Thanks to Collins Reference and NetGalley for ARC of this interesting book.

Full disclosure - I have no Japanese and haven't tried to learn a new language since high school over 40 years ago but I'm going to Japan soon and I thought this would be an interesting way to try.
The Kindle ARC gave me some formatting problems which made it difficult to follow this as it's meant to be used. However, I liked the repetition, and the phonetic pronunciation tips, and I'm trying to be diligent about the practice so that I can converse a little bit better than last time I was there.

Started this book knowing almost no Japanese. I just finished it (in about 3 months) and can now proudly say that I know a lot of new words and sentences, can construct sentences myself and know all the hiragana. The hiragana learning part was a bit too slow for me though, so to challenge myself I started learning all the katakana as well from other resources. Already started the second book and I can't wait to learn more. Also started learning a little kanji, but of course that is much harder. Now I'll be able to speak a little Japanese/ask for things when I'm going to Japan (Hopefully) next year.
(Thanks to Net Galley for this Book).

I couldn't get on with this at all. I'm fluent in Japanese so perhaps this just jarred too much with my existing knowledge. Perhaps if I was starting from a point of zero knowledge I'd find it helpful but it's maybe more a book for people visiting on holiday who want to pick up some quick knowledge or simple communication on a business trip or something. The method the author advocates just didn't work for me and use of romaji is a big no no for me personally.

Review not posted anywhere else

To preface, I've had experience with learning Japanese on and off for the last 20 years, so I've worked with lots of different types of workbooks and learning methods. I'm in no way proficient, as I never kept up my studies, but am familiar with the majority of the content.

I'm not sure it's my favourite method of learning. It seems effective in breaking sentences down and introducing building blocks in a memorable way, but the repetitive nature can be tiresome, and as someone with ADHD, it really doesn't keep my interest for long. I struggled with the formatting in the kindle version, but that may be just an ARC issue. I also don't feel like some of the pronunciation examples are quite right, especially when English accents can vary so much on those same comparative words.

I like the approach to simple conversations and adding levels of complexity as you develop. I do think things like the particles should be explained fully on introduction, and the Japanese alphabets should be worked through more. The author does seem to acknowledge these and outlines this book as more of a speedy essentials workbook for conversation, so that may work for some. I'm not writing it off, and I may try it again, but for now I'm sort of undecided.

Unlocking Japanese with Paul Noble by Paul Noble I just love his books and learning new languages. This is the latest book for beginners to start learning the Japanese language.

Paul keeps things simple with three basic rules; don’t skip anything, don’t try to memorise anything and cover up to test yourself.
A fun, jargon-free way to learn
Easy-to-understand Japanese pronunciation
PROVEN to work; Paul can teach anyone a language, even people who think they’re incapable

Not saying I would be able to ever speak Japanese but it was an interesting way of looking into another language.

I have another set different language by Paul Noble and has been very good.

Unlike most books for Japanese beginners, this one focuses on getting you speaking the language and creating sentences very quickly rather than spending the first 2 weeks or so simply learning the hiragana/ katakana alphabets. This means that initial progress feels pretty quick as you repeat the sentences (which are themselves repeated multiple times) then spend time playing with building blocks to create more sentences to further solidify your learning. What I found interesting is that most of the verbs introduced are in the past tense - not something I'd seen before in a beginner's textbook.

What's good about it is the speed that you start to create sentences of your own and builds your confidence in being able to understand Japanese. However, this approach does boot the hard slog of hiragana/katakana/ kanji memorisation down the road as everything is in romanji. However, the stated aim of the book is to encourage all those who've ever felt "I could never learn Japanese" and show them that they can.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily. I was reviewing an electronic copy but I would strongly recommend getting this book in hard copy due to the teaching style of getting the reader to cover up answers before revealing them.

This is a book for beginners to start learning the Japanese language.

A bit of context - I have been learning Japanese for two years now (very part time) and have done classes/read textbooks. I have to say that this book is not the most helpful to my level, and I think you would have to know at least some Japanese before starting it. The reason is because it doesn't explain grammar structures in any depth, or provide a lot of vocabulary explanation, and uses exemplar sentences on repeat as its teaching method. Though repetition is effective in remembering things, I don't think this book would automatically solidify my knowledge in Japanese and should likely be used alongside much other material to make it fully effective. If this was a way to remember sentence structures and practice what you have learned in another context, then this book would likely be best productive in this way.

