Lonely Planet Japanese Phrasebook & Dictionary 9

If you're just looking for a DICTIONARY, buy a DICTIONARY. Don't buy an awesome "PHRASEBOOK and dictionary" and then give it a 1 star review because you didn't read the description or the title of the book. Sheesh. Super helpful, small (size of a smart phone), and practical book to have on hand if you are going to Japan. PERFECT for traveling. The phrases are spelled out in both Japanese and phonetic spelling so you can learn to recognize and speak the syllables. I'm annoyed that some of these reviews are punishing this book with 1 star reviews just because they "didn't need it" because their "English was accommodated" when they went to Japan. If you're not a brat who expects their language barrier to be accommodated everywhere they go, and you're looking to learn basic communication in Japanese from scratch, this book is great. I am using this book in tandem with "Learn Japanese in your Car" on Spotify, and it's such a useful tool. It puts together the words I've been hearing into complete contextual phrases and is really accelerating and maximizing my learning. The categories are very intuitive and well organized. If you are just looking for a dictionary to quickly look up 1000s of words one at a time, you will find this frustrating and time-consuming to use. The dictionary portion is only a fraction of the book. If you are looking for a small, travel size book to help grow your Japanese vocabulary and sentence structure while learning basics, this book is for you.

After trying different ways of learning japanese and failing/giving up, I found Benny Lewis who talks about focusing on just speaking, from day one. He even recommended this brand, Lonely Planet, over others due to a more broad range of topics covered. Not to say this book with make you a master of the Japanese language, but it's a good place to start learning vocabulary and phrases and start speaking it. I recommend to anyone planning to travel to Japan or who wants to just be able to communicate in Japanese.

Definitely good information, and easily organized. But it seemed a little dumbed down especially the pronounciations. It really assumes you aren't trying to learn Japanese at all, and are more needing a temporary help to use while traveling. My desire was to find a book that would help me learn easily on the go; kind of like a pocket learners guide. This will suffice for now, but not what I was looking for!

Pocket-sized and perfect for on the go. Slip it into your pocket and take it out when you want to impress people with a quick phrase in Japanese. For those aiming for Japanese fluency, this probably won’t get you there, but it does have many basic concepts and introductory material. This is more suited for those who want to order at a restaurant, are traveling on business or pleasure, or even as a supplemental handbook for a course that you’re taking. さようなら!

Super helpful. Fits well in a pocket and held up nicely after staying there for a 2 week trip to japan. I had already listened up to advanced audio courses before heading to japan but this was essential to refresh on common phrases or find a quick word you can't think of. Can't say it would have been as effective if I didn't already know basic structure and pronunciation so I highly recommend you augment this as it's only as good as a book can be. Also don't expect to read this and be anywhere close to fluent.

I gave this to a friend who was moving to Japan and she didn't know any Japanese. Few months later, she thanked me for the book, as it helped her a lot. I did browse through it before I wrapped it for her, it looked like clearly explained, easy to use, so I may get one for myself when I travel to Japan.

it'd be very useful for an in-the-moment interaction where you really needed to find the phases to reply with. it's a nice size and it is organized thoughtfully. i'm giving it as a gift to a friend who has been self-studying japanese so i hope she also finds it helpful and orderly

Had to buy two...one for my 88 year old father and one for my son. Easy to use, divided into practical sections. Will use on upcoming trip....will come back and post if it really is easy to use and practical!