Japanese From Zero! Review

This is a product review of Japanese from Zero on the travelandjapan.com website.

Company Product Overview

Japanese From Zero! Books 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 set

Proven techniques to learn Japanese

Paperback

Made for students and professionals

Uses up-to-date and easy-to-grasp grammar

Great for beginners to advanced students

• Book 1 –
  • Integrated Workbook with Answer Key
  • Over 800 New Words and Expressions
  • Learn to Read and Write Hiragana
  • Easy-to-Understand Example Dialogues
  • Culture Points about Japan
  • Bilingual Glossaries with Kana and Romaji
• Book 2 –
  • Integrated Workbook with Answer Key
  • Over 800 New Words and Expressions
  • Learn to Read and Write Katakana
  • Easy-to-Understand Example Dialogues
  • Culture Points about Japan
  • Bilingual Glossaries with Kana and Romaji
• Book 3 –
  • Integrated Workbook with Answer Key
  • New grammar concepts
  • Over 1000 New Words and Expressions
  • Learn to Read and Write Kanji
  • Easy-to-Understand Example Dialogues
  • Culture Points about Japan
  • Bilingual Glossaries with Kana, Kanji, and Romaji
• Book 4 –
  • Integrated Workbook with Answer Key
  • Advanced Japanese grammar concepts
  • Over 750 New Words and Expressions
  • Learn to Read and Write Kanji
  • Easy-to-Understand Example Dialogues
  • Culture Points about Japan
  • Bilingual Glossaries with Kana, Kanji, and Romaji
• Book 5 –
  • Integrated Workbook with Answer Key
  • Advanced Japanese grammar concepts
  • All new verbs explained
  • Over 110 New grammar and usage
  • Learn to Read and Write Kanji
  • Easy-to-Understand Example Dialogues
  • Culture Points about Japan
  • Bilingual Glossaries with Kana, Kanji, and Romaji

Review

Product: Japanese From Zero! book set
Book 1 Book 2 Book 3 Book4 Book5
Price: Depends on your needs
Best place to buy: Amazon
Author: George Trombley and Yukari Takenaka
YouTube Channel: Japanese From Zero!
My Rating: 5 out of 5 stars with YouTube videos

Affiliate Disclosure: If you click on an affiliate link on this page and make a purchase you’ll be helping me to bring quality content to the world. See my full disclosure here. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Understanding Japanese

I started to learn Japanese in 2014 when I decided that I wanted to move to Japan but had no idea what I was doing. I tried several programs including an online group with a teacher, an online website, penpals group, apps, and several different books. I couldn’t learn or understand what all of these resources tried to teach me. I learned a few words and phrases but that was it.

I didn’t really understand what I was doing or where to go to start really learning Japanese. I thought about just waiting until I arrived in Japan then going to a school to learn. Then I told myself that I would look once more on Amazon to find something I could learn from.

I found Japanese From Zero!

A Whole New World of Learning

Japanese From Zero! started me out slowly and from the basics. Instead of pushing a bunch of sentences I needed to memorize without telling me why. Japanese From Zero! book 1 started with numbers and moved into grammar and words slowly training me while answering why.

Why do I need to learn like this, why do I use this word there, why is this word in front of this one, why do I need to learn writing, and so on. I finally understood and began to really learn Japanese.

Other resources just told me to learn something without explaining why but Japanese From Zero explained everything.

Reading and Writing Hiragana, Katakana, and Kenji is Integrated

All the other resources I tried and failed to learn from put learning to read and write separately from speaking and didn’t encourage students to learn this part of the language.

Japanese From Zero! fully integrates every part of the Japanese language in every chapter. A student learns not only words and sentences but also reading and writing. All at the same time.

I can’t tell you enough how much this helps with learning. The books don’t make you learn it all at once but gradually. For example, in book one, you start with romaji and replace it with hiragana as you move through the book.

I’m Lost

Sometime I would get lost and didn’t understand something because I was tired or not focused. A few times I misread a question or didn’t quite understand what the question was asking.

Each book has a full answer key in the back to help you. I used this sparingly but it did help me to know what kind of answer the question was asking for. It also helped me correct any wrong answers. I could restudy parts of the chapter so I fully understood the content. Other books I tried to learn from left you on your own to guess if you had the correct answers.

YouTube Channel

Each chapter has a YouTube video associated with it. George makes learning fun and helps you understand the correct pronunciation of words. The video offers an overview of the chapter after the chapter is completed.

I found the videos more helpful by watching them first. George taught me to pronounce difficult words correctly so I wasn’t guessing when I did the chapter. I get frustrated when I mispronounce a word so watching the video first cured this issue.

Final Thoughts

I spent a lot of money on learning Japanese before finding Japanese from Zero! I wish I had all that money back but at least I have some books to keep my bookshelf from falling over.

This book series is easy to use and follow. It combines sentences, words, reading, and writing in each chapter. When you finish the book you not only know how to speak Japanese but read and write Japanese. I haven’t found another study approach that is this integrated.

The chapter videos on YouTube are a fantastic touch and really help smooth out the fine points of the chapter. Pronunciation is so important and George helps you get it right.

If you want to get serious about learning Japanese I recommend the Japanese from Zero! book set. It’s helped me so much that I really can’t say enough about it.

Get your Japanese From Zero! book set here.

Get Japanese From Zero! book 1 here.
Get Japanese From Zero! book 2 here.
Get Japanese From Zero! book 3 here.
Get Japanese From Zero! book 4 here.
Get Japanese From Zero! book 5 here.

---

Do you own this product? Let me know how it’s working for you in the comment section below.

Have questions? Please post in the comment section below so I can help you.