I was trying to think of why it took me so long to review this book and finally remembered that I wasn't ever able to finish it because the Japanese proficiency level required for it was greater than what I have. The description of the book and the title seemed to indicate to me that it was geared towards the casual, touristy student, but with all of it being in Japanese, I think the reader needs to be comfortable reading at a reasonably advanced level to get the most out of it. The illustrations were cute and I suspect the book would help polish up someone more intermediate than I am, but I would need a lot more Duolingo time to make good use of this book.

I've reviewed this before, not sure why it's still showing that I haven't. I couldn't do anything with this book because it's entirely in Japanese, which is terrible for a beginner level book, because I can't understand anything. Should have been labeled as for someone at an intermediate level.

I knew that the book would be in Japanese when I requested to read this, since it was pretty obvious judging from the front cover. What I did not expect was that my Japanese was not good enough to fully understand the book, but yes, that's my problem. Pushing this aside, I loved how the book content was organized, the author and illustrator threw lots of graphics, charts, and tourist spot recommendations in there, and I would probably come back and try this book out again perhaps after I study Japanese for another few months.

This book is a neat idea for a textbook - the theme of travel is appealing and relatable for many language learners and is a good vehicle for introducing vocabulary and grammar. The textbook itself is also very appealing - there are a lot of pictures, bright colors, and very little English. I think it could be a very useful resource, especially for someone who is self-studying and has an upper beginner/lower intermediate level.

My only comment is that the choice of where to include or not include okurigana was sometimes a little confusing to me. It could be just based on the words I've come across in my studies, but some words that I learned very early on had okurigana (like 行く), while other words that I'd never seen before did not have them. It's fine, since I can just look those words up, but I am a little curious how they chose where to include or not include okurigana.

Still, on the whole, this is a really cute and useful looking textbook for a learner with a solid foundation!

Let's Talk in Traveling Japanese is a really handy and efficient guide to learning how to communicate in common situations. It is perfect for someone who is already learning Japanese as there are no English translations, and rather is a helping hand to those that have already gotten a grasp of the language before.

This book is nicely designed and easy to follow.
I picked it up as the cover is in English and I got the feel it was translated making it easy for autonomous learners to use and learn at your own pace. Unfortunately is not translated into English so you will need a teacher to follow along the book.
Some instructions are in fact in both English and Japanese but the crucial information is only in Japanese and there’s no way for an absolute begginer to understand the instructions or knowing the answers of the exercises.

Each chapter follows different events in the life of our characters: Mari, Mika, Tomoya and Shingo. Through their dialogues you learn how to communicate in most common situations. It has a lot of cute illustrations with dialogues, explanations and exercises. There's also interactive content that you can access through QR codes. However, it is not meant for someone who has just started to learn Japanese.

Which is why the book wasn't for me as I want to learn Japanese but don't have enough background for this book yet.

This book is the perfect resource for intermediate learners of Japanese that want to take their language skills to the next level!

I think I may have had some formatting issues with e-arc, but I was able to read most of this textbook/workbook.

I have experience learning Japanese, studying for three and a half years, and have an upper-beginner reading level. (Time away from class has definitely eroded my kanji reading ability.)

I came away from this textbook unsure about the intended teaching level and expected audience. It begins teaching grammar points I personally learned within my first year, but all directions and information are supplied in Japanese. As a student, I've never been a fan of instructions and teaching points supplied in the target language, as I think it gets confusing and you spend more time in the dictionary trying to understand the assignment, vs. actually practicing and learning.

That's all personal taste, however, and I think with the fun situations and characters any dedicated learner can get a lot out of this textbook, especially for traveling!

Not a book for true beginners of Japanese, better suited for intermediate learners. This should probably be indicated somewhere on the cover or the back of the book. The description can be a bit misleading. The grammar wasn’t too difficult to understand, and the diverse characters were cute.

I cannot review this book because I was not able to read it. It did not download correctly and it expired before I could fix the problem and read the book.

I have been wanting to learn Japanese for awhile now, and I was excited to pick up this book. At first I assumed it was a beginner level book, but I assumed wrong. I am still new to teaching myself Japanese so this book is too advanced for me; however, I did appreciate the Hiragana and Katakana character charts towards the beginning of the book. I also noticed there were QR codes at the bottom of some of the pages and scanning those took me to some Youtube videos - still in Japanese - but the idea of interactive learning with QR codes is interesting and may be beneficial to more advanced learners (plus the animation was great and the 360-view videos were really enjoyable). Furthermore, the art throughout the book is cute, and I like the setup of reading a little story before diving into the exercises and main lesson of a particular section. While I can’t utilize this book yet, I feel like this is a good resource for those who have a good base knowledge and are looking for supplemental material to improve their Japanese-language proficiency.

This book was so educational and would be great for anyone wanting to learn the basics of Japanese! I have always been an anime and manga nerd so when I found this book, I was like, this is THE book you've been looking for! Safe to say it did not disappoint one bit!

Nihongo is a great series of books that help you learn Japanese. I was keen to pick up Let's Talk in Traveling Japanese after reading their other books. I was not disappointed! It's useful phrases are really each to remember and my Japanese has only gotten better. Thank you for giving me a copy in exchange for an honest review!

With thank to Netgalley and Bingo LLC

Let's Talk in Traveling Japanese is a book for those who want to learn Japanese whilst on holiday, it is best that you have a basic understanding of the Japanese language. Not a good textbook for those who don't know any Japanese.

