Oxford Take Off in Japanese (Paperback with CDs) [CD-ROM]

I started teaching myself Japanese almost ten years ago, and have never had formal instruction. Since then I've been to Japan twice. Mostly, I have tried to teach myself through books and attempting conversation with Japanese friends and family, and sometimes by watching Japanese animated series. Through this I have picked up a very basic knowledge of Japanese. I can say quite simple things, but nothing very sophisticated. Since I will be traveling to Japan again the near future, I thought I would try to brush up on some conversational Japanese.

When I got this course, I first looked through the book. I was a bit disappointed at first, because I already knew most of what was there. Those who have had 1-2 years of Japanese instruction will probably feel the same way. I had to go to the last 20% of the book to find vocabulary that I had not encountered.

However, once I popped in the CD's (I started with the last one), I was pleasantly surprised. The course is laid out in an intelligent way. The vocabulary is for the most part very useful vocabulary that you will need to know to engage in basic conversational Japanese. I listen to the CD in my car and have picked up some things.

I do have some slight complaints, however. If you are listening to the CD in the car, and don't have the book handy, it may be confusing, because the CD's are really provided as supplements to the book. Also, some of the Japanese speakers on the CD do speak somewhat fast. It was hard at times to pick out exactly what they were saying. Again, having reference to the book would help a great deal here.

Aesthetically both the book, the CD, and the packaging are very nice and appealing. The design is intuitive and user-friendly -- it invites you to learn.

In conclusion, this book will be most useful for people with a very limited knowledge of Japanese or none at all. For those with 1-2 years of experience (or longer, like myself, but without formal training), you may find some use in it. If you have more than a very basic understanding (more than 1 year of formal education or training), I would not really recommend this product. I don't think you will learn that much.

Also, I think that someone could complete this course and still not really be able to engage in conversational Japanese except in a very limited manner. The advantage of the course is that it is not overwhelming, and it is relatively fun. The disadvantage is that you will not have a very strong vocabulary at the end of it. But, it could be the perfect start before you move on to more advanced courses.

Take Off in Japanese is a combination book-CD/MP3 course that seems clearly focused on basic speaking and listening. The topics start right away with greetings and comments on the weather (which sounds trite, but is in fact a useful and common conversation starter in Japanese). We are introduced to a few characters who will be our companions throughout. Within minutes we're at the coffeeshop, learning how to say "I'll have a [coffee/tea/whatever], please" and all the little set phrases that go along with that ("Here you are," "Excuse me...," "Really?" etc.) Next we go to a local bar, and then we learn to tell time, and armed with that information, we ask for opening and closing times for the gym, the pool, the restaurant, and so on. Money and shopping come next... then asking and understanding directions, getting around, and so forth.

The teaching style is quite interactive for a book/audio combo. The narrator (with a plummy British accent) frames the lesson, we listen to a dialog, and she asks a question or two: What time of day is it? What did they buy? Then a few new phrases are explained, and bits of the dialog are repeated. We may be directed back to the book to do an exercise--but not your typical textbook exercise. These are teeny-tiny exercises... for instance, you might be given a list of four events from the dialog and asked to put them in the order they happened. Or you might be asked to answer a few true/false questions about what you heard, or to use the phrases to describe something you own. There's lots of back-and-forth between the book and the audio, which means that it can't really be done while driving. However, the activities are so bite-sized that you can pick it up and do a bit whenever you have a spare minute or two, and if you take the train or bus to work, you're definitely going to like it. The course comes with a code to use to download MP3 files for your iPod or other player. Each one runs just a few minutes long.

Oxford Press have obviously tried hard to avoid "textbooky" dialogue. In that little bar in lesson 1, for example, the gruff but friendly owner is nonplussed when a stranger comes in and hesitantly orders first a cola, then a juice. "Juusu?!! Juusu desu ka?" ("Juice?!! You want juice??") The unfortunate stranger finally figures out that a beer is what he wants, and the owner bustles off to fetch it while the two female regulars, one feels certain, nod in approval. Later on, Iito-san (the bar owner) hosts a picnic, where everyone drinks too much and falls asleep. The day after the picnic, one of the ladies wrecks her bicycle. And so on. It's a pleasant change from "The boy is running, the boy is eating, the dog is running."

