Japanese Language Learning Reviews

Instant Immersion Japanese Deluxe (Audio & Workbook)

Score:
6 / 10
Pros:
some coverage of grammar; readings build progressively on previous lessons; has you read plenty of Japanese (conversations and stories); extra videos are good for practice; purchase audio and workbook to get an ear for the language; colorful presentation

Cons:
limited help if you get stuck; questionable organization; even though you read lots of Japanese, you never read real Japanese writing in the real Japanese script; pacing is off (5 minutes a day won’t work for most); expects you to remember more vocabulary than you will between lessons

Topics Entertainment’s Instant Immersion Japanese Deluxe course combines reading, listening and exercises to help you learn the absolute basics of Japanese.

Sixteen chapters present lessons covering a range of topics. Some lessons seem unified in approach (like the chapter on family), while others come across like a jumbled mishmash of material. Still, the book manages to cover a good range of Japanese language functions and vocabulary.

Vocabulary words and grammar are typically taught in context, with lists and explanations highlighting constructions also used in stories and dialogues. The dialogs and stories build on Japanese you learn along the way, so you typically understand most of the text. When things click, you only need the few helpful translations given in italics beneath new Japanese words in the readings.

Unfortunately, things don’t always click so fast, especially when we’re new to a foreign language as challenging as Japanese. Extra explanations are brief here, so if there’s something you don’t get, it can be difficult to push on.

Japanese practice exercises typically offer your average fill-in-the-blank, true-false, multiple choice or question and answer routine. Colorful drawings spice up every page of the course, including vocab lists and exercises, making the mundane seem a little less so.

The end of the book has answers to exercises, a glossary of vocabulary words by chapter, some cultural info about Japan, a National Geographic map of Japan, and flash cards with a picture on one side and Japanese vocab word on the other.

All the Japanese in the course is written in romaji. Since you spend a lot of the course reading, it’s a shame that you’ll need to retrain yourself to learn to read and write real Japanese if you ever want to handle real Japanese writing.

The workbook comes with an extra CD with videos of people speaking certain phrases from the course, which is a plus. A real audio experience requires purchasing the actual audio CDs (see my link above).

This course is on par with series like Barron’s Japanese the Fast and Fun Way. It tries to get you past the basics of Japanese with readings, vocabulary, decent grammar explanations and exercises without too much difficulty or time. I don’t find the approach particularly immersive, but it’s good for the money if you like what it has to offer. However, if you’re really looking for a complete Japanese audio immersion course, these lessons don’t quite fit.