Rating: 
Summary: CD-ROM is a must-have but flakey on Windows 98
Review: If you are using Japanese: The Spoken Language as a text in first-year Japanese you should buy this CD-ROM. Unfortunately it doesn't work very well on my Gateway 500Mhz Pentium III with 128Meg running Windows 98. I was able to get the chapters to run on my machine only by copying all the files onto my harddisk. It is worth owning just to have the video, which you can run with transcripts in romanji or English - definitely a great aid to memorization. The primitive interactive features where you can supposedly play the part of one of the actors hardly worked at all. This may have been a Mac application ported to Windows 3.1. You should definitely buy this CD-ROM but be forewarned that you may need to do some creative hacking to get it to run on Windows 98.
Rating:
Summary: Listen closely to the tapes and they whisper "update me!"
Review: It's a shame to see so many people rejecting texts simply on the basis of them being written in romaaji. Now, I'm not here to champion romaaji, and personally I think a kana based text is better *all other things being equal* but some of the warnings about the dangers of using romaaji border on hysteria. We are told it's a dangerous crutch, that it will forever cripple our ability to read Japanese, etc. This must all come as a great surprise to the generations of people now fluent and literate in the language and who began learning with romaaji! Yes, if you use romaaji as a guide to pronunciation you will have problems- but anyone who does that isn't using this text (or didn't bother to use it as directed). In addition, my lawyer assures me that there is no law against doing as the author suggests and using additional materials to learn how to read and write Japanese- so there you go. If you can accept the proposition that using a romaaji based text is not going to cause your brain to whither, then you can proceed to consider the text on the basis of it's content and methodology. If not- then you can now make your negative rating of this review and be on your way.
The explanations of grammar are consistently of a very high standard and in some cases simply superb. You don't have to take my word for it- as another reviewer noted, JSL is referenced in "The Structure of the Japanese Language" by Susumu Kuno, it is also referenced by Jay Rubin, in his much acclaimed "Making sense of Japanese" wherein he describes it as an "excellent text" and refers the reader to it for further information on at least a couple of occasions. Furthermore the predecessor to JSL, "Beginning Japanese", is referenced in Makino and Tsutsui's classic "A dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar".
I'll provide just two examples of the approach to grammar taken in this text. First off- go and look through some introductory texts and find the first Japanese sentence presented. With depressing frequency the first sentence will be something along the lines of "watashi wa tanaka desu". Shortly afterwards we are presented with a sentence containing the particle "ga" and all too many students absorb the unintended lesson that "all utterances must have a wa or a ga (or sometimes both)" and the attendant difficulties in knowing when to use which of them begin. In JSL, however, the first 3 chapters contain a great many perfectly good Japanese sentences- and not a wa or ga anywhere to be seen. The advantage of this is that when wa and ga are introduced the learner can clearly see what effect their introduction has on the sentence. "wa" isn't just something that just HAS to be there- it has particular effects- if those effects are what you want to communicate- then you use it, otherwise you don't. Of course the same applies to ga.
The second example relates to the "particle" "node". This is usually treated as a single unit- a practice that introduces apparent random variations in the use of the particle (e.g for nouns you must place "na" before "node"). However, JSL treats node more correctly as a particular case of a more widely occurring phenomenon in which "no" (often abbreviated to "n") makes some shared non-linguistic knowledge the subject of the sentence. From this perspective the particle "node" not only makes more sense, but the requirement of following nouns with "na" also makes perfect sense. Another "mystery" of the language dispelled.
Patient and thorough reading of this text will be rewarded. Some people have suggested it is difficult to read- but unless you have thus far limited yourself to "books for the younger reader" you should not have any problems beyond perhaps (gasp horror!) re-reading some passages.
Another great strength of the JSL series is the audio drills. These are not simply hear and repeat exercises, rather they require a degree of manipulation of what you hear in order to provide an appropriate response. For example, you may
need to give the negative form of an adjective or a particular verb inflection, and all within the context of a brief conversational exchange.
I would also like to respond to some of the comments from past reviewers.
One reviewer below states that:
"Japanese is a phonetic language: what you see is what you say. All you have to do is learn the basic phonemes (syllables) as represented by hiragana and katakana, and you are on your way to reading and speaking Japanese."
This would be amusing if not for the potential for people to see this and believe it.
