Japanese from Zero! 4: Proven Techniques to Learn Japanese

Book 4 continues teaching new grammar concepts, gives new vocabulary and continues kanji. Everything here is great stuff which is really handy to start applying to your Japanese skills and as with all of George's books the pace is great and keeps the learner engaged and wanting to keep going and not giving up halfway through a book due to constant boring lessons (i'm sure most people have come across at least one book like that right?) so highly recommend this book if you've finished with parts 1, 2 and 3. Also one thing I will add about the Japanese From Zero series is that there are some very fun and amusing example sentences and conversations for you to translate and whatnot in there which is a great touch. Look forward to the next Japanese from Zero book, part 5! Whenever it gets finished. ;)

A fantastically paced workbook with a great break down of intermediate level Japanese grammar. The integrated kanji study is also really helpful and introduced just gradually enough to stick with you and make you feel like you are constantly making progress. With the amount of grammar concepts covered it's also really great value for money, it's a huge book. The pages aren't overloaded with info which also really helps to not feel overwhelmed and lose motivation.

Very good, will actually help you learn Japanese. If you want to furthur your Japanese study and begin learning kanji this book 3 is the best place to start and book 4 is a very good follow on. Repurchased twice when I first started out to make sure I remembered it all and for a refresher.

I ordered this book as a set of 4 in the "from zero" series. All 4 books arrived ahead of the estimated delivery date. I've read book 1 & 2 when in England at my local library so thought I'd buy them for my time in Japan. They were all delivered in perfect condition without a hitch. The books are written in a way I find easy to progress through without peripheral information to muddy the waters of retention and memory recall. There's progressive Kana studies too and the lessons in the book can be applied in real life terms immediately in Japan.

I have been self studying Japanese for a while now and I started with Japanese from zero 3 which I had covered most in other books though it did have a different approach and it acted as a good refresher for me. book four is good and has more lessons and is much thicker than three. it does have a good structure and is very good for self study and as a text book for class study.

This is the first book from the series I bought after having watched plenty of videos on the JFZ Youtube channel. I'm amazed by the amount of content you get for the price. It's clearly structured with simple explanations, includes useful vocabulary and exercises to practise with. I like especially the verb usage section. The only thing I'm not happy with is the inconsistency of using kanji, especially ones that should already be known. (I can recognise words faster when I see the kanji), but overall it's definitely worth the money!

I have all 4 book ..I didn't yet reach the 4th one but I am writing this review on this one just to say that the are really helpful, easy to understand and easy to follow.. I know this review is not really helpful, but if you have the others three you will understand (I hope).

Nice Christmas present for someone who had the earlier books. Great to follow the book with the YouTube videos

Es más grande de lo que imaginaba, y vino en perfecto estado

Took me almost 2 years to finish the fourth one finally but after doing it, I can say with certainty that the book is really good just like the previous 3. The most glaring issue would probably the very repetitive exercises, especially with the translation one which I had personally felt unnecessary and skipped it and the huge amount of typos.

Studio giapponese da autodidatta da un paio di anni ormai, ho provato diversi libri (italiani e non) e stavo quasi per mollare perché non riuscivo ad apprendere bene i concetti, trovavo le spiegazioni molto complicate e incomplete e mi stavo scoraggiando, quando un giorno per caso ho trovato il primo volume di questo libro. Ho deciso di acquistarlo e dargli una possibilità e devo dire che sono felice di averlo fatto perché questo libro è assolutamente il migliore su cui io abbia mai studiato. Se non lo avessi acquistato probabilmente ora avrei mollato questa passione per la lingua giapponese. Nonostante sia in inglese è comprensibilissimo e le spiegazioni sono fatte molto bene, a differenza di molti altri libri di testo che spiegano le cose in modo un po' approssimativo lasciando mille dubbi allo studente. L'ho trovato talmente prezioso che ho acquistato tutti i volumi di questa serie e se state iniziando a studiare questa lingua partendo davvero da zero ve lo consiglio vivamente! L'ho trovato interessante, piacevole e ricco di nozioni.

This is a great book for learning Japanese. I downloaded this book on Amazon Japan. This did not work on my US IPAD. I had to download the books again on Amazon USA.

This entire series of books has been invaluable in my goal of learning Japanese despite having little interaction with native speakers of the language. Its greatest strength is the many, many examples of sentences for each grammatical point. Sure, one can memorize rules, but you need examples on top of examples to get a feel for the language, especially on things like the ga/wa distinction and sentence-ending particles, which are second nature to someone for whom Japanese is their first language but are tough for English speakers because our language has no equivalents. Repetition and examples are also plentiful for the kanji characters -- by the end of this book you will be able to write 160 kanji and should recognize quite a few more when used in common words. The only caveat I have, which gets worse as you go along in the series and the grammar gets more sophisticated, is that it doesn't explain the logic underlying grammar rules. It took me a long time to realize that the fact some verbs could take an object with a "wo" particle while others only the subject "ga" particle or a target with the "ni" particle was not arbitrary but based on whether the verb was transitive or intransitive (there seem to be are a lot more of the latter in Japanese than in English). These books don't even use the term intransitive if I recall correctly. Similarly, the student would be better served if the book used more literal translations, like in Tae Kim's guide. Getting from the Japanese sentence to the English translation shown in the book can be a head-scratcher sometimes. This is particularly true, and this has become more of a problem in book 4, where the sentence requires understanding a grammar point that the series hasn't covered yet! For example, many Japanese particles do double-, triple -, quadruple duty, meaning different things in different clauses or in combination with other particles. Sometimes a sentence in the book, though, will use a particle you've learned but in a way you haven't learned. Many times I've had to consult the book Essential Japanese Grammar to figure out something that this book is neglecting to tell me. Without another grammar book (and a dictionary) I suspect I would be quite frustrated at times. A grammar reference book is also needed because the format of this book, which is meant to be user-friendly to a student (a younger person than me, I'm assuming), makes it inconvenient as a reference work. Despite all this carping, I can't give it less than 5 stars, simply because the sheer volume of material presented at a nice pace makes this series the primary resource for a beginner like myself.