quick route to a bit of Japanese

[Language Guy]

da jia hao,

For various reasons, I'm exposed to the Japanese language more frequently than most people, and I've decided that I need to be able to understand a bit of it. I'm looking for a resource, if anyone knows of one, that can help me begin to build a rudimentary comprehension of the langauge.

I don't need to be able to write or read it (yet), so a resources that uses mostly romanji would be great. I basically need to become familiar with sentence structure/grammar, and various vocabulary (nouns/verbs), so that I can begin to pick out familiar words from setences that I hear.

I'm not looking for any sort of academic resource. Something like "Japanese for Dummies" would do just fine. I was just wondering if anyone knows of a book, if it even exists, that teaches a moderately shallow survey of the language using mostly romanji?

Thanks guys.

[atitarev]

These are quite good, all come with CD's and mainly in Romaji (may expose to some kanji, sorry but you don't to know them to read the text ):

Teach Yourself Japanese

Teach Yourself Beginners' Japanese

Colloquial Japanese

It's Romaji or Rōma-ji, not Romanji (ローマ字) - "Roma letters", not "Roman letters" (Roma is Italian for Rome)

Compare with Chinese: 罗马字 / 羅馬字 Luómǎ-zì - Roman letters

罗马 - Rome (from Italian Roma)

[skylee]

Would this website be helpful? -> http://www.learn-japanese.info/

[Language Guy]

Thanks you two!

I am already enjoying the website's grammar lessons, and my "Colloquial Japanese" is in the mail.

[atitarev]

You're welcome, I recommend to learn the 2 syllabaries and some Kanji.

For more serious learners I would recommend

Genki 1: An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese 1　(元気　- げんき - health, healthy)

and

Genki 2: An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese 2

and of course, "Minna-no Nihongo" (皆の日本語) (meaning "Everyone's Japanese")

One feature I don't like about many Japanese textbooks: Japanese textbooks in general are far more lenient and slow-going as far as the Kanji's are concerned. They introduce in details (with stroke orders, multiple readings) a few characters but not each character introduced in texts and exercises. Well, they are much easier from the Westrerners' point of view. Phonetic guides (Hiragana on top of Kanji) are used throughout.

So, Genki only actively introduces about 450 characters in both volumes. It doesn't mean the vocabulary is low.

So, although these textbooks are more serious than in my 1st post, you don't need to master Kanji to use them. It's sufficient to learn Hiragana and Katakana, highly recommended if you learn Japanese and not too hard.