before assigning this textbook for beginning Japanese.

I was forced to teach high school Japanese using this textbook for seven years. Both I and my students were unimpressed with the heavy emphasis on its audiolingual methodology. I had to supplement with my own materials for culture and kana/kanji writing. The entire book centers around grammar, not useful Japanese. The current ACTFL proficiency guidelines and National Foreign Language standards now stress task-based curricula used with a more modern teaching methodology that incorporates real-life situations and materials. The book does contain some weird Japanese that is only there to fit the grammar point. The videos are old and the sound quality is bad. If you want good, current Japanese that also includes culture (NONE in the Jorden method!) notes, go with anything put out by the publishers of the Nihongo Journal (ALC Press). No textbook these days is entirely in roomaji either. I gave this book one star for its usefulness as a grammar guide.

...then you would realize that this set is the definition of the Japanese language. I am currently attending the Middlebury Summer Language Program (in Japanese, of course) and I just had to look at some of the reviews that people put up for this series. The Middlebury Program is currently using (and has been using) the Jordan method for their first year student's introductions to the Japanese language. As far as I'm concerned, if you have four native speakers of Japanese who are currently getting their doctorates in linguistics, and they all use this book and swear by it when designing how they teach THEIR OWN language to first year learners of Japanese (which I am), then that's a better review than anyone else could possibly write.

As for my views of the book, yes, you most definitely need teachers to help you with the grammar sometimes (which makes sense doesn't it?) But I must tell you, I learned German as my first foreign language, and there were no books that even came close to describing the who's what's where's when's and why's of grammar as well as this book does.

Yes, I will concede that the characters are a bit humorous in the Core Conversations sometimes, and the vocabulary seems to be lacking in points as well... but despite the miniscule problems that may cause, this book is designed so that you can learn vocabulary on your own. Dr. Jordan has designed this book for the independent thinker... she gives beautiful descriptions in which the basic parts (nominals, verbals, adjectivals) of the Japanese system work, and then you can build from there yourself. As for the people who whine about the amount of grammar in the book: the Japanese language has a lot of grammar. If you don't want grammar, go learn something else.

The fact that Jordan uses romanization in the book really shouldn't matter as a buying point. She has a written language supplement (which we are also using at Middlebury) that teaches you all of the words from the spoken language, in a fashion so that you do NOT get overwhelmed when you first attempt to write the incredibly daunting Japanese writing system. Dr. Jordan herself wrote in Chapter 10, pg. 280 "After all, romanization is a foreign system for expediting the acquisition of the spoken language by foreigners..." That's all she treats her romanization as, and that's all it really is: just a tool so that one can better pronounce the Japanese when speaking.

Other than that, I really can't think of anything else to say. This book is intense, and only for those who truly want to learn how to use and manipulate the Japanese language. If you're serious about learning, buy it. Otherwise, don't waste your money... go buy a couple tapes that teach you how to say "Hello" and "Good Afternoon".

Having completed my first year of Japanese study at a university that uses the Jordan method, I can honestly say that though there were times when JSL's core conversations were the most effective sedative I've ever found, I ended up with a fairly good start to my Japanese skills.

After questioning the Japanese department as to why they continue to use JSL when newer/"more effective" methods have since been created, I was told that (besides the time/money factor of retraining staff to another method) the main reason that my school still uses JSL is because they feel that it gives you the best building blocks for conversing in Japanese because the conversations can be easily adapted for a great many situations (which I have found to be true). They also felt that while you can ALWAYS learn new kanji on your own, picking up speaking skills is very difficult without a real native speaker to work with you. One teacher said that in his opinion, starting the book out with conversations written in kana would make it even harder for students with no previous background in Japanese to get used to the language.

I have also been informed by professors from several large US universities that when my school's students study abroad in Japan, we tend to have far better conversational skills than others, though we may not know as many kanji. I have seven hours of Japanese a week with JSL, and by the end of the year, even when I wasn't quite sure of myself during unrehearsed conversations, I always found something to draw upon from the core conversations and drills.

Yes, the textbook uses a version of romanji that takes some getting used to (and often makes things look more difficult to pronounce than they really are), but the grammatical notes really did help me (and I'm not a student of linguisitics, either). One thing - I simply CANNOT imagine using this book without being in a classroom setting. I own the CD-ROM as well, and even with the videos of the conversations, I think I would have thrown in the towel looooong ago without my various sensei to correct my mistakes and clear things up.

A note about the CD-ROM and/or videos: I had no trouble running it on Windows ME, and found it useful to get a better sense of context and pronounciation. However, if at all possible, SPLIT THE COST WITH SOMEONE. As good as it is, it's not worth the amount they charge for it. The videos will (unwittingly) give you the occasional laugh over their antiquity, though you may notice that sometimes the actors don't follow the CC's exact wording, which can confuse you a bit.

