Yookoso! Invitation to Contemporary Japanese Student Edition with Online Learning Center Bind-In Card

This is crap I don't know how this would help the beginner student and the grammar and vocabulary it covers are ridiculously simple and simplified, once a certain level of Japanese knowledge has been reached this book becomes useless. The "Integrated Approach to Japanese" by the Japan Times that is a much better text for beginning-intermediate to beginner-advanced level students. THAT text is arranged in a useful way to refer to even after the student increases familiarity with the language.

I took Japanese 1 using the Genki series, which I found to be much more comprehensive and easy to study from, with quick references to the lesson content in each chapter introduction, and the kanji learned in the corresponding sections in the back pages.

I'm now in Japanese 2, and we're using Yookoso. Yookoso isn't nearly as nicely laid out, and does not work well for studying from. The workbook is actually necessary in order to get a good study session out of the series.

I ordered the book on August 18, 2007 and it arrived September 7, 2007. It was a nicely written book, but since it took so long to arrive I had to procure it from somewhere else and am now faced with a return and additional shipping hassles.

Don't purchase textbooks here if you need them in a timely manner.

Steven Shippee

The book is very well written and its examples are essential to learning japanese in an easy manner