Customer Reviews

Making Out in Japanese

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

 

 

This book explores some of the more common expressions used in casual speech. Most of these expressions are useful but because the book was published in 1998 some have become obsolete (shigo). Expressions range from everyday chit-chat, to fighting words, to lovers language. I feel this book is an acceptable (and fun) introduction to casual speech for beginning to intermediate students of Japanese (First to Third Year). However, one of the major drawbacks is the complete lack of Japanese characters.

This series is a lot of fun. The romaji text is spelled really no-frills (See _Barron's Japanese at a Glance_ for precision in spelling and annotation). There is also no Japanese text. However, and this is a big however, the intelligence contained herein will get you much further than any other phrase book I've seen!

... you're in serious trouble.

The book is filled with one liners and naughty phrases, but it's pretty useless in real world situations. I can guarantee a zero-percent success rate if you can't follow up any of these lines with conversational Japanese... if you can't, it looks like you read the line out of some book- which is bad. However, if you already know Japanese, this book is fun to flip through. I'd probably get it as a gag gift for someone who was visiting japan more than anything.

No way I could learn Japanese, but this book was great! Recommended for anyone that wants to smile and learn something while their at it...

This book is definitely useless for beginners to Japanese. I bought it while living in Japan, and I showed it to my Japanese teacher. We had a good laugh, but quite frankly, some of the contents are not very practical to the average person. Maybe for people who like to play around, then it's pretty useful, because it has dialogues like 'I'm pregant' 'really? is it mine? when will the stomach start to show?' Entertaining to read, but practicality...well, that depends on what type of person you are! It's interesting to know some of the stuff in the book if you're living in Japan. Many pick up lines too! The 3 stars rating is mainly for its entertaining value.

But still quite fun. Slang is a bit outdated, but the Japanese I learned in college in 1992-93 is already outdated. Also, slang varies from city to city, and this is only glossed over. Still, I enjoyed this book and it's sequel.

I have to admit, I really detest books along the lines of Making Out in

Japanese, which purport to teach you Japanese love-slang, for the simple

reason that they are insulting to any reasonable person's intelligence.

Womansword, by Kittredge Cherry, is much better. An exhaustive yet

approachable "pop study" of Japanese vernacular, this thin, smart book

goes beyond basic sexual words, and instead takes on words and idioms

that exist (or once existed) in Japanese, which tell about the

relationship of women in Japanese society. Useful for a serious student

as well as for someone looking for some interesting phrases to spring on

cute Japanese exchange students.

*

really lame except the car chase scene, which (though hackneyed as a plot device) is well-executed nonetheless. Still, there are far too many weould-be national-security thrillers glutting our nation's bookshelves as it is.