I picked this ALC book up with a couple of N2 study guides, and as I've been thumbing through it, I have to say it's a really good book for mid-beginners to lower-intermediates, or pretty much anyone who wants to try their hand at writing a diary in Japanese, but doesn't have good writing skills.
The book is laid out in 30 brief (4 page) chapters, with a grammar point, 3 example sentences to show the grammar point, an explanation in Japanese, English, Chinese, and Korean, and then 10-20 phrases using the grammar point in ways that you might actually want to use in a diary.
The book starts off pretty simple. Ok, extremely simple. Chapter 1 is 今日はいい天気だった。 It's chock full of those weather cliches you see in Japanese diaries when you see them in dramas, but you have to start somewhere.
It gradually picks up steam as you go along in the book, and it basically parallels a lot of the major grammar points you'd see in something like Genki I and II. (Minus Mary and Takeshi, and the canned University-centric stuff.)
There are chapters devoted to describing meals you've had, which I've never really seen in textbooks before. Stuff like that.
The exercises? Well, there aren't exercises per se, other than this one: write a diary entry for each chapter. They give you a little box to do it in. But it would probably make more sense to keep your own diary than to mark up the book.
Once I'm done with N2 on Sunday, I'm going to start doing the diary thing to improve my writing. I've been reading the book just to see where it goes grammar-wise, and the grammar is pretty solid. The English is solid, too, so it's fine for beginners.
1600 yen. ISBN 978-4-7574-1555-3
The book is laid out in 30 brief (4 page) chapters, with a grammar point, 3 example sentences to show the grammar point, an explanation in Japanese, English, Chinese, and Korean, and then 10-20 phrases using the grammar point in ways that you might actually want to use in a diary.
The book starts off pretty simple. Ok, extremely simple. Chapter 1 is 今日はいい天気だった。 It's chock full of those weather cliches you see in Japanese diaries when you see them in dramas, but you have to start somewhere.
It gradually picks up steam as you go along in the book, and it basically parallels a lot of the major grammar points you'd see in something like Genki I and II. (Minus Mary and Takeshi, and the canned University-centric stuff.)
There are chapters devoted to describing meals you've had, which I've never really seen in textbooks before. Stuff like that.
The exercises? Well, there aren't exercises per se, other than this one: write a diary entry for each chapter. They give you a little box to do it in. But it would probably make more sense to keep your own diary than to mark up the book.
Once I'm done with N2 on Sunday, I'm going to start doing the diary thing to improve my writing. I've been reading the book just to see where it goes grammar-wise, and the grammar is pretty solid. The English is solid, too, so it's fine for beginners.
1600 yen. ISBN 978-4-7574-1555-3
