Learn Japanese - Ultimate Getting Started with Japanese Box Set, Lessons 1-55

I absolutely love this audio book!! It had an American guy paired with a Japanese woman. The guy has been living in Japan for 11 years and the woman sounds so adorable, especially when she laughs. They not only tell you how to speak Japanese but they tell you about the culture and the island. The American talks about some mistakes he made and what other foreigners tend to make. I love that they have a conversation, then say it again but enunciate each syllable of each word, then they explain what it means.

I think a key aspect of helping someone learn a new language is enunciating and saying words slow enough for them to pick u the different sounds. Especially if the language has sounds that are not available in English.

It is foolish to think you can learn to speak any language without real interaction with teachers or native speakers, so taking live classes really becomes a necessity at some point, but using this audiobook as a complimentary way of practicing, improving vocabulary and learning grammatical points is a great way to improve your Japanese or at least learn expressions you can use to get you stated. The one thing it lacks is a chance for the listener to practice what they have learned, since mostly you listen, and the main interaction you get is repeating single words or short expressions. The actors are pleasant to listen to, the material is engaging and very rich in Japanese culture and applications for the material learned. I am very happy to have found it to assist me in my learning and will purchase other books from the same series. I wish there was a clear way to determine the order in which the publisher expects us to use the books in the series, since they seem to be randomly numbered at times. This one is definitely a keeper though.

Only as a add-on to other Japanese study material, the lack of a written refernce is a bit of a problem

Not really applicable

Helpful to hear Japanese when you are studying it

Not applicable

The lessons are fast paced, but there is a LOT of useless chatter between the "instructor" and the student? that does NOT need to be there. They are trying to sound like 'this is such a fun thing to do' Not a fan of asking "don't you do it like this?" Oh yeah, you can do it like that, well sometimes, maybe, etc.

I want the instructors in an audio book not to waste a lot of time with gibberish or maybe you can do that "I think so". I want the instructors to "know" how to use the language.

Too much idle chatter not related to the actual words you are trying to learn.
The breakdown of words into syllables that included sounds that were not there when spoken normally. You can't fool me. The sound is not there at all when you say the word, then when broken down extra syllables show up? it's either there or not. Like saying "Can't" = "Kanatai Nattau Tae." No it doesn't and you can hear the difference.

Not really. Maybe a story, but not a lesson.

This may work for some people. I was disappointed with the overall way the lesson was handled. Voices were ok, but I don't want to have to remember parts of a lesson the instructors weren't quite sure of or the banter back and forth. Learning a language it difficult enough without all the extra chatter.