Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A good starter course in Japanese, 2 Dec 2001
I have been using this book as a core part of my Japanese class for beginners. As a tutor, I was pleased to find that the information is presented in small, easy to understand segments, which focus strongly on situational conversation, so it's great for the beginner. Vocabulary is learnt easily, and students quickly become more confident. The units in the book include such topics as; introducing yourself, eating and drinking, shopping, finding your way around, and booking hotel rooms. There are ten units in total plus three revision sections. All my classes have commented on how helpful the tapes are, and due to the situational approach of the course, it is easy to introduce extension work and additional vocabulary relevant to each scenario in the text. One downside however, is that the vocabulary in the book itself is very limited, and in order to learn more by yourself you would possibly need to carry on after finishing this book with another beginners text, which involves covering some of the same material twice. However, this is a great little starter course to gently introduce learners to Japanese, with no scary grammar (just some of the essentials), and all written in romanization, so learners do not need to be able to read any Japanese. A very good buy if you are considering learning some basic Japanese for travel.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Does exactly what it says on the cover, 25 Nov 2003
Before going to Japan for the first time, I picked up this book to give me some pointers (at the very least I wanted to say 'please' and 'thank you' and 'excuse me, do you speak English?').
Naturally, you can get books like 'Japanese For Busy People' which will give you a much more thorough grounding for susequent study, but if you only have a couple of months and just want to hit the ground running in Japan, then 'Talk Japanese' is GREAT! Easy to follow, nice digestible bite sized 'lessons', relevant dialogue you can instantly use. I was able to make full use of my extremely limited Japanese. Don't be fooled into thinking that everybody in Japan speaks English. My experience has found that a little Japanese goes a very long way, everybody seems delighted with the fact that you've made the effort.
'Talk Japanese' works. As an introduction to the language, I haven't found anything better.
Anyway, I've raved about this publication to other friends who have gone to Japan and they've also enjoyed it. I hope you do too. (And even if you only get half way through the book, you'll still have enough Japanese to manage most things with)
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Does what it says on the cover, 22 Aug 2004
I used this book (and accompanying tape) for my first trip to Japan. As a taster, I found it very easy to use and incredibly useful.
I must stress that this is a 'visitor's' language book - it gets you talking. It's not a foundation for serious academic study.
The best thing is that (for me at least) when I visited Japan that first time, everybody I spoke to was incredibly patient with me. I was able to use everything I had learnt - and that of course,is supremely gratifying.
I have now embarked on W. Heisig's 'Remembering the Kanji' course (vol. 1) and will proceed this way before I begin my formal studies of Japanese - incidentally, THIS course is the most extraordinary book I've ever read or used.
But if you just want to learn a few words - Talk Japanese will do you very well, and isn't in the least intimidating - even if you only get half way through, you'll still get a lot of satisfaction from it.
Gambatte kudasai!
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