Here are different words "ame" and "ame" ("‚ ‚ß" and "‚ ‚ß") One of them means "rain" and the other means candy. They are written identically in hiragana- but are not the same when spoken. Or how about "hashi", "hashi" and "hashi" (‚Í‚µ@‚Í‚µ@and ‚Í‚µ)? The system of rendering sounds employed in the text alerts you to these differences. If you ignore them and just "say what you see", then your Japanese will sound- well- absurd. Now , it is at this point that many a student protests "but they can understand me from the context!" Well yes often
that's true. In the same way that when some Japanese people say
they "want to eat some lice" you understand that what they really mean is that they want to eat some "rice". If that's the sort of level to which you aspire then good luck to you. The text also takes care to point aout instances where the pronounciation (not just the accent) differs from what the kana would suggest.
A number of people have complained of or noted a lack of cultural insights in the text. It is true that there are no potted accounts of Obon or Japanese weddings etc- complete with dinky little cartoons. Well those are nice I guess, but they can be found elsewhere. Instead, there are a very carefully explained cultural insights that are tied to the use of the Japanese language. One example is that of the in-group out-group
distinction. Most, if not all texts, note this, but few make it quite so clear how important it is to your use of Japanese, or explain it so well. The fact that many students just don't appreciate this aspect of Japanese is revealed in some of the comments related to the text's treatment of polite Japanese. Being a non-Japanese in Japan you will be speaking to members of out-groups most of the time. That means many people will speak to you more politely than you probably expect. A common complaint by foreigners with some Japanese ability is "I can't understand what people say because they speak too politely!". Consequently the Japanese interlocutor has to use progressively less polite phrases until you do understand. Now, even if you don't have the decency to be embarrassed by that, there is every
chance the other person will be. It's understandable if someone finds
themselves in that situation because they never had the chance to be
exposed to polite language- but to actually make the conscious decision
to put yourself in that situation and whine about it when a text tries to
educate you? If it was trying to teach you the correct forms for addressing members of the Imperial family, then you'd have a point, but this is simply stuff that you will at least hear.
So what are the bad points?
It is a little dated in parts- mainly in some of the vocabulary items, but by far the biggest problem is the poor quality of the cassettes. The versions put out by Kodansha seem to be better, but the ones from Cheng and Tsui are very very poor. The physical quality of the tapes is bad (they seem to have used the cheapest they could get)@and the recording quality ranges from poor to almost unusable at times. There is also a section of drills which has been edited out presumably because there was not enough room on the tape! These points could be addressed in an up-dated edition. The option od a version incorporating kana (with appropriate indications of accent) would also be a welcome addition.
Rating: 
Summary: This series should have been so much better
Review: It's obvious that Ms. Jorden and Ms. Noda know their stuff. The explanations that went along with the core conversations and grammar notes were enlightening, if a little complicated (especially the grammar notes). In addition, the markings provided to help out with pronunciation were very helpful.Unfortunately, the good points are overwhelmed by the bad. *Vocabulary- I found the amount of vocabulary learned in the series to be terribly lacking. Learning vocabulary seemed to be way behind grammar structures in priority given by the authors. Without a substantial vocabulary, however, learning all of those grammar structures is like putting the cart before the horse. *Romaji- Romaji is used very rarely in Japan. And when it is used, the system used is not the system that JSL teaches. Sure, the JSL's system might be more linguistically accurate, but I for one can't bring myself to say (with a straight face) that the tallest mountain in Japan is Mt. "Huzi". *No self-checks- If you are trying to learn Japanese on your own, DO NOT USE THIS SERIES. I highly recommend "Japanese For Everyone," I used it before going to Japan and felt ahead of the game when I arrived in Japan for a year as an exchange student. I've also heard good things about the Yokoso series. *Lack of Writing Emphasis- I hate romaji. Learning to read it is a nearly worthless skill. Why JSL insists on using it is beyond me. There are separate books (2 I believe) called "Japanese the Written Language" but those books are so lacking that they make the JSL series look good. I used the JSL and JWL series in college after a year in Japan and found it alarming at how limited the reading and writing abilities of my classmates who had learned Japanese just through JSL and JWL was. It goes without saying, literacy is a big part of fluency. *It's boring- Learning a language should be fun. Bridging cultural differances, expanding ones own intellectual abilities ... I can think of few things as stimulating and exciting. Another reviewer compared JSL3 to a chemistry book, but quite frankly I'd rather read the Chemistry book. There is no reason why the serious learner of Japanese should not enjoy what he or she is doing. In fact, if you aren't having fun, you're probably wasting your time. A final word: if you're reading this review, chances are you're interested in learning Japanese or are a student of Japanese like me. I love the Japanese language. No, it's not easy. Yes, it is a never-ending challenge. But you should be having a lot of fun while you're at it. I simply cannot recommend JSL when there are so many better options out there. Do not waste your time or money on this series.
