Cheeky chica Groupie England Joined 5962 days ago 70 posts - 75 votes Studies: Spanish, Japanese
| Message 1 of 9 05 October 2008 at 12:21pm | IP Logged |
Hi everyone
I ordered Assimil: Japanese With Ease a few days ago, but have only now started reading negative comments about it. I guess I should've asked this before, but everyone was raving about how good Assimil is that I went ahead and ordered it.
Will it really develop my understanding of Japanese? Are there any problems I should be aware of? The only one I keep reading about is that apparently, the speakers talk too slowly. But are there any others?
The only Japanese studying I've done so far is Michel Thomas Foundation.
Thanks in advance.
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jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6915 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map
| Message 2 of 9 05 October 2008 at 3:39pm | IP Logged |
Disclaimer: I have no experience of Assimil Japanese.
As long as the course has "other" content than Michel Thomas (as for vocabulary, grammar, even voices) it will develop your Japanese. You might also want to learn the script (which I believe is included in the book).
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dancc Newbie United States Joined 6170 days ago 16 posts - 16 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese
| Message 3 of 9 09 October 2008 at 12:43am | IP Logged |
Japanese with Ease is an awesome program. Over the two volumes it covers 1000 kanji; the audio is great and the dialogues are fairly interesting. The biggest complaint I hear is that the book includes romaji...so I suggest buying a black marker to get rid of it.
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orion Senior Member United States Joined 7027 days ago 622 posts - 678 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian
| Message 4 of 9 09 October 2008 at 9:31pm | IP Logged |
I also have the Japanese with Ease program and like it. Currently, I am working through volume 1. The kanji are written as furigana, but romaji is there as well. I like the exercises and explanations included with each lesson. They do speak slowly in the first few lessons, but they speed up as you move along.
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Raincrowlee Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 6708 days ago 621 posts - 808 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Indonesian, Japanese
| Message 5 of 9 10 October 2008 at 12:48am | IP Logged |
It's a standard thing in Assimil for the speakers to read slowly for the first ten units. I know in the Indonesian program, they read it very slowly and slight pauses, then a second time slowly but connected. After those ten units, they get to a higher speed, about the speed that I hear in news programs, though without the high-level vocab.
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Cheeky chica Groupie England Joined 5962 days ago 70 posts - 75 votes Studies: Spanish, Japanese
| Message 6 of 9 10 October 2008 at 9:06am | IP Logged |
That all sounds much more promising! But can I ask... what is furigana? Yes, I am almost a complete novice in Japanese....
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Tigresuisse Triglot Senior Member SwitzerlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6011 days ago 182 posts - 180 votes Speaks: Italian*, English, German Studies: Russian
| Message 7 of 9 10 October 2008 at 9:59am | IP Logged |
You know that Japanese has Katakana, Hiragana and the Kanji ok???
Well, the Furigana is simply the transcription in Hiragana of the pronounciation of the kanji written above them.
If you see a text in Japanese, usually there is only katakana, hiragana and kanji. So the Furigana helps the students to know how to pronounce a kanji or a group of kanji.
That's it.
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Cheeky chica Groupie England Joined 5962 days ago 70 posts - 75 votes Studies: Spanish, Japanese
| Message 8 of 9 12 October 2008 at 1:28pm | IP Logged |
Thanks!
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