Japanese from Zero! 1: Proven Techniques to Learn Japanese for Students and Professionals

As a beginner in learning a foreign language you know it is easy to get overwhelmed. This is especially true if you are like me and are trying to teach yourself on your own rather than in a classroom. If this is the sort of situation you have found yourself in this is the perfect starter japanese series for you. I will be focusing on the two biggest aspects that set this book apart from the rest: Lesson Structure and Ease of Learning. Before I get into that however, I do want to let you know this is a series geared towards those who are beginners in learning Japanese. Those who are more fluent in Japanese already should check out a different series. Now let’s jump in. Lesson structure: To start, I wanted to mention that the lesson structure of the Japanese From Zero series is one of the best I have seen to date. Each lesson starts with a brief rundown of what skills you should already know, what you will be learning in the upcoming lesson and a few notes on what you should be sure to practice. It then moves on to give you a list of new vocabulary words. Don’t worry if you don’t know your Kana yet. This series moves at a pace that allows you to learn the Kana at the same time as learning new vocabulary. The only drawback is that I wish it put more of an emphasis on learning kanji, but I understand that can be intimidating for those looking to more causally learn japanese. Now the meat and potatoes of each lesson are the sections that follow, which include a grammar section that is easy to understand and not overwhelming, and the practice sections. The practice sections will likely become your new best friend as they are a fun way to apply what you just learned and a good way work on your writing. Ease of Learning: The second most important aspect is the ease of learning and the practicality of what you are learning. It is easy to get discouraged when all your book seems to throw at you are obscure words and phrases. This book does the opposite of that. Within the first few lessons you will have learned enough japanese to be able to form your own sentences that have practical applications in daily life, including asking questions and creating basic conversations. Not only do you learn in a practical way but with the book’s integrated workbook the learning comes easily as you work through simple problems such as reading and writing along the way! Overall if you are looking for a fun, well set up textbook for learning japanese this series is the way to go. Good luck on your quest for learning a new language!

This book is amazing. George Trombley does a great job at explaining concepts. One thing that I appreciate is that he gives you a quick rundown of the formal Japanese (so that you recognize it when it pops up), but then focuses on how you'll most hear / be using it. He also just has a general demeanor of teaching in a down to earth manner. This removes some of the rigid feeling and droll of merely grinding through coursework. He also implements a "progressive" hiragana technique. This is a great idea. As you progress through the chapters, you pick up a new grammar concept, a list of new words, and 5-10 new Hiragana per chapter. The new Hiragana you learn will replace the "romaji" (english alphabet) until you are reading in complete Hiragana. This is a wonderful mechanism for learning as he eases you into everything rather than having massive knowledge dumps which feel discouraging. This book is not filled with a lot of filler and redundant information as other books can be. However, I would appreciate having extra examples or additional explanation of nuances like that you would find on the website / youtube version. For this reason I would highly encourage combining this with their website/youtube channel. Also, I'm a visual learner, so having the visual audio reinforcement really helps me excel. Something that you have to understand as a language student is that learning another language is not a passive activity; it takes hard work, dedication, and immersion. There is no other way to learn another language, so do not pay money to scam artists who will tell you otherwise. I have browsed through other Japanese learning programs like JapanesePod101 (which I don't feel is the best for actually learning Japanese), and have thus far found Japanese From Zero! to be the best there is. This book also does a really good job on worksheets. Again, I would recommend combining this with George Trombley's online resources so you can receive a few more helpful examples, pronunciation, and Japanese nuances. If you are debating between just doing online versus this book, realize that you will miss out on the worksheets which I feel are done better in the book. I definitely think you get a good deal for this as compared to other language learning programs (way better and cheaper than Rosetta Stone if that is on your mind). Is this book perfect? No. For instance, there are a few cases where a new Hiragana which you, as the student, have not learned yet will be slipped into text. It is, in my opinion the best book out there and prefer over Genki. As per my personal recommendation, you should make flashcards of words outside of the books. The books build a fantastic foundation, but you really need to build up your vocab on your own. It's pretty easy to find some word lists out there. However, I would work on those vocab lists after this book or when you are able to use it in a sentence. Learning words is MUCH easier when you can them in a sentence because then you aren't memorizing meaningless scribbles. This book consists of 13 chapters and gives you the basic structure of the Japanese Language. Everyone is different, but I would have a "focused study" a couple hours a day (you need to be practicing your and phrases throughout the day) and was able to get through this book in about a month. After completing it, my vocab was still relatively small, but I could pick out words and phrases people were saying. Certain topics people talked about, I could get the gist of what they were saying. Most topics though, I could only pick out small parts. Also remember that this is just book 1, so don't expect perfect fluency upon its completion. So far I have been very pleased with this book and my progress so far. Learning a language can definitely be daunting, especially when it is something as foreign as an Asian language. This series has definitely kept at bay that anxiety. Sometimes I have to remind myself of how far I've come and the things I do know rather than focusing on what I have yet to learn. George Trombley is very encouraging in his teaching. "Even dust when piled up becomes a mountain" As a little bit of my personal background, I have learned Portuguese as a second language and lived their several years. My experience in learning it was horrible, solely because I did not have anyone take the time to give me that down-to-earth explanation of how Portuguese functioned. I then made a friend who gave me that explanation I desperately needed. At this point in my Portuguese, I understood what people were saying but I could not speak very well myself. This friend transformed my Portuguese within a week so I sounded like a native and I could be considered "fluent". That friend to me in Portuguese is equivalent to how I feel George Trombley is for Japanese. ありがとう ございます

