Best conversation etiquette guides according to redditors
We found 75 Reddit comments discussing the best conversation etiquette guides. We ranked the 28 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 75 Reddit comments discussing the best conversation etiquette guides. We ranked the 28 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
This is the single best book about the topic. Not only does it start with a discussion of sound symbolism in Japanese, but it gives you real definitions for the words, in which case it doesn't just give one or two word definitions but really explains the words and their nuances. In fact for every word it includes whether it is good, bad, or neutral. Most of these Onomatopeia have both sound and mimetic meanings. Such as どんどん being a good example because it's also a low heavy sound. Like the slow beat of a bass drum.
It's a pain in the ass for the most part if all you've studied is standard contemporary Japanese. This applies to both speaking it and listening to it. The kansai dialect is even broader in its own sense being that you only find certain constructs within certain areas.
Colloquial Kansai Japanese is often recommended for trying to prepare yourself but it really is hit or miss with what is used and what isn't as mentioned above.
Another popular site to familiarize yourself with the kansai dialect is http://www.kansaiben.com/.
My personal recommendation is to go through kansaibenkyou.net.
Teach Yourself Finnish (note: I don't know if this comes with the audio or it's separate).
Colloquial Finnish. Try and find the book cheap. If you get the latest version. You can get the audio free off of the website.
Assimil Finnish (Le Finnois) This is only available in French, no English.
Assimil Finnish (Finnisch ohne Mühe) Only in German
The only other thing I personally know of is using bittorrent via the usual places, as I've seen language packs for Finnish.
And simply Googling here
大阪ええやんか！
Just to clear up: you'll usually hear it referred to as 関西弁 (kansai-ben), which is the Kansai regional dialect and includes subdialects in Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe, Wakayama, etc.
I lived in Osaka for about 2 years. I can vouch that everyone will understand you if you speak Standard Japanese (標準語 hyōjungo), but you might have trouble understanding others if they speak Kansai-ben until you get used to hearing it.
I found this book really useful: https://amzn.com/0804837236
By the way, if you're there for business, rest assured that people will be more likely to use Standard Japanese in a formal setting. I mean, not completely – they'll probably mix in a bit of Kansai-ben from habit depending on their age, class and where they grew up – but it will be less than if you go talk to a 65-year-old street vendor.
In practice, there usually isn't a clear boundary between hyōjungo and Kansai-ben, because living in Osaka will influence the way people speak hyōjungo anyway (not just words/particles, but intonation and pitch accent as well). Just imagine them on a spectrum, with people who exist along the whole spectrum.
Merry Christmas/God Jul/Hyvää Joulua!
This is actually quite common, this phenomenon is known as "Language Attrition":
>Language attrition is the loss of a first or second language or a portion of that language. Speakers who routinely speak more than one language may use their languages in ways slightly different from a single language speaker, or a monolingual. The knowledge of one language may interfere with the correct production or understanding of another.
Which seems to be what you're experiencing with Finnish, especially if your immersed in Swedish culture the majority of the time with school, the media, friends, family (even though you also said the speak finnish) etc.
To combat this I suggest attempting Finnish as if you were a novice...
Books:
Or if it's not too hard you could try something like "Suomen Sujuvaksi" or "Tarkista tästä!" Where Finnish is taught in Finnish, that might or might not help.
Hopefully this helps :)
Good luck learning bahasa. It's a fun, accessible language, and knowing just a little bit will really go a long way towards bringing yourself closer to the people of Indonesia.
I accidentally spent an hour and a half writing this. Excuse the length, it got a bit out of hand.
First of all take formal lessons. Doesn't matter where or how, learning is considerably easier through assistance and interactions with people. Anyone can learn to read moon runes but a teacher can help with conversation and pronunciation especially which is the most important aspect. I started with weekly out of school classes and for a year I had a family friend tutor who would help me weekly and I can't emphasise how helpful learning through a teacher is.
My total class time was a little unorthodox with 5 years of extra studies in England during secondary school followed by 3 years of Japanese in Australia during high school. The rest has been self studies of kanji and overall reading and listening. I'll go through everything.
Second is to get the Japanese writing system down; hiragana and katakana. Kanji is also important and an absolute must if you plan to read light novels, manga and especially visual novels. My personal preference for a digital kanji dictionary is Japanese which comes with useful features like a touch screen writing kanji search, stroke order for kanji writing, JLPT kanji learning and sorting and most importantly sentence usage examples.
