JehuLove wrote:mike2011ca wrote:I think that the Intermediate level book should be written entirely in hiragana and katakana. at least, all examples, vocabulary, and exercises.
Given that you`ll be taking an intermediate course, it only makes sense.
I am taking a course at my local International Center, as well I have taken a course before coming to Japan, and the first thing we did was learn hiragana and katakana. Doing the beginner course here, and going to do intermediate this coming year, I found it reallydistracting to go back to roman letters. And once I had remembered words, I had a hard time recognizing them when written in my dictionary (hiragana-english), or in places around school or restaurants etc.
It takes at most 10 hours of focused study and practice to learn the 40-some hiragana, and the same for katakana. It`s really not much. And since we see it every day all around, most if not all JETs should know it by year 2. And anyone taking intermediate Japanese, anyone who is serious about studying Japanese, MUST absolutely know hiragana and katakana.
I think the advanced book gets rid of roman letters altogether - but I`m not quite at that level yet.
This will make the intermediate course much better!
Wait... Not even the intermediate book is in kana? That's friggin' ridiculous.
I stopped doing the CLAIR course halfway through because it was pretty much impossible to learn in romaji. It takes all of a couple weeks to learn the kana, and after that, studying Japanese in roman letters is a HUGE handicap. They're not Japanese and they're the only place we're ever gonna see those words spelled out in English. It got to the point where it was just holding me back. I don't mean to sound so hostile about this course- I signed up for it again when someone told me the intermediate level was written in kana... but I'm really disappointed to hear that it's not. The way this book is written is about as effective for learning real Japanese as Japanese public school curricula are for learning real English.
+1 I literally got the beginner's course through today and I'm already finding the romaji frustrating beyond belief. Even if your Japanese was nil, as mine was on coming to Japan, I don't see how you could have survived for three months without learning any kana. I don't mean to be unappreciative, and I'm impressed by how much was done with the books for free, but it really does seem detrimental to acquiring new vocabulary - especially if you're taking another course alongside it.
Considering its compulsory here this year, its a bit bizarre that we're almost finished with October and they haven't turned up! 
