Japanese Step by Step : An Innovative Approach to Speaking and Reading Japanese

Japanese Step by Step : An Innovative Approach to Speaking and Reading Japanese | Gene Nishi | Japanese made easy

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Japanese Step by S...

	Japanese Step by Step : An Innovative Approach to Speaking and Reading Japanese Gene Nishi McGraw-Hill, 2001 - 256 pages average customer review:based on 43 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Delivers the goods for adult learners

After I read the glowing reviews of this book on About.com and Japanese123.com, I decided that I had to add it to my own collection. As I am learning Japanese as an adult professional, I appreciate the grown-up approach that the author takes. So many Japanese texts talk down to the reader, or concern themselves solely with juvenile/school-oriented situations. This book contains language that will be useful to businesspersons from the beginning.

The explanations of grammar are flowcharted out in a way that makes it easy to see how Japanese sentences are constructed. Although the author has a Japanese last name, he was apparently born and raised in the United States. As I worked through the book, it was evident to me that Gene Nishi was explaining the Japanese language from an English-speaker's point of view---whereas many Japanese language texts written in Japan do not take into account the unique problems that English-speaking students of the langauge face.

Bottom line: if you are a beginning or intermediate student of Japanese, this book belongs on your bookshelf.

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Japanese made easy

I only had this book for a few weeks and I already understand basic reading and writing in Japanese. I can now sound out Japanese words and spell them using Hiragana and Katakana. I also have managed to remember what most of the words mean as well. I've tried other resources for learning the Japanese language and it was always very confusing to the point where I thought it would be nearly impossible. There is a reason why this book has so many high stars. If you're a beginner with Japanese, like me, then this is your first stop!

Update: A few short months has gone by and I've studied almost everyday. I'm half way thru the book and I can now form several sentence patterns in Japanese and ask questions all in a flexible manner. Meaning I can ask many questions and put together many sentences depending on whether or not I know the words to use instead of just learning plain old sentences you get from a guide book. It makes coming up with a real conversation on your own very easy.

I know the Hiragana by heart and my reading, writing and spelling in both Katakana and Hiragana is being perfected each time I study. I've learned lots of new words too. I can sing along better to my favorite Japanese songs and even read Japanese signs in the background when I watch Anime and Japanese movies. I can even pick out certain spoken words and their meaning without the use of English subtitles. Now I'm searching for a CD to help build up my pronouncationn skills. With this book plus (hopefully) a great Japanese language CD I'm only going to get better.

My only compliant with this book is I wish that half way thru it the author would get rid of the Romaji and use Hiragana for the pronouncation. I admit the Romaji under the Japanese was a great starting out point to understanding the language but now it's become an annoyance. I don't want to continue to fall back on Romaji. I've even started to rewrite the Japanese in a notebook and write down the pronouncations in Hiragana so when I want to recap what I've learned I'll use my notebook to avoid the Romaji in the book. The words and sentences I know by heart in the book I've used a pencil to cross out the Romaji.

Other than that this is the best book for a beginner, in a little while you won't even feel like a beginner anymore! I'm planning to live in Japan for a while soon and I'm no longer intimidated by the language.

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great presentation, about japanese...

This is a exellent text that explains alot about japanese to the beginning, and advanced student. It lays out the basics in an easy to understand way, and builds upon that foundation with easy to follow, explanations. The one criticism, is, though it is not actually very fair, is that it is low on exercises. Which makes this more of a book about japanese, than to practice japanese.

it's an important point, because I find that foreign learners of japanese, especially Americans tend to take shelter from making progress in using the language fluently by studying it academically much more than is necessary. I think it comes from the way foreign languages are taught in schools-- we are tested more on how much we can academically talk about how a language works, than on how well we can actually communicate in the language.

--but Mr. Nishi isnt trying to make a workbook here, so its really up to the student to avoid the trap of being able to discuss how japanese expresses something, but not actually be able to express anything that way in japanese yourself.

--One last point is-- I love how this book uses all 2000 necessary Kanji with zero furigana. there is romaji, and there is Kanji. This is perfect. Some reviewers here seem to think that Romaji is an evil crutch, but if romaji is a crutch, furigana is a worse one in this case.-- Yes, furigana is the phonetic transcription of kanji but the 2000 kanji deemed necessary for daily life are rarely if ever written with furigana (only for kids in kids books). you cant read real japanese and rely on furigana--

This makes the lack of furigana a bonus. Romaji can be readily understood--no questions of if you're looking at 'nu' or 'me'-- which just distract beginners.--- plus you can cover up the romaji, and try to learn to read the words without any visual cues.--- if this book used furigana... this would be impossible. You would never have to read the kanji, your eyes would always cheat and check the furigana--

you become dependent. and sorry to say it, but even though it might be more popular to claim that you dont read romaji, but only kanji texts with furigana-- you are still only reading
F-A-K-E
japanese.

Cheers to Mr. Nishi on this great resource, every student of japanese should own a copy.

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Just takes some getting used to......

I am strictly a beginner with no previous knowledge of any of the forms of Japanese, so this book was confusing at first. Once I got the hang of the book's method of teaching, the chapters went by a little smoother.

I get the feeling of a stern, business-like presentation of the material, and in fact, the author does mention that his original goal was to teach IBM employees...

Good book for beginners and intermediate learners

This book guides you to speaking and reading as its says. It
is simple to follow and worth the money. Also the grammar section provided are worth it than most books I have seen. Throughout the book, it build up sentence pattern, new vocabulary, the book explain certain usage for some particles. I gave this book 4 stars because I expected to see lots of japanese characters. Also more grammar would be even better. This will help you understand japanese's sentence patterns for anyone. Purchase it for yourself and see.

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