I would say it is worth noting the entire book is written in English script (romaji) and doesn't use hiragana/katakana and certainly no kanji, which I found quite disorienting because it jumps straight into things which you would assume require (ordinarily) at least hiragana/katakana knowledge). Also, some of the pronounciation guides are a bit ... wrong? I'll use a single example. 'I ate' in Japanese is tabemashita, normally pronounced <b>ta</b> (like tannoy) - <b>be</b> (like bell) - <b>ma</b> (like Matt) - <b>sh</b> (like shush, <i>the i in shi is silent</i>) - ta. For some reason the pronounciation guide for this word is 'ta-<i>bay</i>-mash-ta'. There were another few words I noticed as I went through which had a similar very 'English-ized' pronounciation, which would make your Japanese speaking sound incredibly unnatural.

I would also recommend reading this in paperback/physical form. The reason is that my ARC was on Kindle and it asks you to cover up the red writing a lot, which I struggled to do effectively on the touch screen. I think this would be much easier in physical format.

Overall a decent revision tool for Japanese beginners, but I personally wouldn't recommend it as an exclusive 'learn Japanese from scratch' book.

<i>I was provided with an advanced reader copy via Netgalley and leave this review voluntarily.</i>

I love Japanese culture,art, history, anime of course manga and literature , so I thought why not try and learn some of the language. This was a great introduction and although I thought it would be scary, this book made it less scary, inviting you in and making things seem clearer, well written and set out this is a great first step into a new language, thanks Paul.

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

I really enjoyed reading unlocking Japanese with Paul noble. I have been wanting to learn Japanese for a long time. It is well written and easy to follow

I have always had a fascination with Japan and Japanese culture and beginning to learn the language seemed an obvious next path ..Paul Noble’s approach is informative, conversational and direct. I enjoyed the way that the sentence and word construction and learning was built up step by step with encouragement to cover up certain colour words to increase the memory .Building up conversational scenarios was a great idea. The direct reader instructions rather like a conversation with a teacher are good with great phonetic support. Obviously learning with others is the best way to develop spoken skills but this feels like a positive start .

Although this book is particularly strange, especially for its lack of standard grammar, I must say that I found it very useful, although I would not recommend it to those who are completely unfamiliar with the Japanese language and especially its alphabets at least syllabic.

Per quanto questo libro sia particolarmente strano, specialmente per la sua assenza di grammatica standard, ma devo dire che mi é servito parecchio, anche se non lo consiglierei a chi é completamente digiuno della lingua giapponese e soprattutto dei suo alfabeti almeno sillabici.

I received from the Publisher a complimentary digital advanced review copy of the book in exchange for a honest review.

Immediately understandable, accessible, and encouraging. I've read and used a lot of language books, and this is definitely one of the stronger ones out there. Worth a look!

I already have Paul Noble’s Essential Japanese in 2 hours audio book. This book is ‘essentially’ the same only in text form. The only difference begin that here you are encouraged to cover the text in red while translating into English or Japanese. It is very repetitive but also very effective. I didn’t get on with the audio version. The English was spoken too slowly, as if English was not my first language. While the Japanese was too fast and I could not always catch the difference between su for tsu example.
Although Japanese written characters are shown, no explanation is given about the Japanese writing system, hiragana, katakana or romani . You are told not to try and memorise anything. That repetition will help you remember. At the end of each chapter is a ‘list’ At the end of the next chapter this list is reprinted with this chapters list. Then everything is printed yet again at the end of the next chapter with the next list added. It does start to get a bit tedious. Is it effective? YES. Does it need to be reprinted again and again and again? NO. It certainly pads the book out.
All that said I did find that by the end I could construct a long and meaning full sentence. So yes it gives you some of the building blocks for Japanese. I guess it’s up to me to widen my Japanese vocabulary. There is an awful lot yet to be covered.
Would I buy the next book in the series? For the Library Yes for myself No.