Visual novels are rough because they have sometimes have the unique blend of every day kanji and words before throwing terms like large hadron particle collider and anti gravity particles, (I'm looking at you Aokana.) My personal method for learning kanji has been to get a book and manually create my own list in Anki.
Third is books. Again, the standards you'll find are Japanese for Busy People and the Genki series. I live in Australia, mind, resources may be different in other countries. Other helpful texts down the line include: Read Real Japanese, 日本語擬態語辞典 (A Japanese Onomatopoeia Book, though I'm sure Jazz Up Your Japanese with Onomatopoeia would work just as well) and the last one I'll mention below.
The Japanese Shonen JUMP is an exceptionally useful source if you're able to get a hold of it. Weekly, reasonably prices, recyclable books with pictures to deduce words from context, furigana to help with kanji and a decent art resource if you like drawing. I get a cop of JUMP weekly from Kinokuniya in Sydney if anyone from NSW happens to read this.
Fourth, use the internet! Don't use the net as your primary resource, text books exist and are pricey for a reason. However, there's a ton of great side content online that you can use. One alternative to JUMP is Pocket Shonen Magazine with all sorts of manga in Japanese that provides the lastest chapters for free. It's also home to the rather unique read Nagatoro-san.
You also have options like Japanese podcasts, (I like Anime Cafe Latte), Visual Novels with Japanese subs as well such as Little Busters English Edition and Go Go Nippon!* and Japanese news websites.
Additionally once you get better at reading and writing you can lurk on Japanese forums, YouTube pages and Nico Nico if you want casual chats with fans. When I played through Persona 5, it was nice to talk to other Japanese players in the early days of release and discuss it. It was also helpful that players created a walkthrough website for P5 and various move and frame data for Dissidia which were helpful. Again there are many ways you can learn and utilise Japanese so never underestimate when, where or how you can use the language.
Fifth is Japanese Media. Anime, manga, animation, live action films, books, music, podcasts, anything! Constant and consistent exposure to the language is an incredibly useful method to get down pronunciation and fluency. Anime and manga won't help with casual conversation but will keep the language fresh in your mind and help with pronunciation. An example of difference between representation of pronunciation can be shown in the Chihayafuru live action films, (which are very good!) Kansai certainly has its own quirks that isn't present in your bog standard Tokyo dialect, but the more realistic live action take on kansai, compared to the sporadic and higher pitched anime take is a shocking juxtaposition.
This is getting very long so I'll just through out two YouTuber I haven't put in the text above and a few small useful FAQs I see around.
Abroad in Japan presented by Chris Board is a very fun and insightful series of videos looking into places in Japan off the beaten path. He also has a podcast.
That Japanese Man Yuta interviews various people in Japan about various topics. The interviews are generally subbed and are great for hearing natural speech patterns and word choices.
Q: Do I need to know a lot of Japanese when I go to Japan? A: Not if you're travelling around Tokyo. Anywhere outside train transport and the city is a lot harder to navigate when reading signs. This has been improving over recent years. Tokyo locals can manage a little English but you'll have a far easier time if you know the language.
When I went near Kobe for a Haruhi anime pilgrimage there was a distinct lack of any English whatsoever outside of the train station. Nobody spoke English and all communication was Japanese. You also get to hear some amusing side comments from people in the Japanese if you look foreign enough.
Q: How vital is learning Japanese for games nowadays considering the increasing speed and frequency of translations? A: Recently games I've played or want to play in Japanese such as Persona 5, Gintama Rumble and Girls und Panzer have had English subs in their Asia edition on sites such as Play Asia. Better yet is that some of these games get same date releases. However, sometimes translations can be wonky depending on who was contracted for the translation such as the infamously awful Sword Art Hollow Fragment translation.
Some games like Ao no Kiseki and Zero no Kiseki are only now receiving translations despite being popular games. Did you know there's a PS3 visual novel about using a smartphone to read girls' current emotions? I didn't until my little sister brought it back from Japan for $10 from my favourite store Trader, (it's not that good.) Even larger titles such as Summer Pockets are also left in the wind as to whether or not it'll be translated officially or by fans reasonably soon. There are also an exorbitant amount of games that don't get official or fan translations.
