Japanese Workbook Vol.21

About this book

YOUR JAPANESE WORKS IN DAILY LIFE. NOW MAKE IT WORK ON THE DAYS THAT CANNOT BE DONE TWICE: 300 EXPRESSIONS FOR CEREMONIES, CELEBRATIONS AND LIFE'S MILESTONES, 12 CEREMONIAL DOCUMENTS, 12 WRITING TASKS.

Finished Vol.1 through Vol.20? Your Japanese handles daily life, work, travel, health — and even an emergency. But one register remains, the most formal Japanese of all: the invitation that must be answered by its deadline, the celebration money that must be wrapped the right way, the speech in which one repeated word can spoil the day, the condolence phrase that must never wound. Weddings, funerals, coming-of-age days and memorial services do not offer a second attempt. This is the volume that teaches the Japanese those days run on — politely, precisely, and in line with customary practice.

Inside: 300 practical expressions in 20 groups organised by scene — wedding invitations and replies, on the wedding day, wedding speeches and toasts, celebration money, gifts and returns, engagements and meeting the families, news of a death and first steps, the wake, the funeral and farewell ceremony, condolence words and calls, memorial services and grave visits, birth and first visits, first festivals and Shichi-Go-San, entrance and graduation ceremonies, coming of age and new beginnings, longevity celebrations, New Year rites and greetings, seasonal rites through the year, house rites: groundbreaking and roof-raising, company and community ceremonies, and thank-you letters, anniversaries and remembrance. Every expression comes with its reading, romaji, meaning, a short usage note — the scene, the person it suits, the level of politeness, the words to avoid — three natural example sentences in Japanese and English, and a practice space for three sentences of your own: your reply, your speech, your words beside a grieving family.

Plus 12 graded writing tasks in three stages — short ceremonial messages (accepting a wedding invitation, congratulating a friend, a short condolence, a New Year greeting), situation pieces (declining an invitation politely, the text of a condolence telegram, a letter of thanks, a reply about a memorial service), then full compositions (a wedding speech, words at a remembrance gathering, a letter to a family member who has come of age, looking back over a year of rites) — each with a model answer that really uses this volume's expressions, a self-check list and a full writing grid.

Plus 12 readings of real document genres — a wedding invitation and how to reply, how celebration money is wrapped and given, the order of a funeral and the manners of attending, how condolence money is wrapped and its envelope written, a Shichi-Go-San shrine-visit notice, a coming-of-age ceremony guide, New Year cards and when to send them, a memorial service invitation, the welcoming and sending fires of Obon, a parents' guide to entrance and graduation ceremonies, preparing for a groundbreaking ceremony, and choosing return gifts — each with a full translation, five key words and three questions.

All 300 expressions and all 12 readings are entirely new, with zero overlap against Vol.1–Vol.20 (checked programmatically against all 8,100 earlier headwords and 240 earlier reading titles, no exceptions; every Japanese field passed a character-set scan). The series now trains 4,200 words, 300 sentence patterns, 3,900 practical expressions and 252 readings.

Written, edited and published in Japan by a Japanese author. This book was made in Japan by Takikawa TOKOTOKO Kids LLC, with the care of a Japanese publisher who teaches ceremonies as they are actually practised.