Maybe Slightly Fewer Than 1000?
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I like the series and I'm not at all sorry that I bought the book. However ... an earlier reviewer has already referred to the poor proof reading. Now I am an almost complete beginner in Japanese, but it wasn't ten minutes before I started finding lots of mistakes. It would be silly to list them, but sometimes labels are quite wrong; in one case two pictures side-by-side have been given the same caption by mistake. You might take the view that a dozen or so mistakes in a thousand is not too bad a failure rate. You might, on the other hand, like to look at Marlene Goodman's 'Let's Learn Japanese Picture Dictionary' which has the same format. I've not yet received my copy of that (so can't vouch for its accuracy) but I understand that it also gives the kanji. You may find that useful.
If you are completely new to the series, it is perhaps also worth saying that of course simple children's-story-book pictures do not in themselves make the language any easier. There is a trade-off: some people will find that the 'everything you can see here on the farm' approach is not a good way to learn ... it's obviously not at all systematic. Against that, lots of reviews (elsewhere) suggest that it works well for young children. It's cheap, cheerful, good fun - a way of adding vocabulary - worth buying, I think ... always providing that you can get by without the Japanese for 'hedgehog'!
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Not good enough
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The proofreading of the kana is non-existent. E.g. on page 7, there's a duster labelled as a washing machine. On page 8, a snail is labelled as a kettle and a sprinkler is labelled a dustbin. I could go on....
The scenes depicted aren't well suited for teaching a non-European language. E.g. on page 5 there's a duvet ("kakebuton" = "kake" + "futon") and a bed ("beddo"), but no futon. What would you think of a book of English vocabulary that had the words "futon" and "bedspread", but not "bed"?
The artwork is pretty good, and the pictures are fun to look at.
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Fun way to learn simple words!
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Certainly not a book for advanced students of Japanese, but quite fun for beginners, even for those (much) older than the suggested age. The book is well thought out, with words taken from everyday use. The dictionary at the back of the book with all the presented words is quite helpful, especially for those (very few) pictures that can have several meanings. I especially appreciated the use of kana and romanji for each word. The art work is in the classical childrens book style: cute and practical.
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Very good vocabulary source for children
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Brilliantly illustrated and thoughtfully compiled, this book is ideal for children of any age who are learning to speak Japanese. A good list of verbs and adjectives, along with vocabulary on just about everything a child would want to say makes this book a bargain! Lets hope Usbourne follow this up and make a second book.
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