Review & Giveaway 18: Writing Japanese Katakana

Here’s another review of a book I’ve received from Tuttle Books!
As usual, they have agreed to give (gave) one free copy of this book to a random visitor to my blog!

The book I’m reviewing today is titled “Writing Japanese Katakana (An Introductory Japanese Language Workbook)” by Jim Gleeson.

Writing Japanese Katakana (An Introductory Japanese Language Workbook)

I will put the details of the free drawing for this book at the end of this post.

The written Japanese language has three scripts: hiragana and katakana (collectively known as “kana“) and thousands of kanji.

The script that is taught in this book is katakana. This script is mainly used for writing foreign words (such as English), onomatopoeic words and also it’s used for emphasis (in a similar way that italics are used in English).

I’d recommend learning hiragana before katakana, just as Japanese children do…so, if you don’t already know hiragana, there’s still time to enter the drawing for the free copy of the (a) hiragana study book in this series. (Click here)

“Writing Japanese Katakana (An Introductory Japanese Language Workbook)” is a good book for those who wish to learn Japanese. When studying Japanese, you should start by learning to read and write hiragana…and then, you should study katakana next.
Not only will it help you to be able to read signs, menus, etc in Japan…but knowing and using katakana will help you to pronounce foreign words and onomatopoeia in the way that Japanese people understand them.

This book has plenty of spaces for you to practice writing the katakana characters as you learn them…which is the best way to remember them.
It also has you write some example sentences using the characters you’ve learned up to that point.

“Writing Japanese Katakana (An Introductory Japanese Language Workbook)” can be purchased through Amazon here.

But, as I said above, Tuttle Books has agreed to give (gave) one random visitor to my blog a free copy of this book.

To enter the drawing for the free book, submit this form by 2015 August 31st:

***** Updated August 31st, 2015 *****

This special promo ended on 2015 August 31st. One random winner was selected and contacted directly by Tuttle Publishers (via email) with the details about the free book.

Thank you to all who entered, but only the winner was contacted.
*****

70th Anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki

Today is the 70th anniversary of the 1945 August 9th atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan.

The 「平和祈念像」 (Peace Statue) in the 「平和公園」 (Peace Park) in Nagasaki.

I first came to Japan in 1990, the year of the 45th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Just as there is every year, there will be a memorial service in Nagasaki today to mark this solemn occasion…and a moment of silence across Japan at 11:02AM, the time that the bomb was dropped on the city seventy years ago.