Japanese Beyond Words: How to Walk and Talk Like a Native Speaker

Achieving fluency in Japanese provides the language learner with no shortage of challenges. However, as many Japanese students discover on their first trip to Japan, mastering the grammar and vocabulary of the Japanese language is not sufficient in order to really understand and make oneself understood in Japan. A strong grasp of Japanese culture and social etiquette is a necessary and often neglected aspect of learning to communicate in Japanese.

In Japanese Beyond Words: How to Walk and Talk Like a Native Speaker, Andrew Horvat introduces a number of aspects of Japanese culture that are vital to the non-verbal side of mutual understanding. These topics include one's physical appearance, body language, pronunciation, social conventions and taboos, English and Japanese linguistic cross-influences, what not to say in Japanese, and tips for Japanese study.

For example, Horvat explains the importance of treating business cards with respect, as they are looked upon as an extension of their bearer; of bowing; of dressing in simple, conservative clothing; and of avoiding excessive gesturing when doing business in Japan. These basic guidelines are certainly essential but may seem elementary to those with some experience in Japan. However, the book goes on to address more sophisticated issues that will prove informative to even the seasoned Japanophile, such why you should never give wildflowers as a gift and why the Japanese currency is written "yen" but pronounced "en".

This book is written to supplement the language student's Japanese proficiency with vital cultural context. Sections addressing particularities of Japanese pronunciation and common mistakes made by language learners are especially successful in achieving this end. However, Japanese Beyond Words is written so as not to exclude readers with no previous knowledge of the Japanese language and provides an excellent introduction to Japanese culture for non-language learners as well.

Written in a lively, anecdotal style, this book is a good read and an informed instructor for anyone endeavoring to hone their cultural proficiency in Japanese.

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Japan Style Sheet: The SWET Guide for Writers, Editors and Translators

Stone Bridge Press

A concise volume that is a quick read for writers, editors, and translators, this book serves as an excellent introduction and quick reference to style issues working with Japanese words in English publications. With two languages as different as English and Japanese, it has always been a struggle to standardize a system to write Japanese words in romanized letters. Japan Style Sheet looks at the most-used systems for romanizing Japanese, comparing and contrasting them, including the Hepburn System, which is probably the most widely used system in English publications, and the Kunrei System, which is taught in Japanese schools and used by the Japanese government. The book points out the pros and cons of each and introduces conventions used in romanizing Japanese words, such as the use of diacritical marks verses double letters to denote the infamous long vowels of the Japanese language.

Japan Style Sheet also looks at other problematic Japanese transliterations, such as certain instances of the Japanese letter "n". Perhaps of most help is the book's discussion on when to use apostrophes and hyphens and when not to use them. With many English natives not even able to keep the use of these punctuation marks straight in English, the book's clarification on the apostrophe in transliteration of Japanese can be a lifesaver.

One issue that can be most annoying, lacking standardization between English and Japanese translation, is the matter of italics. Japan Style Sheet not only spells out some general rules for italics, but also discusses anglicized words as well. This is just one of the many issues that linguists face, which the book offers help on.

In addition to clarification on transliteration and style, the book also features very useful appendices that list Japanese prefectures, significant Japanese historical eras, and other useful information. One of the most helpful resources is a conversion table showing the differences between the English and Japanese numbering systems. Anyone who has had to work with the two different numbering systems knows just how confusing they can be. Yet another helpful feature is an appendix showing the Japanese Imperial calendar with the Western calendar for easy conversion. Always confusing for Westerners, many Japanese documents still use a calendar based on the reign of emperors. For example, since the emperor Showa ruled from 1926 to 1989, if you were born in 1970, then you were born in Showa 45. However, if you were born in 1989 before January 7th, then you were born in Showa 64, whereas after January 6th 1989 is Heisei 1 since that is when the reign of the present emperor began. Although the helpful hints on style alone make this volume worth the time to read it, the calendar conversions are an added bonus. By the way, 2006 is Heisei 18.

