| Japanese in 10 Minutes a Day (10 Minutes a Day Series) | 
| List Price: $19.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:   (based on 21 reviews)
Sales Rank: 600412
Category: Book
Author: Kristine K. Kershul
Publisher: Bilingual Books (WA)
Studio: Bilingual Books (WA)
Manufacturer: Bilingual Books (WA)
Label: Bilingual Books (WA)
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), Japanese (Published)
Media: Paperback
Edition: 5th
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 132
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 10.6 x 8.4 x 0.5
ISBN: 0944502369
Dewey Decimal Number: 495.683421
UPC: 083323000360
EAN: 9780944502365
ASIN: 0944502369
Publication Date: April 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
JAPANESE in 10 minutes a dayA with CD-ROM is an easy-to-use language kit designed to develop an immediate speaking ability. The illustrated workbook contains 132 colorful pages filled with practical words, built-in study tools and essential categories. The CD-ROM puts Flash Cards, Sticky Labels, a Color Pallet, and Numbers exercises at your fingertips, bringing the book to life on your computer screen. Both PC and Mac friendly. The focus is on success, practicality and fun.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 16 more reviews...
If you want to speak Japanese July 27, 2008
I bought this, hoping to one day go to Japan and speak it well enough to function. I must say, if you're a visual person, this may expedite your journey to learning how to speak Japanese.
With full-color pictures and labels and such, the learning process can be quite enjoyable. Invite friends and family to participate as well. It was very similar to a child learning to talk if that helps at all... (-points at door- Doa.) Soon it'll become a frenzy, pointing and naming, boosting confidence at will.
Now I emphasize speak, knowing there are three different ways to write Japanese. If you're hoping to read/write Japanese, then this book would not aid you -- at all.
Since I happen to study, in school, Chinese, I haven't put as much study time into Japanese as I have for my class. Yet I found myself able to recognize more of my surroundings in Japanese more so than Chinese. This was a definite bonus if you're looking to learn this language for travel.
Although I do, now, enjoy the language of Japanese, my original goal was not met after completing the lessons. (To be able to read Raw Manga) In return, however, I did gain more of a love of languages in all, and have decided to purchase the Chinese version of the series.
To sum it up. This book is for people who look to speak it. In fact, I hate to say this, but it's not even for those who hope to listen to it. The book serves its purpose, therefore is highly recommended by me. It allows you to immerse yourself in the language, and you may even get some fun out of it.
Nice Supplemental Book January 18, 2008
This was the first Japanese learning book I got for myself. It's in a workbook-fashion, with lots of pictures and stickers that you can put on things around the house. That's very nice and all but it didn't teach me how to learn Japanese. I started instead with the Berlitz Learn in 30 Days program and am doing better. I also supplement with another learning workbook, videos, podcasts and whatever else I can find.
Using this book as a supplement is fun, but don't count on it to learn a lot of Japanese.
OK Beginner Book January 5, 2007
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
THIS BOOK IS GREAT!! It teaches a lot of vocabulary and includes puzzles, flash cards, sticky labels, etc. A good beginnger book.
THE BAD STUFF: Lacks almost any explanation of grammar. I highly reccommend this book to a beginner EXCEPT, try to get a grammar book to go with it, or else a site that teaches the basics. Go through that before working in this book and it will help.
ABOUT THE WRITING SYSTEM: I would say that it is probably best to learn the japanese writing while using this book, and practice transliterating (changing from one writing system to another) the romaji into kanji and kana. I would imagine though, if you were more interested in learning SPOKEN japanese than you could simply disregard the writing system.
OVERALL: Not a waste of money because you can make progress everyday and keep motivated, instead of just odd stuff here and there. It makes you feel like you're taking a class...where you're the teacher! Go as fast or slow as you want, and you'll always be able to go back to the previous lessons and study from them.
ADVICE: Have fun with it. Make tests for yourself, say the japanese names for things everytime you see something. Have someone place flash cards in unexpected places so whenever you open the refrigerator or hang up a coat, you learn a word. Enjoy, and good luck with Japanese!
