On the previous post, I have read the book Cool Japan Guide, and today I’m going to introduce four more interesting Japanese related books, published by Tuttle Publishing.
These four books are: “Making out in Japanese”, “Cool Japan Guide ~Fun in the land of manga, lucky cats and ramen~”, “Japanese Kanji Made Easy: Learn 1000 kanji and kana the fun and easy way” and “Japanese Design: Art, Aesthetics & Culture”. Without further ado, continue reading to find out more about them!
Making Out In Japanese
- Author: Todd Geers and Erika Hoburg. Revised by Elisha Geers
- Published Date: September 2, 2014
- Useful for: Learning casual Japanese that can be used with friends in many situations
Perhaps the most interesting and intriguing title of them all, “Making Out in Japanese” is not your typical learn Japanese book. This book is intended to teach you useful expressions that you can use in many situations in your daily life, especially with close friends. The expressions are mostly casual, or “タメ口 (tameguchi)” in Japanese. The phrases in this book are absolutely not suitable when talking to someone elder than you, and also during formal situations.
However, this book is particularly useful to show off your language skill when talking with friends, and is packed with many expressions that you won’t see in Japanese textbooks you study in language schools. It has total of 15 chapters, covering different situations from eating out, expressing feelings and emotion, conversation starter, cracking rude words to when having sexy time. You would probably find the phrases in this book familiar because it was being used frequently in dramas and animes.
Originally printed in 1988, this book now has been revised and updated to cater to more modern context and this third edition that I’m reading was printed in 2014. You should definitely check this book out if you want to widen your Japanese language knowledge other than what you can learn in your normal Japanese textbooks.
Buy Making Out In Japanese
Cool Japan Guide ~Fun in the land of manga, lucky cats and ramen~
- Author: Abby Denson
- Published Date: March 10, 2015
- Useful for: Travellers who want to travel to Japan free-and-easy
Release in March 2015, dive into the wonderful world of Japan with the author Abby Denson, a comic book artist and regular visitor to Japan, where she transfer her experience traveling across Japan into this book with easy to digest travel guide in comic book style.
This book is suitable for readers who want to travel to Japan but has no or little knowledge about Japan. The book started with the essential stuff that you should prepare prior to the travel date. And then slowly following her to the airport and arriving in Japan. It’s very friendly and fun experience reading this comic book and you feel like you are really traveling with her.
Travel along with Abby from Tokyo to Nara, as she illustrates her fun experience traveling Japan. Besides that, this book also equips with useful resources that you should visit or use in order to “survive” in Japan.
If you would like to travel to Japan alone or with friends in free-and-easy way, and planning to homestay with the local instead of booking a hotel, definitely you should read this book!
Buy Cool Japan Guide ~Fun in the land of manga, lucky cats and ramen~
Japanese Kanji Made Easy: Learn 1000 kanji and kana the fun and easy way
- Author: Michael L. Kluemper
- Published date: 28, April 2015
- Useful for: Japanese language students who want to learn kanji
Kanji is the Japanese characters that was originated from the ancient Chinese, and in order to master Japanese language, students must be able to read and write kanji characters. But for many, learning kanji is no easy task. This book was intended to teach you kanji characters in a fun and easy way.
The unique selling point of this kanji learning book is that each of the character, was accompanied by illustrations and story to make you memorise the character better. Besides that, it also has meaning explanation in English, together with pronunciation and also sample vocabularies associated with the kanji. For example, the character “人”, it’s like a human standing on both legs.
To make this book even useful, a CD was also attached to the back of the book featuring pronunciation of each kanji character by the native Japanese speaker.
If you are struggling with learning kanji, I think you should give this book a try, so that you can learn kanji the fun and easy way, and amaze your classmate with your kanji learning method!
Buy Japanese Kanji Made Easy: Learn 1000 kanji and kana the fun and easy way
Japanese Design: Art, Aesthetics & Culture
- Author: Patricia J. Graham
- Published Date: September 30, 2014
- Suitable for: Reader who likes to know about Japanese traditional arts
Japan is a country with rich history and their art, design and culture has been inherited till the modern day and still amaze the world on how beautiful, unique and aesthetically pleasing.
Focus on the traditional aspects of Japanese design, take a time travel back to the old Japan with this book to learn about the Japanese architecture that are so zen and well attuned to the surrounding nature, and also paintings, handcrafted pieces, costume, dance and more.
Patricia has done a great job in explaining the important keywords in Japanese Designs, and talks about other elements that influenced the art and also how the Japanese art got spread to the world. Accompany with beautifully printed images of the arts, definitely this book will make you appreciate Japanese art and design more!
Buy Japanese Design: Art, Aesthetics & Culture
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