Rating:
Summary: A mistunderstood book that makes a good intro to Japanese
Review: Japanese: The Spoken Language is an introductory spoken Japanese text which is highly misunderstood by many learners. Jorden's approach to teaching Japanese is a highly specialized (some say obsolete) method which requires diligence and above all understanding her method (teachers who understand the method are even better). To respond to some of the specific criticisms of the book in other reviews: The use of romaji should not pose a problem. As Jorden says in the introduction, the romaji only serve to remind you of what you have heard, "and heard many, many times." It is true that romaji do not help you pronounce Japanese, but neither do kana -- the only way to truly know how to pronounce a Japanese word or sentence is to listen to a native speaker say it and then repeat after the native speaker. The romaji only serve as a reference point to discuss the grammar in the book, it is *not* intended to teach you Japanese pronunciation. You are not supposed to learn the Japanese from the romaji transcriptions in the textbook. The emphasis on memorization of core conversations is another feature of Jorden's method. Jorden's method is that you should first memorize how to say something (know what the English translation of what you are saying is), and then look at the grammar notes to know how to form sentences of that type. This is because when you are forming a sentence in spoken Japanese, you should not be thinking of the grammar rules that form what you are saying, rather the grammatical patterns should be internalized so that you can think about what you are saying rather than how to say it. When native speakers speak Japanese they do not think about grammar rules. Another feature is highly repetitive drills. This, again, is the emphasis on internalizing the grammar and making it automatic rather than relying on rules to form sentences. Finally, it works on the idea that a good oral foundation is necessary to learn to read. This is why the book does not contain any characters. If you want to learn to read Japanese, that requires a different approach. Simply seeing the vocabulary items and core conversations written out in Japanese characters does not go a long way towards helping you read -- for that you need a specialized reading text like Japanese: The Written Language, Basic Kanji Book, or Japanese: A Manual of Reading and Writing. To close this section of the review, the idea that romaji use will permanently cripple your Japanese is unfounded. I began with Japanese: The Spoken Language, and I have progressed just fine to an upper intermediate level of reading (about 1600 kanji at this point). This happened despite the fact that I didn't even learn kana until the second semester of my Japanese study. There are some problems with this series, though:
1. Too much emphasis on keigo and business Japanese. This is particularly bad in volume 3, but even in volume 1 you find that the polite language is introduced before plain form. Most students will find that their primary use of Japanese is either talking to foreign students at their own university, or talking to a host family and other college students if they study abroad in Japan. Neither of these situations are conducive to super-polite Japanese. 2. It can get a bit boring with the endless repetitive drills. This probably is the best way to learn fluent, automatic Japanese, but it's not very interesting. 3. The grammar explanations can be a bit dense -- they're written at a high linguistic level and Jorden goes out of her way to avoid relating things to closely to English grammar (i.e. calling something a "noun" or a "verb"). Despite this I think that volume 1 is a good introductory text and if you really follow Jorden's method carefully you will be able to speak fairly good basic Japanese. (One final note -- the idea that Jorden "created" her own romanization method is not true. While this is not the common Hepburn romanization system, it was not created by Jorden. It actually predates the Hepburn system and it is used in Japan at least as often as the Hepburn. Also, the details of the romanization system should not matter since you're only supposed to use the romaji for reference, not for learning.)
Rating: 
Summary: Heavily linguistically oriented but thorough textbook
Review: Jorden and Noda's beginning Japanese text is quite different from the typical American intro language textbook. It eschews illustrations and rote exercises, rather focusing on the deep structure and linguistic terminology of learning Japanese, which is wonderful for professors, but potentially confusing for the non-linguistically oriented student. Since American language learning is based on visual principles and fun exercises, I cannot give this text a full rating. Also, the book's utilization of the New Standard System of romanization is confusing, since most Japanese texts and other surces tend to use Hepburn. However, on the other hand, if you ARE linguistically inclined, this is probably a superlative text for you. I would leave a cautionary note to professors to consider their American students' background before assigning this textbook for beginning Japanese.
