The areas covered in the book are ideas and theories; philosophy and religion; politics and government; the fine arts, humanities, and social sciences; science and technology; law and justice; and business and economics. Beginning students can pick up individual words and put them in sentences of their own making, no matter how simple, and advanced students can get a better understanding of context by reading the sample sentences in the book. Suitable for self-study, building vocabulary, and improving speaking and reading skills.

A fun and helpful resource for anyone interested in learning some Japanese--whether you're 5 or 100! This picture dictionary covers the 1,500 most useful Japanese words and phrases. Each word and sentence is given in Japanese script--with a Romanized version to help you pronounce it correctly--along with the English meaning. The words are grouped into 40 different themes or topics, including basics like meeting someone new and using public transportation to culture-specific topics like celebrating Japanese holidays and eating Japanese food. This colorful picture dictionary includes: Hundreds of color photographs 1,500 Japanese words and phrases 40 different topics--from social media and WiFi to paying and counting Example sentences showing how the words are used Companion online audio recordings by native Japanese speakers of all the vocabulary and sentences An introduction to Japanese pronunciation and grammar An index to allow you to quickly look up words Japanese Picture Dictionary makes language learning more fun than traditional phrasebooks. This resource is perfect for beginners of all ages--curious kids, visual learners and future travelers to Japan.

This Japanese business guide contains insider's tips that will make dealings with the Japanese both manageable and successful. For Westerners dealing with Japanese, simple differences in business practices can be troublesome obstacles to successful negotiation. They need not be according to sociologist Jon P. Alston. In this informed and straightforward presentation, Alston describes common Japanese rules for social interaction, and shows how foreigners who understand them can put this knowledge to profitable use. In such chapters as: Establishing a Personal Relationship Closing the Deal Maintaining Contact Alston explains Japanese expectations and the importance placed on preperation, form, and follow–up. For those planning their first interculturual deal as well as for experienced negociations, The Intelligent Businessman's Guide to Japan is an invaluable aid for acquiring the extra edge that leads to business success.

A short, practical, and unique guide to learning basic Japanese language.

"A very graceful, erudite job . . . extraordinarily revealing."—The New York Times Thirty years after its first publication, Womansword remains a timely, provocative work on how words reflect female stereotypes in modern Japan. Short, lively essays offer linguistic, sociological, and historical insight into issues central to the lives of women everywhere: identity, girlhood, marriage, motherhood, work, sexuality, and aging. A new introduction shows how things have—and haven't—changed. Kittredge Cherry studied in Japan and has written about the country for Newsweek and the Wall Street Journal. She has a journalism degree from University of Iowa.

Winner of the Kobayashi Hideo Award, The Fall of Language in the Age of English lays bare the struggle to retain the brilliance of one's own language in this period of English-language dominance. Born in Tokyo but raised and educated in the United States, Minae Mizumura acknowledges the value of a universal language in the pursuit of knowledge yet also embraces the different ways of understanding offered by multiple tongues. She warns against losing this precious diversity. Universal languages have always played a pivotal role in advancing human societies, Mizumura shows, but in the globalized world of the Internet, English is fast becoming the sole common language of humanity. The process is unstoppable, and striving for total language equality is delusional—and yet, particular kinds of knowledge can be gained only through writings in specific languages. Mizumura calls these writings "texts" and their ultimate form "literature." Only through literature and, more fundamentally, through the diverse languages that give birth to a variety of literatures, can we nurture and enrich humanity. Incorporating her own experiences as a writer and a lover of language and embedding a parallel history of Japanese, Mizumura offers an intimate look at the phenomena of individual and national expression.

Showcasing a new methodology in language learning and identity research, this carefully conceptualized, innovative book explicates the use of autoethnography as a way of re-imagining one’s sense of linguistic and cultural identity. A key work for researchers and students in Applied Linguistics and Language Education, it addresses fundamental aspects of research methodology and explores substantive issues relating to individual dimensions of multilingualism. Choi shows convincingly how the learning of a language is inseparable from one’s constant searching for a voice, a place, and a self in this world, demonstrating the importance of interrogating what lies behind everyday life events and interactions—the political and ethical implications of the utterances, thoughts, actions, and stories of the self and others. Themes of authenticity, illegitimacy, power relations, perceptions of self/other, cultural discourses and practices, and related issues in multilingual identity development surface in the multi-modal narratives. Chapters on methodology, woven through the book, focus on the process of knowledge production, approaches to writing narratives, the messiness of research writing practices, and the inseparability of writing and research.

Machine generated contents note: Introduction; 1. Whose America?; 2. The alien specter then and now; 3. Hyphenated identity; 4. Foreign accents and immigrant Englishes; 5. Multilingual practices; 6. Immigrant children and language; 7. American becomings

The linguistic study of Japanese, with its rich syntactic and phonological structure, complex writing system, and diverse sociohistorical context, is a rapidly growing research area. This book, designed to serve as a concise reference for researchers interested in the Japanese language and in typological studies of language in general, explores diverse characteristics of Japanese that are particularly intriguing when compared with English and other European languages. It pays equal attention to the theoretical aspects and empirical phenomena from theory-neutral perspectives, and presents necessary theoretical terms in clear and easy language. It consists of five thematic parts including sound system and lexicon, grammatical foundation and constructions, and pragmatics/sociolinguistics topics, with chapters that survey critical discussions arising in Japanese linguistics. The Cambridge Handbook of Japanese Linguistics will be welcomed by general linguists, and students and scholars working in linguistic typology, Japanese language, Japanese linguistics and Asian Studies.