Complete Japanese Beginner to Intermediate Course: Learn to read, write, speak and understand a new language (Teach Yourself) 3rd Edition

I am writing this review after just finishing the very last lesson, so this is from the perspective of someone who worked through the entire book. Overall I thought this was an excellent Japanese language book, but you get out what you put in, like with anything else. The lessons were well put-together. I really liked the engaging formatting and the little pictures that help liven up the page. There are a lot of great drills to help you internalize new information, but you have to actually sit down and write out the exercises/drills and do the work, and listen to all the audio on their website. If you actually put in the work, I think you'll get a lot out of this book.I really like that the book gives you all the Kanji and kana right from the beginning as an option (along with Romaji) so if you already know Kanji and kana, you can use them right off the bat. If you haven't learned kana yet, you can read the romaji and the book will gradually teach them to you. I like this way much better than Japanese from Zero which doesn't give you any Kanji to start with, which actually makes it more difficult for me, because I'm Chinese and I already know Kanji and the Kanji actually help me remember words and understand their literal meaning. The pace of the book is brisk though, and starts to really dump quite a bit of information on you starting around lesson 11, so you will need to go slowly, maybe only get through ~4-5 pages a day.I have a few minor criticisms, though they don't detract seriously from the book overall. The book does focus very heavily on formal (-masu) Japanese, and barely teaches you any natural-sounding casual Japanese, and it only does so towards the very end. However, I think that is most language books. Also, the book gives you Kanji to look at (and that's fine if you are already familiar with them) but when it begins to "formally" teach Kanji, it teaches it in a VERY rudimentary manner, but that's probably to be expected in a book of this nature to not overwhelm a new student.The depth of the material in this book also occupies kind of a strange niche; it's probably a little too fast and dense for an absolute beginner, but by the end of the book you'll probably be an advanced beginner and not quite an intermediate Japanese speaker. So it's for someone who's not an absolute beginner, it'll help solidify a lot of beginner concepts, but you won't quite reach intermediate fluency even after finishing the book. It was perfect for me, as someone who worked through another lesson series aimed at absolute beginners, but it may not be for you. However, my Japanese is definitely a lot better than before I worked through this book.

Now that I've finally finished this course, I can give my thoughts on it. I used this together with Living Language Japanese, and I like the layout of this book better. One complaint I have is it doesn't teach you kana right away, and teaches it over the course of the book. I definitely recommend learning kana separately first. I definitely feel I've improved my Japanese to an advanced beginner/lower intermediate level, so take that as you will. And just as a warning, this course does not come with a CD. You need to download the audio from the Teach Yourself website, or use their Library app.

Overall, the workbook does not seem bad, and you go over the sounds, the kanji, and both English and kanji are written to help you understand how to read it. However, the biggest glaring issue I have, and it's my own fault too for not reading closer, the audio is entirely online. It tricks you with how it's worded, saying you can "download" it but really what it means is you're "downloading" the audio to their app, and cannot extract the audio files. I find this highly irritating that the audio has to be streamed this way. What if the app crashes? What if I don't have internet access when I'm wanting to practice? (i.e. in a car or on a plane) I paid for the book, give me the audio! Don't *lend* it to me. Having the audio backed up on the site is nice, but don't make it my sole means of obtaining the vital audio portion of this language book. The other issue I have is how clipped each track is. The English speaker is talking, sometimes immediately, after the Japanese so there's no breathing room, and each track ends abruptly and starts abruptly. You can pause it, sure, but I shouldn't have to fight with the audio, pausing it within a split-second so I can practice the part I want to hear over, it's so unnecessarily tedious.I really love the Japanese language and culture, it's just aggravating how this is set up, and the book is HUGE... why?? I'd take a smaller, thicker book so that it isn't as cumbersome if I'm out in public. I'm not saying you won't learn Japanese with this book, but if not having the actual discs or mp3's at your disposal is an issue, I'd suggest hunting around for another copy.... (or.... go the other route of recording each track individually through your computer, and saving out mp3s..... google it... it's easy, not that *I'm* doing that of course.....)

IT WOULD WORK IF YOU WENT TO A CLASS TO HELP YOU LEARN AND UNDERSTAND THE LANGUAGE AND HOW WORDS ARE PUT TOGETHER... OTHERWISE ITS NOT AS FUN TO LEARN TRYING TO FIGURE IT OUT.

I guess my daughter likes it. She's using it to learn Japanese.

There's a good amount of kanji exposure. The grammar in this book is relatively simple.

Great book

Its not really for beginners, but its a good book.