Practice Makes Perfect: Basic Japanese, Premium Second Edition

Book Preface

Practice Makes Perfect: Basic Japanese is designed as a study tool for beginning students of Japanese or as a review for intermediate students of Japanese. It can serve as a helpful self-study tool or as supplementary material for high school or college students of Japanese. It starts with the basic sound and writing systems and provides useful vocabulary and basic grammar so you can communicate in authentic Japanese. You’ll learn how to meet new people, hold short conversations, make suggestions, make requests, and express ideas by comparing and contrasting.

Chapters are organized in such a way that learners can understand the characteristics of each building block of Japanese sentences and then gradually gain insight into how these building blocks are combined and used with a variety of vocabulary words for a variety of authentic communicative functions. Each chapter includes a number of short units, each of which focuses on a single functional, situational, or grammatical concept, such as “Entering your friend’s house with おじゃまします ojamashimasu” and “Expressing desire with . . . たい tai.” Each unit can be completed in 20−30 minutes and provides the concise usage or grammar explanation needed for the purpose of the unit, as well as a thematically collected list of vocabulary, such as words for describing personality. Examples are written in authentic Japanese script and are accompanied by Romanization to clarify the ambiguity in the pronunciation of kanji (Chinese characters) and word boundaries as well as to accommodate those who have not gained full command in using the Japanese scripts. Each example is also followed by an English translation to help users learn new vocabulary and sentence structure.

Exercises are carefully presented so that they can mostly be done using the vocabulary words provided in the same unit or in the preceding units; short glossaries are occasionally provided in parentheses wherever they may be needed. Exercises vary: Some are sentence or dialog completion questions, others are reading comprehension questions, and still others are open-ended questions that encourage
learners to express themselves freely, using the vocabulary and grammar/usage knowledge they acquired in the unit and the help of a dictionary. Learning another language requires dedication, time, and frequent practice. By using Practice Makes Perfect: Basic Japanese, students at any level can gain or clarify how to use words and structures and strengthen their expressive power in the Japanese language through practice. Only practice makes perfect.