Customer Reviews

Making Out in Japanese Phrase Book, Revised Edition

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

this book is a very entertaining offshoot for an otherwise dry language course or self-study. but be warned if you intend to actually use any of the slang- its quite dated (not to mention that most slang is colloquial). and in a culture where the lexicon changes as rapidly as japanese, you will be exposing yourself (pun partially intended) to whomever you speak with instantly. and by dated i mean late 80's or early 90's at best. check the mullet & mustache on the author's picture on the inside back cover!

I strongly recommend this book to the Japanese learner who is somewhat advanced (JLPT level 3 or stronger ability), and who wants to improve their conversation ability. And pick up chicks.

Yes, there are good lines to use on women (or men), and most of them are not out of date slang or anything. Personally, I'm not one of the foreigners in Japan that lurks in the dark corners of bars, but I've found the book extremely helpful in filling in the gaps of my textbook Japanese knowledge. The book doesn't actually focus on cheesy lines for getting a date--there's useful expressions for all walks of daily life.

However, if you are a novice Japanese learner, or have studied less than a year, I really do not recommend picking up the book just yet. The book just has lines that help you start conversations, slang you otherwise wouldn't know, or fill in awkward pauses.

This book is titled "Making Out in Japanese," but that's not really what it's about. This has the most basic phrases and words that you'll need to get by. I've been studying Japanese for 4 years in school and I've still been able to pull some good information out of this book. It has text written in Romaji (English letters of Japanese words) as well as Japanese kanakanji (with furigana).

This is a great, great book and I recommend it 100% to anyone less than fluent.

***Also, the last section of the book does talk about "romantic" relationships, so I guess the title sort of works ^_^

I had the first "Making Out in Japanese" so I bought this one without thinking. I'm rather disappointed. I hoped there would be some real slangy stuff, but found little. The phrases, while useful, are too "lame" to use in the real world. Also, some of my Japanese friends found many phrases in the book "funny": they are not really used very often even in the situation purported.

Anyway, the book is easy to carry and can be a good guide to some useful phrases. I just wish the authors had chosen more real-world material.

I have been living in Japan for a year and a half now. After showing this book to my Japanese teacher and radom people at the bars, this book is very useful. Maybe 1% of the phrases are out of date, but other than that it is a great source of casual phrases. It is very difficult to find a book that teaches the casual side of Japanese... my teacher is even bent on teaching my the "-masu" or polite way of speaking Japanese. But as anyone who has tried talking to Japanese usind the polite form will realize that it won't get you very far, and it probably earn you some laughs. This book has really helped speak more naturally in the bar setting.

Like others have said, some of this book (and its sister) are outdated... But SOME Japanese people still use a lot of these words, so its good to know as much as possible. The romantic stuff (even the getting-to-know section) though, can cause one to lose a potential new friend rather quickly. Japanese girls (Asian girls in general) have to be sweet macked. Don't go hard on them at first... save anything, other than what song to sing next for karaoke, for the hotel. Bottom line, I am grateful for this book, and others like it. Thanks for reading.

I got this and Dirty Japanese for my son and his girlfriend, so they could be silly at each other and maybe improve their minds with another language at the same time. I liked them so much I wish I'd picked them up for myself.
I'd recommend these books for anyone trying to learn casual Japanese.
Delivery was about what I expected and the transactions came off without a hitch.

This book contains Japanese slang, curses and many of the phrases required to make a romantic connection or sever one. It is a lot of fun, partially because it's hard to believe that someone would actually think to write this kind of stuff down. Overall, it's pretty amusing and is good for anyone with an interest in the language.

For serious Japanese language students this book may not be the best choice. Because the language has evolved since the book's publication, the slang presented isn't really up to date. Furthermore, it's easy for novice speakers of a language to use slang and idioms at inappropriate times. The results can be pretty funny to native speakers.

This book needs to be updated but is still a good addition to your bookshelf. Be aware, however, that Volume One has all the choicest bits and is the better buy.

Some of the slang is.. older.. But many of the phrases are still used today! I had been studying Japanese for about four, four and a half years when I got this book. I still didn't know many things that are in the book. They made it easy to understand, and everything. And, believe it or not, many Japanese phrasebooks DON'T tell you when phrases are restricted by gender. That's one of the many great things about this book. And, for some reason, a lot of "informal" Japanese phrasebooks make all men seem like pigs and all women seem loose. I was so happy to see that this one was so different from the many others I'd seen!!

There are a lot of reviews saying that this book contains outdated slang, and is focused on phrases for picking up girls, etc. These type of phrases actually make up a very small portion of the book. The vast majority of content in this book is very useful and common everyday Japanese phrases, and the kind of stuff that simply *can't* become outdated. The phrases are all short and sweet, often just a single word. This is a very good book for beginners and maybe even intermediate level Japanese students. It focuses very heavily on casual Japanese, which doesn't get much usage in textbooks. It is important to remember though, that casual Japanese like this should only be used with friends or people you are close to. It can be rather impolite to use this style of Japanese with other people.