Customer Reviews

Teach Yourself Japanese

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

**note, amazon sometimes recycles user reviews to other editions of a book. This review is intended for the newer edition with the red fan on the front-- but I have seen it posted on an older edition that is black with several small pictures of japan on the cover like mt. fuji, sushi, etc. I have never seen or used this book. It might be ok, or it might not--thats why i DIDNT review it**

I ordered some new books to help teach my visiting mom japanese, and preview texts for the beginners Japanese courses I am planning and this one stood out as a must have for students of Japanese. Especially Students who are working on their own.

I do not recomend this book to an absolute beginner who has no native speaker/or experienced learner to consult because while the book does start with the basics, it moves a little quickly.

What sets this book apart is that it uses both a dialouge/contextual format to put the target vocab/structures in a natural context, and a standard grammatical annalysis where you learn how to change the various parts of a sentence pattern to manipulate meaning in an academic way.

I like both the Berlitz Essentials Book, and the Hugo's Japanese in 3 months--

Berlitz while using dialouges that sound semi-natural and rather creative review activities, by the end of the book the student can express things in the past/pres/future and hypothetical but is not grammitacally equipped to understand all the other shades of meaning that japanese has that don't fit so nicely into english categories of expression that japanese speakers just use naturally.-- basically japanse people will understand you just fine, but you might not be able to understand them.

Hugo on the other hand has some good grammar, but it's useage and word choice can at times be too formal, or stilted. While near the end there is a small section on natural useage and abbreviated forms, they are for the most part ignored so that the new grammar patterns can be discussed clearly without digressing into all the possible forms one thought could take depending on whether it is a man/woman at work or with friends talking carefully, or very casually. It can be a very hard book to work through if you are not motivated to study grammar, even though it is a gem because it has no interesting characters to follow (Mr. Brown has no personality).

Teach yourself on the otherhand presents the most natural Japanese I have come across in any textbook. My friends and wife actually sound like this. It utilizes the device of following a circle of people who are different ages/social status so that a wide range of politeness levels can be demonstrated in believable situations. Also, these characters aren't perfect, they don't always say nice things, or like everything. The sister/brother dialouge at the end of the book is so funny because the she cons the bro into cleaning the house, and you get to hear him rant about how horrible a person his sister is.

Another point is, it clearly points out how in daily conversation certain forms are rarely used like they are in a textbook but are expressed in other ways. This is important because it trains the listener to hearing these alternative forms, and prepares them for discussions with real native speakers. It also uses some slang-ish vocabulary that is often not mentioned in textbooks like dekai, alongside its more well known alternative Okii. It teaches both, not just one or the other, which is the best way.

There is even a short segment on how to form/identify some basic insults. Nothing gratuitous, or out of proportion. But it was refreshing to see in a book.

And importantly, the excercises in the book are actually interesting. they have you role play interesting scenarios like you are a lazy student, and explain to your mom how you got/made others do your errands/chores for you by using the appropriate verb forms. --I loved the question where the mom asks you if you bought her cigarettes yet, and you are told to say that you made your little brother go and get them.... the little touches of humor make the book fun to work through.

As to possible criticisms, yes this book moves a little quickly because it introduces several new grammar points at once, and then discusses them afterwards, but a new student should work through something else first, or find a native speaker to help them work through it.-- if they expect to learn Japanese with only one book, their expectations need to be adjusted.

two- this book only has about 20-30�@kanji in it, and they are mostly used for art. This book is about conversational Japanese. You can learn some complex grammar here, but don't look for reading practice-- you will be dissapointed. If Kanji is that important to you-- transfer the dialouges and example sentences in to Kanji-- its a great chance to practice.

-- as for the cd version. Good, but basic. It goes through the dialouges with native pronunciation, though I think at a little less than normal speed. The best part is that at the end of each chapters track-- there is a little Pimsleur-esque review section where you are asked to take part in a role play by responding to questions based on certain audio prompts, or answer questions in the positive/negative and conjugate verbs into differnt forms. Honestly, I wish there were more of these types of questions on the CDs, but they are good. And at 20 dollars for the set vs 900 for pimsleur, its a good deal.

The only student who may not want this book is someone planning on living in the kansai area, where the spoken japanese is pretty different from that here in the Tokyo area. the language in this book is so Natural to the tokyo area (not just standard japanese which is based on the tokyo dialect) but actually employs contractions, vocabulary, and grammatical variations that would mark you as being from the Kantou area. But, it would really have to be important to you, otherwise... buy this book already!!!!

Before I got this book as a birthday present, I praised my Essential Berlitz Japanese book. Then once I got this book I just about threw that thing out the window. Teach Yourself Japanese is very complete guide in understanding Japanese. It explains even the hardest things to explain - like 'n and koto very well. I have worn my book out so much that the pages started comming out so Im here to buy another. This has been the most valuable book to me in all of my study of the Japanese language. The only thing I would say is that I would not reccomend this book for very beginning learners of Japanese because the first couple of lessons are kind of lacking on the basics, but if you are seasoned, get this book. Its excellent.

I should start off by saying that I have had previous experience with the Teach Yourself series as have used Teach Yourself: Beginner's German, German, and French. The book scores with German and as long as you have the tapes, with french too. But the japanese book is lacking... The lessons are well-thought out and extremely easy to follow, but there is absolutely no approach to written japanese. This is the one flaw of Teach Yourself: Japanese.

