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.
*****

Review & Giveaway 17: Writing Japanese Hiragana

I have received five more books from Tuttle Books!
And, as always, they have agreed to give (gave) one free copy of each book to a random visitor to my blog!

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

Writing Japanese Hiragana (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 hiragana. This script is mainly used for verb tense, prepositions, etc. but, technically, it’s possible to write Japanese completely in hiragana. In fact, books for young Japanese children are written this way…because hiragana is the first script that Japanese children learn.

Hiragana (and occasionally katakana) is also used to write “furigana, which is a type of “pronunciation guide” that is often written above difficult and seldomly used kanji characters.

“Writing Japanese Hiragana (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.
Not only will it help you to be able to read signs, menus, etc in Japan…but knowing and using hiragana (as well as katakana and kanji) helps you to pronounce Japanese properly.

This book has plenty of spaces for you to practice writing the hiragana 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 Hiragana (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.
*****

Review & Giveaway 16: Japanese Kanji Made Easy

Yet another book from Tuttle Books!
Once again, they have agreed to give (given) one free copy of this book to a random visitor to my blog!

(Click here to read all of my reviews and giveaways.)

This book is titled “Japanese Kanji Made Easy: Learn 1,000 Kanji and Kana the Fun and Easy Way (with audio CD)” by Michael L. Kluemper.

“Japanese Kanji Made Easy: Learn 1,000 Kanji and Kana the Fun and Easy Way”

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.
This book introduces useful 1000 kanji and kana in an easy-to-remember method with illustrated pictographs.
Each kanji has the English meaning written, as well as the pronunciation in romaji (English alphabet).
It even has a CD so you can listen to the correct pronunciation of each word!

I already know all of the kanji (and of course, kana) in this book, but I can tell that it would make learning them easier than the straight memorization way that I did!

If you’re interested in learning Japanese, this book would be immensely helpful to you!

“Japanese Kanji Made Easy: Learn 1,000 Kanji and Kana the Fun and Easy Way” can be purchased through Amazon here.

But, as I said above, Tuttle Books has agreed to give (given) 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 May 10th:

***** Updated May 10th, 2015 *****

This special promo ended on 2015 May 10th. 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.
*****

Hir@gana Times

About ten years ago or so, I used to buy a monthly magazine called “Hir@gana Times“.

It’s a monthly magazine that used to cost ¥390 (about US$4) when I bought it.
I bought it to study Japanese. That’s the main purpose of the magazine. All of the articles are written in English and Japanese. The Japanese kanji characters everywhere in the articles have the ふりがな reading over them to assist people learning to read Japanese (my blog, BTW, also has ふりがな for all of the kanji. Hold your mouse over the kanji on this blog and it’ll pop up.)

I quit buying the magazine years ago but I thought about it today for some reason.
I decided to see if the magazine has a website…and of course it does.

It’s seems that the price of the magazine has gone up to ¥450 per issue…and most of their website is only available to paying members!
But it does have some free sections…and just like their print magazine, all of the kanji on the website has ふりがな. But their website does the ふりがな differently than I do on my blog…they have the ふりがな characters printed above the kanji just like in their magazine (and Japanese children’s books). I put the ふりがな on my blog as small pop-ups because I think that’s a better way to remember the kanji.

Anyways, if you want to see their website, it’s here.

And here’s an article from their site:

(Click to enlarge)

(Click to enlarge)

Just a few things…

Just a few random items…

• My second daughter will return home this evening from her 林間学校 (field trip) to 新潟 (Niigata). 🙂
• A couple days ago, there was another big 地震 (earthquake) in 岩手県 (Iwate Prefecture)…the same area that had a big earthquake last month (you can read my post about that earthquake here).
• A few more people have agreed to do interviews for my site. I’ll post them as soon as I get their responses to my questions.
• Did you notice that anytime you see 漢字 (Japanese kanji characters) on my site, if you hover your mouse over it, the ふりがな (kana characters that show the proper reading of kanji) appears? Does this help you?
• What are you favorite places, events, things to do in the Tokyo area? Just wondering.