Japanese For Dummies Audio Set

The information on the CD is almost the same like you can find online. But this is very handy on your car with a CD player, so while you driving you can learn the basic Japanese conversation and basic words. It depends how deep you want to learn besides, this is a good refresher course for those who started to learn.

I agree with several of the other reviews of theses CD's and the booklet--good quality and excllent lesson coordination between the booklet and the CD's. I have one major complaint: the booklet clearly states in the Introduction "The CDs also contain MP3 files of all the audio tracks, so you can use your computer to copy the files to your MP3 player and listen to the tracks wherever and whenever you want. We saved you the trouble of converting the files yourself!" There were no MP3 files on these CDs and I had to convert them (I used Switch by NCH) and then edit each title to add the Lesson number. Otherwise I would have rated this product 5 stars.

Awesome tool I learn at my own pace. Listen daily home and traveling.

Great review to the book while riding in the car. I wish I could download this to my MP3 player so I could listen when I walking or riding my bike.

It's not very comprehensive. I've also read the Japanese for dummies book and some of the material is repeated here. The booklet says that the CD's contain mp3's of each lesson to save you from ripping the CD's yourself, but my copy had no mp3's. The booklet contains more detailed descriptions of what you're listening to on the audio, which makes it less of an audio program in my opinion. Some of the essential words that you must know include, apple, pig... ???Overall I did learn a thing or two, and that is what counts even though I could have used a few more examples and better explanations of certain things.

I didn't realize how difficult the Japanese language is. In English, a single word could just be 1- syllable long. In Japanese, a single word could be 4-5 syllables long. As a senior, there's no way I can memorize new words even for simple conversations. Nothing to do with the book or CD but it's just sitting on the floor now.

I got this for my 12 year old daughter and she loves it. It may not be as good as Rosetta Stone, but it sure is budget freindly. The CD's let you hear the words and the booklet was insightful.

This may be purely personal, but this audio only works if it can be used concurrently with the book. The enunciation (pronunciation?) of the speaker is not clear enough without seeing whether he is saying "p," "t," "me," etc. It might be a good refresher for someone already familiar with the language. I have learned a few words, but am looking for something else to help with sentences.

I bought this about a month before going to Japan. Too late to learn anything I hear you say? No... not at all, by constantly listening to it on the way to work every day (2hrs each day), I was soon mastering the basics. Without this I'd have had some real trouble on my trip, with it I manged to master the basics, and grasp the pronunciation, so even though I might not have been able to recall the correct phrase when confronted with a real life situation, I could at least pronounce it correctly when I looked it up in the handy book.The only fault I'd give the CDs is that it would be handy to have split the CD tracks by word/phrase, rather than section of the book to aid skipping back and forth in the car, but then that's more a limitation of my car stereo than a real flaw with the CD.

Easy to use - just pop it in your cd player and listen on the way to work. In no time I had grasped the basics. The accompanying phrase book is really handy for when you’re on holiday as well.

It does exactly what it says on the tin, namely try to teach you some very basic Japanese vocabulary and expressions. Bear in mind that this is not a real language course though: it doesn't do a very good job at explaining language structure for instance, which means that you will be able to repeat "ready-made" sentences but not build many of your own.

Learning basic Japanese that helps as would love to go visit there someday. Great hearing clear speech and can listen along and repeat as much as I like. I think Audio Set good idea and goes along with other resources like general phrase books etc you can get.

Poor! The chosen phrases are over complex & not things you need when as a beginner eg. "I would like to open a savings account". The translations are not accurate "I would like to buy a ticket please" is translated into japanese as "This ticket please" and in other situations a simple English phrase is made more complex in the japanese translation so you cannot work out which words relate. It does not build up and is a random selection of words & information. DOnt bother with this one.