Japanese from Zero! 1: Proven Techniques to Learn Japanese for Students and Professionals

I love Japanese From Zero! JFZ is a good place to start learning, especially if you have no prior knowledge of Japanese and you cannot read or write any of the language (this includes anyone who is currently using romaji). This first book walks you through learning hiragana. By the time you get done with this book, you will know your hiragana front, back and sideways. You may even dream in hiragana. That's how good it is at reinforcing hiragana for you. The information is NOT presented in an overwhelming manner as it can be in a lot of other text books. The lessons are short, which makes it ideal for learning on your own, and being able to pace yourself. You can learn 1 lesson per week or 1 lesson per day. It's totally up to you. The book presents lessons with usable examples. By the time you complete lesson 5, you will know how to say hello, tell someone things that you like or don't like, be able to count, ask who someone is, what things are, ask someone what something is in English, and tell someone what one you want or don't want. You'll learn colors, some animals, etc. So you can say "I have an orange cat named Garfield." "I like to go shopping" "Japanese food is delicious" "That doesn't taste good" "My car is a purple and white Honda" "Sachiko and Toshiyo are my friends" etc lol And that's not even 1/4 the way into the book!!! They present information in a way that allows you to be able to insert whatever you want, instead of using very rigid sentences that can't be altered much. You begin thinking of all the things that you CAN say, which I think is pretty neat. You, of course, learn more as you progress through the series. It's more of a "what you need to know, when you need to know it" kind of book... They don't go into dipthongs and verb conjugation and all that other stuff that you don't really care about. They just say "this is how you say _______." Why people have a problem with that is beyond me. If you really wanted to study dipthongs and that kind of stuff, Japanese From Zero probably isn't for you. If you have a "I can do it" attitude and want a fun, simple way to learn Japanese, (learn how to read/write AND speak) and you don't really care what a dipthong is, then this is the series for you! As you progress through the book, the vocabulary list gets more & more useful, so you can ask people things and have a basic conversation. Enough to maybe start looking for a penpal and discussing things that you enjoy. I like how the book is set up, in that you get your writing practice, you get lots of vocabulary, and you get to learn how to write words that use the kana that you have just learned that are not in your vocabulary list. You get lots & lots of writing practice. There's even "blank" practice pages that you can copy & get more writing practice. The grammar is presented so that it's not overwhelming and make you think "oh my god I can't do this".. the lessons are short & not bogged down with stuff that you don't really need to know to just be able to talk with people. There are tests after each lesson, which are short, and I think that is great, because you can take your test & check the answers in the back of the book (YAY! No separate answer key to buy!) & see how you have done.. It is a nice confidence booster. Your vocabulary is shown in hiragana, katakana (when applicable, ie: with fruit : furuutsu) and kanji (if applicable).. then the meaning of the word is given.. but as you progress, the romaji gets less and less, so eventually you'll be reading hiragana. For things like "furuutsu" that are written in katakana, it's a good way to learn a little katakana while you're at it! In regards to sounds or having a CD... They have sound files on their website. I'm a member of the website AND I have the book. I like using them both. The website tells you how to say things and you get to hear different people say things at their normal talking speed. The forum has a lot of helpful people in it, and George will answer your questions himself. The website has flash games, online flashcards, and all sorts of resources available. They also have free shows you can watch & listen to people speaking Japanese.. This includes people from YouTube, like applemilk1988, Uminekomiami and Kemushichan. They also have their own shows, like Japanese Topics Mania, The George and Keiko Show, The George and Hisashi Show, George in Japan, George vs Chie, The George & Eri show, The YesJapan! Ask A Teacher Show, You SO Crazy Cooking Show and the 3 Guys In Japan Show.. As well as one that's called "The Super Sexy Sayaka Show." You can also transfer your unused credits from YesJapan to JapanFiles & download Japanese music. JapanFiles has a huge selection of music, everything from pop to metal to electronic stuff to jazz and etc.. They even have visual kei bands and some bands have free music videos you can download. So you get lots of stuff to listen to and watch in Japanese. On top of that stuff, the YesJapan forum has a ton of websites where you can get live streaming television shows, anime and etc from Japan for free, as well as online radio shows, and etc. There's LOTS of resources on that website. If joining the website is not your cup of tea.. The Japanese From Zero books are good companions for Rosetta Stone, Pimsleur's Japanese series, the "Let's Learn Japanese" videos & workbooks, LingQ, or anything else you would like to pair them up with, even other books, ie: Making Sense of Japanese: What the Textbooks Don't Tell You or All About Particles: A Handbook of Japanese Function Words . If you get this series, you won't be disappointed. It's simple, fun and really is wonderful!

