Customer Reviews

Master the Basics Japanese (Master the Basics Series)

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I just found out the very same authors and the very same publisher published this book 11 years ago under a different tittle "Japanese Grammar". These two books are extactly the same, except the "Master the Basics" adds one test at the beginning to test the readers' knowledge before they read the book and one at the end to test how much do they learn from it. If you think the tests are worth a few more dollars, get the "Master the Basics". If you don't, get a copy of "Japanese Grammar". They are both great to read, but the latter is a pocket-size book and comes with a transparent jacket.

This guide is packed with good fundamentals, but this can also be overwhelming. Especially with the chunky page layouts and odd spacing. Before you buy it, consider Japanese Verbs & Essentials of Grammar by Rita L. Lampkin. Both have almost the same content, with Lampkin's having slightly less perhaps, but is better laid out and organized in my opinion. Flip through and compare them to see which better suits your purpose.

I've struggled to learn languages from several sources, and I found the structure in this book a lot easier to work with, and the beginning is presented in a very simple way that makes it easy for beginners. If you already know some basics, you can probably just skip ahead. I got hung up a bit on the verbs, but I'm not sure that's the books fault. In any case, you'll definitely want to pair this book with something else. It gives everything in romaji and doesn't teach Japanese writing at all, so you'll want another for that. I used the classic Reading Japanese and just transcribed things in this book as I read through. The pages are mostly pretty sparse, so there's usually plenty of room to make notes next to nearly anything if you like to do that.

In my opinion, this book is ideal for informal lessons if you can get some people to learn and practice with you. It doesn't have the resources necessary to be a complete textbook for a class, but it would make a great supplement to help you study and understand what's in your other books.The newer edition doesn't seem to be anything special. This one should do fine, and for a much better price.

This book taught my son Japanese. Much less expensive than all thosse learning dvd's and packed with easy to learn info!

I was very pleased with the product it was like a brought it new out of the store.

"Master the Basics Japanese" by Nobuo Akiyama and Carol Akiyama, Barron's Educational Series, Inc. covers everything from self-tests, grammar, reviews. The Hiragana and Katakana character table is a plus. It's everything I need as a newbie