This best-selling Japanese language textbook has brought basic fluency in Japanese to thousands in the US & beyond Basic Japanese is a user-friendly guide for beginners designed for use in a classroom or for self-study It adopts a very different approach from other Japanese language books teaching you the underlying sentence structures & patterns of Japanese along with key vocabulary & phrases so you can attain basic fluency quickly The emphasis is on acquiring a working knowledge of simple everyday Japanese sentences This new edition has been thoroughly updated & expanded to reflect the way Japanese is actually spoken in Japan today Manga illustrations have been added for each dialogue along with the latest jargon for Internet social media cellphones & IT & a bidirectional dictionary is included at the back Each self-contained lesson is designed to ease learners into new material through a simple four-step method Basic Sentences Each lesson begins with a few simple sentences Key vocabulary & phrases are learned within the context of these sentences Audio recordings by native speakers are in the free CD-ROM in the book Communication Notes A detailed discussion of each sentence follows to assist you in understanding the underlying structure & how to form new sentences based on the same pattern Everyday Conversations authentic dialogues with manga illustrations & native-speaker recordings show you how people communicate naturally in Japan today through simple everyday interactions Exercises Several sets of easy exercises help reinforce your understanding of the key points presented in the lesson & review what you have learned so you can move on to the next lesson Two accomplished teachers have teamed up to revise this work to make learning Japanese manageable practical & fun!