This book is amazing. George Trombley does a great job at explaining concepts. One thing that I appreciate is that he gives you a quick rundown of the formal Japanese (so that you recognize it when it pops up), but then focuses on how you'll most hear / be using it. He also just has a general demeanor of teaching in a down to earth manner. This removes some of the rigid feeling and droll of merely grinding through coursework. He also implements a "progressive" hiragana technique. This is a great idea. As you progress through the chapters, you pick up a new grammar concept, a list of new words, and 5-10 new Hiragana per chapter. The new Hiragana you learn will replace the "romaji" (english alphabet) until you are reading in complete Hiragana. This is a wonderful mechanism for learning as he eases you into everything rather than having massive knowledge dumps which feel discouraging. This book is not filled with a lot of filler and redundant information as other books can be. However, I would appreciate having extra examples or additional explanation of nuances like that you would find on the website / youtube version. For this reason I would highly encourage combining this with their website/youtube channel. Also, I'm a visual learner, so having the visual audio reinforcement really helps me excel. Something that you have to understand as a language student is that learning another language is not a passive activity; it takes hard work, dedication, and immersion. There is no other way to learn another language, so do not pay money to scam artists who will tell you otherwise. I have browsed through other Japanese learning programs like JapanesePod101 (which I don't feel is the best for actually learning Japanese), and have thus far found Japanese From Zero! to be the best there is. This book also does a really good job on worksheets. Again, I would recommend combining this with George Trombley's online resources so you can receive a few more helpful examples, pronunciation, and Japanese nuances. If you are debating between just doing online versus this book, realize that you will miss out on the worksheets which I feel are done better in the book. I definitely think you get a good deal for this as compared to other language learning programs (way better and cheaper than Rosetta Stone if that is on your mind). Is this book perfect? No. For instance, there are a few cases where a new Hiragana which you, as the student, have not learned yet will be slipped into text. It is, in my opinion the best book out there and prefer over Genki. As per my personal recommendation, you should make flashcards of words outside of the books. The books build a fantastic foundation, but you really need to build up your vocab on your own. It's pretty easy to find some word lists out there. However, I would work on those vocab lists after this book or when you are able to use it in a sentence. Learning words is MUCH easier when you can them in a sentence because then you aren't memorizing meaningless scribbles. This book consists of 13 chapters and gives you the basic structure of the Japanese Language. Everyone is different, but I would have a "focused study" a couple hours a day (you need to be practicing your and phrases throughout the day) and was able to get through this book in about a month. After completing it, my vocab was still relatively small, but I could pick out words and phrases people were saying. Certain topics people talked about, I could get the gist of what they were saying. Most topics though, I could only pick out small parts. Also remember that this is just book 1, so don't expect perfect fluency upon its completion. So far I have been very pleased with this book and my progress so far. Learning a language can definitely be daunting, especially when it is something as foreign as an Asian language. This series has definitely kept at bay that anxiety. Sometimes I have to remind myself of how far I've come and the things I do know rather than focusing on what I have yet to learn. George Trombley is very encouraging in his teaching. "Even dust when piled up becomes a mountain" As a little bit of my personal background, I have learned Portuguese as a second language and lived their several years. My experience in learning it was horrible, solely because I did not have anyone take the time to give me that down-to-earth explanation of how Portuguese functioned. I then made a friend who gave me that explanation I desperately needed. At this point in my Portuguese, I understood what people were saying but I could not speak very well myself. This friend transformed my Portuguese within a week so I sounded like a native and I could be considered "fluent". That friend to me in Portuguese is equivalent to how I feel George Trombley is for Japanese. ありがとう ございます

