Book Description
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.
More fundamental revisions have been made to Book II, which has been expanded and divided into two volumes, Book II and Book Ill. The changes result in a smoother transition from Book I, make new grammatical elements clearer, and present more natural practice dialogues and exercise sentences.
This concise course in natural Japanese is ideal for such students as businessmen whose aim is a working knowledge of the spoken language in everyday life. "Survival Japanese for Adults," as it might be called, gets to the heart of the language without recourse to childish or classroom-only Japanese.
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.
From the Publisher
The most widely adopted Japanese language course ever published. A complete range of supplementary audio materials, workbooks and teachers' manuals are also available. Over half a million copies sold world-wide since first publication.
Back Cover copy
In the ten years since its publication, Japanese for Busy People has won acceptance world-wide 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 1, 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 favour 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.
About the author
The Association for Japanese-Language Teaching (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.
