General Course Books

Materials for short termers

1. 'Nihongo Hajimete'

This is A B5 sized 24 page booklet in both kana and romaji produced by experienced teacher, Ms Kaoru Shimada It is attractively produced with color illustrations and is good for short termers with only a few hours for study.

2. Survival Japanese (40 hour course)

An introductory course produced at the OMF Japanese Language Center and geared in its topics and vocabulary towards short termers in church planting situations. Topics covered include introducing oneself, shopping (how much?), what's this?, the days of the week, basic verb forms, requests etc. The Hiragana version assumes that the short termer has learnt or is learning hiragana and katakana alongside the 40 hour course.The romanized version is for those not planning to learn hiragana and katakana. Samples from the course can be downloaded. Contact Miriam Davis at la@omf.or.jp to order the full course by e mail.

Some suggestions for continuing study after the 40 hour or other short course are as follows:

a. ‘Hajime no ippo’ （はじめのいっぽ）’First Steps in Japanese’ by Surieenettowaaku スリーエーネットワーク　2,233 yenplus tape. For those with a very keen desire to continue studying.

b. ‘Japanese in 45 hours’ by Senmon Kyoiku Shuppan （専門教育出版） – main text 1,300 yen, workbook 1,200 yen, Notes and translation 1,800 yen. (There is no accompanying tape.) This is a slighter easier option than a.

c. Free Japanese language classes taught by volunteers. We recommend that short termers make use of volunteer classes wherever possible. In the major cities there are many volunteer groups offering classes at different times of the day and sometimes several days a week. Please contact Miriam Davis for further information.

NB. Japanese learners with a background in Korean or Chinese or those with some knowledge of Japanese already may prefer the option of beginning straight away with the beginner texts being used with longer term missionaries such as ‘Minna no Nihongo’ 　（みんなの日本語）. You can find the introduction to this under ‘General Course Books – Beginners’ on this website.