I used JBP in my university night classes.

I got halfway through book three but I don't like it for three reasons: much of the material is infantile in my mind (example theme of a story: "oh, a co-worker took the cookies I left on my desk"), there's tons of useless vocabulary thrown around and third the book seems to have an "agenda" e.g. one chapter is about "man made global warming".

I stopped at halfway through book three and now I'm focusing on working through graded readers with notes and vocabulary.

I used it for a little bit before the tutor I had switched to another book, so someone who has used them more may have a more informed opinion. Nevertheless, I didn't like it much. Too much wasted page space, too little content, and what content I did see didn't leave me impressed.

If you want to use a textbook, I might think about finding another one. The wiki has a whole comparison table full of them. Of course, if it's the only one you have access to, or you're really close to finishing, you might choose to stick it out, but if you don't like them it might not be worth it.

I started using the first book but gave it up after 3 or 4 lessons. I found it extremely slow!!! I left it at the moment when I saw that the structure for "I like..." (すきです) was only in the last lesson of the first book.

After that, I started using Genki. I've just finished the 1st book and I loved it! Moving now to Genki 2.

What vocabulary do you consider 'useless'? Just curious.

damn you scientists and your fact-biased agenda!

Aikynaro Wrote:What vocabulary do you consider 'useless'? Just curious.

I would think that it would be anything that, when you learn its meaning, you can say to yourself "I have absolutely no use for this word in my life, daily or job-related"

For example, in a deck that I downloaded at some point I got the word/phrase: ２４枚鳥 （２４まいどり) -24-print roll, which I believe is referring to camera film? I don't really take pictures, and when I do they are digital, I probably havent pressed the button on an actual film camera, disposable or not, in years. So this word would probably be useless for me to know. I'd imagine that this is the type of word that might be meant.

john555 Wrote:I used JBP in my university night classes.

I got halfway through book three but I don't like it for three reasons: much of the material is infantile in my mind (example theme of a story: "oh, a co-worker took the cookies I left on my desk"), there's tons of useless vocabulary thrown around and third the book seems to have an "agenda" e.g. one chapter is about "man made global warming".

I stopped at halfway through book three and now I'm focusing on working through graded readers with notes and vocabulary.

It's not the most fantastic textbook, but it isn't horrible. It's a damn sight more generally useful than some of the other beginner level texts. It probably should be updated, but you can do quite a lot worse.

Also, if you think that "man made global warming" is part of some kind of agenda then I have some bad news for you about Japan. Both global warming and evolution enjoy broad support to the point that claiming you don't believe in either one will get you looked at like you have a 3rd arm or something. That book only has an agenda in so far as Japan, itself, has an agenda.

Completing a few of the books then being burned out it as a series is understandable. There's a million ways to learn beginner Japanese. The most important thing is getting a book, and working through it. You'll be patching the holes in your knowledge as you move forward anyway.

In my experience, people seem to spend more time agonizing about which beginner level textbook to use than working through them. Get a book, work through it. Find another book, work through it. You finding better books to use as you move forward is not an indictment of the books you were using before.

Aaaaand it took 7 posts for the topic to go completely off track. Not too shabby, but I was honestly expecting things to get there quicker, with OP's not-so-subtle bait.

Well, you need to understand than we live in an age of postmodernism and pseudoscience that has engulfed certain political movements that reject objectivism, partly because they don't really believe on meritocracy or in doing a good work at all. This means that if you look for a good learning or teaching material, you can quickly dismiss as useless anything that endorses that kind of garbage.

For example, if you cannot discern science from deeply-flawed pseudoscience that was scientifically debunked a century ago and with a proven track record of failures, such as marxism, you probably cannot discern either between a good teaching method and a bad one. In fact, there is plenty of supporting evidence of a heavy downgrade of public education in those places where those political movements are more ingrained.

