Introduction to Modern Japanese

From a reviewer: "This is the first book I ever used for learning Japanese and it is still my favorite. It is a bit old so some words and expressions are outdated, but the vast majority of the content is used even today. It teaches you some 450 Kanji-words (not individual Kanji) and a vocabulary of around 2000 words. It uses Japanese script from the start in the dialogues to practice reading, the grammar is well explained in English. In the first 18 chapters all exercises are written in romanization only, so that you will master the speaking aspect first. In the last 12 chapters all exercises are written in Japanese script as well, including the instructions. The exercises are quite varied and get increasingly challenging. The book covers about the same as 'Japanese for Everyone' and 'Genki 1 & 2'. There is actually an intermediate-level book also available by the same authors called 'Intermediate Japanese: an integrated approach' by Noboku Mizutani. They have also written an advanced reader called 'Nihongo through newspaper articles'. So all three books is a Basics-to-Advanced set."