Pros: Easy concepts. Divided into easy to understand chapters. Beats the competition.
Cons: Absolutely, positively, without a doubt no cons to this item.
The Bottom Line: All-in-all, this is by far the best language learning book that I have ever found. It is great for those wanting to learn basic Japanese.
shippo225's Full Review: Taeko Kamiya - Speak Japanese Today: A Self-Study ...
Best Library Check-Out:
.....I have yet to buy this book. I checked it out last summer at the library and it is such a great success that I kept renewwing it since. I've been good at picking up languages and I always wanted to learn Japanese as a third language. I found this book at the library and decided to give it a try. Within minutes I was learning Japanese. There are no long grammer sections to read, it just focuses on the spoken language.
Clearly Divided Into Easy to Understand Chapters:
.....The Book is divided into 20 chapters, well thought-out. There are two review chapters that allow you to test yourself on the content in the previous chapters. In the beginning, however, there is a chart of the Japanese 'alphabet' or what you'd call it. There is a quick explanation on the pronunciation of the syllabols. Any other important information that will be needed later in the book will be shown. All this will be on the first 2 pages, not fifty as many other books make it. Just simple.
.....At the end of the book there is a glossary of all the words found in the book. First, is the Japanese-->English glossary and then an English-->Japanese glossary. There are 535 words in the glossary, yes I counted (alot of free time).
The Chapters:
.....Every chapter has a title with a theme for the chapter. For instance, chapter 1 is"How Do You Do?"- the chapter will mostly be on meeting and greeting.
.....Each chapter starts off with a short vocabulary list to memorize. This will list all of the words you will find in the first half of the chapter. There are usually ten to twenty words on each list at a time. Once you memorize the words, which only takes a few minutes for me, you can move on to the exercises.
.....After each vocab list is are half-page or so section labeled Points To Remember. Here, points are listed to help you understand special words, such as markers, sentence structure points, etc. The points are important on comprehending text in the future.
.....A practice dialog comes next. The dialog uses the new vocab along with previous vocab. The left half of the page has the Japanese dialog and the right has the English translation. It is excellent practice and greatly helped me in understanding the sentence structure and how the vocab was used.
.....Most chapters will followup with another ten-to-twenty word vocab list. These will be the words practiced in the second half of the chapter. Some vocab entried will have an exponent number beside them. This means that there is an explanation at the bottom of the list on the usage of the word. Comes in handy.
.....Last in the chapter are exercises which are usually single sentences. There are about twenty t thirty exercises to do. Once again, this emphasizes vocab and sentence structure.
.....The chapter is topped off with a ten question quiz. The answers are at the page.
Chapter Topics:
.....Here is the list of the 22 chapters:
Chapter # And Name 1. How Do You Do?
2. What Is That?
3. Where Is The Bank?
4. What Time Is The Next Hikari (train)?
5. How Many Hours Is It?
6. What Is The Date?
7. What Day Of The Week Is Today?
8. When Is Your Trip?
9. Is There A Restaurant?
10. How Many Tables Are There?
11. How Many Persons Are There?
12. Review Exercises
13. Where Are You Going?
14. How Much Is This Vase?
15. What Did You Do Yesterday?
16. Can You Cook Sukiyaki?
17. Do You Like To Travel?
18. Where Do You Want To Go?
19. Which Button Is It?
20. Shall We Go Together?
21. May I Sit Here?
22. Review Exercises
Appendices:
.....At the end of the book, prior to the glossary, are the three appendices. One, Verb Conjugation, two, Particles, three, Counters.
.....Appendix 1: Verb Conjugations. This is a list of all the verbs in the book. It contains the conjugations for all the subject forms and the english meaning. The regular verbs are listed first followed by the semi-regular verbs and then the just plain out irregulars.
.....Appendix 2: Particles. This section has all the articles and how to use them in a sentence.
.....Appendix 3: Counters. Important rules on number counting in Japanese. Each number has the same prefix, but a different suffix depending on what you are counting. The appendix lists four of the many counters used in counting. Examples are give to show usage.
Learn spoken Japanese quickly and efficiently. Through twenty carefully thought-out lessons and two review chapters, Speak Japanese Today will teach y...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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