Customer Reviews

Ultimate Japanese: Basic-Intermediate: Compact Disc Edition (LL(R) Ultimate Basic-Intermed)

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This book takes a highly structured approach to teaching Japanese. Each lesson contains a clear and complete explanation of new grammar concepts, a table of new vocabulary for rapid memorisation, and example dialogue. It is positively jam-packed with information; there is not one sentence that will not teach you something new. New concepts are explained one at a time, for easy assimilation and revision. There is an excellent index and table of contents; I still occasionally use the book as a reference.

I didn't speak a word of Japanese when I bought this book, but within the year it took me to finish it, I had a solid understanding of basic Japanese grammar and a good foundation of common vocabulary. The vocabulary is well-chosen, reflecting the concerns of tourists, students and businesspeople. Both casual and polite grammar is shown. The accompanying tapes also complement the book nicely, teaching proper pronunciation. I highly recommend it as a starting point for anyone with the willpower to teach themselves Japanese. I found it far superior to the other beginner's books I have seen. It will not make you fluent -- no one textbook can do that -- but it will turn you into an intermediate-level student capable of learning with real Japanese material.

That said, one thing this book does not put much emphasis on is how to read and write Japanese. Although there are many reading exercises, they are optional and can be skipped over. The Japanese in the book is almost entirely written in romaji (using our letters). The book does not provide an organized framework for learning the kanji ideograms: you will have to buy a specialized kanji textbook such as Heisig's Remembering The Kanji. Using romaji has the advantage of making the first steps much easier for the total beginner, but it means you will have to make an extra effort later on in your studies to learn how to read and write. However, since I was mostly interested in spoken Japanese when I began my studies, this was the perfect compromise for me.

Breaks the heart.

A friend of mine purchased this set and was so psyched about it, and with good reason. It makes some wonderful promises, and it is poised to deliver. It's an exciting compendium of educational bliss, the apple of the eye of anyone who is excited to learn the Japanese language.

However, there is a giant, stinky, malevolent worm in the apple, and there is a sliver--no, a plank--in the eye.

As a few other reviews have mentioned, this system makes absolutely exclusive use of romanji, which is rendering the Japanese language in Roman characters (Latin, English, whatever--this alphabet that I'm typing with right now). While the Roman characters are great for English and every European language, bloody useful, they absolutely suck for Japanese. If you never want to be fluent with the language, fine, romanji is useful for you. But if you're seeking fluency, for the love of God, look elsewhere. It'll screw up your pronunciation and effectively cause you to have to re-learn the language if you ever want to actually READ it, not to mention write it.

What a shame. I'm pretty sure that this would be about the best text/audio combo in existence if it had just gone the extra mile. Come on, Hiroko Storm. Please, do a kana version! What a brilliant tool this could have been!

Try Japanese for Busy People (KANA edition) with the audio CDs instead. Use Pimsleur CDs. And use Remembering the Hiragana to learn the hiragana and keep it. Save romanji for the tourists. Fluency demands competency.

I know this sounds harsh, but trust me; it's just because I'm vastly, hurtfully disappointed. Not only that, but I'm going to have to explain Japanese to my friend all over again when he finally admits that romanji is going to ruin him.

What a bummer.

This is a really good book. After the first lesson I was able to make my own sentences. Limited but I could make them. The book has the Audio cds too which reall help you to get the accent and such down. Makes the vocab really easy to remember.

And what I found suprisin was that at the end of each chapter, there was a quiz to see if you know what you read. There are also cultural notes to help you get into what Japan is actually like.

Everything is explained in detail and the book is great. Japanese actually isn't really that hard to learn if you just put a little time into it. Buy this book

When I bought this item, I didn't think it would work well because of the fact the manual is about 500 pages long. I didn't think that it was possible to teach two years of college level Japanese with a 500 page book. Well, I was wrong. It is amazing how much you can learn in a day! On my first day I learned all of the greetings that the manual teaches you. It is a simple concept, "you read the manual as the cd speaks the words. If you want to perfect your techneque, just listen to the native speakers say a word, and you repeat them. This "language kit" explains even the confusing parts of Japanese in detail. It also gives very interesting cultural highlights on Japan,"I love these"! If you want to learn how to read, write, speak and understand Japanese then I highly recomened this language kit. It Works!!!

