Marugoto - Japanese language study books for picture lovers

Since studying the Japanese language, I always had to struggle to find the right materials for me. From Flashcards to many different kinds of language books and also online programs, I never really felt comfortable with any of them. Also, the materials I received at different language schools didn't help me really. Sometimes I've had the feeling of being stupid, that I feel it's so hard to study with those materials, but actually that's not right.

I remembered the time when I was in elementary school and studied English. I had so much fun with the books at that time. The structure of the English study book at school was always very interesting -- many pictures, stories and listening parts, which made it very easy to learn the language.

Unfortunately Japanese language books tent to be very boring. Mostly no pictures, no activity parts, usually just learning all that is written. It's not really fun and doesn't encourage me to study, really.

I felt so happy when a friend introduced me to the language book series “Marugoto”, which has 6 different levels from beginner to Intermediate 2. The books are all in Japanese/English, but usually the English part is very small. Their rule is that the best way to study Japanese is when all is of the course is in Japanese! It really works well. I had no problems to understand any of the exercises.

Every chapter has a different topic which starts with a small conversation and a vocabulary check. It is very easy to remember the vocabulary because you will mostly use them in every exercise in the chapter. Each exercise is very small, which is very good if you don't have so much time. Also, it's all very colorful and with pictures, which is very helpful if you need pictures to remember things.

Each book comes in A4 format which is very easy to read. (I often had the problem with other books that the kanji were written way too small for me.)

Unfortunately there is no audio CD included, but you can download all the audio files online at the Marugoto website. 

The booked really helped me a lot to study Japanese. It also encouraged me to study more and more every day, because I had so much fun with the book.

Depending on your level the price of the book is between 1,900 and 2,800 yen.