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Avg. Rating: 3
Very good Textbook to Use in Classroom
I have used this book from Japanese 1 to Japanese 4 in college. I loved it. It worked really well with its workbook, and we were very active with it. I do not think that this would be a good book to try and learn Japanese by yourself. This, however would be a great book to get if you are planning on taking Tutoring Courses with a native speaker. You could use this book in order to animate your Tutoring Meetings.
I personally think that it is very well done: I like the vocabulary presented, the presentation of Kanji, the grammatical explanations, etc...
I really enjoyed learning Japanese with this book. On top of that, you can use smart.fm in order to review your vocabulary on your computer, but also on your iPhone. It helped me a lot during my classes, for we had a lot of vocabulary to learn, and this was the only way I could learn them. Great site that supports this book!
It's *okay*
It's an alright book. I am halfway through my second semester of Japanese, and it is *okay*. I don't to actually expect to learn Japanese from this book, thankfully my teacher is really good.
Anyway, to make up for this book I've started the AJATT method, so I'm learning kanji from RTK.
If you search around online, you can find excel files with the vocab and example sentences from this book, which is really useful for studying from SRS, I wish I had found it sooner...
Just finished two semesters with this one, and I'm glad to be done with it
I literally just finished two college semesters of Japanese, both of which used this text, and it didn't make what was a bumpy ride for me any easier. I was a complete beginner when I started with this, and this certainly isn't the ideal beginner-level Japanese textbook to be using.
As said in other reviews, the book is rather light on explanations. Even the simple distinction between where and when to use "wa" or "ga" is not adequately explained and is a source of confusion. The conjugated versions of verbs are introduced before the infinitives, which is rather strange when you consider that all other forms are derived from the infinitives. Katakana and Kanji are rather kicked to the curb as they only make brief appearances in the text.
What I was really disappointed with was that they were no sections comparing the formal and informal forms of the language. And anyone who knows Japanese, knows that it has a very honorary/hierarchal structure. With different nouns and verbs that are used depending on who is being spoken to. You'll find no information on the informal aspects of the language whatsoever in this book. So if you want to learn how to watch anime in Japanese, read manga in Japanese, or play video games in Japanese, you're out of luck, as those mediums almost always use the informal style.
One last complaint, the audio tapes/CDs really leave something to be desired. The voice actors speak way too fast and I had to rewind over and over again to catch what was being said. For a beginner student, you need things to be a little slower because you need to be able to decode what's being said as its being said.
All in all, if your college is using this book for its Japanese course, go and visit their foreign language department and let them know what a poor book this is, or just boycott. I'm telling you, it's just not worth it, and I just LITERALLY wrapped up two semesters with it. So take my word for it and save yourself the frustration. In fact much of the time, I was reading Japanese Step by Step : An Innovative Approach to Speaking and Reading Japanese by Gene Nishi as a supplement, and it was so much better organized and thorough. I'd highly recommend it over this for beginners.
Nakama 1 Audio CD (Teachers version) Set
This is a Seven Audio CD set. (Teacher's version) The study guide for Makino Hatasa Japanese 1 comes with a single audio CD. The student's version audio is available on-line at several University websites. (You have to look for them.) Make sure you have a purpose for taking Japanese, not just curiosity. It is a hard class. You will learn to read and write Japanese, (along with vocalizations). My son is doing well in this class. The learning curve is way up there.
So-so
This was a textbook that was required for my japn course in college. Overall, a little disorganized and I wish they had some better form of teaching it. I don't understand why we do not learn counting until chapter 3. Shouldn't that be taught in chapter 1? I also believe that romaji is discourages, since you won't be able to find a shred of that in the book. It's a pretty good book, but not the type of book that you'd want to get for self-learning.
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