Elementary Japanese Volume One: This Beginner Japanese Language Textbook Expertly Teaches Kanji, Hiragana, Katakana, Speaking & Listening (Online Media Included)

I've been disappointed with most Japanese textbooks (or teach it yourselfs) because most of them write everything in romaji (English phonetics) instead of using hiragana or katakana, the Japanese alphabets. This book starts out using Japanese characters from lesson one and ceases to use romaji very quickly. It makes the learner have to learn the Japanese alphabets. Kanji is also treated very non-painfully. Each lesson introduces a few new kanji and shows the correct order of writing them. Each lesson thereafter uses these new kanji so that the learner gets a chance to use them as in Japan. Each lesson starts out with a dialogue that has pictures and then a translation afterwards. New grammatical concepts or cultural connotations of grammar are explained with lots of examples. There are plenty of exercises to use for practice. AND...the textbook comes with a CD-ROM that contains all the dialogues read in Japanese. It also reads out the entire vocabulary list for each chapter. The PDF on the CD-ROM is printable. It does contain some listening exercises not found in the textbook, which I thought was neat because most CDs with language learning software just read out the dialogues. For maximum learning (and especially if you're teaching yourself), purchase the teacher's edition answer key that comes with this series. It has all the answers to both the textbooks and the listening exercises on the CD-ROM. In addition, it has the dialogues from the listening exercises written out so that you can check exactly why you missed questions. This is the best textbook I've seen so far for Japanese.

When I purchased this book and the other two volumes, my attitude was a little bit reserved because of some of the other contradictory reviews. However, now that I have the books I can say that THIS IS THE BEST JAPANESE TEXTBOOK EVER! It is way better than Genki. Grammar elements are better structured, each lesson has a lot more vocabulary than Genki, kanji integration in each lesson is natural and easy to remember and, most of all it has way more exercises than Genki and all of them are completley solved in the third volume (The Teacher's Manual). The rich vocabulary and explanation completed my understanding of even very basic things that Genki simply does not cover like for example the double vowels and double consonants and the writing tricks of doubling them or, another example, the pitch tone - meaning of some groups of words. Some people might find this tome (together with the other volumes) rather difficult because Romaji transcription appears only in the first two lessons and then the student is supposed to know the syllabaries. I do not understand why some people criticize this fact. Isn't it obvious that you have to learn how to write? I highly recoomend this books together with the other volumes only to those people who seriously want to study japanese. It's the only book you'll need. (PS: each volume comes with a data CD that contains every lesson and vocabulary)

This is one of the best Japanese textbooks I’ve used. It is very good for self-teaching because not only does it have solid lessons and good vocabulary work, it also has notes on culture and linguistics. I highly recommend it for both self-teaching and if you are teaching a class. Bonus points for being very inexpensive. *fun fact, it’s used by professors at UC Berkeley for their Japanese classes ;)*

I've been studying Japanese in community college and independently for several years now, and this is by far the best Japanese textbook I've come across. This is the text used in the first elementary Japanese course at UC Berkeley. I love the way the text is structured and how the Kanji is introduced. (A word of advice for anyone who is seriously studying Japanese: DO NOT get a textbook that does not teach the Kanji or any text with "Made Simple" or "for Busy People" in the title.) I highly recommend this.

I was drawn to the chapter organization of this book, which is shorter and more focused than the Genki textbooks. I also liked the many images and cartoon dialogs - these things help learning. I've gone through the first few chapters and looked over the rest of this book. I think it's a good book. But it suffers from too few readings and other language input in each chapter. A universal problem with language textbooks is the lack of extensive comprehensible input. That's what your brain needs to acquire language. Language is not a subject like history or science, where you study about it to learn the subject. Your brain acquires language in a specific way, and has special parts of the brain that handle language learning. So grammar exercises and vocabulary lists are not the way your brain wants to learn a language. That is doing it the hard, unnatural way. You can learn *about* the language this way, but that is not the same thing as actually acquiring the language. How many people do you know who say, "I took two years of Spanish/French/whatever in high school, but I didn't learn much." There you go. So I wish this book had a lot more easy readings in each chapter. A good modern language teacher would take this book and supplement it with many communicative activities where students use the language to perform meaningful tasks - that's the sort of activity your brain needs to learn a language. Also, this book oddly throws in things that are too difficult at their level. For example, in lesson 3 the core dialog talks about the college Japanese "program office." This is not high-frequency, beginning vocabulary. So in some cases this book makes learning harder than it need to be. I'm disappointed with this book, as a self-learning tool. I will supplement this book with the Genki series and with Japanese for Busy People, the other decent books I've found.

It arrived today!! This is a book that's for the first semester for college Japanese! Awesome for beginners ~~ I was trying to find a book with out romaji because it can cripple you while learning Japanese and this book is exactly what I wanted and needed!!!!! Came in awesome condition as well, even tho it's a used book. Super satisfied with my purchase

A pre-purchase from when I moved. I recommend using erasable highlighter and erasable pens if you want to mark and study for years of use. :)

Great if using to seriously learn Japanese. Much better than a basic phrase book. This book has many phrases + vocabulary. I would recommend knowing hiragana and katakana when getting this book.

Vaya por delante que yo ya tenía un conocimiento básico del idioma y que compré estos dos libros, para repasar antes de proseguir con un nivel intermedio, influido por la buena crítica sobre ellos que había leído en Tofugu (donde los describen como una pequeña joya escondida). Y no me arrepiento en absoluto pues, aunque ya digo que es para repasar lo que ya sabía (al menos en el libro primero, aún no he empezado con el segundo), no hay lección en la que no encuentre información aclaratoria que es para mí nueva y muy interesante. Sí es verdad que las tablas de los silabarios podrían ser más sencillas y mejor explicadas para un principiante absoluto, pero el contenido de las lecciones me resulta infinitamente más ameno que Genki. De los distintos métodos que tengo (y tengo bastantes) me quedo con estos de Elementary Japanese y Japanese for Everyone de Susumu Nagara. Y para el estudio de los kanji, sin ninguna duda el Kanji Learner’s Course de Andrew Scott Conning.

Arrived very quickly. Product was exactly as advertised.

Estou gostando muito. Bem explicado, com tabelas e resumos. Estou usando como método para aprender sozinho e achei muito bom. Possui alguns exercícios no final de cada aula. Alguns pontos a se considerar é que é em inglês; os exercícios em alguns momentos são para serem feitos em dupla e não possuem resposta; as aulas e explicações usam apenas kana, ou seja, sem romaji. Mas o preço é mais em conta que outros métodos mais famosos,e achei super completo e didático!

I've been cross-referencing between this, Genki and a couple of other books and I've found this book to be extraordinarily helpful. The included audio CD enhances the value.

A great book! First you have to make sure to learn hiragana and katakana to read most of it but it’s amazing for beginners