Before recently enrolling in an intensive immersive Japanese language program at Cornell University (FALCON), I spent some time trying to learn Japanese on my own and encountered several different books in my quest. I've studied Systematic Japanese (Gene Nishi), Japanese for Busy People, Yookoso! Part 1, various Tuttle Library Kana workbooks, and finally Jordan's book. My advice:

First, this is an all-or-nothing book, focusing on spoken Japanese grammar to the exclusion of the reading and writing aspects of the language. Many people have criticized that, without realizing that it is titled "Japanese the Spoken Language" for a reason, and also without realizing that there is a companion series of books and tapes called "Japanese the Written Language", which is also titled such for a reason and follows the grammar and vocabularly of the JSL series (JSL1,2,3). (there's also "Reading Japanese", another Jordan book on the reading and writing aspects, which is imho better than JWL series, but does not follow the JSL series as closely).

Second, Eleanor Jordan is a linguistic perfectionist, going so far as to devise her own romanization system b/c the others in use (Hepburn, Kunrei, Nippon-shiki) are to varying degrees flawed. So, If you consider yourself an intermediate or advanced student, or a very serious beginner, or just a perfectionist, and you want to master spoken Japanese grammer at least as well as most Japanese people, then this book (series) is for you. It provides a rigorous and thorough, romaji-based course in the intracacies of Japanese grammar. No katakana, hiragana, or kanji. If you buy this book under that expectation, it will not disappoint, and is the reason I gave it 5 stars.

Now I just want to address some critiques other Amazon reviewers have made that I find unfair and misleading. First, Jordan does use a romaji (romazi as she spells it) system that is different than the Hepburn system that so many Westerners seem familiar with. The reason is b/c the Hepburn system is antiquainted and flawed and teaches Westerners to speak Japanese incorrectly, with a Gaizin accent. Jordan has attempted to correct that in her romanization, which is based on the improved Kunrei system used by the Japanese government.

What many of the critics don't seem to understand about romazi is that it is NOT a direct translation of Japanese sounds into phonetic English, rather it is a symbolic representation of Japanese sounds using english letters. For example, there is a sound in Japanase similar to the sound "ji", and Hepburn represents that sound by using the English letters "ji". However, the Japanese don't actually say "ji" as English speakers pronouce it. They say something that is a mix of "ji" and "zi" with their tongue at the front of their mouth, just behind their top gums. But anyone who learns Japanese using the Hepburn system comes away pronouncing that particular mora (roughly equivalent to a syllable) incorrectly and therefore sounding like a gaijin.

Jordan's system is designed specifically to help Japanese learners avoid that and learn how to pronounce these sounds correctly, as the Japanese do. In the Introduction and Chapter 1 of JSL1 she even explains in depth why and how she created her romanization system to do this. She explains that even "zi" is not the correct pronunciation, but rather a symbolic representation for a sound that simply does not exist in English and cannot be accurately recreated with our alphabet. She could just as well have used any random sequence of letters, or even some wingding or tiddleywoo like '*' or '}{' to represent the sound. But she uses "zi" to make it easier to remember the correct sound while still reminding students of the fact that the English letters are not a phonetic spelling of the Japanese sound. Same for other mora like tsu/tu (Hepburn/Jordan), chi/ti, shi/si, ja/zya, etc. Allow me to quote from her JSL1 Introduction:

-------------
Always bear in mind "that the letters (of romazi) are no more than arbitrary symbols which are meant to *remind* you of the actually occuring Japanese sounds.
...
"Various systems of romanization -- representation of the Japanese language by letters of the Roman alphabet -- are in use in Japan today. The system used in this book is an adaptation of the Shin-kunrei-shiki 'New Official System' and will be designated as JSL Romanization. Other common romanizations are Hepburn (Hebon-shiki, also called Hyojun-shiki 'Standard System') and Nippon-shiki 'Japanese System.' The differences among them are slight and can be learned with little difficulty. For example, the word for 'romanization' is variously represented as follows:

JSL: roomazi
Shin-kunrei-shiki: romazi (with a '^' over the 'o')
Hepburn: romaji (with a '-' over the 'o')
Nippon-shiki: romadi (with a '-' over the 'o')

"Hepburn is the system most familiar to Westerners; but there are three cogent reasons for not using it in a Japanese textbook.

(to paraphrase)
1. Hepburn does not parallel the structure of the Japanese language as the other three do, making many explanations of both grammer and pronunciation uneccessarily complicated.
2. For the student who plans to learn the native Japanese writing system, the transition from Hepburn is more difficult than from other systems.
3. The Japanese do not adhere to any one system and sometimes even mix several systems within the same word. It is therefore beneficial for foreign students to be familiar with all the romanization systems; however students who learn Japanese under JSL, Shin-kunrei-shiki, and Nippon-shiki can switch to Hepburn much more easily than Hepburn students can switch to one of the others. (perhaps that's the reason for all the complaints about Jordan's romazi - too many people addicted to Hepburn and too mentally rigid to adjust)

"The minor differences between JSL on the one hand and Shin-kunrei-shiki and Nippon-shiki on the other result from an attempt to avoid certain inconsistencies and ambiguity in latter systems. For example, in JSL, 'ee' and 'ei' consistently represent different and distinct sequences of sounds in Tokyo Japanese. The spelling of these sequences in all the other romanizations (including Hepburn) is inconsistent, so that it is often impossible for a student to be certain which value a given occurrence of ei represents. This destroys the regularity we expect of romanization.