Q: Do I have to become a sub elitist because I know Japanese? A: Nope, contrary to popular belief you can still enjoy dubs but you may find you appreciate the subtext in Japanese that isn't heard in English more often. Playing Square Enix games can be especially frustrating in sub when you realise just how much text can be abridged, (you may actually prefer this in some games however.)
Q: Is there a 2,000 word essay you're avoiding writing? A: Yes and that concludes this post.
Hope this helps, hit me up if there's anything else you want to ask.
I hope it's okay for a learner who's far from fluent to chime in?
I started with the usual hello, how are you, thank you phrases and learning the word endings. I've mostly used the internet to learn, websites and blogs like Uusi kielemme, and Random Finnish Lesson have been really useful to me, even though they're more of a collection of information rather than methodically laid out like a course. Ymmärrä suomea and Ison Suomen Kieliopin Verkkoversio look really good for the basics and detailed grammar respectively, but they're entirely in Finnish so for a beginner like me not helpful yet. I've used/am using the books Complete Finnish which is like a short course book, as well as one by Fred Karlsson, I think it's called Finnish the essential grammar? And also little phrase book from Berlitz.
What would be really useful, IMO would be a wiki that has lots of exercises, especially one that gradually gets more difficult as you progress. I haven't seen a website quite like that yet and I can't really keep buying more books. Exercises like, IDK, translating songs could be interesting, or having a collection of words that you have remember for you to use in the next exercise.
Kiitos tästä!
I got so much fun stuff from /u/PandaProphetess! I got some lovely green yarn & needles to match, this book on canning and this book on writing. Neither of which I own already, yay!
Also since I mentioned that tarot cards were my secret love I got a new [deck] (https://www.amazon.com/Ostara-Tarot-Morgan-Applejohn/dp/0764352822/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1525531995&sr=8-1&keywords=ostara+tarot) and it's AMAZING.
I haven't had the best of luck with reddit secret exchanges in the past, but I'm definitely super happy with my gifts. Thanks, /u/Panda Prophetess!
It's not infinitely helpful, perhaps, but I own John C. Traupman's "Conversational Latin for Oral Proficiency", which, actually effectively or not (and I never experimented enough to say), is at least written entirely to help with this exact cause. Here's the Amazon link, but I bet you just might be able to find it other ways....
It's best to learn as much as you can on your own before you move to the province. Otherwise, especially if you're in Montreal, you might be tempted to keep speaking English because you feel your French is not yet good enough, and that's a vicious circle.
There are lots of free or cheap resources out there to learn French, so it shouldn't be a problem. If you're looking for online lessons, I recommend you check out duolingo. It's completely free. I haven't tried their French course, but the Spanish one is great, so I guess it should be fine.
If you're looking for books, I suggest you look into Hippocrene Beginner's French, Colloquial French, or Teach Yourself French.
Given that I'm a native speaker, I haven't tried these specific books, but those series are extremely well made, so I assume the French ones are equally good.
Anyway, best of luck to you in learning French. Don't give up easily. It might seem hard at first, but with practice you'll see it is in fact a fantastic language.
I am a big fan of the alternative approach taken by Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish.
It starts from scratch but focuses on getting you speaking Spanish from the very first chapter, without miring you in endless conjugations and exceptions.
I'm sure that plenty of people will disagree with me, but I REALLY don't like textbooks for self-study. It's always seemed to me that the authors of textbooks half-ass explaining things since they assume you'll have a teacher who can explain it to you. (Also they tend to be really expensive!)
For getting your feet underneath you, I honestly love phrasebooks (Rick Steves; Lonely Planet) and picture dictionaries.
At the start, I used (still use!) the "Practice Makes Perfect" series. They're not expensive at all, though they might as well be printed on newspaper - these are NOT long term reference works... there are a ton of these in the series that I haven't listed below, but these are good:
These are more expensive but absolutely worth the price:
Edit: Forgot this one but it's worthwhile also - Italian Fluency: Twin-Words and Essential Vocabulary.