Rating: 
Summary: The definitive Japanese text book
Review: Jorden comes from a unique background as she was tought at Yale by one of America's most distinguished linguists who himself discovered some aspects of the Japanese language that even the Japanese didn't know and are only now acknowledging. I am not much of a linguist myself but I can tell you that I and everyone in my class learned from this book what no other series can give you: a thorough understanging of the Japanese language. I have been studying for many years now and have not found a better source yet. Just read each lesson, use the video or cassete tapes to drill on understanding and rapid reponse. The very inexpensive teachers suppliment contains all the drills and conversations in native japanese (for the guy that didn't know this) Also, the written language is a seperate book but you don't have to use it. Of course from day one in class we began learning the kana as well and then the kanji but to learn the kanji from lesson 1? That would be too difficult because the book is in order of most usefull words, not most easy to write words. The offical system is more like kana and eaiser to see how the conjugations work where as the Hepburn system has too many unnecessary rules you have to learn to make it work. In Jorden's book, you quickly get used to the offical system and I wouldn't have it any other way. It also has helpful pitch markings to remind you how to nautrally shape the sentences until it becomes rote. I cannot say enough good things about this series, it doesn't take you all the way to being fluent of course but by the time you get though the 3rd book, I gaurantee you will be able to understand what people are saying to you and be able to respond right away in real world situations. Bottom line, these books work and is part of a whole system of videos, audio tapes, drills, writing, reading, and listening practice that will make you an expert on Japanese that puts all other books to shame.
Rating:
Summary: A True Masterpiece
Review: JSL is without a doubt the best Japanese language textbook on the market; it's most likely the best language textbook ever written. I encourage students to use the book in conjunction with the audio tapes, CD, and partner textbook, Japanese: the Written Language.
Rating:
Summary: An anime fan's perspective
Review: Not to repeat the previous reviewers, I'll just give my own perspective. I started to learn Japanese when I seriously got into anime my freshman year, then enrolled in the summer FALCON program which is 9 weeks of intensive Japanese that covers the first 10 chapters of this book. A few things that I've discovered in my course of learning Japanese, perhaps this is true of learning all languages, or maybe just particular to Japanese, or maybe even just particular to this book/method. The first week or so seemed like it would never end. The drills can feel robotic after a while and it was almost like torture the first week. After that, my brain gave up resisting this new language, and started absorbing it. As time went on, the chapters went by faster, even though we were studying them at them at the same pace. I was able to much more easily absorb new material and memorize entire coversations rapidly. (This isn't just learning by rote, it'd be impossible to memorize by sound only, as the series develops the grammar becomes automatic and you start focusing on memorizing the contents of conversations, remebering the context so you can reconstruct the exactly conversation). To be accurate, this particular book won't get you very far in the sense of practical Japanese, since it lays the foundations for what's to come in volumes II and III. After finishing JSL 1 I could comprehend a few words and various phrases in anime, basically, slightly better than where I started. Although I still didn't understand a lot of phrases and expressions, I started being able to pick apart the sentence structure of what people were saying, basically, I could tell which word is a noun, verb, or adjective and how they're connected, even if I didn't know the vocabulary. Now I'm almost done with volume II. If you manage to make it this far, you'll notice that your rate of Japanese comprehension when watching anime will start taking off around chapter 13 which is the first chapter of volume II. Having laid the foundations in volume I, Jorden introduces many commonly used grammar patterns in volume II, which appears very frequently in conversation (and of course anime). Of course, drilling is still necessary to internalize all this, but it becomes a lot easier, because you start getting the hang of the language and it starts feeling natural. Learning a language is quite personal, everyone has an unique experience. For me, the gauge of this book's usefulness is in how much anime dialogue I can comprehend after studying the lessons. JSL 1 doesn't go very far in this sense because it spends all its time laying the foundations, but once those are solid you'll find that starting in volume II comprehension rate will skyrocket. Not only will you understand the explicit meaning, but also the social meaning of the sentences/expressions, the untranslatables, because JSL goes to great lengths to explain social context. I'm not sure how well this series work in self study settings, but in a class where the teachers understands Jorden's method (and Jorden was a professor here at Cornell, so her method is quite well passed down in the Japanese department), this method can work wonders in building fluency.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding book for those with time.