"The most important difference between JSL and the other systems described above is that only JSL includes a system for marking accent, which is viewed as an intrinsic and essential feature of the language that should be represented in romanization."
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Of course, the problem with this approach is that if you're going to use JSL to learn Japanese, it is immensely helplful to have a sensei that is trained in Jordan's methods, and who understands JSL romanization and the pronunciation issues it addresses. And if that's not possible, then you definitely need the accompanying audio tapes so you can hear the correct pronunciation and practice recreating it. Jordan warns about this also in her Introduction:

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"A final reminder: In dealing with romanization -- or any kind of writing system -- we are working with a new code, and only the speech of a native speaker (and/or recordings of a native speaker) can provide us with an authentic code breaker. Without the specific code breaker for the language we are dealing with, we are totally in the dark as to how the language really sounds. No writing system -- native or romanized -- can serve as a substitute. Remember the (learning) order: *first*, the sound; *then* the written symbols we use to represent them."
-------------

And yes, this no picture book. If you're not a strong reader who can't take in dense material, synthesize, and understand it, then this book may be slow going for you. But if you appreciate a text dense with useful information and absolutely no fat, then you'll love the JSL series. It is essentially an introductory course on Japanese linguistics, rather than just language training.

Finally I take issue with the comment that most people who decide to learn Japanese do so b/c they want to be able to read and write it rather than speak it. There may be some academics at Harvard who want to research the latest trends in Manga and therefore only need to know how to read and write it, but I suspect that anyone who wants to live and/or do business in Japan wants to be able to speak it at least as much as read and write it. This text and the accompanying tapes will do more toward teaching you how to speak Japanese as the Japanese do, and not as Gaizin's do, than just about any other I'm aware of.

Ganbatte.

'Japanese: The Spoken Language' is an introductory textbook, intended for a college course, but equally useful in self-study, that teaches the spoken language only. No kana is included in this book and (an annoyingly) non-standard romanization is used throughout. Each lesson consists of a short dialogue, followed by translation of said dialogue, a vocabulary list mostly derived from that dialogue, extensive notes about grammar and sentence structure, drills, and review questions. If you have the CD-ROM you can watch videos and listen to audio of not only the dialogue, but also a great many "eavesdropping" sessions.

The strong point of the book are the extensive notes on grammar, usage, sentence structures, even down to the nuances of the words themselves. "Wow" is the appropriate English word to describe the kind of dedication and love the authors poured into these notes, which are so extensive and meaty as to make up 50% or more of the total pages of the book. Compare that to many other textbooks that don't give adequate explanations at all, often just leaving the student to puzzle these things out from context.

Another selling point is the fact that this book has extensive pronunciation notes, something common in older language texts, but becoming rarer and rarer these days. Most Japanese texts just give explanations of the sounds like (shi is like in English, hu is like English f but made with the lips) and leave it at that. JSL doesn't limit itself to such elementary manners. Also given extensive thought are sentence intonation patterns and the pitch accents of every vocabulary word introduced. Although these features may be internalized by the student studying abroad for long enough, the student who doesn't go abroad to study will find these very helpful in avoiding a foreigner's accent.

The main drawback of the book is the use of the nonstandard romanization. As a beginner working without a teacher, I found it frustrating that I had to memorize about 20 new spelling conventions in order to pronounce the words correctly. Most textbooks will phonetically write "tsu," "shi," "ji" or "ja," in logical accordance with how English speakers perceive the sounds from their spelling (requires the learning of no new rules). This is what the currently accepted standard "Hepburn" romanization system uses. JSL uses a romanization system that spells these sounds as "tu," "si," "zi," and "zya" respectively. Oh it's logical, to be sure, and the author gives plenty of rationale for the choice of such a system, but the fact is that it's going to be an impediment to learning for most people (it was for me) when the simpler Hepburn system is just...simpler!

Going along with that, you won't find a single kana or kanji in this book, which can be a major annoyance to beginners trying to familiarize themselves with Japanese writing. On the other hand, if you're already familiar with Japanese writing, it's not like reading romanized writing is an annoyance. It's just a matter of beginning students not getting the practice they need from this book.

The vocabulary in this text is rather lacking, although that's rather excusable in light of the terriffic grammatical/usage notes the book has. The glossary is about 10 pages, and I found that many times the vocabulary was kind of restricted to business-life, rather than everyday life, going to a restaurant, shopping, and other leisure activities. Another thing is that this textbook completely lacks cultural notes, which I find odd for a language text, but again also forgivable since this information is available in many other books. In other words (and this is always good advice when learning a language) you'll need other learning aids as well.

Honestly, I hold this book in pretty high regard compared to the other textbooks I've used because you will not find any BS in it. Certain features of the language are presented in a graded manner, but nothing is over-simplified to the point where it might be misleading or unhelpful. The only problems are the extreme lack of Japanese script and the rather dull vocabulary. The CD-ROM is not bad. I just don't like staring at my computer screen for very long, clicking through menus, or listening to 10 second audio clips.

Edit: on coming back to this book a year after I first read it, I would revise my rating and give it 4 stars instead of 3.