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Kanji Pict-O-Graphix: Over 1,000 Japanese Kanji and Kana Mnemonics

Stone Bridge Press

Author Michael Rowley presents a simple yet brilliant way to look at kanji, the written characters of the Japanese language that were borrowed from the Chinese, in order to learn them. As many Westerners know, kanji are pictographs or ideographs based on the image of what they represent rather than a phonetic alphabet that represents the phonemes, or sounds, of a language. Using this familiar idea, Rowley helps readers associate commonly used kanji with pictures that more closely resemble their meaning while still retaining the basic shape of the kanji, as well as by providing phrases with the given word or words included.

Although this use of mnemonics is not new, since kanji are themselves pictures, Rowley points out the value of such techniques for Westerners learning Japanese. Asking how one goes about studying kanji, he counters, "If you are a child in a Japanese school, you write each kanji hundreds of times at your desk. After a while, by sheer persistence, it sticks in your memory." Rowley suggests that rather than taking this method, Westerners employ mnemonics by associating kanji shapes with pictures of what they represent.

This educational volume starts with basic kanji and then shows as those radicals are incorporated in more complex characters. With catchy illustrations to help the reader memorize the characters, the book is a fun read for Westerners learning Japanese. The book also includes not only definitions in English, On (Chinese), and Kun (Japanese) readings of each kanji, but also mnemonics to help learn hiragana and katakana as well.

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Designing with Kanji: Japanese Character Motifs for Surface, Skin & Spirit

Stone Bridge Press

Ever wonder if that article with Japanese writing on it really says what you think it says? Hopefully, if you're unsure, it's jewelry or a wall hanging and not a body tattoo. As authors Shogo Oketani and Leza Lowitz point out, over the past several years, Japanese writing has become more and more popular in Western culture as decorative art. Their book not only gives the meanings of popular kanji, but also provides an introduction to the history and structure of a writing system that until now has been an enigma for many Westerners.

However, don't let the 'skin' in the book's subtitle fool you. This beautiful volume from Stone Bridge Press is much more than a guide to design ideas for body tattoos. Both the fluent speaker of Japanese and those who don't know "arigato" from "sayonara" won't be able to put this book down. Oketani and Lowitz go beyond just giving the meaning of each kanji; they concisely explicate the meaning, background, and reading of the characters, as well as provide fascinating insights to the ideogram system.

Besides the succinct explanation given for each character, perhaps the most captivating feature of this book are the comparative illustrations of each kanji. As the authors call them, each kanji is rendered in Formal, Modern, Flowing, and Stylish fonts. Some Westerners don't even know there are differing fonts in Japanese as there are in English, but the book's beautiful illustrations clearly show the differences in styles in order to capture the essence of cute or cool, eye-catching or inspiring, to help you attain just the feel you're looking for. This is the perfect gift for people who have interest in Japanese culture.

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13 Secrets for Speaking Fluent Japanese:
Effective and Enjoyable New Techniques to Speak, Memorize and Think in Japanese

Kodansha America

Educational and entertaining, 13 Secrets for Speaking Fluent Japanese from author Giles Murray provides useful and sound advice to people learning Japanese, both those who have been speaking Japanese for years and those who are just starting out in their studies. Among the secrets that Murray explains and gives useful examples of are how to increase your Japanese vocabulary with the use of synonyms and word prefixes and suffixes, as well as using adverbs to "spice up" your language. Beyond vocabulary, Murray gives suggestions on key areas of the language to study and learning strategies.

Secret #2, "Explanatory Phrases: How to Communicate Despite not Knowing the Right Word" is a useful skill not just in learning to communicate in Japanese, but really any foreign language. The ability to describe what you are trying to say when you are unsure how to correctly express it in a foreign language is an important skill and one that can be learned, as Murray demonstrates.

A particularly useful section of Murray's book deals with mastering the Japanese number system, which uses a totally different naming system for digits than the English names for numbers with several digits. An understanding of the Japanese system, Secret #4, is a must for anyone wanting to spend any length of time in Japan.