Anyways, just judging by the title of the book "for busy people", you can easily guess that it doesn't aim to be a great book, just give you a few quick guides to the language. I haven't (and wouldn't) buy that book, and I haven't heard good reviews of it, either. However, I once bought a similar book that claimed to teach you japanese in three weeks, and that one is the only japanese study book I've ever thrown to the trash can.

Stansfield123 Wrote:[massive wall of off-topic text]
Moved to: http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?p...#pid207510

I skimmed what you posted. I'm not going to respond to any of it. I don't care about anything you have to say. You have added nothing to this topic, titled "What do people on this forum think of 'Japanese For Busy People'?" This is not the place to have this discussion.

This forum has yet again proved it is inhabited by literal children who cannot handle staying on topic. The second somebody posts anything that violates someone's echo chamber bubble we get 400 word treatises about conspiracy theories that nobody cares about except for the person that posted it.

I've been a member here for a long time. I used to post a lot more. I don't post here a lot currently, and people like you and the others in this thread are the reason why.

Linval Wrote:Aaaaand it took 7 posts for the topic to go completely off track. Not too shabby, but I was honestly expecting things to get there quicker, with OP's not-so-subtle bait.

LOL! Yes, it is kind of interesting how the topic went so completely off track, so quickly.

I wasn't trying to start anything, I truly was annoyed by the chapter in the book about climate change because it was so preachy and I thought this doesn't belong in a language textbook. It even had dialogues about recycling garbage and I thought to myself "why can't they have good quality literature like Japanese folk tales instead of stuff about recycling garbage? I don't want to read about recycling garbage. If I want to read about recycling garbage I can look at the brochures the city leaves in my mailbox."

I mentioned useless vocabulary. Here's some examples (at least to me): "preliminary inspection"; "perishables"; "coin locker"; "business productivity".

As an aside, the book could perhaps have at least been tongue-in-cheek about climate change. E.g., it could have had a humorous bit of dialogue like the following:

Mr. Suzuki: "We must all do our part to fight global warming."

Mr. Green: "I remember back in the 1970's when I was a senior in high school TIME, Newsweek etc. had cover stories warning us that an ice age was coming and the earth was going to get colder. What happened with that?"

Mr. Suzuki: "It is not considered polite to ask about that. Just pretend you never saw those articles."

Mr. Green: But I did see those articles and the news reports and I remember them well. If the scientists back then were so completely utterly wrong why should I believe them now?

Mr. Suzuki: "Oh, fiddle dee dee...I have a headache. See you later."

ahaha this thread is almost as wonderful as the textbook "Japanese for Busy People"

DrJones Wrote:Well, you need to understand than we live in an age of postmodernism and pseudoscience that has engulfed certain political movements that reject objectivism, partly because they don't really believe on meritocracy or in doing a good work at all. This means that if you look for a good learning or teaching material, you can quickly dismiss as useless anything that endorses that kind of garbage.

For example, if you cannot discern science from deeply-flawed pseudoscience that was scientifically debunked a century ago and with a proven track record of failures, such as marxism, you probably cannot discern either between a good teaching method and a bad one. In fact, there is plenty of supporting evidence of a heavy downgrade of public education in those places where those political movements are more ingrained.

Anyways, just judging by the title of the book "for busy people", you can easily guess that it doesn't aim to be a great book, just give you a few quick guides to the language. I haven't (and wouldn't) buy that book, and I haven't heard good reviews of it, either. However, I once bought a similar book that claimed to teach you japanese in three weeks, and that one is the only japanese study book I've ever thrown to the trash can.

lol mate

Anyway, I can't speak for Japanese for Busy People but I like Japanese for Everyone. I recommend that one - and yes, some of the material is a bit dated but that shouldn't prevent you from learning Japanese.

john555 Wrote:I mentioned useless vocabulary. Here's some examples (at least to me): "preliminary inspection"; "perishables"; "coin locker"; "business productivity".

I see what you mean, but I never dismiss vocabulary as useless. I mean, what if you land a job in Japan as a preliminary inspector in a gym, looking for forbidden perishables hidden in your customer's coin lockers ? And that your superior asks you to check more coin lockers, because the perishables are then recycled into food supplements that are then sold at the gym's counter, thus increasing business productivity ? It could totally happen.

