Review of Colloquial Japanese by John Reeves

All romaji. Exercises with answers.

Good textbook for group study. Useful for individual study but should be supplemented by other materials. Covers almost all basic grammatical structures and morphology. Assumes readers are adults and treats them as such. Sound and detailed explanations. Useful index. Not enough examples to really consolidate vocabulary and the (essential) accompanying tapes contain too much silence, too much English, and too much repetition. Exercises are excellent for revision but almost useless for learning the material in the first place.

Far more emphasis on polite forms than colloquial speech. Full of annoying middle class characters saying really boring things to each other - this really got to me, I really resented the implicit assumptions about people studying Japanese. Japanese it may be, but colloquial it ain't. Buy it anyway, but use something else as well.

☆ See all reviews by John Reeves.