As a beginner in learning a foreign language you know it is easy to get overwhelmed. This is especially true if you are like me and are trying to teach yourself on your own rather than in a classroom. If this is the sort of situation you have found yourself in this is the perfect starter japanese series for you. I will be focusing on the two biggest aspects that set this book apart from the rest: Lesson Structure and Ease of Learning. Before I get into that however, I do want to let you know this is a series geared towards those who are beginners in learning Japanese. Those who are more fluent in Japanese already should check out a different series. Now let’s jump in. Lesson structure: To start, I wanted to mention that the lesson structure of the Japanese From Zero series is one of the best I have seen to date. Each lesson starts with a brief rundown of what skills you should already know, what you will be learning in the upcoming lesson and a few notes on what you should be sure to practice. It then moves on to give you a list of new vocabulary words. Don’t worry if you don’t know your Kana yet. This series moves at a pace that allows you to learn the Kana at the same time as learning new vocabulary. The only drawback is that I wish it put more of an emphasis on learning kanji, but I understand that can be intimidating for those looking to more causally learn japanese. Now the meat and potatoes of each lesson are the sections that follow, which include a grammar section that is easy to understand and not overwhelming, and the practice sections. The practice sections will likely become your new best friend as they are a fun way to apply what you just learned and a good way work on your writing. Ease of Learning: The second most important aspect is the ease of learning and the practicality of what you are learning. It is easy to get discouraged when all your book seems to throw at you are obscure words and phrases. This book does the opposite of that. Within the first few lessons you will have learned enough japanese to be able to form your own sentences that have practical applications in daily life, including asking questions and creating basic conversations. Not only do you learn in a practical way but with the book’s integrated workbook the learning comes easily as you work through simple problems such as reading and writing along the way! Overall if you are looking for a fun, well set up textbook for learning japanese this series is the way to go. Good luck on your quest for learning a new language!

I have just begun the Japanese From Zero; (JFZ 1) book, but I can already say I like it very much! The organization is excellent, the explanations are clear, and the Japanese taught is so relevant. The book starts you off with Pre-Lessons (in Roomaji;English letters;) that teach numbers and simple introductory exchanges, extremely useful for tourists and more serious students alike. I was especially impressed by JFZ teaching the question "Nansai ni miemasu ka?" (何歳に見えますか？), which means more or less "How old do you see me?", a cool question to ask when someone asks you how old you are (a common question to foreigners in Asia). The explanations of grammar, syntax and vocabulary are also accompanied by warnings of what NOT to say, which is very helpful (e.g., yonjuu; for 40, never shichijuu;). There is even information for how and when to bow, another important point not generally covered in a Japanese textbook. JFZ 1 also slowly teaches writing hiragana (katakana and kanji are tackled in later books), which is by far the most useful of the syllabaries for a beginning student. I already speak Chinese, so the kanji that the student will need to learn later on are far less of a problem, though the Japanese use the older traditional forms (繁体字 in Chinese) rather than the simplified characters (简体字) used in the PRC. But a person knowing Chinese can adapt pretty quickly. A knowledge of Chinese can also be very helpful with Japanese vocabulary, even after the phonetic modifications they undergo, since a large percentage of Japanese words were borrowed from Chinese (though usually from a different dialect than Modern Standard Chinese). The lessons are light-hearted and fun, a real pleasure to tackle, and this is a good thing, because Japanese appears as a rather "strange" language in its grammar and syntax (which to me are harder than Chinese). Though I haven't bought the other books in the series (JFZ 2, JFZ 3, JFZ 4), I've looked at them on Amazon, and they seem very good. The pacing in this series is conducive to mastery, and I disagree with the reviewer who wrote that it moves too slowly. How is that a problem? If you think the book moves slowly, go through it more quickly (duh). The point is that it is easy to become discouraged in studying a language---Japanese more than most---and the measured pace (which I don't find slow in the first place) encourages mastery and builds confidence in your ability to make real progress in the language. The author George Trombley doesn't avoid certain difficulties in the language but presents them in manageable bites (the modest distance I have covered has taught me irregularities in the counting system which are basic and certainly need to be learned at an early stage because of counting's fundamental nature). One of the best points of JFZ 1 is the online component, which is free. Apart from some crude language on the part of the author in one video that I watched, they are entertaining and extremely helpful. Japanese is a pitch language, and having recordings of native speakers using correct pitch will help your Japanese to sound more natural and even avoid confusion. I use the online component all the time. As a language teacher and learner, I know that poor textbooks can do great harm to the learning process, and the complexity of Japanese draws this point home in spades. JFZ 1 is a refreshingly manageable and even entertaining book that leads the learner by small steps to a good knowledge of the language and culture. I highly recommend it! すごいですね！

