Japanese in Mangaland: Number 3

Manga is well on its way to becoming the most popular comic form in the United States. According to USA Today, sales in 2004 reached $120 million, a 20% increase over 2003. At the same time, interest in learning Japanese is booming among secondary school students-and recent studies indicate that the reason students want to learn Japanese is to be able to understand their favorite anime and manga in its original language. Like the first two volumes in the Japanese in MangaLand series, this third volume combines the phenomenal popularity of manga with language instruction to make learning Japanese easier and a lot more fun than with traditional approaches. Japanese in MangaLand 3 picks up where volume 2 left off, with 15 lessons designed to help students consolidate and further expand their Japanese skills at the intermediate level. The book offers an intensive study of grammar and conversation combined with examples from manga that introduce "real life" spoken Japanese - not typical "textbook" language. The conversational lessons will help students communicate in various everyday situations in Japan, from ordering in a restaurant to speaking the Osaka dialect, from using the honorific language (keigo) to the casual, colloquial, idiomatic and vulgar expressions found in manga. Japanese in MangaLand 3 covers all the requirements of grammar, vocabulary and kanji of Level 3 (Intermediate) of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test, as well as offering many exercises, grammar and vocabulary reference appendixes (especially designed for Proficiency Test candidates) and many other features. And, in the fall of 2007, when high schools around the country begin offering Advance Placement courses in Japanese, these entertaining and user-friendly instructional materials will surely find an even wider audience.