A "real manga, real Japanese" study guide and resource for language students and teachers

Learn to read, write, and speak everyday Japanese with manga stories! If you enjoy manga, you'll love learning Japanese with this book. The language lessons are interspersed with entertaining manga comic strips, making it easy to learn and remember all the key vocabulary and grammar. With a focus on the casual speech used by young people in Japan, you'll find yourself feeling confident with speaking, reading, and writing Japanese quickly! Designed for self-study use by adult learners, this book is a fun resource for beginners--no prior knowledge of Japanese required! Readers will find: Help with learning to write and pronounce the 92 Hiragana and Katakana letters plus 160 basic Kanji characters Hundreds of useful words and phrases--from numbers and greetings to expletives and insults! Seven manga stories woven throughout the book, reinforcing your grasp of the language The basic vocabulary and grammar needed to communicate in Japanese! Hundreds of exercises with free online audio recordings by Japanese native speakers A bidirectional dictionary and answer keys for all the exercises **Recommended for language learners 16 year old & up. Not intended for high school classroom use due to adult content.**

As the popularity of manga in this country continues to soar, so does the desire of its fans to learn Japanese in order to appreciate it in its original language. The three volumes in the Japanese in MangaLand series combine the enjoyment of reading manga with an innovative and entertaining approach to language instruction. Now comes the Japanese in MangaLand Workbook 1, a perfect way for readers to practice and assimilate what they learned in the first volume. The Workbook offers more than 150 complementary activities, divided into six sections that enable students to practice writing hiragana, katakana and kanji, as well as to optimize the vocabulary and grammar that were taught in the textbook itself. An exciting special feature—24 pages of a Rakujo manga created exclusively for this workbook—further enhances the learning experience.

Teaches how to read and write Japanese so the Japanese comic books and cartoons can be enjoyed.

Presents an introduction to eighty of the most commonly used Japanese kanji characters, with English translation and a pronunciation guide, in a text with a comic book format.

Following the first volume of Remembering the Kanji, the present work provides students with helpful tools for learning the pronunciation of the kanji. Behind the notorious inconsistencies in the way the Japanese language has come to pronounce the characters it received from China lie several coherent patterns. Identifying these patterns and arranging them in logical order can reduce dramatically the amount of time spent in the brute memorization of sounds unrelated to written forms. Many of the “primitive elements,” or building blocks, used in the drawing of the characters also serve to indicate the “Chinese reading” that particular kanji use, chiefly in compound terms. By learning one of the kanji that uses such a “signal primitive,” one can learn the entire group at the same time. In this way, Remembering the Kanji 2 lays out the varieties of phonetic pattern and offers helpful hints for learning readings, that might otherwise appear completely random, in an efficient and rational way. Individual frames cross-reference the kanji to alternate readings and to the frame in volume 1 in which the meaning and writing of the kanji was first introduced. A parallel system of pronouncing the kanji, their “Japanese readings,” uses native Japanese words assigned to particular Chinese characters. Although these are more easily learned because of the association of the meaning to a single word, the author creates a kind of phonetic alphabet of single syllable words, each connected to a simple Japanese word, and shows how they can be combined to help memorize particularly troublesome vocabulary. The 4th edition has been updated to include the 196 new kanji approved by the government in 2010 as “general-use” kanji.

Learning Hiragana and Katakana is a systematic and comprehensive Japanese workbook that is perfect for self-study or use in a classroom setting. Written Japanese combines three different types of characters: the Chinese characters known as kanji, and two Japanese sets of phonetic letters, hiragana and katakana, known collectively as kana, that must be mastered before the Japanese kanji can be learned. Learning Japanese Hiragana and Katakana provides beginning-level students of Japanese a thorough grounding in the basic hiragana and katakana phonetic symbols or syllabaries. A comprehensive introduction presents their primary function, origin, pronunciation and usage. The main body of the book is devoted to presenting the 92 hira and kata characters along with their variations, giving step-by-step guidelines on how to write each character neatly in the correct stroke order, with generous practice spaces provided for handwriting practice. This Japanese workbook includes: Systematic and comprehensive coverage of the two Japanese kana systems. Ample provision for Japanese kana practice, review, and self-testing at several levels Detailed reference section explaining the origin and function of kana, and the various kana combinations. Access to online Japanese audio files to aid in correct pronunciation. Helpful additional information for language students accustomed to romanized Japanese. Vocabulary selected for usefulness and cultural relevance. About this new edition: The new third edition has been expanded and revised to include many additional reading and writing exercises. Accompanying online recordings demonstrate the correct pronunciation of all the characters, vocabulary, and sentences in the book.

This is a fun and entertaining beginner level children's Japanese language book (9 years old and up) that is also appropriate for adults. I'm Learning Japanese! takes a lighthearted approach to the Japanese language by using fun anime-style manga characters to teach Japanese. The book starts out with the main characters, Emily, Nico and Teo sitting on the grass after school, minding their own business, when--unbelievable!--a giant talking fox dressed in a kimono appears. Explaining that he knows magic, speaks many languages and is respected as a sensei master, he wonders if the three kids are ready to learn Japanese from him. During the next 128 amusing pages, the three friends learn to speak, read and write Japanese, while also taking breaks to try Japanese hot-spring baths, sumo wrestling, Zen meditation and more. Focusing on exactly what the 9 to 14-year-old learner wants to know, this book is carefully set up to allow them to learn Japanese independently, at their own speed, without an adult's help. Though fun and lighthearted, this book is incredibly practical as well. An excellent learning resource whether you're 5 or 50! By the end, students will master reading and writing the entire Hiragana alphabet, Japanese sentence structure and 23 key Kanji characters.

Emily, Nico and Teo are sitting on the grass after school, minding their own business, when -- unbelievable! -- a giant talking fox dressed in a kimono appears. Explaining that he knows magic, speaks 3,000 languages and is respected as a sensei (master), he wonders if the three kids are ready to learn Japanese from him.

Japanese From Zero! is an innovative and integrated approach to learning Japanese that was developed by professional Japanese interpreter George Trombley, Yukari Takenaka and was continuously refined over eight years in the classroom by native Japanese professors. Using up-to-date and easy-to-grasp grammar, Japanese From Zero! is the perfect course for current students of Japanese as well as absolute beginners.