Daydreaming Diaries

It's time for another Japanese textbook review even I finished this book months ago. haha.

CDエクスプレス日本語 is one of the CDエクスプレス books offered in Japan besides a lot of different languages like German, French, Thai, Chinese, English, etc.
I don't know if this book is still available or if it is available in foreign countries, but there are a lot of worldwide auction websites, bookstore pages, etc on the web, where people can find all their wanted things now-a-days.
This books is for total beginners. YAY! A book for total beginners isn't easy to find since most books who seem to be for total beginners are just too difficult for someone, who doesn't have any knowledge about the Japanese language and mostly wants the studying person to be able to read and write Hiragana and Katakana. But this book even doesn't use Kana. It's just English and Romanji (Japanese).

In the first pages you can see an introduction about the book series, the Japanese language and the book content.
This book offers everything a newbie needs. It's subdivided in 20 lessons offering a small text (dialogue) written in Romanji, followed by vocabulary needed for understanding the text, and at the bottom of the vocabulary page you can find the english translation of the text. On the next pages you're showed the basic grammatical stuff used for building sentences like in the text before followed by some small exercises with examples. And so on and so on. Haha. 20 Lessons giving you the chance learning Japanese step by step by reading, listening and writing because it also includes a CD - well that may be the reason why it's called "CD express".
In the back of this book you can find a small dictionary and all vocabularies used in this book. The solutions for the exercises of each chapter and a small overview about the grammar topics like verb conjugations. adjectives, numbers, etc. of the different chapters in the book.
Well I said, this book does not use Kana, - well there are a Katakana and Hiragana table in the front pages printed, but the text, vocabularies and exercises examples are in Romanji and English only - so don't worry if you're not able to use Kana yet.

final conclusion
I recommend this book to everyone, who wants to start learning Japanese since it includes everything you need as a newbie. Easy daily-conversational sentences, followed by basic grammar, vocabularies and a CD offering you practicing your pronunciation like a native Japanese speaker.
So, if you're able to find this book since I'm not sure if you're still able to get it overseas, buy it!