Let's Learn Katakana: Second Book of Basic Japanese Writing

by Yasuko Kosaka Mitamura and yasuko-kosaka-mitamura

Book Overview

There are three types of Japanese script-katakana, hiragana, and kanji. It is possible to read Japanese knowing only a limited number of kanji, but it is not possible with only a limited number of katakana or hiragana-one must know all of them. Let's Learn Katakana, and its companion volume Let's Learn Hiragana, is a textbook that introduces the learner to the basics of one of these fundamental Japanese scripts. Being a workbook, it contains all the...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 087011719X
• ISBN13: 9780870117190
• Release Date: January 1986
• Publisher: Kodansha
• Length: 88 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 10.8" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

As Good as the First

I have pretty much the same comments on this as the first book in the series: It's a great resource for self-study. I'd suggest that you work your way through "Let's Learn Hiragana" first, although you could probably take the two books in either order.

Learning Katakana made easy

Although I'm following the Japanese for Busy people approach to learning Japanese, the Let's Learn Hiragana and Katakana books are very good. Both books break down the Kana into groups. Stroke (or brush) order and direction are detailed, which if you want to be accurate with your written work, this is a must! Additional information about the Kana, how it is used and combined are all explained in simple to understand English. The books are designed for self-learning (no teacher), and I believe they are simple enough to do this.

Eh it's the best i've seen out there.

Forget "Jimi's Book of Japanese: A Motivating Method to Learn Japanese" and that "Kana Pict-o-Graphix : Mnemonics for Japanese Hiragana and Katakana", both suck (especially compared to this). They are a waste of money unless you are unable to learn anything and need the tiny pict-o-graph book to remind you ever time you read. (it's tiny and does not explain anything properly). Just get this, his hiragana and kanji books, and "Kanji ABC: A Systematic Approach to Japanese Characters" and writing is well covered (short of indepth college junk).his book isn't perfect but common sense should adequatly cover any of his short comings, but i could see how it could confuse someone especially children.One thing i really liked was his hand writing-ish style of making the characters which made it feel less... unrealistic to more of an everyday thing. (reading some of his examples feels like a letter not some windows controlled text adventure where everything looks exactly the same.)The worst things about this book = The use of romanji.if you want to really get into japanese stay away from romanji. romanji will just mess with things badly.Anyway this book and his series is great, and is worth the money.

Best source for learning Katakana

This book is really extensive and takes you through all of Katakana and how it is used within Japanese society. The book first introduces in Chapter One all the characters and characters and related practice exercises in three sections for a total of 46 characters. In Chapter Two, more advanced lessons are covered on the rules for forming Japanese words with Katakana. Example would be that the second 'o' is changed into a 'u' for Japanese words, and is changed to a dash '-' for foreign words. In Chapter Three, there are lessons on how Katakana is used for Japanese words under certain circumstances. In Chapter Four, rules are thoroughly discussed for writing foreign words in Japanese. Finally in Chapter Five, review exercises are offered including a word puzzle. Appendixes are offered showing the answers to the exercises and the origins of Katakana borrowed from Chinese Kanji.Overall, I find this to be the best source to either thoroughly learn Katakana, or to learn the basics of Katakana. I highly recommend this book and I am using this book to help tutor me through Katakana for my Japanese 1 course that I'm attending.