A beginner's workbook teaching you to read and write the Japanese hiragana and katakana alphabets As a bonus, includes 50 basic kanji characters along with their pronunciations and basic vocabulary By one of America's most experienced Japanese teachers--the author of many bestselling textbooks A step-by-step approach moves from tracing the letters to reading and writing complete words quickly Online audio recordings provide clear and accurate pronunciations of the Japanese letters and words Illustrations to help you to remember each letter and associate it with its sound Free downloadable flashcards help you to review and remember the letters and vocabulary Contains hundreds of drills and exercises suitable for self-study or for classroom use with a teacher Useful everyday vocabulary and phrases from numbers and colors to Japanese foods and social media Includes answer keys for all the exercises Japanese is spoken by 130 million people worldwide, making it the 9th most spoken language 132 colleges and universities in the US offer Japanese as an undergraduate major.