Japanese for Dummies AUDIO+CD (Paperback)

by Eriko Sato (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Speak Japanese – the fun and easy way!

Packed with clear explanations and real-world examples

Your friendly guide to understanding Japanese – quickly and easily!

Whether you’re a student, a traveler, or you just want to pick up basic Japanese, this unintimidating guide will help you start speaking the language in no time.

From the Back Cover
Speak Japanese – the fun and easy way!

Packed with clear explanations and real-world examples

Your friendly guide to understanding Japanese – quickly and easily!

Whether you’re a student, a traveler, or you just want to pick up basic Japanese, this unintimidating guide will help you start speaking the language in no time. Inside you’ll find a wealth of fascinating cultural facts and handy references – including a Japanese-English mini-dictionary, lists of common expressions and verbs, and much more!

All this on the bonus audio CD

• Pick up Japanese the easy way –through actual conversations
• Features dialogues by native Japanese speakers
• Allows you to hear Japanese as it’s really spoken
• Reinforces lessons from the book

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Product Details

• Paperback: 408 pages
• Publisher: For Dummies (May 15, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0764554298
• ISBN-13: 978-0764554292
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #47,985 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

69 of 69 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Everything but writing, June 4, 2002

By	Andrea Lee "Ayumi" (Montgomery, Alabama United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I just recieved my copy of this book yesterday and I think that it's wonderful! It's difficult for me to learn on my own using a book, but like all the other Dummies books, everything was simple and I was able to understand it well.

I ordered this book mainly to get a laugh from it, not expecting to REALLY learn everything there is to know about Japanese. Well, within the first 100 pages, I got my laugh. In the section talking about eating, the author says "If you are eating at home, get it [missing condiments, table settings] yourself, or if you have children, ask them to get it for you." I got the laugh I expected from a Dummies book. Also, in the introduction, the author makes some assumptions on the reader. The author says flat out that this book is not made for the people who want to become professional translators or expect to become fluent from the book alone. It's simply to learn the basics of spoken Japanese language and use the knowledge as a stepping stone to more learning.

But other than that, there's clear explainations for verbs and their basic usage. There was no unneccesary stuff to confuse the reader with although the different forms of verbs may seem intimidating. The vocabulary used is very basic and far from complete, but it's enough to get by with. There is a mini dictionary in the back of the book and it's just that: mini. I suggest you to grab yourself a good dictionary.

This book is pretty good, but it doesn't teach anything about writing. There is not a single kana in the book so those of you desiring to learn written Japanese should not buy this book unless you want to reinforce your grammar and speaking. This book concentrates mainly on speaking putting a great deal into the pronunciation of words. Also, the audio CD included goes through the sounds of the language and includes some of the dialogues from the book. They're spoken by native Japanese speakers and sound very clear. However, it sounds more like most tapes and CDs used in school language instruction rather than smooth-flowing speech.

It's a really great book for those starting in Japanese, but it shows only one side of the language. But I guess Dummies just wanted to keep it as simple as possible. The lack of Japanese writing is a bit frustrating, but I don't regret my purchase.

39 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Best Japanese Language book I've bought yet..., September 23, 2002

By A Customer

I am currently teaching English in Japan so I have lots of Japanese language books sitting on the shelf in my apartment. Japanese for Dummies is the only one of those books that I've actually looked at a second time. The book gets down to the nitty gritty of Japanese and explains the language in an easy and understandable way. Sato-san even gives important cultural information that explains when and why you use certain phrases in Japanese. I've been living in Japan for over a year and it wasn't until I started reading this book that I finally felt like I was understanding the usage of the language and have been a bit more confident talking to my co-workers at enkais and the drinking parties that follow. My book is competely full of highlighter and notes (something I rarely do so it truly must be a helpful book!)
Sadly I can't attest to how good the cd is because I've never taken it out of the book jacket since I constantly hear Japanese around me but if its anything like the book then it'd be quite good.
For people that are concerned about learning to read and write Japanese ... this book might not necessarily be for you - however, I taught myself to read and write hirigana and katakana over a weekend when I first got here and I've discovered that it didn't help me in the least bit getting around Japan as that would require knowing a decent amount of kanji characters which I've been picking up very slowly.
The layout of the book is great - introuduction followed by chapters that focus on a variety of things (like going shopping, inviting a friend to do something) each with new vocabulary, useful verbs (and their basic conjugations), set phrases and a practice dialogue. The back part of the book is a mini-dictionary that is suitable for this book but you would definitely need a better one if you have a more serious interest in Japanese (I can't help you with that since I've been searching for a better Japanese/English dictionary since I've arrived in Japan!)

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Know the purpose, January 26, 2006

By	Dylan Greene "Halador" (USA) - See all my reviews

On the cover of this book it says "Speak Japanese - the fun and easy way!" So why am I not complaining that it didn't include the writing? Because I knew that it was for speaking the language. This isn't exactly the advanced type of book, but it teaches a lot more than most Japanese books I have read. Most other Japanese books I have read only make you memorize specific phrases and sentences. But this one tells you how to put a sentence together. It would be beyond the scope of this book to list the writing, because this is aimed at beginners. When you get well-versed in the speaking, yes another book should do for the writing. But, for its true purpose, Japanese for Dummies does an outstanding job.