Synopses & Reviews
Japanese for Busy People is the most popular Japanese language textbook series in the world. With over 20 components including texts, workbooks, CDs, videos and teacher's manuals, it is also one of the most comprehensive. Now, a decade after its first revision, the entire series is being redesigned, updated and consolidated to meet the needs of 21st-century students and businesspeople who want to learn natural, spoken Japanese as effectively as possible in a limited amount of time.
The book features not only a sleek, new design but also a unit structure that groups thematically linked lessons together, making it easier than ever to learn Japanese.
Moreover, it now comes with a CD containing audio for the dialogues and listening exercises from the text. The exercises in the book have also been thoroughly revised to incorporate more comprehension and production tasks. Many of these exercises are illustrated, making for a stimulating learning experience, and the purpose of each one is clearly stated.
This first of three volumes introduces "survival Japanese"-the absolute minimum amount of Japanese needed to live in Japan. Thus, the vocabulary and grammatical items it introduces are limited to about a third of what is typically introduced in a first-year course. In addition, the book features notes on Japanese culture intended to expand the learner's understanding of Japan, its customs and people.
Japanese for Busy People I is available in two formats: romanized and kana.
The Romanized Version uses romanized Japanese throughout, with kana in the Opening Dialogues of each lesson.
The Kana Version-exposing students to hiragana and katakana from the very beginning-uses only kana.The content of the two books is otherwise exactly the same.
The companion volume, Japanese for Busy People 1: The Workbook for the Revised 3rd Edition contains a variety of illustrated exercises for mastering the basic sentence patterns presented in the main text.
Synopsis
In the 22 years since its publication, Japanese for Busy People has won acclaim worldwide as an effective, easy-to-understand textbook, either for classroom use or for independent study. Now, in its first revision in more than a decade, the series is being redesigned, updated, and consolidated to meet the needs of today's students and businesspeople who want to learn natural, spoken Japanese as effectively as possible in a limited amount of time.
Synopsis
The bestselling series
Japanese for Busy People has guided hundreds of thousands of students to a fluent, natural, and precise use of the Japanese language. Volume I teaches the absolute minimum amount of Japanese to live in Japan and handle everyday situations.
In the ten years since its publication, Japanese for Busy People has won acceptance worldwide as an effective, easy-to-understand textbook, either for classroom use or for independent study. In this new edition, numerous revisions and additions have been made, taking into account the comments and responses of both students and teachers who have been using the course.
In Book I, the revisions are directed at making the grammatical explanations easier to understand, while adding further explanations of points that students have difficulty with. Changes have also been made in favor of more natural practice sentences and dialogues. In addition, new appendices list the particles, interrogatives, and sentence patterns in the book, as well as the kanji introduced.
Vocabulary and grammar have been limited to about one-third that usually encountered in beginner courses, and words and patterns that students will find immediately useful are emphasized.
The thirty lessons are composed of dialogues, notes on grammar, and vocabulary, exercises and quizzes. In addition to developing verbal fluency, by the time the student is one-third the way through Book I he will have mastered the two phonetic syllabaries of Japanese.
About the Author
AJALT was recognized as a nonprofit organization by the Ministry of Education in 1977. It was established to meet the practical needs of people who are not necessarily specialists on Japan but who wish to communicate effectively in Japanese. In 1992
AJALT was awarded the Japan Foundation Special Prize.