Review: Reading the reviews of this text shows that it certainly polarizes opinion. 1. To get through the three books will take you about a year of hard work. So I recommend that if you are using the series you have another grammar text, so you can look up things you may want to say earlier than they appear in this text. 2. You absolutely must have the listening exercises. The book is totally based upon the student using the drills and listening exercises to supplement the book. 3. Use a separate book to learn how to read. In fact, a number of reviewers criticize this book for using an incorrect romaji system. Actually the romaji system is not incorrect at all, and is very closely based on the official Japanese kunrei system which reflects the structure of the Japanese language. Yes, matu/matimasu = matsu/machimasu does look strange at first but as you can see Jorden's does reflect the Japanese language accurately whereas the latter Hepburn system doesn't. Also, some people suggest that because the text is not written in Hiragana, it is unreal Japanese. Well, I have news for you. Texts written in Hiragana also don't reflect real Japanese - because Japanese people use Kanji + hiragana. Jorden has made this decision because she is focussing on speaking and the ability to read/write is a separate skill which is why she has a parallel reading text for those interested. She uses accents for those who wish to refer to the how the intonation changes, but you can safely ignore that aspect if you don't want to go into such detail. Once again listen to the tapes. 4. My experience with this book is that Japanese people (in Japan) immediately began commenting on how natural my intonation and expressions sounded after using this book. 5. All books suffer from the fact that languages develop and change and this is certainly an issue with Japanese over the last 15 years, but given that to become fluent in Japanese will take you a good 5 years anyway it's unlikely that the occasional dated expression is going to stand out amongst all the mistakes you are going to make anyway. In conclusion, there is only one judge of a Japanese textbook. It's not the teacher, it's not the student; it's the Japanese people you speak to when you are out here in Japan, and Japanese as a language is a huge challenge. This books reflects that challenge. I strongly recommend this text to meet that challenge, but I also recommend that it is not the only text you use especially if you are needing to communicate with Japanese immediately. [If you are learning Japanese just for holiday/travel purposes avoid this text though - practice speaking slow English with easy words. It'll serve you better :)] Get a good dictionary and a good grammar (the best is "A dictionary of basic Japanese Grammar" by Seiichi Makino & Michio Tsutsui".)
Rating:
Summary: A different perspective
Review: Sorry if this is repeated somehwere in the many reviews, but I didn't feel like reading *all* of them. One thing I noticed while reading reviews of this series (not just part 1), whether they be at amazon or bn, or wherever, is the lack of real incite into Jordan's method. People who have "studied" japanese before getting to Jordan's books are, 90% of the time, the people who hate it. Then, most of the people who love the books, are those who haven't studied any other method before. Those anti-Jordan folk claim that the pro-Jordan folk only like it because they haven't been exposed to the "real thing" (whatever that is). I believe they have it backwards. I am from a background where I studied under "traditional" romaji, terminology etc... for 2 years, and then moved on to Jordan's books at higher level college courses. At first, I was like the rest of the anti-Jordans. Then, as I studied her books more and more, I began to see where she was coming from on many issues. Why did I begin to like the book when others maintained their hatred? Well, to be frank, they are narrow-minded individuals who look at one AND ONLY ONE side of the story. They dislike the fact that "chi" is written as "ti" by Jordan. Well, you want to know what? This DOES NOT MATTER for several reasons: 1) If you are so slow that you can't adapt your Japanese learning to know what "ti" sounds like after 5 minutes of practice, why are you studying a difficult language like Japanese? 2) If you think that "chi" is what it ACTUALLY sounds like in Japanese, well, you really don't know the spoken language; if you pronounce the japanese "ti", "chi", ‚¿, (or whatever), as an english "chi", you're going to sound like a stupid foreigner with an English accent. Before I rant some more, let me give a few anecdotes from my first class that used Jordan's text book. There were 8 of us. 5 had never studied japanese before, one girl studied for 2 years, one girl studied for 6 (SIX!) years, and I had studied for two. All of us "veterans" had used different books. Now, I'm not talking about a girls with IQs of 10. These other two girls were smart, receptive, and quick. At first, I was intimidated by one having 6 years of formal Japanese education under her belt. How wrong I was. It was clear that she was somewhat bored with the technical aspect of things, but I soon found out how useless her previous education was. While in class with our native Japanese drill instructor, this student of 6 years had a pronounciation similar to the true beginner students. She confused ga, wa, and o time after time again. She never quite got the difference between "sirimasen" and "wakarimasen", etc... All the while, she hid behind the fact that our textbook was terrible, and that "*she* knew the written language". Well, as soon as we started learning katakana, the excuse turned into, "well, *I* know Kanji and hiragana". Well, I gave her some Kanji and innocently asked if she could translate them. She knew the meanings of a few simple ones, but could only give me one reading, AT BEST! One year later, she has been studying for 5 more years than me, but I am a better speaker, writer, and reader. I know this has been somewhat long and ranting. I expect nobody will rate this as being helpful. However, if you've managed to read this entire thing, then I hope you come away with one thing: Keep an open mind while reading this. It's slightly different than you may be used to, but I believe it isn't too different in the areas that count. However, if you're one of those people who find change absolutely *horrid*, then don't buy the book, you won't hurt anybody's feelings. For everyone else who feels that the difference between "verb", "verbal" and "tyotto", "chotto", aren't the difference between life and death, then buy the book and the audio part. You won't be sorry.
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