The layout of the book is good as is the artwork.

I am self-learning Japanese since last few months and I really thought that this book might be beneficial for my studies. But, I was extremely disappointed. For a book which claims to teach you Traveling Japanese, Majority of the text being in Japanese is a perfect irony. Though I can read Hiragana and Katakana characters fairly well, it gets extremely difficult to read an entire book written majorly in Japanese letters. As it was difficult for me to understand the entire written material, I won't be able to fairly review the book. But, from whatever little I could make from the illustrations and letters, the book definitely has various conversations which might prove helpful for those travelling in Japan. But, yet the question remains, Why Would One Buy a Book to Learn Japanese Speaking written in Japanese itself.

I've been studying Japanese since quarantine began, but this book was too advanced for me. It requires at least an intermediate reading level, I think. The illustrations are lovely, though.

I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

**If you can’t understand the text on the cover, this book might not be for you.**

I want to learn Japanese and I’m always on the look out for books or resources that can make it fun. The key to learning something challenging without high amounts of self-discipline is to make it as enjoyable as possible. Anime comes to mind, I have learnt lots of words and phrases while listening to anime in Japanese, but if I am looking for more serious learning resources, I still want to have fun in the process.

Let’s Talk in Traveling Japanese gave me a bit of that, but as a beginner, I found it also confusing. Each chapter follows different events in the life of our characters: Mari, Mika, Tomoya and Shingo. Through their dialogues you learn how to communicate in most common situations. It has a lot of cute illustrations with dialogues, explanations and exercises. There’s also interactive content that you can access through QR codes. However, it is not meant for someone who has just started to learn Japanese.

The front cover doesn’t clarify the level of Japanese the reader is supposed to have. The big Japanese text and small English translation made me think of a highly immersive bilingual course for tourists. To my surprise, the content is only in Japanese!. Some words and a short vocabulary list at the end of the book being the only exception. That’s the only issue I see about this book, it can be easily mistaken for a beginner’s book with English translations.

If we focus on the real readers this book is meant for (students with previous knowledge of Japanese), I can say that I like their approach!, it’s not the first time I have come across this teaching method. Many years ago I had a language class, where you learn the alphabet and basic words, completely taught in that foreign language. Only thing in English was when our teacher introduced herself and mentioned that English was not allowed.

Our course book was also fully in a foreign language, just as this book is. You know what? It worked marvelously, instead of focusing on English translations, I associated words with drawings and gestures the teacher made. I learned super fast. This book has that same approach, they want you to focus on Japanese and really remember it, instead of getting distracted by translations.

If you are a highly motivated student who wants to get immersed in the language and you already know Japanese at an elementary level (maybe N4 level students?), I would suggest you to take advantage of this book. Also a great option for classrooms, where beginner students can still take advantage of it when properly guided by a teacher and other learning resources.

The illustrations are beautiful, and this appears to be a well-organized language learning resource. However, based on the description I assumed (incorrectly) that this book was geared toward non-Japanese language speakers to learn beginner-level phrasing that might be useful for travel. That's not the case— the entire book is in Japanese and not something a novice could just pick up.

Not a beginner book

My background comes from doing my undergrad in EAS and that I lived in Japan for 8 years; I speak and read Japanese quite well so I was sort of taken aback at the actual difficulty of the content. When reviewing this book, I looked critically at its use as an instructional tool for an independent learner and for a learner in a classroom setting.

Besides the full color pages, the nice bit is that the book does use furigana above the kanji, so those with a basic grasp of hiragana can struggle along with the first few pages of block text. Rarely is kanji not with out furigana....

Sorry, “hurigana”.

The book is split up into 3 levels.

The first level reviews the writing system. However, I was surprised the author chose to use “hu” rather than “fu” for ふ/フ - that’s not traditional for Japanese language learners and may be awkward for nonnative speakers of Japanese to understand the lip movement. It was an interesting, but welcome, choice to show the alphabet in another font, too.

It goes a little bit into the differences between commonly confused characters, which I thought was a nice touch. It even explains a bit about the JLPT and that reading this book will bring the reader anywhere between N5-N4 level. Awkward because up until that point, the level is way beyond a beginner looking at JLPT.

After what feels like eternity of taking an entire first year Japan writing history class, part 2 starts. Part two is where the description gets it’s chapters from. Each chapter has a script, research, and learning page. For example, chapter 1 has 4 grammar points that it covers. It does kind of an okay job on it, but again, I do not feel the grammar and presentation matches the level this book advertises.

At the end of part 2, there is an answer key for the activities, so answers can be checked.

Part 3 has a vocab list for each chapter, verb conjugation charts, and some other helpful things like calendar vocab and counters.

Overall, this is not a beginner book, but the title and description makes it appear to be geared towards students who’ve dabbled in Japanese language learning. Traveling is usually associated with tourist which is usually associated with new learners. This book would be best used in a classroom for study abroad students who are planning on studying in Japan, or who have started studying in Japan, with at least a year of Japanese study underneath them. Students returning to study Japanese could be confused and frustrated by the difficulty. Some of the translations in English are also slightly...off. This is pretty typical though of Japanese textbooks written by nonnative English speakers, but is unfortunate because it can trip up learners, especially emerging language learners.

I wanted to rate this a 3, but it may be a lower 4 if this is used as part of a curriculum with a good teacher who can go beyond the gaps in the book. Could be a decent review for JLPT 4, but is too simple for JLPT 3.