الكتاب كبير وممتاز ولكن الغلاف معفط للاسف مو مرره جديد

Recomendado como introducción para el aprendizaje del idioma japonés, tiene muchas actividades, va de lo simple a lo complejo y tiene buena dinámica de inserción de nuevo vocabulario y escritura japonesa progresiva. No es un libro infantil, es más para adolescentes y adultos. Se puede complementar el aprendizaje al avanzar de nivel los libros de niveles posteriores.

Awesome guide for beginner … go for it !!

This book is structured for beginner's learning of Japanese. I have learnt how to read Hiragana from this book. And I even understand simple conversation and request.

Questo è il libro perfetto per chi non ha mai toccato (e dico mai toccato nulla) che sia inerente al giapponese. Il libro parte proprio dal sillabario hiragana (nel secondo il katakana, cioè il sillabario per termini stranieri) su come scrivere ogni singolo carattere, partendo poi con le frasi più basilari ( ad esempio nella prima lezione la presentazione, poi i numeri etc) con tanto di piccole sezioni dedicate a vocaboli ad inizio capitolo (con tanto di scrittura in romaji, hiragana e kanji), grammatica e note culturali per ogni capitolo, passando poi infine agli esercizi (domanda e risposta) e traduzione.Il libro può trarre in inganno le persone adulte dando perscontato che sia un libro adatto solo per bambini per via della copertina ma non è così, il libro spiega in modo molto semplice e chiaro tutta la grammatica e struttura della frase giapponese.Questo è solo il primo libro e per ora ne conta in totale 4, in arrivo forse il quinto. Posso dire che ho il libro della hoepli e il genki (il genki poi costa un botto) e tra questi 3 preferisco proprio japanese from zero, forse perché spiega in maniera meno schematica e monotona rispetto agli altri due, contando anche che questi due libri sono più rivolti ad uno studio scolastico, mentre japanese from zero è rivolto di più verso gli autodidatti. Forse l'unica pecca è che il libro non è proprio adatto ad un neofita (non sono né neofita ma neanche ad un livello intermedio) e trovare le frasi scritte (parlo di frasi, non della singola parola) scritte solo in hiragana può essere un po' fastidioso ma...nulla di grave alla fine.Conosco quasi tutti i kanji a memoria (intendo quelli del libro di Heisig) e vedere solo la versione in hiragana fa quasi sentire l'apprendimento un po' parziale, non del tutto completo.Ad ogni modo è perfetto per qualunque categoria, sia per chi non sa nulla ma anche per chi sa già qualcosa, è sempre un buon strumento per rispolverare la lingua.La cosa che trovo molto carina è la fase progressiva di come i romaji (i nostri caratteri) vengono sostituiti nel tempo dagli hiragana dopo l'apprendimento di alcuni di essi dopo ogni capitolo. Ad esempio, se io trovo la frase -> kuruma desu ka? dopo 2 capitoli diventa kuるma deすか? e poi くるまですか? ed infine con l'aiuto dei kanji inseriti per ogni vocabolo 車ですか?. Altra pecca (ma è soggettiva come cosa) è che il libro è disponibile solo in lingua inglese, quindi non adatto a chi non conosce la lingua.Per chi invece ha dubbi può consultare la versione kindle e farsì lì direttamente un'idea più o meno chiara se acquistarlo o meno. Vi assicuro comunque che il libro è che scritto in un inglese molto semplice e che tutti (o almeno la maggioranza) può benissimo acquistarlo con tutta la serenità possibile, ve lo assicuro :). Ultima cosa che ho dimenticato di citare è che il libro non ha in dotazione il cd, ma credo che per la maggior parte delle persone non sarà un problema per via della diffusione di manga e anime; ma per chi non ha mai avuto a che fare con il giapponese, vi posso rassicurare che la sua fonetica è come quella italiana, per cui non sarà un problema.