Japanese: The Spoken Language, Part 1 Review

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Japanese: The Spoken Language, Part 1 ReviewIt's a shame to see so many people rejecting texts simply on the basis of them being written in roomaji. Now, I'm not here to champion roomaji, and personally I think a kana based text is better *all other things being equal* but some of the warnings about the dangers of using roomaji border on hysteria. We are told it's a dangerous crutch, that it will forever cripple our ability to read Japanese, etc. This must all come as a great surprise to the generations of people now fluent and literate in the language and who began learning with roomaji! And yes it IS funny to see people trying to sound informed whilst writing about "romaNji"!).
Yes, if you use roomaji as a guide to pronunciation you will have problems- but anyone who does that isn't using this text (or didn't bother to use it as directed). In addition, my lawyer assures me that there is no law against doing as the author suggests and using additional materials to learn how to read and write Japanese- so there you go. If you can accept the proposition that using a roomaji based text is not going to cause your brain to whither, then you can proceed to consider the text on the basis of it's content and methodology. If not- then you can now make your negative rating of this review and be on your way.
The explanations of grammar are consistently of a very high standard and in some cases simply superb. You don't have to take my word for it- as another reviewer noted, JSL is referenced in "The Structure of the Japanese Language" by Susumu Kuno, it is also referenced by Jay Rubin, in his much acclaimed "Making sense of Japanese" wherein he describes it as an "excellent text" and refers the reader to it for further information on at least a couple of occasions. Furthermore the predecessor to JSL, "Beginning Japanese", is referenced in Makino and Tsutsui's classic "A dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar", while JSL itself is referenced in the corresponding "Dictionary of Intermediate Grammar".
I'll provide just two examples of the approach to grammar taken in this text. First off- go and look through some introductory texts and find the first Japanese sentence presented. With depressing frequency the first sentence will be something along the lines of "watashi wa tanaka desu". Shortly afterwards we are presented with a sentence containing the particle "ga" and all too many students absorb the unintended lesson that "all utterances must have a wa or a ga (or sometimes both)" and the attendant difficulties in knowing when to use which of them begin. In JSL, however, the first 3 chapters contain a great many perfectly good Japanese sentences- and not a wa or ga anywhere to be seen. The advantage of this is that when wa and ga are introduced the learner can clearly see what effect their introduction has on the sentence. "wa" isn't just something that just HAS to be there- it has particular effects- if those effects are what you want to communicate- then you use it, otherwise you don't. Of course the same applies to ga.
The second example relates to the "particle" "node". This is usually treated as a single unit- a practice that introduces apparent random variations in the use of the particle (e.g for nouns you must place "na" before "node"). However, JSL treats node more correctly as a particular case of a more widely occurring phenomenon in which "no" (often abbreviated to "n") makes some shared non-linguistic knowledge the subject of the sentence. From this perspective the particle "node" not only makes more sense, but the requirement of following nouns with "na" also makes perfect sense. Another "mystery" of the language dispelled.
Patient and thorough reading of this text will be rewarded. Some people have suggested it is difficult to read- but unless you have thus far limited yourself to "books for the younger reader" you should not have any problems beyond perhaps (gasp horror!) re-reading some passages.
Another great strength of the JSL series is the audio drills. These are not simply hear and repeat exercises, rather they require a degree of manipulation of what you hear in order to provide an appropriate response. For example, you may
need to give the negative form of an adjective or a particular verb inflection, and all within the context of a brief conversational exchange.
I would also like to respond to some of the comments from past reviewers.
One reviewer below states that:
"Japanese is a phonetic language: what you see is what you say. All you have to do is learn the basic phonemes (syllables) as represented by hiragana and katakana, and you are on your way to reading and speaking Japanese."
This would be amusing if not for the potential for people to see this and believe it.
Here are different words "ame" and "ame" ("偁?szlig;" and "偁?szlig;") One of them means "rain" and the other means candy. They are written identically in hiragana- but are not the same when spoken. Or how about "hashi", "hashi" and "hashi" (?Iacute;偟丂?Iacute;偟丂and ?Iacute;偟)? The system of rendering sounds employed in the text alerts you to these differences. If you ignore them and just "say what you see", then your Japanese will sound- well- absurd. Now , it is at this point that many a student protests "but they can understand me from the context!" Well yes often
that's true. In the same way that when some Japanese people say
they "want to eat some lice" you understand that what they really mean is that they want to eat some "rice". If that's the sort of level to which you aspire then good luck to you. The text also takes care to point aout instances where the pronounciation (not just the accent) differs from what the kana would suggest.
A number of people have complained of or noted a lack of cultural insights in the text. It is true that there are no potted accounts of Obon or Japanese weddings etc- complete with dinky little cartoons. Well those are nice I guess, but they can be found elsewhere. Instead, there are a very carefully explained cultural insights that are tied to the use of the Japanese language. One example is that of the in-group out-group
distinction. Most, if not all texts, note this, but few make it quite so clear how important it is to your use of Japanese, or explain it so well. The fact that many students just don't appreciate this aspect of Japanese is revealed in some of the comments related to the text's treatment of polite Japanese. Being a non-Japanese in Japan you will be speaking to members of out-groups most of the time. That means many people will speak to you more politely than you probably expect. A common complaint by foreigners with some Japanese ability is "I can't understand what people say because they speak too politely!". Consequently the Japanese interlocutor has to use progressively less polite phrases until you do understand. Now, even if you don't have the decency to be embarrassed by that, there is every
chance the other person will be. It's understandable if someone finds
themselves in that situation because they never had the chance to be exposed to polite language- but to actually make the conscious decision to put yourself in that situation and whine about it when a text tries to educate you? If it was trying to teach you the correct forms for addressing members of the Imperial family, then you'd have a point, but this is simply stuff that you will at least hear. So what are the bad points?
It is a little dated in parts- mainly in some of the vocabulary items.
I previously wrote here that the tapes were of poor quality- which was true, but- there is a new CD ROM available that has excellent quality audio and I would know give his book 5 stars without hesitation.
Japanese: The Spoken Language, Part 1 OverviewThese audio cassette recordings are designed to accompany the Japanese: The Spoken Language textbook and include Drills, Core Conversations, and Eavesdropping Exercises. This revised edition contains 14 cassettes with built-in pauses for students to repeat after the model. Japanese: The Spoken Language textbook includes brief and natural core conversations, drills, and explanations of linguistic analysis and of how the language is used within Japanese society today. The core conversations cover situations in which foreigners typically find themselves interacting with Japanese. Hundreds of drills are presented in a response format, so that each exchange constitutes a mini-conversation. Instead of overwhelming students with the unfamiliar Japanese writing system, the authors intentionally use romaji, or alphabetized Japanese, throughout the texts so students can concentrate on developing their Japanese communication skills.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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