As a second year Japanese student, I find the honorific language particularly difficult to remember. I usually confuse honorific words with humble expression and vice versa. It is always easy to remember that in Japanese, you should upgrade your partner (the person you are speaking to) while lowering yourself. However, the verbs are all irregular and thus easy to be mixed together, at least for me.
Therefore, I recommend this book because of three reasons
- It is a manga, so it will be interesting to read. Besides, as a manga, it has a lot of pictures. If you find it difficult to understand the text, the pictures will help you a lot to guess the content. You, therefore, don’t need to have a dictionary on hand immediately to assist with the book. I have more motivation to open the book as it is not a boring textbook, full of long sentences or difficult kanji.
- The characters are very cute and story lines are very funny! You will laugh a lot with Maruko-chan! Honorific language will become easier if you can learn it the way Maruko does!
- There are not many difficult kanji as it is a book aimed at children. There is also furigana along with kanji to help you.
While I am still reading the book as I have just recently discovered it, I recommend it to anyone who learnt honorific languages before as it will make more sense. Yet, if you are a first-year student eager to prepare for next year, I guess you can also try it out of curiosity. It is a great book to check out as it is way too cute and helful!
P/S: If you love Maruko-chan, you can meet her in anime series too!
