Product Description

"Japanese for Busy People" is, as the title suggests, a concise course for 'busy' students who want to learn natural spoken Japanese as effectively as possible in a limited amount of time. This worldwide bestselling series was prepared by a working group of experienced Japanese language instructors who reviewed and tested the material in an authentic classroom environment. Now the series is being thoroughly revised to make learning Japanese easier than ever.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #29013 in Books
• Published on: 2006-08-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Customer Reviews

Covers the language well but perhaps a little too hastily
I first came across this book as recommended by my Japanese teacher as she sometimes uses it as a compliment to the lessons I take weekly. Now, although this book does cover a lot of the important base points of the Japanese language (particles, useful vocabulary etc), I do find that it doesn't really put enough time into drilling these essential grammar points in.

For example, at the beginning of each chapter, you're given a quite nicely laid out page of points on how the proceeding chapter's main grammar points will be used and the formation of it's sentences. Sounds great but it's just one page! To me, that's just not enough. My teacher puts a great deal of (I think necessary) time each week into these points as they really are the building blocks of the language and to just skim over these key points in one page doesn't give the language the respect it demands.

Aside from this, I also find it's techniques of teaching vocabulary a little rushed as well. Now I know the title is "Japanese For BUSY PEOPLE" but there are some sections that need to have time taken over. Generally, this book just lists new vocabulary in a tiny bar at the bottom of the page each time it's used in one of the book's (I'll admit, very useful) target dialogues. Vocabulary is my weak point in Japanese and I find flash cards, repetition etc essential. Just listing words without even putting a picture next to them (in MOST cases) feels like they've written out the dialogues and then just casually mentioned the vocabulary. To me, this leaves me feeling left behind and so, the rest of the book can become slightly daunting. If I didn't have my Japanese lessons to back up the material, I think I would find this book very frustrating.

All in all, Japanese is a difficult language. That point coupled with the fact that there's so many Japanese books on Amazon that can be daunting to someone starting off has led me to be very critical of this, and any other language book. None-the-less, JFBP is, for me, the perfect compliment to a night class as it serves well as a summary and I can't stress enough how much this has helped me.

Just a quick warning though: This version is the "Kana" edition which means it's written in the language's two most basic character sets; Hiragana and Katakana. This means you'll have to be able to read these sets of characters before this book will make an ounce of sense so bear that in mind! There is a "romanized" version which writes the Japanese in it's English syllables but to really progress in Japanese, I recommend learning the Kana and then using this version. It may seem daunting but it's really quite easy especially if you use an amazing book called "Remembering the Kana: Hiragana and Katakana" by James Heisig.

The bottom line is that this really is a great book but it's lack of attention to grammar and the way it teaches vocabulary unfortunately warrants taking it down a star. Still essential though and probably the best book I can imagine when used alongside a properly tutored Japanese course.

David Fox

Best spoken Japanese book for BUSY people
If you want to learn a solid base of conversational Japanese and have a small taster of what a couple of kanji characters look like, then this book is for you! I'm absolutely delighted that a CD is now included in this version (it wasn't with the first one).

It still baffles me why some students would want to study some kanji characters but not all of them. This kana version gives enough characters to keep students happy, but not enough by any means to enable them to read real Japanese. In fact, when I go back to these books I start to get confused because in most places kanji characters are replaced by katakana. It is an excellent start for busy people though!

I would say that the Rosette Stone language software is FAR FAR better at teaching spoken Japanese. But sadly it costs nearly $500 through Amazon USA. Dig deep...


If you are series enough about Japanese to want to learn some kanji and are not a 'busy person' then why not try the college student version of this book? It's just as good as this one, but doesn't assume you are tooo busy to spend much time learning Japanese:

Japanese for College Students: Basic Vol 1

Excellent series of books
Japanese is one of the most difficult languages for an English speaker to learn, but this series of books makes it accessible.

Pictures demonstrate how the words and phrases in question are used, and detailed but understandable notes on pronunciation (very different to English) are given. The book in question even comes with a CD, featuring native speakers - a must for truly accurate sounds.

The text is clear and a good size. Both the romanised Japanese (Japanese words and characters written using the letters A-Z) and the Japanese syllabaries are presented well.

(It should be noted that this is the Kana version - although what you need to do [insert the correct sentence ending, etc] is in English, all the exercises use native Japanese characters [hiragana and katakana]. If you can't read at least hiragana, don't buy this book. Do buy it, however, if you're also buying the "Romanised" edition - it may help with the learning process)

I'd recommend this series of books to anyone wanting to learn either via their own, or via a class or private tutor.