Pack MP3 Japanese W.E.1 (Book + 1cd MP3): Japanese 1 Self-Learning Method (Japanese Edition) 0th Edition

We'll start with the negatives, since there's only two of them: The plastic "book" that holds the actual workbook and audio CD was broken when I received it. This may have been from the delivery service and not the vendors, but the housing for the actual content is cheap. That being said, the workbook and audio CD were in perfect shape. As far as the incorrect product description, the item is described as "Super Pack includes: Complete course book Over 100 comprehensive lessons Nearly 200 practice exercises," but as this is the first of two volumes, only includes the first half of the content. The picture of the item indicates this, but buyers should be aware that Volume 1 only includes the first 49 lessons with 84 exercises, as pictured in the item's thumbnail.For the positives: The course is fairly intuitive, and easy to use. This program will not hold your hands in teaching you the kana/Japanese alphabet, but if you follow it's method of reading along with the audio, you will naturally start to remember character sounds and meanings. Each lesson is structured into a conversation between two people, and will give you their conversation on the left in the target language, and in your native language on the right, and includes translation notes as well as relevant cultural notes. Anything written in Japanese has the Romanji (English spelling) listed under it, with a phonetic pronunciation listed further under that. If you follow the program by listening to the audio while reading, you will naturally learn how to read and speak with relative ease, but I would still recommend studying the kana before that, or taking extra time to learn them to make the learning easier.Without a doubt, the negatives don't really outweigh the positives here. The program itself is good, and as long as you're aware that this is only the first half of the full product, you'll be fine.

Honestly an amazing way to learn Japanese. Might not be the most colorful book ever but contains a lot of useful language information. I wish though sometimes it had a few better insights but overall it does an amazing job. IMPORTANT one thing to note for potential buyers is that this is only volume 1 of a 2 part series. It is fairly easy to track down just the volume 2 book but quite difficult to track down the volume 2 book with cd's. It took me quite a while myself. There are 2 ways to solve this problem. 1 order internationally I know there might be listings on Amazon but trust me, they are for naught. I have tried and every time they get canceled or some scummy company does something stupid. The best places to look are look for the Isbn number which is 9782700521016 on a book searching website. 2 another option is to look for the audio online. I just ordered book 2 from a canadian website (indigo) and I will be uploading the audio to Soundcloud under Japanese with ease. Going this route will save you a bit of money and a whole lot of time. IMPORTANT

Before you plunk down the money for this, understand it is the old course in new packaging with the recordings simply transferred to mp3 cd. That surprised me. Same old book with all black ink, small text. Not blue and black with larger text like newer courses. I think the french version does have an updated course (maybe), but not for english as far as I can tell.With that said, the course is good if you are okay with diving into the deep end and comfortable with ambiguity. The pertinent explanations are there. You may also want flashcards or some other means to become comfortable with kana.

The product was falling apart when I got it. I wasn't going to get it in the first place due to bad reviews but I thought I could take the risk as I really need a good book to learn from. Luckily the book is in good shape though.

This is rubbish. I was expecting an updated course given that the packaging was in the new style. Old course book with one mp3 CD. Very disappointed!