自強街87號

This Sunday, my family and I went to Costco to replenish our daily staple storage. At the book section, I found three good books recommendable for Japanese learning: One is a Japanese-Chinese dictionary, but in a more concise way, namely, with only word forms, and usage examples, which are very helpful for beginners who won't bother to memorize the complicated Japanese idioms, unnecessary difficult 'bungo' (Japanese ancient terms) and fine nuance from masculine modes to female ones confined within only 10,000 entries, catagorized into 4 sections from level 4 to level 1 according to the coming Japanese proficiency test (JPT), very practical and simple.

Another is a brief introduction to everyday useful words in Japan. What very incredible is that the author generates a simple idea to help 'shyushinshya' (beginners) to learn mastering 3000 words for everyday use ONLY if they know how to pronounce the basic 'gojyuon' (the 50 phonetic Japanese characters). Any one who reads the phonetics gets to know the 3000 words, with which he can own a brief grasp over daily Japanese conversation as well as pass easily the JPT Level 4.

The other is a grammar textbook of basic Japanese. As the first one, it is oriented with a view to JPT difficulty levels, from the starters to the advanced, clear and concrete, never lofting speaches. There is always patterns or practice example behind each word list, with explanations if necessary. With this book, one can have a grand overlook of basic and essential Japanese grammar and sentence structures and surely pass the JPT effortlessly.

It is worthy reading these three books no matter if you would like to take any exams of Japanese or simply have interest in oriental foreign language cultures. It is also a pity that one of my strong incentives of writing some good compilations about language learning has almost been vanished for there are nowadays so many EXCELLENT aides for foreign language learners in Taiwan. How lucky we are!

By the way, as a postscript, some attention of learning Japanese has also been arisen in Benson. Maybe he felt a bit surprised and excited as he directly 'witnessed' the literal description in the books only exactly as what he had heard when I demonstrated some Japanese video games for him. Maybe, this is the sprout of learning and the nescence as well as the essence of interactive teaching.