ORIGINAL REVIEW: I’ve been using Japanese From Zero (JFZ) Book 1 for about two months and it seems like a good approach. The book is supplemented by numerous YouTube videos that provide an experience something like a classroom teacher—at least the lecture part. The unscripted presentations are by the author, George Trombley, who can be irreverent at times, but offer the perspective of an American who learned Japanese as a teenager living in Japan and who now is a professional interpreter. Book 1 is the first of five JFZ books, so it seems to be intended for the student committed to the long haul, rather than someone who wants to pickup a bit of knowledge for a trip to Japan in a month or two. JFZ also offers web-based courses that closely parallel each of the books. I find combining the book with the online course to be the best approach, although that of course adds to the cost. The big advantage of the web course is that all words and phrases are pronounced by three (now five) different native speakers, and the student can set whether Japanese words are displayed in Romaji (western alphabet), hiragana, katakana or kanji with furigana depending on the knowledge the student brings to the course. Of course, one can start knowing absolutely nothing about Japanese. Back to the book. PROS 1. Its main strength is its gradual, no pressure introduction to hiragana (one of the two phonetic alphabets), plus vocabulary, grammar and culture. 2. The YouTube videos are worthwhile supplements. 3. The book provides more exercises to check and solidify your knowledge than the web-based course. CONS 1. There are no downloadable audio files for the book's vocabulary and phrases, only the fee-based web courses. Some words are used in examples in the videos but that is hit and miss. To get pronunciation right, you really need to subscribe to the web course. 2. Some find the gradual introduction of hiragana over the course of the first book to be slow and awkward. Alternatively, one can buy flash cards on Amazon and learn the 100 or so hiragana in a week or less. 3. There is no spaced repetition (periodic review based on accuracy of answers) of vocabulary or grammar in either the book or online course. And so far, I have not found a useable Anki deck (spaced repetition freeware) for JFZ so I’ve created my own flashcards, which is time consuming. In short, for me the book was a good place to start since it does not feel like an academic textbook, and it is the first of five books, so there is much more to come. However, to learn even the basics of Japanese you’ll need more than just this book, but I suspect that is true of any first book on the subject. UPDATE: now that I've finished Book 1, here are a couple of updates. 1) The online web version of the course now has absolutely all Japanese (that I've seen) pronounced by five different speakers. I find this to be extremely valuable, and the sound quality is better than comparable files for Genki (a competing textbook). 2) To the best of my knowledge, only the first lesson or two of each Japanese from Zero online course is free. After that, you must subscribe to the web courses to hear how words and phrases are pronounced. 3) The web-based courses allow either the Japanese or English text to be temporarily hidden to better test one's understanding. This too is a very valuable feature.

Like some other reviewers who have written, I had no prior experience with Japanese at all. I have only heard Japanese in passing. I wanted to learn it but felt that it was too hard for someone like me to learn it and actually had a few native speakers say they think that it is too hard for Americans to speak properly, so to me, I decided to leave it alone. After looking at several AMERICANS speaking excellent, fluent Japanese, I thought, "If they can do it, so can I!" I purchased Living Language--the Complete Basics with 4 CD's and this book. I love this book *WAY* better! The Living Language course was so super grammar intensive and confusing with the layout, I gave up during the first chapter. I didn't have much hope for this book but after the first page, I knew this was different. i could follow it, even though it has grammar, it is not shoved down your throat or obtrusive to the point that it is all you see or learn about. You barely know that you are learning at all and the way it is explained, is so easy that you totally "get it" and don't feel confused. I love how you learn the Hiragana in pieces not all in one hunk. I especially love how they use progressive learning by replacing letters you learn in the previous chapter with Hiragana instead of Romaji. What is even the most awesome is, that when I looked in the other 2 books, there is no Romaji in them, just hiragana and katakana to help you not be dependent on the transliteration. Not many language books do that!I am only in the very beginnings of the book and have not finished it yer but being a total absolute beginner, this book makes learning Japanese less intimidating and fun! A few reviewers complained that the grammar is too basic and there is no depth to explanations and so forth but they tell you enough that you need to get started and get by. Plus, I hope that no one thinks that these books are the only ones that you need to learn Japanese! You can learn all that other in-depth, serious, grammar, etc in other courses, school and thru speaking a lot to natives; so this book will do a serious new beginner just fine. I just love how fun this book is and how delightful it has made me to want to continue and the confidence to learn Japanese. To people who read the person who said don't buy this book, he didn't learn anything--he is either a more advanced learner where in this case, yeah, he probably didn't learn a thing. Or maybe has issues of his own about the series, I don't know. I personally do not like the book he recommended because it has like a million books to purchase in the series and the layout is B-O-R-I-I-N-G. My opinion. :o) If you are a newbie to Japanese or language learning in general, this series is awesome; don't hesitate in buying it and tune out the negative reviews. ***NOTE*** If you are looking to this book for teaching you how to SPEAK Japanese, this book series is NOT for you; these books teach you about learning to read and write the syllabary only, not speaking. There are some basic vocab but it is mainly a reading, writing instruction book. As much as some people write bad reviews on it, I recommend Teach Youself Japanese. I think it is a great course and it teaches you how to SPEAK Japanese.

