24/04/2026
Teaching Japanese brings me so much joy! Today, I had a lesson where we read the first few pages of my book "Reading Japanese for Beginners."
The student had some experience with studying Japanese from a long time ago, so they struggled a little with the first few sentences. But reading through the vocabulary list first and me explaining the background of the words to them, like what はじめまして hajimemash*te (usually translated as "nice to meet you") really means or the kanji of しゃしん 写真 picture/photo, they were like, I have come across these words before, but now, with your explanations, it's so much easier to remember!
They also told me they bought some children's books but couldn't really make much sense out of them.
Today, with the first story in the book, they could finally understand not only single words/sentences, but a whole story.
That's the reason why I wrote this book!
It's for everyone who can already read hiragana and katakana. The additional material does include a romaji version, but it's designed for people who want to practice their kana knowledge and learn new vocabulary and basic grammar.
The introductory section starts with a grammar overview, including all particles, basic knowledge about Japanese sentence structure and verbs (tenses and negation).
Here's a review from a student who started studying Japanese from scratch with me:
I can't believe what a confidence boost this book was for me. When Manu-Sensei asked me if I could read the first page, I thought: hell no I can't read this, it's in Japanese! But not only was I able to read it phonetically with my knowledge of Hiragana and Katakana, I could actually understand what it meant thanks to the clear and simple explanations.
Here's the link to amazon Canada, but it's available on all amazon marketplaces
https://www.amazon.ca/Reading-Japanese-Beginners-Vocabulary-Structure/dp/B0DV4NQ3YF
US:
https://www.amazon.com/Reading-Japanese-Beginners-Vocabulary-Structure/dp/B0DV4NQ3YF/
UK:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Reading-Japanese-Beginners-Vocabulary-Structure/dp/B0DV4NQ3YF
