Book Description
Yookoso! An Invitation to Contemporary Japanese is the first volume of a two-volume series for beginning Japanese courses. Based on modern principles of second-language acquisition, it was the first beginning Japanese text to integrate the teaching of all four language skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) and offer a full complement of ancillary materials. In this text, grammar is treated as a tool for developing the ability to communicate in Japanese, rather than as a focal point. The rich illustration program--including photographs, line drawings, and realia--provides an attractive context for language learning.
Customer Reviews:
I prefer the Genki series.......2007-09-15
I took Japanese 1 using the Genki series, which I found to be much more comprehensive and easy to study from, with quick references to the lesson content in each chapter introduction, and the kanji learned in the corresponding sections in the back pages.
I'm now in Japanese 2, and we're using Yookoso. Yookoso isn't nearly as nicely laid out, and does not work well for studying from. The workbook is actually necessary in order to get a good study session out of the series.
1 Star for Shipping.......2007-09-08
I ordered the book on August 18, 2007 and it arrived September 7, 2007. It was a nicely written book, but since it took so long to arrive I had to procure it from somewhere else and am now faced with a return and additional shipping hassles.
Don't purchase textbooks here if you need them in a timely manner.
Steven Shippee
Yookoso! Invitation to Contemorary Japanese.......2007-03-17
The book is very well written and its examples are essential to learning japanese in an easy manner
Customer Reviews:
Great Workbook!.......2006-03-24
I've have a few Japanese texts to go through (being a Japanese Major) and many of them had workbooks to go with them. This is by far the best workbook I've come across. It gives a few pages of practice instead of one page (which is what you normally get). In short, I really like this workbook, from the way it's set up to the experience you get from using it. Great Buy.
An editing disaster.......2001-04-21
I have the second edition of the workbook and the second edition of the textbook. Apparently when they edited and "simplified" the textbook nobody bothered to update the workbook. As a result, the workbook references incorrect page numbers in the textbook, and asks you to know words that no longer appear in the vocabulary lists of the text. This series also emphasizes learning kana and kanji more than other beginning books I've seen, which can be good or bad depending on why you are studying Japanese.
This book is great!.......2000-03-31
Allthough I did not purchase it on Amazon.com (I bought it when it came out in '94), I recommend wholeheartedly that you buy it now! It's THE best book of it's kind, and will do you know wrong. There are a few errors, but only experts on the subject would locate them. Allthough the culture is changing in Japan, most of this holds true today.
Book Description
This is the first volume of a two-volume series for beginning Japanese courses. Based on modern principles of second-language teaching and acquisition, Yookoso! was the first beginning Japanese text to integrate the teaching of all four language skills (listening, speaking, reading, writing) and to offer a full complement of ancillary materials. In this series, grammar is treated as a tool for developing the ability to communicate in Japanese, rather than as the focal point of the text, and the rich illustration program (including photographs, line drawings, and realia) provides an attractive context for language learning.
Customer Reviews:
A great introductory textbook.......2007-04-22
Yookoso is a good book for learning hiragana, katakana, basic kanji, syntax and sentance structure for the Japanese language. There are plenty of diagrams and fun exercises, verb conjugation is introduced, a helpful audio CD is included, and the chapters progress at a challenging but not overly difficult speed. I highly recommend.
Good way to start.......2006-05-22
I used this textbook in my introductory Japanese class in college, and it not only helped me get a good handle on the language, but it has nice little sections on Japanese language and culture. This helped put many of the language topics into context. Also, when I compare this textbook to some other introductory Japanese texts, I like the approach of teaching grammar, writing, reading, and listening all at the same time. Many other books skip the written language all together, and present everything in Romanji (Japanese words written phonetically in the Roman alphabet). This book slowly introduces the reader to the Japanese writing system, which is an integral part of learning Japanese. If you just want to learn some phrases to get yourself from the airport to the hotel on your next business trip, then you can probably get away with using a simpler book. But this textbook will allow you to truly get a bird's eye view of the language, to better gauge if you want to study further. Also, by the end you should be able to hold simple conversations and maybe write a letter. Lastly, I'd definitely recommend using the audio portions too. You'd be doing yourself a disservice by not knowing the correct pronunciation of words, and you wouldn't want to develop bad listening and speaking habits. So overall, I'd highly recommend it. Just remember that learning any language takes patience.
