Customer Reviews

Survival Japanese: How to Communicate Without Fuss or Fear - Instantly

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

 

 

This book is all you need to get started speaking real Japanese in a short amount of time! This compact guide is ideal for those who need quick words and phrases which will help them communicate in real-life situations. I have travelled extensively, read many foreign language guides and I find that most people do not have the time to learn the linguisitic rules of pronunciation or complex grammar explanations. Most people are looking for some basic words and phrases that will assist them when reaching out to a speaker of another language not only to communicate needs and wants, but also to show respect to Japanese hosts and colleagues.

I cannot tell you how many foreign language "survival guides" I have come across which contain such arcane phraseology as "Could you please tell me how to get to the green grocer?" C'mon! All you need to know (for survival purposes) is "Market, please" or "Lettuce, please".

I highly recommend this guide for those who are making a short business trip or vacation to Japan or even just want to share a few words with Japanese friends. It contains short useful phrases (such as "just a moment" and "I don't mind"), variations of common expressions (there are several ways to say "thank you" depending on context) and the basic verbs already conjugated ("I understand", "I don't understand", "I understood"). It also has the bare bones vocabulary necessary for situations at hotels, restaurants, telephone, taxis, stores, train stations, post office, bars, etc.

This is a book from which you can learn the vocabulary and structure basics and then continue to build on from there. Highly recommended!

I took this book to a city in Kyushu on a business trip with the goal of accomplishing some basic communication in taxis, hotels, and social situations. With it, I was able to introduce myself, ask for things and communicate basically in my hotel, figure out where to go when lost at Haneda, and communicate with taxi drivers. Where it lacked was the section with unclear conjegation of common verbs (it wasn't clear to me how to use most in sentences). A glossary of nouns would have been a key addition to build your own sentences, along with proper sentence structure information. Aside from that, the phrases were very applicable and useful, and the book was small and well organized-- easy to use. It contained fewer useless, overly-specific phrases than you often find in other phrasebooks.

I deleted my original review because I wanted to add that the selection of words and phrases in this book is excellent. The *FALSE-ADVERTISING* issue won't matter to anyone who's not learning to write Japanese. The back cover claims the book has kanji, but there are *NO* kanji ANYWHERE in the entire book! I decided not to demand a refund, though.

Beware the pronunciations! They use non-standard ways of printing phoenetic pronunciations which are often wrong, and at the very least inconsistent. For example, a long "o" (pronounced "oh" as in "Ohio", but held for two beats) is often phonetically spelled "oo", which in English means to pronounce it as in "food"! For short "o" (still pronounced as in "Ohio"), they sometimes use "oh", sometimes end with a "w" as in "show", and sometimes use "oe" -- then they sometimes use "oe" for long "o", instead of using the aforementioned "oo", which makes it worse. So what does "oe" mean -- a LONG "o" or a SHORT "o"? Have fun guessing! Japanese has only 1 pronunciation of "o", except the distinction between short and long (which most publishers address with a long mark over the "o") -- so why does this book use all these different spellings?

For the syllable "kyu" with a long "u", they use "queue", a word many people don't even know. Why don't they use something more obvious, like "cue"? You would think the obvious approach (besides a long mark, which all modern publishers can print), would be to stick to traditional dictionary-approved pronunciation keys, except where necessary.

Even with short vowels, there is no method, only madness. The pronunciation for the word "genki" is written "gain-kee", but that is wrong; you don't pronunce the "e" like the word "gain". It is a short "e" as in the word "ten", and should be written "gen-kee". (Each lone Japanese vowel has one, and only one, pronunciation.) There are too many pronunciation issues to list here; the author often uses one approach in one spot and a different one in another; therefore, listing them here would be useless.

I kept the book because I've been learning Japanese for a while, including writing -- therefore I can read the Hiragana pronunciation keys directly. But unless you are familiar with both Hiragana and Japanese pronunciation in general, I strongly recommend you double-check pronunciation of phrases you learn, either with a Japanese friend or on the Internet, if you can find the phrase.

That said, while I'm tempted to keep my rating at 1 star (due blatant false advertising, and horrible pronunciation keys), I'll raise it to 2 because the selection of phrases IS *excellent*. Rather than tailor content exlusively to travelling, business situations, and school, many of the phrases are for general use. You'll still find those other topics, but this book also includes things you *want* to say to converse like a normal person about normal stuff. For example, you'll learn to say you want to watch a show on TV, ask if it's alright to do something, request an exchange, shop for specific items, request that someone call you, find out if an establishment takes credit cards, affirm that someone has a good idea, and create conditional ("if") sentences. Most phrase books ignore conditionals completely, in spite of their practical neccessity, which leaves the speaker either unable to express ideas or sounding like a moron.

This has one of the best (but still concise) treatments of numbers and counting I've seen, and it's well-organized. On the topic of "counters" (suffixes added to the number based on the type of item you are counting -- exasperating topic), this covers only the main and most common counters used in most situations. It's impossible to remember every Japanese counter suffix, especially when most are used infrequently.

In a nutshell, this book has a great selection of phrases for a pocket-sized book. However, the pronunciation keys are inconsistent, confusing, and often just wrong. You will need to double-check pronunciations for these words and phrases elsewhere. Readers/writers who want to get out of the habit of looking at English translations, or who want to learn kanji for new words, should note that THIS BOOK DOES *NOT* HAVE ANY KANJI AT ALL! Don't buy this book if kanji is important to you!