In the 22 years since its publication, Japanese for Busy People has won acclaim worldwide as an effective, easy-to-understand textbook, either for classroom use or for independent study. Now, in its first revision in more than a decade, the series is being redesigned, updated, and consolidated to meet the needs of today's students and businesspeople who want to learn natural, spoken Japanese as effectively as possible in a limited amount of time.

"Survival Japanese for Adults," as the book might be called, gets to the heart of the language without recourse to childish or classroom-only Japanese. Ideal for those whose aim is a working knowledge of the spoken language, it presents only the minimum amount of Japanese needed to get by on a daily basis in Japan. To reduce the burden on busy learners, vocabulary and grammar heve been limited to about a third of that typically introduced in beginner courses, and emphasis is given to words and sentence patterns that the learner will find immediately useful.

This Kana Version has been adapted and redesigned to reflect current thinking on Japanese-as-a-second-language education. Romanized Japanese, often criticized as being the main obstacle to accurate and fluent pronunciation of the spoken language, has been omitted in favor of native hiragana and katakana scripts. Learning kana from the very beginning will also facilitate a smooth and fast transition to kanji study.

The Japanese for Busy People series has been prepared under the guidance of a working group of experienced language instructors who reviewed and tested the material in their classrooms.

This first volume of Japanese for Busy People: Revised 3rd Edition includes:
A unit structure whereby thematically linked lessons are grouped together to make learning Japanese easier than ever
Expanded exercises that go beyond substitution drills and get students speaking Japanese right away
A 70-minute CD that contains recordings of dialogues and exercises from the text
Over 340 illustrations to make the learning process both fun and effective
Notes about Japanese culture

Written by the Association for Japanese-Language Teaching (AJALT).