Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #36013 in Books
• Published on: 2004-11
• Format: Illustrated
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 312 pages

Customer Reviews

Simply Superb
This is a great book, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone learning, or interested in learning japanese, whether or not you're a fan of manga.

The book is a complete course in basic Japanese taking examples and illustrations from a range of manga (japanese graphic novels). It starts tamely, introducing words like 'ooh' and 'I'll go', but moves through to the end of the book with complete and quite complex blocks of text.

Where this book shines above the hundreds of other Japanese courses available in book form is that everything is linked to pictures, so if you are in the slightest bit visual, you'll associate words with images.

I would say that this book doesn't help you speak japanese without some other input. I've been learning with a conventional tutor to help conversation practice. But time and again the book has taught me stuff that has been very useful. Because manga reflects real japanese as it is spoken, its full of useful idioms and phrases that aren't in dictionaries or some other text-books (which tend to teach a starchy formal version of the language).

The best bit about the book is its frequent reference pages. There are reference blocks on dates, times, numbers and counters, kinship words, and many many more. These have proved more than the value of the book alone: I have quite a few Japanese references, but photocopies of these pages are permanently in the front of my notebook.

I simply can't recommend this book enough. If you look at my other reviews you'll see I rarely give 5 stars: this is very deserving of all 5 of them.

This delivers what it promises, and more
I love this book!

Firstly, a little about my background: I've been wanting to learn japanese for a good few years now, teaching myself and only getting so far.
I've been going to a night class now for about a year, however I always find it difficult to reconcile what I learn in class with what I hear spoken in movies and Anime. Standard speech is used so infrequently by natives in real life that i think if i wasn't so determined to learn I would have given up long ago.

THIS BOOK promises to introduce you to all basic structures as they appear in published manga. What's more it does it in a structured and easy to comprehend way.

In my first sitting I made it to chapter 6 and was amazed at just how much I had picked up that I could recall hearing about a hundred times in any given anime. What's more, I understood the vast majority of what I'd read, and the daunting task of moving from standard polite speech to REAL japanese as it's spoken was such a small, simple step, I'm annoyed with myself for not doing it sooner.

This book is as amazing as I'd hoped it would be. I can't wait to devour the whole thing. Even if I don't pick something up 100% the first time, there are full, structured translations the whole way through the book to help you get it right. It's also the most enjoyable japanese textbook i've ever read, and i've tried a few.

Since I'm not an absolute beginner, I can not give an accurate opinion on it's suitability for a beginner. However I will say that if you are considering learning japanese as it's spoken in the REAL world, this book is the one for you. HOWEVER, I would strongly reccommend you invest in a dedicated language textbook (japanese for busy people is an excellent choice here), or a part-time class at an adult learning centre.

Buy it! You won't regret it!

Teaches the grammatical function of formal and informal Japanese through manga
At first glance you may think that this book teaches only informal Japanese and would be short on grammar. However, this is not the case. There are copious grammar explanantions (but written in a lucid, accesssable style).

The great thing is that everything is linked to the manga. This convinces the learner that this is 'real' and useful Japanese, not just some make-believe version that is only found in textbooks.

What the book does lack is exercises to practice the language presented. It's full of such revelatory stuff, but it's easy to forget without having formalised practice of it. I don't yet know of any classes that use the book, but it would lend itself well to classroom use, with the teacher creating exercises around it that practice the target language.

Used in conjuction with a more regular Japanese textbook, such as the new editions of Japanese For Busy People, this book makes excellent on-the-side reading. What is so great about it is that, if you know a bit of Japanese, the kind of casual speech that you always hear but have never been taught how to use, falls into place - and this book teaches you how to use it properly, with, as I said, lucid explanaions of its grammatical function.

Wayne Lammers grew up in Japan, and I have also experienced his work when I came across his excellent 2003 translation of Taichi Yamada's novel, Strangers.