Contemporary Japanese Textbook Volume 2: An Introductory Language Course

by Eriko Sato

Contemporary Japanese is a textbook series for beginning students of Japanese at the college or high school level. It is intended for classroom use as well as self-study.

Each lesson in the books is very short--meant to be covered in just an hour--and has a single, clearly-defined objective. All lessons make use of the "active discovery" approach which encourages rapid learning through "guess and try" problem-solving and participation as opposed to rote memorization. This highly effective method uses real-life conversations that make learning fun by involving you in a conversation with your peers. It also removes the fear of saying something wrong!

This book, the second volume in the series, contains 45 short lessons grouped into 12 chapters--each of which presents a wide variety of activities and exercises and yet is designed to be covered in a single session. This "daily multivitamin" approach to language learning makes it easy to track your progress and to review later! Free online audio files can be downloaded, providing native speaker recordings and giving correct pronunciations for the dialogs and vocabulary in each lesson.

In this book you'll learn more about:
Kanji and their meanings
Japanese verb forms
Comparison and stating preferences
Using common set phrases and making requests
Evaluating facts and expressing opinions
Sightseeing, food cravings and tastes
Insights into Japanese culture

Accompanying the textbook is Contemporary Japanese Workbook Volume 2--it serves as a supplementary material as well as a standalone comprehensive workbook for practicing and reviewing the language.

256 pages, Paperback

Published August 4, 2020

About the author

Eriko Sato, Ph.D is Assistant Professor of Japanese Linguistics and Pedagogy in the Department of Asian and Asian American Studies at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Sato's research interests include Japanese linguistics and pedagogy, translation studies, and second language acquisition. In addition to several journal articles in these research areas, Sato published a number of Japanese textbooks and grammar/kanji reference books. Sato serves as the advisor for Teacher Certification Program for Japanese, the Executive Committee Chair for the Japan Center at Stony Brook and the Director of the Pre-College Japanese Program.