Complete Japanese Beginner to Intermediate Book and Audio Course: Learn to read, write, speak and understand a new language with Teach Yourself

I have not used this much but I have had a look through it and it looks good. I would not normally write a review so early on in using a product but I really think people should know about the audio that accompanies this. The cover says 'audio included' (and in the photo on Amazon it's written next to a CD symbol). I thought this meant there was a CD with it like previous editions but this is not the case. I wouldn't mind if you could go online and download the audio like with the Colloquial courses but you can't. You have to download an app on a mobile device and listen to it on that. It also said you could go to the website and request a link to go to your email address so you could download the files. I thought this would be good, I could get the files onto my laptop and could then put them on my iPod Classic. Nope. I clicked on the link in the email and it told me I had to follow the link on a mobile device. I set my browser to 'trick' the site into thinking I was on a mobile device to see what would happen. It just took me to a site to download the app.When I went back to the product page to post this review, I noticed in a description down the page (not in the main description) that it says 'this bestselling course comprises a book and audio support which is easy to download to your computer or MP3 player.' This is misleading. Simply put, if you don't have an internet-enabled mobile device, you can't use the audio. I thought it important for people to know this. It's a pity because, looking through the book, it seems like a reasonable course.

Like others - I cannot access the audio on this in Kindle app so useless

Bought for daughter who's teaching herself Japanese. She loves it and said it is "really good!"

There is an app. which you are supposed to be able to download and this has all the audio. It doesn't work. This seems to be a known issue. I have not received a reply to my enquiry. Not easy to learn Japanese without the vocals!

Llego a tiempo y en perfectas condiciones y es lo que esperaba, gracias, lo recomiendo!

Ho già comprato in passato il volume “Complete Swedish” e “Swedish Tutor” per la lingua svedese, e mi sono trovato molto bene.Non ho ancora spianato questi libri, ma ad una prima analisi sembrano molto ben strutturati e ordinati.Complete ha molti dialoghi e le clip audio sono gratuite anche tramite app.Lo consiglio vivamente.

I am writing this review after just finishing the very last lesson, so this is from the perspective of someone who worked through the entire book. Overall I thought this was an excellent Japanese language book, but you get out what you put in, like with anything else. The lessons were well put-together. I really liked the engaging formatting and the little pictures that help liven up the page. There are a lot of great drills to help you internalize new information, but you have to actually sit down and write out the exercises/drills and do the work, and listen to all the audio on their website. If you actually put in the work, I think you'll get a lot out of this book.I really like that the book gives you all the Kanji and kana right from the beginning as an option (along with Romaji) so if you already know Kanji and kana, you can use them right off the bat. If you haven't learned kana yet, you can read the romaji and the book will gradually teach them to you. I like this way much better than Japanese from Zero which doesn't give you any Kanji to start with, which actually makes it more difficult for me, because I'm Chinese and I already know Kanji and the Kanji actually help me remember words and understand their literal meaning. The pace of the book is brisk though, and starts to really dump quite a bit of information on you starting around lesson 11, so you will need to go slowly, maybe only get through ~4-5 pages a day.I have a few minor criticisms, though they don't detract seriously from the book overall. The book does focus very heavily on formal (-masu) Japanese, and barely teaches you any natural-sounding casual Japanese, and it only does so towards the very end. However, I think that is most language books. Also, the book gives you Kanji to look at (and that's fine if you are already familiar with them) but when it begins to "formally" teach Kanji, it teaches it in a VERY rudimentary manner, but that's probably to be expected in a book of this nature to not overwhelm a new student.The depth of the material in this book also occupies kind of a strange niche; it's probably a little too fast and dense for an absolute beginner, but by the end of the book you'll probably be an advanced beginner and not quite an intermediate Japanese speaker. So it's for someone who's not an absolute beginner, it'll help solidify a lot of beginner concepts, but you won't quite reach intermediate fluency even after finishing the book. It was perfect for me, as someone who worked through another lesson series aimed at absolute beginners, but it may not be for you. However, my Japanese is definitely a lot better than before I worked through this book.

A very precise yet thorough book on the subject.

This book is quite good really it works a lot it also gives you a lot of information about Japanese culture and also gives language tips and the text is easy to understand and till the first 10 lessons it will use romanji it gives complete information about everything related to japan or Nihon it really love it must buy!!!