I have JFZ and Genki, but I far prefer JFZ. Where Genki seems to be very dense with shorter explanations, the JFZ books are well-paced and give you just enough information in each chapter to build your skills without overwhelming you. There are plenty of examples and exercises to help build your confidence, as well. There are also free anki decks to help you drill the vocabulary, which I highly recommend. There are also over a hundred YouTube videos published by the JFZ team that follow along with each chapter. In addition to owning the books, I also am a subscriber on the website where they have interactive tests and pronunciations for all of the terms. Definitely worth it if you want to learn Japanese. Probably not the best choice if you want to learn German, though.

I tried to learn Japanese when I was much younger, using the readily available methods at the time and it just didn't work. Wow is Japanese From Zero! different. This feels like a true, self study course with enough content to keep you busy but in an order that's useful (as opposed to just memorizing words) and at a pace that really fits a busy schedule. Pros: For myself with a full time job and normally only a few hours at night, this is the perfect pace. It gives me time to finish one lesson every two days at a casual pace, or if I want to really push on the lesson activities I can finish one lesson a day (which I did for this book, as it was introducing the starting concepts of the language and I couldn't wait to learn more and more). The lesson activities are the perfect length to make sure you've taken the concept of the lesson to heart - not so short that you don't use them enough and might forget them in a few days, and not so long that you get bored of it and just want to move on. Further, the author really knows how to explain the concepts and coupled with his YouTube videos I feel like I understand so much of the grammar so easily. I took 5 years of Spanish in high school (which I've since all but forgotten unfortunately) and I feel like in a month I know the same amount of grammar in Japanese because of his teaching style. If you treat this like an actual Japanese language class, you'll love it. Neutral: Despite me explaining why the speed works for me, it may not work for everyone. I've seen plenty of reviews suggesting Genki over this, and I can understand why they might prefer it. If you have a lot of time, the pace this goes at will definitely feel slow. A lot of people say that Genki's method of teaching Hiragana and Katakana (the Japanese symbols) is better - or even more, that JFZ's way is horrible, but I don't agree with that. For the pace this goes at - again great for someone working or going to school all day - the method of teaching them where it's mixed with the English letters is a godsend that I never even considered a potential method. That said, I don't believe the speed is *that* far off. Genki is essentially a college textbook and I've seen suggestions to use it like you would in school - spend a week on each chapter, doing the learning, writing activities, quizzes, or whatever else it provides. As mentioned I spent a day on each JFZ chapter. If you're going to spend the same amount of time on the chapters in each book then yes JFZ will seem horribly slow, but the chapters aren't actually comparable for content. I feel like I'm going to complete JFZ book 5 in the time it's suggested to complete Genki 1 (which as far as I'm aware both will put you at similar stages of language knowledge). So be wary when reading about how much slower JFZ moves. Cons: It's probably a praise of this book that this is the only con I can think of, but the cover art characters really doesn't do it for me. Especially book one, with an anime schoolgirl in a short skirt, it makes the book feel childish. The content definitely isn't, and if it helps sell more books then I'd much rather it have this cover than not have any more content made, but it definitely makes me a bit self conscious taking it out to work on in public because it feels like a book for someone who's not really serious about learning. I'd much rather just nice artwork of Japanese locations or something like that. It's nothing a paper bag book cover can't fix, though. Suggestions to the Author: I'd love to see the vocabulary in each section used more in the activities. It may be that in the next revision it will be as I've already seen book 2 do this, but I find that the writing activities seem to focus on only one or two words throughout the entire book, so you really know those two vocabulary words you learned in chapter 1 but besides that... nothing. As mentioned this may already be a planned change though, as book 2 is a lot better about it. All in all I'd definitely recommend it! For the first time in a long time I feel like I'm actually learning a second language.

