Japanese for Busy People I: Text (Paperback)

by AJALT (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
In the ten years since its publication, Japanese for Busy People has won acceptance worldwide as an effective, easy-to-understand textbook, either for classroom use or for independent study. In this new edition, numerous revisions and additions have been made, taking into account the comments and responses of both students and teachers who have been using the course.

In Book I, the revisions are directed at making the grammatical explanations easier to understand, while adding further explanations of points that students have difficulty with. Changes have also been made in favor of more natural practice sentences and dialogues. In addition, new appendices list the particles, interrogatives, and sentence patterns in the book, as well as the kanji introduced.

More fundamental revisions have been made to Book II, which has been expanded and divided into two volumes, Book II and Book Ill. The changes result in a smoother transition from Book I, make new grammatical elements clearer, and present more natural practice dialogues and exercise sentences.
This concise course in natural Japanese is ideal for such students as businessmen whose aim is a working knowledge of the spoken language in everyday life. "Survival Japanese for Adults," as it might be called, gets to the heart of the language without recourse to childish or classroom-only Japanese.

Vocabulary and grammar have been limited to about one-third that usually encountered in beginner courses, and words and patterns that students will find immediately useful are emphasized.
The thirty lessons are composed of dialogues, notes on grammar, and vocabulary, exercises and quizzes. In addition to developing verbal fluency, by the time the student is one-third the way through Book I he will have mastered the two phonetic syllabaries of Japanese.

About the Author
The Association for Japanese-Language Teaching (AJALT) was recognized as a nonprofit organization by the Ministry of Education in 1977. It was established to meet the practical needs of people who are not necessarily specialists on Japan but who wish to communicate effectively in Japanese.

Product Details

• Paperback: 232 pages
• Publisher: Kodansha International; Revised edition (January 15, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 4770018827
• ISBN-13: 978-4770018823
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 7.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #395,719 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A good start, a good foundation, October 3, 2001

By	"max_w" (Japan) - See all my reviews

I first used this book as part of my Japanese language course at university. I found the chapter dialogues very useful, and the grammar points are explained in a very concised way. I came to Japan after studying the first book, which gave me the very basic foundation to continue with more advanced studies. This book should be used in conjunction with other books like 'Shin Nihon go no Kiso I' to get a more thorough range of Japanese vocabulary, (although my Japanese teacher said the vocabularies used in 'Nihon go no kiso' are quite specialised in some cases, e.g. phrases like 'welding pipes' is found in the text, which is not really needed for everyday situations!). For beginners, I highly recommend this book as a starter for self-study.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Learning Japanese, April 17, 2002

By	"metuamate" (Japan) - See all my reviews

As a self taught student that started out with absolutely no Japanese whatsoever, it has been a great help to me. Living in Japan, it has helped me somewhat to communicate with japanese people on everyday excursions. The book gives survival japanese ready for immediate use and broken into different situations that you may find yourself in. For a foreigner as myself, living in Japan, it is a must. Definitely needs the tapes though for pronounciation, which you will find that without, is a big hinderance.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good, but seriously flawed, November 11, 2005

By	Joe Green "Raidy" (CA, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I'm enrolled in a Japanese college class and this is the book we use. While its lessons are effective, it has a lot of organization problems. Vocabulary is just strewn across the book and it's introduced at an inconsistent pace. Some sections include a lot of vocabulary that take a substantial amount of time to memorize, and others include very little vocabulary.

It also has a few annoying quirks, such as the way it writes numbers. It'll write "5-ji" to say "5 o'clock," and while this is the way 5 o'clock would be written in Japanese, I would have prefered for it to say "go-ji" instead. That would have further helped me grasp the numbering system. Although numbers 1-10 are extremely easy to memorize, making their use of "5-ji" not too bothersome, it continues doing it with the higher numbers, like "1999-nen" to say the year 1999.

Finally, the tests are far too short. There are some painfully easy particle placement questions, and about 4 sentences to translate on each test, and that's all. I seldom do the chapter exams because they hardly help.

Now that I'm done badmouthing the book, I'll polish it up a bit and make it reach the 3-star rating I gave it.

One positive thing is it doesn't make huge difficulty jumps between lessons. Unlike certain text books I've experienced that introduce completely new and hard-to-accept concepts out of the blue, this one teaches at a steady pace, which makes it easier to grasp the material.

Second, it focuses on the right stuff. I can see myself using everything this textbook has taught me.

I would recommend this book to people who have fully-packed schedules and can only learn a little at a time (who woulda thought by the name of the title). I do often think it drags a bit, but I'm a dedicated Japanese student aiming for fluency. If you asked me which book you should use to study Japanese for the purpose of a business trip or vacation to Japan, I would tell you to look no further than this one. However, if you asked me the same question, but told me you wanted to spend the rest of your life in Japan, I'd tell you to find something else.