Customer Reviews (4)

Screaming for an accompanying CD!
I agree with the comments of the other reviewers, particularly with regard to the phonology sections.I had to read them over and over to gain any kind of understanding of the pronunciation - very time wasting.What this book is really screaming out loud for is an accompanying CD with someone competent reading the Lay du Fresne (if a picture is worth a 1,000 words, a CD must be worth 10,000).The lack thereof is surprising since a similar book on Old Occitan by the same publisher has one.A hardback version would be nice too.The best CD that I have found for pronunciation presents a performance of another lai by Marie de France, namely Chevrefoil, and is performed by Istanpitta.

Good buy
I bought this to try to teach myself Old French for graduate school. An immense undertaking that never really happened (not the book's fault though!), but nonetheless, this book is very straightforward and, if a little dry, is full of primary sources for reading samples. It's a very good textbook.

Functional Introduction to Old French
This book provides a functional introduction to Old French for readers who already have at least reading knowledge of modern French.(Reading knowledge of Classical Latin, as opposed to Vulgar Latin, is far less necessary, since Old French is much, much closer to modern French than to Classical Latin.)The book jumps right in with reading passages (not translated) covering a complete "lai" by Marie de France.Old French is close enough to modern French (and even to modern English) that these passages are readable without great confusion, using the concordance at the end of the volume for help.This book does have several weaknesses:(1) Instead of a true vocabulary/glossary, the book provides only a concordance, listing each and every word in the grammatical form in which it appears, with specific line references.While this enables assured translations, it is not a convenient resource for further readings or for vocabulary drills.(2)The phonology sections will be confusing to non-specialists.Since the texts in the book are poetry, a simpler, more straightforward guide to pronounciation and scansion, in Lesson One, would have been nice.(3)The grammatical explanations cover the bases, but are not always as clear as they could be.In particular, explanations of grammatical changes over the language's evolution could more easily have been presented in the form of chronological charts, or one particular form could have been used as a consistent base, with historical variants covered in notes or an appendix.

Great introduction!
First things first ... this book does NOT have 57 pages...it has over 360 pages. (I hope this mistake hasn't deterred any potential buyers!)

There aren't that many introductory grammars of Old French lying around in English, and fewer yet that don't assume a thorough knowledge of Latin. (Einhorn's Old French is the only other one that comes to mind).

This excellent book is composed of 23 lessons. Each lesson begins with a passage in Old French, and is followed by a section with the appropriate grammar and syntax. Each lesson ends with a section on phonology; they trace the evolution of of the Vulgar Latin sound system into Old French. I think for students of Romance philology, these are worth the price of the book by themselves.

The first 15 lessons cover Le Fresne, by Marie de France, in the standard Francien dialect; later lessons introduce texts in the Anglo-Norman and Picard dialects.

The only drawback that I see in this book is the lack of vocabularies for the individual lessons. Every form of every word used in the lesson readings is included in the glossary in the back, so working through the reading involves looking up EVERY LITTLE WORD that you don't know in the dictionary in the back. Great way to internalize the grammar and learn the vocabulary, but not everyone will have the stomach for this tedious word-by-word torture.

A knowledge of Latin certainly wouldn't hurt, but for the seriously motivated student, this book is the best thing going. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This concise course in natural Japanese is ideal for such students as businessmen whose aim is a working knowledge of the spoken language in everyday life. In this new edition, numerous revisions and additions have been made, taking into account the comments and responses of both students and teachers who have been using the course. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Very useful
I think this book is a very useful one. I have finished the first two in the series and am moving on to the third. It teaches the basic building blocks you need to understand kanji. Kanji understanding is really necessary in order to begin to gain an understanding of Japanese. I will have to respectfully disagree with the above reviewer. I thinkit is absolutely essential to read and write kana fluently before moving from beginner level. It is a time investment but it is well worth it! As long as you are aware that this book is kana only you should be ok. I do wish they gave more casual language and a little less focus on business but I suppose that is useful for those who work in Japan. Enjoy the book ^_^*

