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Rating: 
Summary: A comprehensive guide for the intermediate student
Review: While speaking and listening are the main focus of Nakama 1, Nakama 2's focus shifts to reading and writing.The amount of vocabulary introduced in Nakama 2 is slightly decreased to accommodate the increase in both, the number of Kanji and the number of grammatical structures introduced. Even though the main focus of Nakama 2 is reading and writing, speaking and listening are continuously emphasized. Speaking
Each chapter starts off with an introduction of new vocabulary followed by exercises and dialogues that help reinforce the new vocabulary introduced as well as vocabulary that was previously introduced. Listening
Just as with Nakama 1, Nakama 2 encourages the use of the "Student Audio CD" to help the student develop good listening comprehension skills.
The chapter dialogues recorded in this CD (or Tape--depending on which one you get) expose the student to actual Japanese speech and are crucial in helping the student develop listening comprehension skills. Writing and Reading
Writing is greatly emphasized throughout Nakama 2. The student is presented with several exercises that help him/her make use of the newly acquired vocabulary, new sentence patterns as well as new Kanji. Pre-reading as well as post-reading activities help the student develop reading strategies that will help him/her understand in more detail what's being read. Kanji
The amount of kanji introduced in each chapter of Nakama 2 has been greatly increased to reach a total of about 300 Kanji in the entire book. While it would be best if the book had taken a different approach at teaching Kanji--such as following the Joyo Kanji list pattern that would help the student with his further study of the language, it still exposes the student to many Kanji used daily. The book also makes great effort to reinforce the new kanji introduced by making heavy use of it throughout the book as well as Kanji that has not been introduced--this helps expose the student to more kanji than that which is being taught. It is also important to note that Nakama 2's purpose is not to teach Kanji like other texts are designed to, but to introduce the student to it and help him/her prepare for future study of this complicated writing system. Nakama 2 also includes a Preliminary Chapter that reviews extensively what was taught in Nakama 1. This chapter will be of great help to those who finished their study of Nakama 1 but most importantly to those who are not familiar with Nakama 1. A Japanese-English and English-Japanese glossary is also available as well as an English translation of the dialogues used in each chapter as well as Appendixes filled with key information such as adjective and copula verb conjugations, verb conjugations and a list of particles. Nakama 2 is definitely one of the best learning tools that the student of the Japanese language could hope to have. Complemented with other learning tools, Nakama 2 will help the student gain an incredible amount of knowledge and understanding of not only the Japanese language but Japanese culture as well. To those who have decided to continue with their study of the Japanese language, I wish much success! ‚ª‚ñ‚΂Âĉº‚³‚¢ÂIÂIÂI
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