Ultimate Japanese Beginner-Intermediate (Book and CD Set): Includes Comprehensive Coursebook and 8 Audio CDs (Ultimate Beginner-Intermediate) [Audiobook, Large Print, Unabridged] [Paperback]

Living Language (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1400021138 | ISBN-13: 978-1400021130 | Publication Date: September 21, 2004 | Edition: Com/Pap Un

Ultimate Japanese has everything you need to learn Japanese from scratch or to revive the Japanese that you learned years ago. This course combines conversation and culture in an easy-to-follow, enjoyable, and effective format. It's the perfect way to learn Japanese for school, travel, work, or personal enrichment.

Ultimate Japanese Beginner-Intermediate includes:

•40 lessons in a comprehensive 416-page textbook:

Each lesson contains a lively and authentic dialogue, vocabulary, grammar and usage, step-by-step character writing, cultural highlights, and plenty of practice. The first ten lessons also include special pronunciation sections that will have you speaking right from the beginning. The book also contains review sections, readings, supplemental vocabulary sections, appendixes on essential Japanese grammar, and a Japanese-English/English-Japanese glossary.

•8 hours of recordings with an ingenious two-step approach:

Learn at home: Listen to the first set of recordings as you follow along in your textbook. Immerse yourself in Japanese while you listen and repeat with the all-Japanese recordings, and learn conversation, grammar, vocabulary, and more

Learn on the go: Then practice, review, and expand upon what you’ve learned with the second set of recordings. An instructor will guide you through each lesson, and since no reading is required, you can listen in the car, on the train, at the gym…anywhere!

Product Details

• Paperback: 528 pages
• Publisher: Living Language; Com/Pap Un edition (September 21, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400021138
• ISBN-13: 978-1400021130
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 2.4 x 10 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #733,336 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very Good for Beginner-Intermediate Learners, June 26, 2007

By 

M. Dugan "Gakusei" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ultimate Japanese: Beginner-Intermediate: A Complete Textbook and Reference Guide (Paperback)

I am admittedly new to learning Japanese (but not, however, new to foreign language study), and these may be caveats to readers of this review.
I have found this book to be very enlightening, and see that a lot of thought and effort have been put into making it. Its forty lessons, eight reviews, and 5 readings provide a wealth of material in considerable breadth and depth, and it presents the student with plenty of Japanese in a methodical, progressive teaching method. Both kana syllabaries are taught, as well as 174 kanji. There is even an interesting article near the end of each article presenting a little bit about Japanese culture.
This is not a college freshman Japanese textbook, and so it goes less into language theory and so forth than that to which college or university students may be accustomed. If there were more I would wish for, it would be more drill. A workbook may have been a good companion for this book.
I mistakenly ordered the text only (and had to order cassettes separately), and would recommend that more serious students considering purchasing this that they get the book and cassettes as a package.
It's a quality book. For as much as it has to offer, considering the reasonableness of its price, I think few who are interested in Japanese language and culture would be disappointed with it.
(From this onward is an amendment of my previous comments):
I still stand by what I wrote above. I may have neglected to note that I am studying Japanese independently, i.e., through self-study. With that qualification having been made, I point out that I have become marginally more aware of Japanese and its usage, nuances, etc., and thus would point out that the author seems to focus on colloquial spoken Japanese, as opposed to written form. I have no vested interest in selling this book, but I still have zero regrets for having purchased it. I hope those interested in Japanese find this review helpful.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars good course, if you can stomach the baby talk on the CDs, May 2, 2007

By 

reader - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ultimate Japanese Beginner-Intermediate (Book and CD Set): Includes Comprehensive Coursebook and 8 Audio CDs (Ultimate Beginner-Intermediate) (Paperback)

While the course book is well organized and comprehensive (although you will need your own dictionary. The Living Language books have terrible glossaries which do not even contain all of the words from the vocabulary lists), it is very difficult to get past the ridiculously childish, affected way in which the narrators--particularly the women--speak. You will not hear and adult woman's voice except in lesson 30. All the others sound as if they are breathing helium and talking to you as if you were in a nursery.

Japan is notorious for the infantile "women's speech," but not all Japanese women behave this way. I have lived there and speak from experience.

The narration on courses produced in Japan, such as Kodansha's "Japanese For Busy People" or Gakken's "Japanese For Today" are far more natural and actually sound like mature adults.

22 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good, but requires reader's effort, December 6, 2004

By 

CHIEN-CHIANG SHENG "chien_chiang_sheng" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ultimate Japanese Beginner-Intermediate (Book and CD Set): Includes Comprehensive Coursebook and 8 Audio CDs (Ultimate Beginner-Intermediate) (Paperback)

Well, I am just about to finish Lesson 27(of 40), good set but could have been better. Firstly, this book requires dictionary look-ups on your own. Secondly, it does not give all hints. Guesses are sometimes needed. Thirdly, should have put accents on whole lesson, including grammar. Should have printed with double spaces, so I can insert notes.
Overall, good set. This book is pretty extensive on grammar, but should have shown the bigger picture before things getting complicated. I need other books to help me, but I like the pace this book is setting.
Total 40 lessons, each with conversation text, grammar, notes, vocabulary, exercises, Hiragana and Kanji text for lessons 21-40. Mostly in Romaji, but should not be a problem. Since in the end, Kanji is the target, not just Hiragana. CDs are good, two sets, one set for home, one for places without a textbook.
Well, this set is cheap and ........