But in all seriousness, you never know what kind of word might pop-up in what you read // in your conversations. I mean, I never thought that I'd be glad to know how to say "steam whistle" 汽笛 (きてき) ... but it totally showed up in stuff I read. Twice. And knowing that kind of common-but-not-so-common words is a good way to make people think you know more than you actually do. Does wonders for the ego.

poblequadrat Wrote:Anyway, I can't speak for Japanese for Busy People but I like Japanese for Everyone. I recommend that one - and yes, some of the material is a bit dated but that shouldn't prevent you from learning Japanese.

I second that.

Cheap too

[RawToast]

JFE is the only classroom textbook available in the big bookshops around me. I can't remember anything special about it from flicking through.

There's plenty of less useful vocabulary in all the beginner textbooks. They tend to use a scenario to explain a grammar point or core vocabulary, and this requires the extra vocabulary. In Genki I believe vocab that is deemed 'extra' is highlighted with an asterisk at the start of each chapter -- you could do the same with a pencil.

The off-topic climate change posts have been moved to the General Debate Thread:

http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?p...#pid207510

Quote:I mentioned useless vocabulary. Here's some examples (at least to me): "preliminary inspection"; "perishables"; "coin locker"; "business productivity".

Mmm, I see.
Well, I wouldn't call that stuff 'useless' necessarily because I'm sure it's useful in some contexts. Just boring ones.

To be fair though, recycling garbage is a big topic in Japan and doing it wrong can lead to being lectured by little old ladies and such, so it's a reasonable thing to have in a (boring) textbook. Climate change is in the news often enough that I can see why it might warrant a mention if that's the sort of stuff the book is trying to cover.

I did Japanese for Busy People 1 & 2 in a class I was taking a few years ago. As far as textbooks go, I would say it's average. Every textbook is going to teach you some Japanese and not too much better or worse. JFBP I believe is somewhat geared towards learning business Japanese, but not exclusively. But I would concur with what's beens said about not spending too much time choosing textbooks and get to studying.

That said, personally I much prefer The Core Anki Deck for many reasons:
1. most textbooks only go up to 2k - 3k vocabulary and that's not sufficient.
2. switching to something like core after studying a textbook ends up with a lot of duplicated studying.
3. Textbooks are heavy / Anki is software that runs on my phone that I carry everywhere anyway.
4. The core deck is an integrated solution that includes vocabulary, grammar and listening comprehension.
5. Anki allows you to remix the information on the cards to suit your needs.
6. SRS is a lot more efficient than reading through a book in linear order.
http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=5110

^I think you are comparing apples and oranges right now. There is a lot that the deck wont teach you and Anki isn't limited to that particular deck. Remember that the English translations may be insufficient in describing certain nuances of certain grammatical points. Both ressources may be helpful, but one doesn't replace the other.

EDIT: What might seem useless judging by its English translation may not be as useless as you think. For me, there are a lot of relatively common words in German and English words whose Norwegian (my native language) translations occur extremely rarely. There's also the cultural aspect: some topics may be more common in Japan than over here.

Aikynaro Wrote:To be fair though, recycling garbage is a big topic in Japan and doing it wrong can lead to being lectured by little old ladies and such, so it's a reasonable thing to have in a (boring) textbook. Climate change is in the news often enough that I can see why it might warrant a mention if that's the sort of stuff the book is trying to cover.

The thing is, I'd rather read adaptations of good literature, and not politically-motivated preaching that belongs more in a political campaign brochure. The editors are free to have whatever political views they want (and yes Virginia, climate change is more politics than science) but please, don't try to force me to read it.

@john555: I've replied to you in the debate thread if you are interested. (see: http://forum.koohii.com/post.php?tid=11379)

On topic, I tried using Japanese For Busy People but personally found Genki to be a better textbook.