Perhaps the most useful secrets in the book are the sections explicating Japanese jokes and puns in order to "see beneath the surface of the language," and the section on loanwords from English. (A recent trend in the language and culture, Japanese borrows extensively from English and other languages.) While becoming familiar with and learning to use the thousands of loanwords in the Japanese language is essential to those starting out in their education of Japanese, understanding the culture's wordplay and intricacies provides learning material for those more advanced students of the Japanese.

In addition to 13 secrets to become more fluent in Japanese, Murray includes an appendix on mnemonics and a glossary of terms. Make no mistake, as Murray makes clear in his discussion of what he calls "Mad Mnemonics" that attempting to memorize vocabulary using mnemonics does have acute limitations, all too often the mnemonic being a play on phonemes that stretches logical connections. However, Murray observes that mnemonics are a popular way to memorize vocabulary, both for Westerners learning Japanese and Japanese native speakers learning English.

Murray even shows how foreigners can use playing children's word games and reading manga, Japanese comics, as learning resources. To discover this and other helpful suggestions, 13 Secrets for Speaking Fluent Japanese makes a wonderful resource to aid language acquisition and cultural understanding.

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Beyond Polite Japanese: A Dictionary of Japanese Slang and Colloquialisms

Kodansha America

A concise reference made for foreigners learning Japanese, Beyond Polite Japanese, as its subtitle suggests, is written in the format of a dictionary. The important difference of this volume is that it contains terms you can't find in any dictionary. From affixes to insults, Beyond Polite Japanese offers a plethora of knowledge and insight into the slang of the Japanese language.

As just one example of the many elusive slang terms revealed in this book, author Akihiko Yonekawa observes how the Japanese word for "a quack," meaning a disreputable doctor, is yabu, which literally means "thicket." The Western student of Japanese might be perplexed as to how thickets could be in any way related to a quack (just as Japanese may wonder why Americans call illicit doctors "quacks," as if they were waterfowl). Yonekawa succinctly explains that the term yabu is short for yabu-isha, meaning "doctor in the thicket." She goes on to observe that the kanji for yabu is based on folk etymology. From this the student of Japanese can see the connection of a quack practicing medicine in discrete locales away from the public.

Yonekawa's dictionary of slang is divided into categories, organized into the different types of slang and colloquial speech. Among the sections are slang about personality types and temperaments, slang about the body, slang about nature, and a section on interjections and exclamations. Perhaps most useful is the section devoted specifically to colloquial phrases. Here, phrases that are used in everyday conversation, such as "nantatte" and "n'da" are explained. Many such phrases are comparable to the phrases, "I wanna" instead of "I want to" or "they're gonna" as opposed to "they're going to" in English. Such phrases are almost never taught in formal classes, which teach proper, polite language. Unfortunately, actually communicating with Japanese, such phrases are an important part of fluency.

A useful and entertaining reading selection, Beyond Polite Japanese can help students of the language increase their fluency and understanding of the culture. As is stated introducing the book, "Among the entries are some very common, unexceptionable words that Japanese take absolutely for granted, but which the poor student must struggle mightily to make his or her own."

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If you teach me Japanese, I'll teach you English

Kodansha America
150 pages

As the title of this informal text suggests, authors Paul and Yuko Swanson take an approach to language learning that, while common among people who learn foreign languages, is original for the premise of a book on language acquisition. That is, this book serves as a "study guide" not only for English speakers learning Japanese, but also for Japanese speakers learning English, and aims to help average persons with "no professional training in linguistics or teaching" to help each other improve their language skills outside a formal classroom setting.

Complete with notes on vocabulary, patterns, and grammar, the book presents a series of common situations, such as at the airport, at parties, in stores, hotels, sight-seeing, making phone calls, gift giving, asking directions, and even going on a date. Beyond just language study guides, the authors include cultural notes that give insight to what you can expect in various situations.

One thing for readers to note is that this book, as it mentions in the introduction, is for those who already have "an elementary knowledge" of the other language. Thus, readers will want to have some exposure to basic Japanese (or English) grammar and a starting base of vocabulary before jumping into the conversational exercises. The book is perfect for those going on extended stays in Japan or who have Japanese counterparts staying in the States, as the authors stress the benefits of effectively "exchanging languages."

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