Written for grammar masters.......2005-08-16
The good news about this particular edition is that the book is exactly identical to the non-"Media Pack" edition. The only difference between the two is that this "Media Pack" contains a CD with a program they claim will help you learn Japanese. This means that you can buy the cheaper non-media edition unless your teacher requires you to use the software. I found the software unuseful, but others in my class reported that the rote drills it offers helped them memorize words.
If you haven't studied a foreign language before, this book is going to make your life a little difficult. It assumes you know all about grammar terms (particle, tense vs inflection, direct vs indirect objects, etc.), and it also assumes that putting those terms in a chart will help you understand the structure of Japanese grammar. The problem is not that it uses the grammar terms- the problem lies in the lack of explanations of the grammar terms.
Sometimes the charts do help, which is why the book gets as high as a 3 from me. More often, though, they're unnecessary and even confusing becuase the pages are so poorly laid out. The labels of charts are sometimes on a different page, or the explanation is, or there are several charts or examples in a row with minimal explanations interposed, or the chart spans two pages when it easily could have fit on one. All of this often makes it quite difficult to tell what the charts are actually charting. The problem with the pages extends to the other content as well- there will be highlighted boxes (which explain a tangential point in depth) right in the middle of an activity or core grammar explanation.
This series puts an unusually heavy emphasis on reading and writing Japanese, so expect a higher complement of kanji to memorize than you might get with another beginning book (~175 in the workbook, but you'll probably pick up ~200). When you look back on the book and realize that you actually know that many kanji, it's quite a feeling of accomplishment. On the other hand, the kanji usage is somewhat irregular- "suki" (adj: liked) is always written in kanji after Chapter 1, but "kirai" (adj: disliked) is written in hiragana throughout the book, despite the fact that it has a kanji in regular usage. Sometimes "tomodachi" (n: friend) is written with its initial kanji and then in hiragana, sometimes all in hiragana, sometimes with both kanji. This makes it difficult to learn proper usages; though Japanese will understand what you write if you write the way you see it here, you may not be able to read native texts.
I strongly recommend buying a seperate Japanese dictionary- not only because of those irregular usages, but also becuase not all Japanese words used activities and in the workbook are listed in the glossary in the textbook.
Book Description
This text is the most attractively designed and the most communicative introduction to Japanese available, covering all 4 skills - including reading and writing characters - with integral coverage of contemporary Japanese culture and supported by the most complete package on the market.
Customer Reviews:
bad bad bad`.......2007-02-26
I hate this book, it is not helpful, doesn't translate a lot of the exercises or examples so you don't really learn anything, you have to really search for the vocab, translation, grammer instructions, or even what chapter you are in. Bad book. Buy "Genki".
atama wa itai..........2004-08-31
Actually, it's a fairly good book, but certain parts really make my head hurt. (as the above topic says) I'll start out with the good.
It has a decent amount of material. Approx 700-800 native words and non-english based loanwords, and around 200 required kanji, with perhaps 500 more shown. I'm glad that it touches Kanji, because many worse textbooks avoid it altogether for Japanese 1-2 (college) or Japanese 1. (HS) Like many people here, I was a serious language learner before I started taking the class, so the first semester was ridiculously easy, with a few of the Kanji being the main new material.
The classroom exercises are logical and good practice. I had lots of fun talking back and forth with classmates, especially because lots of them were just getting into it, heehee. They're valuable and sensible for functioning as a tourist in Japan, at least. Later chapters are more useful for those who plan on an extended visit, the closest to a "useless" chapter being the part in chapter 5 with terms to refer to your own family with. My family has no interest with Japan, it's only useful for plays/TV/RPGs or knowing what your host family's saying. =p
However, the most awkward aspect of the book was the romaji. Romaji is the term for the alphabetical representation of Japanese. Their version of romaji would represent ¨¤ and ¨¨ as "oo", along with ei/ee, which only causes confusion later when you switch to the kanas (japanese "alphabets") and have to remember which ones had special "rules." This is done to make them look closer to their pronunciations, and is completely unnecessary, because ¨¤ could have easily been ou.
The tapes themselves have a rough learning curve. After the first part or so, the speech goes straight to its maximum, native-like speed seen throughout the rest of the book. This leaves listeners running the tape over and over, no matter how well they can understand the sensei.