الكتاب كبير وممتاز ولكن الغلاف معفط للاسف مو مرره جديد

Recomendado como introducción para el aprendizaje del idioma japonés, tiene muchas actividades, va de lo simple a lo complejo y tiene buena dinámica de inserción de nuevo vocabulario y escritura japonesa progresiva. No es un libro infantil, es más para adolescentes y adultos. Se puede complementar el aprendizaje al avanzar de nivel los libros de niveles posteriores.

This book is structured for beginner's learning of Japanese. I have learnt how to read Hiragana from this book. And I even understand simple conversation and request.

this is the best book to read and write and learn and speak Japanese and if you are a big sucker for anime I think this is the best book to learn Japanese and able to enjoy anime to a next level. And it is easy to learn and I think anyone one can use this book and learn Japanese and I foregut to mention that the author of this has a YouTube channel called Japanese from zero

Questo è il libro perfetto per chi non ha mai toccato (e dico mai toccato nulla) che sia inerente al giapponese. Il libro parte proprio dal sillabario hiragana (nel secondo il katakana, cioè il sillabario per termini stranieri) su come scrivere ogni singolo carattere, partendo poi con le frasi più basilari ( ad esempio nella prima lezione la presentazione, poi i numeri etc) con tanto di piccole sezioni dedicate a vocaboli ad inizio capitolo (con tanto di scrittura in romaji, hiragana e kanji), grammatica e note culturali per ogni capitolo, passando poi infine agli esercizi (domanda e risposta) e traduzione.Il libro può trarre in inganno le persone adulte dando perscontato che sia un libro adatto solo per bambini per via della copertina ma non è così, il libro spiega in modo molto semplice e chiaro tutta la grammatica e struttura della frase giapponese.Questo è solo il primo libro e per ora ne conta in totale 4, in arrivo forse il quinto. Posso dire che ho il libro della hoepli e il genki (il genki poi costa un botto) e tra questi 3 preferisco proprio japanese from zero, forse perché spiega in maniera meno schematica e monotona rispetto agli altri due, contando anche che questi due libri sono più rivolti ad uno studio scolastico, mentre japanese from zero è rivolto di più verso gli autodidatti. Forse l'unica pecca è che il libro non è proprio adatto ad un neofita (non sono né neofita ma neanche ad un livello intermedio) e trovare le frasi scritte (parlo di frasi, non della singola parola) scritte solo in hiragana può essere un po' fastidioso ma...nulla di grave alla fine.Conosco quasi tutti i kanji a memoria (intendo quelli del libro di Heisig) e vedere solo la versione in hiragana fa quasi sentire l'apprendimento un po' parziale, non del tutto completo.Ad ogni modo è perfetto per qualunque categoria, sia per chi non sa nulla ma anche per chi sa già qualcosa, è sempre un buon strumento per rispolverare la lingua.La cosa che trovo molto carina è la fase progressiva di come i romaji (i nostri caratteri) vengono sostituiti nel tempo dagli hiragana dopo l'apprendimento di alcuni di essi dopo ogni capitolo. Ad esempio, se io trovo la frase -> kuruma desu ka? dopo 2 capitoli diventa kuるma deすか? e poi くるまですか? ed infine con l'aiuto dei kanji inseriti per ogni vocabolo 車ですか?. Altra pecca (ma è soggettiva come cosa) è che il libro è disponibile solo in lingua inglese, quindi non adatto a chi non conosce la lingua.Per chi invece ha dubbi può consultare la versione kindle e farsì lì direttamente un'idea più o meno chiara se acquistarlo o meno. Vi assicuro comunque che il libro è che scritto in un inglese molto semplice e che tutti (o almeno la maggioranza) può benissimo acquistarlo con tutta la serenità possibile, ve lo assicuro :). Ultima cosa che ho dimenticato di citare è che il libro non ha in dotazione il cd, ma credo che per la maggior parte delle persone non sarà un problema per via della diffusione di manga e anime; ma per chi non ha mai avuto a che fare con il giapponese, vi posso rassicurare che la sua fonetica è come quella italiana, per cui non sarà un problema.