All I can say is that this is a perfectly crazy way to organize a book. I've been studying languages for 45 years (I am professional translator) but I've never seen anything like this. I don't mind that they seem to have amputated the first year or two of their "complete language course" and that it seems to start in the middle of everything, with no rhyme or reason; what I mind is that, after the first three lessons or so, there is NO TRANSLATION OF ANY OF THE DIALOGUES. You get a dialogue in Japanese, then there is NO TRANSLATION of any of the words in the dialogue! Not even if you look the word up in the back of the book! What you get is something like U5, SL4, which, translated into English, means Unit 5 (Chapter 5), Society and Language, Section 4. So it takes you perhaps 5 or 10 minutes to find the meaning of even one word. I've been listening to the CD for 6 months and I've got all sorts of stuff going around in my head without the slightest idea of what it means. What kind of language course is this? I prefer to listen to Japanese films with sub-titles, at least that way I know what they're saying. I'm serious.
Whoever put this book together is crazy. It might be all right if you already know the language basically, like you studied 3 years of Japanese 10 years ago and want to brush up a little bit, but don't tell me it's a "complete course", that's just a lie. I've never seen anything organized this way, it just goes around in circles. For example, if I learn one pronoun, "I", why not teach me the other pronouns too, while we're at it, for example, "you"? Instead it goes around in circles. I'd say if you don't know any Japanese, don't buy this "complete course". whatever you do. Buy anything else, but not this.
CARLOS

This book is great only under one condition: you want to learn only spoken Japanese. I began with this book and quickly noticed the lack of kana. I thought nothing of it, until my copy of Japanese for Everyone arrived. It was then that I realised I was in a very bad situation. I had to relearn *everything* because I now had to learn how to write it. I lost close to a month of time because of this. If you a serious about learning Japanese, then skip over this book---it is the first Teach Yourself book I did not enjoy. Get a copy of Japanese For Everyone instead.This gets 2 stars solely for the fact that it can be a good reference until a better reference is found.

I bought this expecting the dialogue to go hand in hand with the book(I need to see and hear what Im learning) and it doesnt. The dialogue on the CD jumps around and then suddenly goes to the next chpater, meanwhile youre left with an entire chapter that youre not quite sure what to do with. Maybe if I had plenty of time to try to sort this book out Id be ok, but I would like to learn Japanese-not learn how to understand and read a book that supposedly is going to eventually teach me something.

This was the first Japanese book I obtained. I started working through it, but the learning curve is quite steep.

Eventually I discarded it in favour of classes using Shin no Nihongo and Japanese for Busy People. Both of these are good, and give a lot more exercises than this book, and use hiragana as opposed to romaji.

However, the dialogues in this book are good. Moreover the grammar sections give what I consider good explanations, although if you get a grammar book as I later did, you'll find them a bit limited.

Bottom line: it is a good reference book and quite cheap.

Im taking a multipronged approach and using this in conjunction with:

GENKI
PIMSLEUR
LIVING LANGUAGE ULTIMATE ADVANCED
DOVER LISTEN AND LEARN

These CDS (which can be listened to without the book) are much more engaging than any of the above. A lot of real life situations are covered and there's a section on how to pronounce the hirigana, double consonants and long vowels --- invaluable. Also there's a small segment on colloquial (sp) speech. I wish the text used kanji though. Overall this is an amazing value and I wish they'd make an intermediate package --- with kanji.

Due to the lack of translations of the dialogues after lesson four or so I would not recommend this book.They could have put them in the back of the book.The dialogue contents are not too bad but a bit boring.It also lacks charts to put the grammatical points in wholistic viewpoint.Many of the "Teach Yourself" series suffer from this type of format.I would look to other sources rather than use this series of books from Britain

I am a professional linguist and own many Teach Yourself titles, and found this new edition to be the best. I also own many of the previous editions of Teach Yourself books published in the 60s and 70s, and this one is indeed innovative. It teaches Japanese in chunks with mini tests along the way to help reinforce the material. Keep in mind, though, that the text teaches through roumaji, but if you know kana, you can do the exercises that way. I actually found using roumaji helped me retain the constructions more solidly. Hmm,...perhaps using our own roman alphabet has its advantages.

I have been studying Japanese on and off for 12 years and own many courses - from expensive textbooks to texts published in Japan that are very good but don't quite hit the level of understanding and explanation this new title offers. It is excellent for being an inexpensive "mainstream" course. I have relearned grammatical points in a new way, and has helped me better understand key concepts using this little book and CD pack. The only reason I gave it 4 stars was because of the audio. Like all the other TY courses, there is too much introduction by an English speaker, and it is very annoying. This in like the Colloquial series, but better, I must add. I want to (re)learn Japanese, not English. If the section introductions in English could be reduced, the audio would be more useful and not so annoying during the repetition of the sections. I find myself fast forwarding past the English to get to the target language readings.

I would highly recommend this book to new learners and intermediate learners as a refresher. You'd be surprised what you might relearn! I am impressed with the authors approach, and hope the other language titles would be considered for revision based on this author's approach. (The previous edition of this title was unimpressive.) Thank you, Ms. Gilhooly, and publisher, for offering this new innovative course in Japanese! I will recommend it to all my coworkers who work with Japanese companies in my workplace!