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I’m in the market for a good Japanese phrase book. I’ve been studying Japanese on my own for quite a while now, but feel my speaking skills are almost non-existant. Obviously, having a conversation partner would be my best bet, but in the mean time I figure a phrase book could at least prepare me for a situation where I might actually get to converse and use Japanese out loud. I’m looking for a book that has conversational phrases, but one that (hopefully) also provides some cultural/conextual insights and relevancy. (For example – I heard on a podcast that when you order water at a restaurant you might use the word おひや instead of おみず. Don’t know how true that is, but that bit of information is something I’m not sure every book would present).
Any recommendations on any phrase books, or ways to improve my speaking ability, would be greatly appreciated.
Some of those little (standard JP size) Kodansha books can be pretty good. Aside from grammar, particles, and other vocab I think they have some that are conversational. Have you tried a more advanced version of, say, Japanese for Busy People?
I happen to have a couple of old Navy-issued books that focus almost exclusively on conversation at various levels and in different situations. Mine are pretty old but you might be able to find something more up-to-date. I would recommend these over the books you’ll find in the language section simply because of their genuinely practical nature (i.e. these are for use in the field as well as the classroom).
Additionally, I highly recommend Using Japanese by William McClure. If you have the fundamentals down then books like these will be more helpful than travel phrasebooks.
If you have a smartphone then there’s a ton of apps that are basically digital phrasebooks, most of them have audio for each phrase.
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.codegent.apps.learn.japanesepro&hl=en
That one is quite good and I think there’s an iOS version too.
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This reply was modified 12 years, 12 months ago by
Luke.
Thanks for the great recommendation guys. The phone looks great and very easy to use…unfortunately I’m still using a dinosaur phone. I’m deciding between the “Using Japanese” book and “Japanese for Busy People.” Let me know if you think of anything else that you particularly like.
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This reply was modified 12 years, 12 months ago by
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