I've used primarily the book, but the cd's are very useful for getting pronunciation right. I used the book for a few months and really did learn a lot (I didn't believe it until I took a class and stuff actually made sense without having to really strain, I was pretty supprised). The book teaches exactly the way you need to learn. They teach sentance structures, sentance particles, how to put sentances together, how to read real dialogue. I find myself reading the dialogue at the beginning of a chapter and struggling for 20 minutes or so, then reading the chapter and really understanding what I struggled through, then going back and reading it again and understanding it fully.

I actually used this book for 3 months before I lost it on a plane. I then purchased a few other books to see how they are, but I have just recently purchased a second copy of this book, I didn't find anything else taught at this level. Do know that this book isn't for your casual reader, it aims to teach you fluency and you will have to take quite a bit of time with it, but it does a good job of teaching you effectively and efficiently if you'll put in the effort to learn the language.

I have to admit I've tried to learn Japanese before - an adult ed class that was painful, a girlfriend who isn't a girlfriend any more (NEVER try that!), some awful books, and I think I might remember a semester in college. Or maybe it was French. I don't know. But after all of that I still couldn't even sing along to Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto. This course was a last ditch effort. It's really great - it's simple but doesn't leave anything out, it explains things in a way that even I understand, and there are two really great sets of recordings, one for the book and one that reviews. (I listen to it while I jog.) The best thing is that I actually had a conversation (okay, it was simple, but it was still a conversation) the other day with a friend from Kyoto. Unbelievable. Next is the advanced level. Even you would be impressed, Yumiko!

Contrary to what has been stated there are exercises (and solutions) at the end of each chapter, and if you keep in mind that this is not an exercise book they are in the right ratio.

This book has been very carefully structured, the CDs are excellent, the examples and exercises are well chosen and bank on material previously covered, the grammar is clear and to the point.

I personally don't understand how some found this book difficult. I respect their opinion, but Japanese is not just another European language.

In fact, if anything, the only problem with this book is the abuse of romaji. I can understand how the authors wanted to provide a gentle introduction for novices, but this is too much. Romaji is bad for you. I have a very visual memory and romaji means that I have to learn the same language twice. I think the book would greatly benefit from an alternative furigana edition. It would be the perfect book, and this fact is very frustrating.

I mean, let's face it. People who can't be asked or don't have the curiosity to learn kana before starting (or look up a table for the first unit or two) invariably don't make it past unit two anyway. Even more appalling is the fact that even the "advanced" volume still sticks to romaji! Who on earth is going to buy that?

If you buy this, make sure you download a kana table and learn it, buy a furigana drill book and a kanji book. If you're serious you'll be ok.

I've looked at a few Japanese books that are confusing, doesn't explain things thoroughly, and hard to understand, but this book is really helpful. It explains verb conjugations, particles, how and why the sentences are formed the way they are, Kana and some Kanji. It also has a handy list of key words at the end of the lesson as well as a two-way glossary at the end of the book. I think that this book is very helpful and if you are serious about studying Japanese, you can't be without this book.

The previous reviewer says this book makes "exclusive" use of the western alphabet. That is totally wrong. Every chapter has a section on teaching the Japanese alphabet. But in order to not make you wait until you've learned the thousands of intricate Japanese characters before starting to use the language, the book prints texts in our alphabet. This approach makes perfect sense to me.

Excellent for someone who had already studied Japanese in the past but want to get a quick review. The "On the go" CDs are particulary well executed, with bilingual instructions such that the student doesn't have to be looking at the manual when listening to the CDs. They are excellent for those who want to take advantage of their commute time to learn the language. My main complaint is that it doesn't offer quite enough drills. And for that reason, a true beginner should probably use the book only as a complement to other more traditional text book/audio sets like the "Learn Japanese" series by Young and Nakajima.