Yomu kara hajimeru nihongo kaiwa wākubukku

読むからはじめる日本語会話ワークブック

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Yomu kara hajimeru nihongo kaiwa wākubukku [読む」からはじめる日本語会話ワークブック] roughly translates to ‘Japanese Conversation Workbook Starting from Reading’.

This book is designed to help readers build the vocabulary and expressions needed for meaningful, in-depth conversations and language that goes beyond what we usually use in everyday talk. By exploring important themes like “normal,” “rules,” and “adulthood,” the book encourages you to communicate, share, and discuss these ideas with others in Japanese. While these topics aren’t new to anyone, they are fundamental to our lives.

Of course, being asked to suddenly talk about a topic like this can be challenging, even in your first language. That’s why the book begins with three short stories for each theme, helping you connect with your own opinions and experiences, such as thinking, “This part of the story made me feel a certain way,” or “I’ve had a similar experience.” From there, you’ll move on to a variety of conversation tasks: summarizing the stories, expressing your own thoughts and experiences, and discussing them with others.

Level: Advanced, Upper IntermediateJLPT Level: N3Language Style: Polite & CasualCompanion App: No

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What does Yomu kara hajimeru nihongo kaiwa wākubukku cover?

Unlike other textbooks which cover specific grammar points, Yomu Kara Hajimeru’ is designed to help reinforce knowledge that language students already know and put it to use. The workbook focuses on practicing “deeper” conversations in Japanese, moving beyond everyday small talk to discuss more complex and meaningful topics. As a result the book is structure by theme rather than grammar. The themes of discussion are:

Rules
Appearance
Money
Marriage
Community
Adulthood
Time
Fear
Justice
Normalcy

Student Review

Yomu Kara Hajimeru presents 30 short stories in batches of three along a similar theme, followed by questions asking students to synopsise what they’ve read for themselves. This is then followed by tasks requiring students to discuss their own thoughts on the themes among themselves.

To get it out of the way right away, this book is not one for those self-studying and will require a teacher or study buddy to get the most of it. The purpose here is to engage students in tasks that are heavily conversational, and at some length rather than a more beginner friendly call and response.

The stories are suitable for an intermediate reader with at least an N3 grasp of grammar and vocabulary to get the most out of it. The book urges users express their nuanced opinions on complex topics. Some of the questions might be ‘What would you do if you lived in a world without rules?’, for example.

This workbook states that is at a B1 CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) reading level, which on a Japanese Language Proficiency Test level would put at JLPT N3. To get the most out of the conversational tasks however, it would be closer to B2, which would make it one of the more ideal JLPT N2 textbooks.

This is an ideal book for those teaching either in personal upper intermediate Japanese groups or for one to one intermediate lessons where the teacher has a little more time to prompt their student as the other conversation partner.

The book can also serve as good homework to set students by encouraging them to synopsise the stories in their own worlds. This can help reinforce the knowledge of your students and prompt more complex sentence structures.

Additional online content is available, including extra themes and media recommendations (novels, films, manga, news articles) related to each topic, allowing teachers and learners to further deepen their understanding and discussion.

Teacher Review

Before using Yomu kara hajimeru nihongo kaiwa wākubukku:

To get any use out of this book, a student will need to have already finished Genki 1 and Genki 2.

In addition to this, we would highly recommend キャラクターと学ぶ　リアル日本語会話 (Learn Real Japanese Conversation with Characters) first. リアル日本語会話 structures it’s stories in much smaller chunks than Yomu kara hajimeru nihongo kaiwa wākubukku, which can make it much easier to approach for newly intermediate students.