[Japanese textbook]テーマ別中級から学ぶ日本語

I haven’t finished the book, I am at the beginning actually(hadn’t had enough time), but I read few chapters and tried to do the tasks in my head. I figured out the book enough to write my opinion. I’m not calling it review because I can’t write reviews 😀

Post under cut.

1.Inside the book.

The thin book consists of 25 chapters following the same structure.

Each chapter starts with new words followed by いっしょに考えましょう, topics to think and talk about that introduce the topic of following text.

After the text there are tasks.
答えましょう are questions from the text to check if you understood it.
使いましょう are tasks from 3 to 5 grammar points.
まとめましょう this one is tricky. It says to enter underlined words(there are some underlined phrases in the exercises, maybe those). To finish the text.

話しましょう A part gives a short text. You should read it and talk about it and talk in the topic given in B part.
書きましょう – I’m guessing it’s to conjugate given words and change phrases or create sentences according to the given sample.

The entire book is written in Japanese. My first impression was that I could use this single book proved wrong. There are no grammar explanations for grammar points which is where your grammar dictionary comes handy. This is when I realized the truth that this book isn’t suited for self-learners. Speaking tasks for classroom, teacher should explain the tasks and teacher should teach the grammar points. And no answers in the end of the book. Should I throw book out? No. I’m going to study with it my way making the best of it.

2.How self-taught can use it

• turn the speaking tasks into writing and practice thinking in Japanese, then get it checked on lang-8.
• put your grammar and vocabulary dictionaries to use.

3.Pros and cons

Pros:

• Suited for intermediate students. Texts and exercises get longer.
• Interesting texts and exercises. N3 vocabulary.
• Challenging.
• Light-weighted.

Cons:

• More suited for classroom-studying.
• No English translations/explanations.
• No grammar explanations.
• No exercise answers.
• No listening tasks.

I bought in on Amazon.jp. There is a advanced book, too.