Japanese for Busy People [Revised 3rd Edition] II

by Association for Japanese-Language Teaching (AJALT), 国際日本語普及協会

Volume I dealt with survival Japanese for tourists and other short-term travelers and newcomers to Japan. Volume II, meanwhile, turns to the basics of Japanese syntax. The book is by no means only about grammar, however. Rather, it is designed to help learners consolidate their understanding of syntactical structure through lessons that focus on how to talk about topics relevant to daily life. In addition to serving learners continuing from Volume I, Volume II will benefit those who have already studied beginning Japanese to some extent but wish to brush up on syntax.
Major Features of Japanese for Busy People II, Revised 3rd Edition
Japanese for Busy People II, Revised 3rd Edition will enable learners to progress smoothly through the equivalent of the latter half of a typical first-year Japanese course while gradually building speaking and listening skills.
Learners approaching mid-beginner status often find themselves suddenly faced with syntax and vocabulary much more complex than what they have studied before. Such grammar and vocabulary do not appear as frequently in everyday conversation as those words and structures they have learned up to this point, necessitating that they spend ample time on review. Moreover, learners at this stage are expected to become familiar with verb tense and aspect, time expressions, conditional clauses, and other topics that require them to have a solid grasp of context and speaker intent if they are to fully understand the differences in meaning conveyed by each. Such points cannot be mastered by reading through grammatical explanations alone. In short, the mid-beginner level is a difficult one for many adult learners who, unlike students in school, have neither time nor opportunities to take repeated tests or to otherwise gauge their progress.
Japanese for Busy People II, Revised 3rd Edition helps overcome the above obstacles through grammar and content topics carefully selected to be appropriate to learners at this level of Japanese proficiency. The book is designed so that by practicing talking about each topic, learners will gradually and effectively acquire sentence patterns and vocabulary related to that topic. Like Volume I, Volume II is organized into several large units, each covering topics grouped under a particular theme. In this way, the book enables learners to achieve a well-balanced understanding of grammar, sentence structure, and context.
Themes and lesson objectives of the five units in Volume II are as follows.
Unit 1: Souvenir Shopping Following up on Volume I, Unit 1 presents survival Japanese related to shopping, thus providing learners with a thorough review of simple clauses. The unit also goes beyond what was covered in Volume I by showing ways of asking someones opinion while shopping, making comparisons between items, and describing an items characteristics. The overall theme is picking souvenirs, a subject that should be relevant to learners both in Japan and abroad. The verbal skills and dialogue patterns studied here may be applied not only to shopping but also more broadly to any situation that involves choosing between options.
Unit 2: Building Rapport with Colleagues This unit introduces the plain forms of verbsa crucial component of Japanese compound sentencesalong with several sentence-final elements that make use of these forms. Topics are selected from among those that typically come up when interacting with people from work. Covered are constructions for indicating interest in anothers actions, inviting someone to do something outside of work, asking for help or offering advice, and otherwise interacting with people in ways that help build relationships of trust and understanding.
Unit 3: Returning to Japan for Work This unit explains how to build sentences using temporal clauses, direct and indirect quotation, and attributive modifiers. Through talking about factual events in ones life history or in that of a particular neighborhood, learners will study how to relate an event in chronological sequence, compare the way something is now to how it was in the past, and describe facilities and other things around them.
Unit 4: Planning a Vacation Along with sentences with clauses for stating reasons or reporting questions, this unit covers sentence-final elements used to express indefiniteness, for example wish or probability. Topics deal with verbal skills necessary for planning and carrying out activities in cooperation with others, including explaining reasons or circumstances, expressing probability, and indicating desire. The overall theme is that of planning and going on a trip to a unique place in Japan.
Unit 5: Solving Problems The focus of this unit is on forming conditional clauses. Topics include preparing for earthquakes or other disasters, discussing dreams for the future, solving problems, helping someone who is lost, and other situations that call on learners to talk about what mi...

Genres: Japanese Literature, Language, Nonfiction, Japan, Reference, Textbooks, Education

328 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1990

About the author

Japanese-language titled versions:
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...

Reviews

[Hawraki · Rating 4 out of 5]

درست هذا الكتاب مع مُعلمة بعد انتهائي من دراسة الجزء الأول. مقارنة بالكتاب الأول، هذا الكتاب أكثّف، وكما يقول الأغلب في مراجعاتهم، يعج بالمفردات الجديدة. هذه السلسلة على العموم جيدة لمن يريد تعلم اليابانية الرسمية للعمل. وتسلسل الدروس هو مثل تسلسل الكتب التعليمية الأخرى تقريبًا. مفيد فيما يتعلق بالقواعد لكني سأقول بأنه ممل وجامد للدراسة الذاتية.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great resource, but moved on to other learning materials. DNF'd at p. 110

[James Knowles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice follow-up to volume I.

Unlike others, I don't find the vocabulary coming so fast. I've had stiff textbooks that crammed far more vocabulary down your throat for other languages. (I remember my Russian textbook in particular with some horror.)

However, I'm studying one-on-one with a teacher from Japan Online School as we go at my pace, so if I fall behind in vocabulary, it's my fault. :)

(As an aside, I'd recommend checking out the J-OS if you don't have classes otherwise handy. They're quite legit.)

[Daniel Roy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This manual introduces new vocabulary at a dyzzling speed! As a result, have to accept to skip some new words, with the inconvenient result that the following lessons are harder to understand (since I still don't know some words I'm supposed to know at this point). What drives me completely crazy is that some new Kanji characters introduced are often not repeated later (they are written in hiragana, instead)! How are we supposed to remember these new Kanji characters if we see them only once?

[Echo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book progress in a slower pace than Genki and has more exercises to practice with. If you are a bit concerned about Kanji, then this is a great book to pick - though I personally prefer the opposite.

[Ebonique Boyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book to go through. Excited to start the next book.

[Mrdavidpeat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very useful, but vocab is definitely slanted towards business.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Again, if you are learning Japanese and you finished the last book, you can move onto this one... =)

[Ilana · Rating 3 out of 5]

much harder than book 1. lots of necessary grammar, which needs to be understood. lots of vocabulary. I recommend taking the full advantage of the workbook as well. gambatte!

[Tobi ﾄﾋﾞ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finished this last year but I’m reviewing it and I’m kind of impressed by how much I actually remembered because I thought I’d probably forgotten everything