Quite good October 24, 2006
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This was the first book I used to learn Japanese. The extensively illustrated text has exercises on nearly every page. It gave me a good grasp of the basic fundamentals IN ROMAJI. I disagree with those students that say you must learn the Kana at the same time. I started with Japanese in 10 Minutes a Day and learned lots of words and very basic sentence stricture. I still use the flash cards and the stickers are still up all over my house (no they haven't left any marks even on wood). Now I'm working with more advanced books and learning to read Japanese in Japanese writing. I don't think I could have done that without knowing some of the words first.
The best part about this book was that I felt that I was making progress every day.
 Japanese in 10 Minutes a Day September 22, 2006
11 out of 12 found this review helpful
This is the first Japanese-language book I had ever gotten; the same year as it's first printing, 1998. At this time, I couldn't find nearly as many resources as there are now for Japanese, so this was all I had! It was at the height of my interest in anime and video games that I really wanted to learn Japanese. This book, though it provided the foundation for my continuing interest in Japanese, entirely left out many important points. It wasn't until my later, more serious study of Japanese that I realized what was wrong with this book.
But, first of all, the good points. For one, it has a sensible layout. It starts with pronunciation and from there moves on to key question words, naming locations of objects, rooms of a house, and so on. Every lesson is short enough to not be overwhelmed by (taking about 10 minutes or so to complete and ponder over), and yet provides you with a lot of useful words and phrases. Each lesson builds off of the previous one, so you probably won't forget what you were supposed to have learned before, since it keeps reminding you of certain important phrases (especially the question words). There are many exercises asking you to write each word a few times so you retain it as well as exercises that ask you to answer questions or recall previously learned information. One of the better features of this book is that it comes with over 150 "sticky labels" that you can attach onto objects around your house. These labels will help you to associate the Japanese word with the concept involved (kagami = mirror, for example). There are also flash cards to cut out, a "PocketPal" guide with essential travel phrases, and a cut out "Menu" section listing Japanese words for common foods and drinks.
Now for the bad points. It's first mistake is in referring to the sound system of Japanese as an "alphabet". It isn't an alphabet, it's a syllabary. Syllabaries are based around sounds, not letters. English is written in the Roman alphabet, which contains letters (a, b, c, d, and so on). Japanese is written in hiragana and katakana, which contains sounds (the sounds a, i, u, e, o, ka, ki, ku, ke, ko, and so on). The book does self-admit using romaji to represent Japanese; romaji is the use of the Roman alphabet to represent Japanese words. For example, everytime you type Japanese words like "sushi" you are already using romaji. I don't really have so much of a problem with their use of romaji, which is typical for this type of beginner's text. I just find it odd that they don't mention anything about Japanese being syllable-based instead of letter-based, because this is very important. They mention nothing about the writing system, except that "Japanese is written in pictograms"! All of their pronunciation information is correct, however.
Another big problem is that particle words are not explained. The book mentions that: "Japanese has many particle words...Often particle words cannot be translated into English. When these particle words have no English equivalents, they will simply be marked (P)." Though this simplifies the matter of learning basic Japanese, which is what this book was designed for, I really wondered about what these mysterious "particle words" were at the time I first was using this book. It seems that Japanese in 10 Minutes a Day could've at least mentioned that "wa" is a particle word introducing the topic of the sentence, "e" indicates direction, and so forth. They are just short little components of sentences, but they are essential to understanding how Japanese grammar works. I later found that almost all of the "10 minutes a Day" series is structured in the same fashion as the Japanese one, with little consideration for the nuances of each language. With this in consideration, it isn't surprising that the particle words weren't explained better.
I remember a lot of the vocabulary and sentences from using this particular book, but I really didn't "get" Japanese after using it. It is a book designed for someone that really doesn't know very much about Japanese and doesn't really desire to know more than the essential words and phrases, approach it in a "fun" manner, and perhaps it may be helpful for a tourist needing to know some degree of Japanese to get by. While this would be an ideal book to get for a young person with an interest in Japanese (it is rather easy to get into and isn't complicated), it's definitely not for someone who is serious about Japanese.
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