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 Truly AWFUL Oct 28, 2008
This is absolutely the worst language textbook I have ever used-and I cannot overstate that. It is poorly written and the choice of language is outdated and sometimes inappropriate for the purpose given.
This book relies upon sentence structuring to teach language. A typical student is not trying to learn linguistics, but rather how to communicate. This book does not do that. On top of that, the book fails to cite what the abbreviations used in the book mean. I'm not a linguist. I can only guess at what they are try to say by "PM,"E" etc.
The book has dialogue that uses words such as "watakushi" rather than "watashi." I have been told by native Japanese speakers that the use is incorrect in the context.
The book inexplicably switches between using english instructions and Japanese instructions. There is no dictionary in the back of the book, nor instructions on how to use the book itself.
As a support to my Japanese language class, I do not feel like I can rely upon this text to reinforce what I learn in class. If anything, it confuses what I have learned. I simply don't understand why otherwise credible Japanese classes use this book. It is difficult to use, especially in contrast to the Japanese for Busy People series. Learn Japanese New College Text II should be taken out of print. Sensei, please don't choose this book.
6 of 9 found the following review helpful:
 A good book, if you have a good instructor Mar 03, 2003
I really like this book. But then again I have a really good instructor that explains the grammar really well, and converts it into simple terms that anyone can understand. The exercises don't have answer to them, however, if you have a good instructor he/she should be able to go over the exercises with you. What I did like the about the book was that there was English translations of the conversations in the back. Personally, from experience, it's better to learn a language from a good instructor. It's really difficult to learn it on your own, especially Japanese.
23 of 34 found the following review helpful:
Please read Dec 06, 2002
I am taking a Japanese class in college and we are using this book as our textbook. There are no answers for the exercises. The conclusions and explanations are ambigous at best. This is not a hard language, but this book can turn that around. I am on amazon.com looking for another book right now, because this one is so lacking. Also there are a great deal of misinformation that is given. Possibly because of when this was published.
23 of 26 found the following review helpful:
 Good book, but compliment it with a good instructor. May 21, 2001
Or would that be Nihongo wa totemo muzukashii desu.I tried to learn Japanese with Japanese For Busy People to no avail. I then enrolled in my local community college and used Learn Japanese. While I had the benefit of an instructor, I still consider this a vastly superior book. Learn Japanese does not overwhelm you with vocabulary, but rather teaches the fundamentals of grammer very well. I feel this allows a student to construct their own sentences sooner. After all, the core of a language is not vocabulary, but grammer. Get the grammer down, then use a dictionary to gradually learn vocabulary. Once I picked up the grammer in any particular chapter, I was able to use it in a variety of settings by substituting different vocabulary words. For me, this works far better then conversational texts, or those that dump huge amounts of vocabulary down your throat. I think it's shortfalls are not presenting enough kana earlier in the book, and not presenting at all dictionary forms of verbs. It's nearly impossible to use a Japanese-English dictionary after finishing Volume 1. I was informed that Vol 2 jumps into dictionary forms, and it uses kana almost exclusively for presenting the language. The language unfolds with each succesive chapter and before I knew it, I could speak more of the language then I thought I could. Despite the two problems outlined above, I heartily recommend this book. But be forwarned, Japanese is not a language that can be learned in 4 weeknight sessions prior to a trip to Tokyo.
9 of 13 found the following review helpful:
Not as bad as some May 16, 2000
While the first volume of Learn Japanese has no glossary and is written only in romanji, the other three volumes have both. If you get this book or any book, get the tapes too. Otherwise it will do you little good. I used all four volumes when I was learning Japanese. It seems to be as good or better than any of the others I`ve used. Unfortunately, it is full of the supposed cultural explainations for the Japanese which were and are exaggerations or nonsense. (This sort of stuff is typical with 1980s books on Japan which were dwelling on the supposed uniquness of Japanese culture. Uniquly unique. Things such as the Japanese' deep relationship with nature and other silliness.) As a language book, I used them in college with a good teacher and a bad teacher. THe teacher had greater influence on learning than the book. Maybe there are others better--there are many worse--but a search for the perfect book to learn a language will always be a fruitless search.
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based on 14 reviews