On the down side, the new vocabulary and grammar points go by pretty quickly. There's little repetition built in, which sounds like a plus but really means that you have to either be a quick study, or repeat the lessons yourself until you've got it. Pimsleur, by contrast, has you repeating the same phrases over and over, building in new material lesson by lesson but returning to the basics again and again. You'll find the TOIJ dialog much less boring, but harder (I think) to remember.

There is very little kanji or kana--almost the entire book is in romaji (Japanese syllables spelled out in Roman characters). This will make it anathema to many students, but for the focus of this package, which again is clearly speaking and listening, I don't see that as a fatal flaw. A half-hearted effort has been made to include a few katakana (for foreign loanwords like koohii, coffee, and sooda, soda) and enough kanji to get you to the proper toilet, but that's about it. You definitely won't learn to read any Japanese from TOIJ, and for a visitor or traveller, that may be okay--not everyone plans to be literate for a visit to a foreign country. If literacy is your goal, a program like Rosetta Stone Version 3: Japanese Level 1, 2 & 3 would be more in order... but you'll spend a bundle compared to TOIJ, and even RS will not get you far in real-life reading.

For such a small package, however, TOIJ has packed in a lot of grammar points. Here's an overview:
1. Desu (am/is/are), questions, polite requests, forms of thank you
2. Numbers, telling time, wa, ja arimasen (isn't/aren't)
3. More numbers, counters, no, arimasu (there is/are), polite shop language
4. Arimasu/imasu for location, ko/so/aso, ga
5. More counters, particles of direction and transport, particles of time
6. O , days of the week, verbs with shimasu, adverbs of frequency, -i adjectives
7. Do, verb forms for invitation, verb forms for suggestions
8. Past tense verbs, dates, giving reasons, saying your age, toki (the time when...)
9. Family members, ni (indirect obj), -na adjectives, colors (oops, that's colours!)
10. Asking for translation, more counters, past tense of adjectives
11. -te imasu (is ...ing), negative questions, verbs for clothing
12. Comparisons, making requests, superlatives
13. Plain verb forms, I think ..., phrases of frequency, I can..., giving advice
14. Plain verbs past tense, Have you ever..., joining sentences, verbs of giving and receiving

When I first opened the (small) package, I thought it was a lightweight product, but clearly, completing this course will give you an adequate grasp of the language for a beginner. I'm not sure that there's enough review and repetition built in to ensure that you retain what you've learned, but there's surely a lot of content for the money.

First off, I would like to say I do not give many 5 star reviews, but when it comes to a language learning program, there is really not an absolute best because the experiences one encounters differs from person to person. That being said, I have attended a college course in Japanese, had a tutor, and tried out Pimsleur's and Rosetta's formats. I would first like to add out of all these so far Pimsleurs was my favorite because it felt like:

1. I was attending a private session in Japanese
2. I could listen to recordings instead of using an interactive program
3. I could pause and rewind
4. I could put MP3's of the recordings on my Ipod.

Now it may sound like I'm giving a review of Pimsleur's, but I'm not, I am praising the features with which Take Off In has, and in most cases surpasses my already favorite program. I really really like this Take Off In program, because it again, uses the recording method of teaching versus the interactive program like Rosetta Stone.

This set comes with CD's, a nice booklet that has sections that ascend as you progress, and has activities and tests at the end so you can quiz yourself and see how you are doing. And because this is a digital, private class like software program, you can repeat any sections that you feel you didn't do well in.

Knowing a good bit of Japanese already I can tell you the way this program teaches you and what it teaches you is essential and necessary in teaching a language intelligibly and understandably. It starts off with basic greetings and immediately puts you in situations where you are told to repeat what you should say at that moment, and because this is on the computer you can pause (of course) and see if you are indeed correct.

Summing up what I like about it:

-I really love the private digital classroom feel
- The teachers voice is of European English accent, which is pleasant
- The titles on the CD are categorized into sections and summaries just like a textbook
- Download-able MP3's on the web that you can throw on your MP3 player so you can listen while doing other things, and allow for portability
- The book allows you to quiz yourself and do fun activities so that you can really progress and shown your actual progress through quiz questions.
- Easy to ready and understand method of teaching
- Very inexpensive versus other programs available

Thank you for reading my review, and as I progress into this, I will add what I feel necessary.