Don't expect it to be as good as JFBP I
If you used Japanese for Busy People I to start learning Japanese, you might be disappointed with this second book in the series. JFBP II has been, for me, less user-friendly. In comparison with JFBP I, this book inundates the student with vocabulary and grammar notes in each lesson. Yes, having lots of information is good. But in my opinion, this book has packaged that information in larger chunks that are more difficult for the student to digest. Lessons are oriented around events, places and situations -- Lost and Found, the Health Club, a Business trip; a festival, etc. The book might have been more helpful had it been oriented around grammar concepts. Or better yet, give me a lesson focused on just new vocabulary and then give me a lesson focused on a grammar concept -- where I can use my recently acquired vocabulary. (I am learning in a classroom environment, and it's extremely challenging to soak up all the new vocabulary AND all the new grammar in each lesson.)

This book also is big on kana and kanji and sparse on romaji (although the book, in the appendix, does awkwardly provide romaji for the lesson texts). I agree that learning to think in kana is important. But I think more prominent romaji is still needed at this level -- when beginning students are still visualizing in terms of romaji. Kana is easy enough but requires my brain to kick in some extra processing power -- which slows down my comprehension of the material. In other words, I think students still could benefit from the "training wheels" of romaji at this level. It could speed up learning of vocabulary and grammar. It just makes sense: We learn to speak English fairly well. Then we learn to read and write it. Why not learn to speak Japanese fairly well (using easy romaji) and then learn how to read and write our newly acquired Japanese using kana?

And speaking of training wheels, more illustrations of vocabulary and concepts would have been helpful -- to help students better soak up new words and grammar. Another gripe: Not all words used in this book are in the glossary. (If it's not in the glossary, it's probably in the glossary for JFBP I.)

If you are studying on your own and on no timetable, this book will do you just fine. This book covers a lot of territory. If you can soak it all up, you'll be Japanese wiz. But if you're truly a busy person (like me -- or maybe I'm just slow! ;) ) and if this is the book you have to use, be prepared to make extra time in your schedule. And do your best to master each lesson before you move on to the next one -- since each lesson requires knowledge of previous concepts. Otherwise, your house of cards will come tumbling down.

If you are only going to get one Japanese text, get this one
I discovered this book when it was used in a beginning Japanese language course at the local county college.I travel back and forth to Japan a lot and missed classes sometimes.I had the book with me most of the time, andalmost everyone I talk to in Japan recognizes the book as a popular textfor teaching Japanese to foreigners.What I like most about the book isthat I didn't have any trouble keeping up with the occasional missed class,because the book is so self-explanatory.You can work through the lessonson your own and get almost as much out of it as you do from the class. ... Read more

Product Description
· Over 15,000 Scots words old and new, general and local · Clear, simple definitions· Pronunciation guide for difficult words · Literary uses as in Burns and Scott · Brief history of Scots ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
The theme of this volume was inspired by the theme of the VIIIth International Congress for the Study of Child Language which was held in San Sebastian, Spain, in July 1999. The chapters in this volume are based on papers that were presented at that meeting. They provide a snapshot of the current state of research on bilingual acquisition and reflect the diversity of issues, methodologies, and language combinations that can be found in contemporary work in the field. Topics include: the simultaneous acquisition of two first languages - early differentiation and subsequent development of grammars; the emergence of verbal morphology and the lead-lag pattern issue in bilingual acquisition; early language differentiation in bilingual infants; language differentiation in bilingual infants - evidence from babbling; and past tense verb forms, discourse context and input features in bilingual and monolingual acquisition of Basque and Spanish. ... Read more

Product Description
The essays collected in this book demonstrate strategies developed by teachers in diverse institutional settings. This book investigates how teaching practices can address the changing status of literature in the French classroom. ... Read more