Harsh criticism aside, it's still a pretty good book, I'd have voted 3.5 stars if I could. My college could have easily chosen much worse.
hmm is 3 stars too much?.......2004-08-03
This book does not teach at a fast pace at all. When I completed just one semester of Japanese I already amassed 3Xs the vocabulary than what it has presented in this book. If you want to study at a slower pace then go ahead and get this. It does possess some properties that make it not totally bad but remeber that there are also better, CHEAPER, books out there. If you are studying outside of a class atmosphere using either a Japanese friend or the internet chatrooms you will have better luck with this book than a normal text.
shippai suru kanousei no aru mono wa, shippai suru........2004-06-02
I studied Japanese for about one year before taking the class. I have used several language texts, including ones that teach in kana/kanji and in roomaji. All of them were superior to Yookoso. I am not exaggerating when I say that this text is inferior to the others.
First, the organization of the chapters makes very little sense. The book tries to put things into vocabulary-based chapters and fails miserably at keeping things from fragmenting. After all, most of the grammar exercises are unrelated to the overall theme of the chapters; that is, the constructions provided do not correspond well with the ideas presented by the theme for the chapter. Moreover, the grammar exercises themselves appear to be fragmented--grammar points are covered, the text moves on, and they pop up again later in the chapter. Nothing seems to blend together and nothing builds upon what has been learned. At least, not as much as in other texts.
Yookoso's fragmented set-up is not its only problem. It often gives little or no explanation of the grammar points, merely throwing out one or two examples in lieu of a more detailed lesson. I realize that this is a classroom text, but every other classroom text I've used was superior in its explanations and examples. The grammar is addressed with examples of a grammar construction and a sentence or two explaining the basic uses in the Japanese language of said construction. Despite this, the evolution of such a construct, methods for combining grammar constructs, and more detailed examples are omitted. This text tries to distill the major points and in this, it succeeds. However, the lab manual does not merely ask for the basics. It asks for complex sentences when the examples themselves are so base that it FEELS like a textbook rather than living language. In other words, Yookoso provides simple, elementary sentences and demands complexity from students later in the laboratory portion.
Language must be presented so that the techniques can be mimicked. If I'd mimicked Yookoso, I wonder what the results would be.
Learning Japanese.......2004-02-04
I've read a lot of negative reviews for this book so I wanted to write an article in defense. I'm in my second year of Japanese right now at a community college. This book is definitely not for those who are studying by themselves. But it is one of the best Japanese textbooks I've seen on the market. A lot of textbooks use romaji (or as another reviewer put it cheatagana). This one doesn't except at the beginning. I think almost any really serious student of Japanese will tell you romaji is a terrible thing. It slows down language aquistion and it is hard to find books about learning Japanese that don't use romaji.
All in all, this is a very useful textbook. If you have a good Japanese-sensei you will find your self picking up the language at a very respectable rate while using this book. The amount of vocabulary is a little much in a few places, but that is my only complaint.
If you can you might want to try and get a package that includes the workbook and both sets of audio CDs (textbook and workbook audio) to make the best use of "Yookoso! An Invitation to Contemporary Japanese".
Customer Reviews:
Awesome.......2007-01-05
It helped me a lot with my class, and though I recommend having both the book and the workbook, having just the workbook will help you learn a lot.
Customer Reviews:
Japanese CD review.......2006-11-10
Took a long time to get both the CD and the book. When they arrived they were in good condition with minimal writing in the book and all 4 CD's worked without any scratches. They even included a new case for the CD's as the original one was cracked. What a great savings these were in comparison to the brand new versions.
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Japanese
| Foreign Language
| Dictionaries & Thesauruses
| Reference
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| Books
Workbook/Laboratory Manual to accompany Yookoso!: An Invitation to Contemporary Japanese
Workbook/Lab Manual to accompany Yookoso! An Invitation to Contemporary Japanese
Student Audio CD Program t/a Yookoso! An Invitation to Contemporary Japanese
Workbook/Lab Manual to accompany Yookoso!: Continuing with Contemporary Japanese
Yookoso! Continuing with Contemporary Japanese Student Edition with Online Learning Center Bind-In Card
Schaum's Outline of Japanese Vocabulary
Japanese Verbs and Essentials of Grammar
Schaum's Outline of Japanese Grammar
![Yookoso!: An Invitation to Contemporary Japanese = [Yokoso]](http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/0072408154.01.THUMBZZZ.jpg)