Avoid at all costs ... "Italian for Dummies"; "501 Italian Verbs" :)
Two things: For history and high culture, you want "Natasha's Dance" http://www.amazon.com/Natashas-Dance-Cultural-History-Russia/dp/0312421958/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1420918749&sr=1-1&keywords=Natasha%27s+dance
For a detailed look at basically every aspect of Russian everyday life and worldview (everything from historic army uniforms to the culture of medicine to folk tales and superstitions), "The Russian's World" is where it's at. http://www.amazon.com/The-Russians-World-Language-Edition/dp/0893573809 The 2nd or 3rd edition will be much cheaper, but the information I got from my older edition (published 2000) about basic daily life was pretty outdated when I was in Russia (2012).
RAPID Rescue Spanish https://www.amazon.com/dp/0323042058/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_q6MEzbYJ4YRV9
Depending on what parts of the language you're interested in specifically, Kodansha makes individual books on adjectives and adverbs, verbs, particles, onomatopoeia, levels of formality, kanji prefixes and suffixes, slang, etc.
Of these, I think the onomatopoeia is the one that far outshines what you might find on the topic in a general textbook.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1568364865/ref=pd_aw_sim_14_of_23?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=4EBPBSHE3WES29Z31JTK
That being said, nowadays most of this information is online, but if you like having it all in one place, or just prefer books as a format it might be useful.
(Native german speaker living in the US) After I started with Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish: A Creative and Proven Approach, I got Große Lerngrammatik Spanisch: Regeln, Anwendungsbeispiele, Tests which I like very much as a different, very well organized angle into the Spanish language.
Ive gifted once but never been gifted lol. Yay i qualify!
Tertemen: noun - the act of destroying and causing a frightening scene.
this which i feel bad for askin for so this if first is too expensive :)
Thanks for the contest!
Just looked into it. I found [THIS] (https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/review/0385410956/R2T32NAH2ZJIGQ?ie=UTF8) really helpful review through it that breaks down all the other good guides.
I haven't looked extensively at Trapman, Conversational Latin for Oral Proficiency, but my experience with it so far is that it's useful and reliable.
https://www.amazon.com/Conversational-Latin-Oral-Proficiency-Traupman/dp/0865166226
No single resource will do. Find a few different ones that you like and stick to them. Memrise will help but only as a supplement, not on its own. It'd also be a good idea to find someone to talk to about the language and gradually in the language instead, as your Spanish gets better. Lucky for you there are a ton of us Spanish speakers in the world, and it's one of the most popular languages to study. A quick search on here or /r/Spanish will help you find the resources people like best.
Ideally you could also get a textbook like this (first ones I found on google, cannot recommend or not recommend) http://www.amazon.com/Spanish-Medical-Interview-Textbook-Clinically/dp/1416036490 or this http://www.amazon.com/Medical-Spanish-Fourth-Edition-Bongiovanni/dp/0071442006/ref=pd_cp_b_1 that will help you learn the medical vocab you'll actually need to know along with the language.
Hey there - fellow March 2020 CYD invitee here!
My Armenian friend highly recommended this particular Eastern Armenian phrasebook. I purchased it last week:
https://www.amazon.com/Armenian-English-English-Eastern-Armenian-Dictionary-Phrasebook/dp/078181006X
Making out in Japanese
*edit and More making out in Japanese
No, it's the right sub for that. But your post mentioned "book about traveling or Spanish traditions."
This is my favorite book for learning Spanish.
https://www.amazon.com/Madrigals-Magic-Key-Spanish-Creative/dp/0385410956
If you're looking for a book that will quickly and easily teach tourist Spanish, get this version...
https://www.amazon.com/See-Say-Spanish-Word-Picture/dp/0451168372
If she's looking for something to practice her Spanish, then I'd say any book by this guy...
https://www.amazon.com/Juan-Fern%25C3%25A1ndez/e/B01EWZXYLK?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_6&qid=1575060253&sr=1-6
Sounds like quite a challenge. I don't have much advice or experience in multi-lingual environments (maybe /u/Rocknocker will chime in) but here are some resources my google-fu recovered:
I also found a pdf download of an Arabic Dictionary of Scientific and Engineering Terms(Al-Muntaqa) but I didn't download it and have no idea of the quality.
You should look up a cool little phrasebook called "Making out in Korean"
It's an introduction-level book, but it has a lot of the terms you seem to be looking for, from first meeting, setting up a date, "your place or mine"-ing and then bedroom talk from "oh yeah that's good" to "no, don't put anything in there."
Amazon Link for Making Out in Korean
Amazon Link for More Making Out in Korean
I'm going to be starting on Madrigals Magic Key Spanish soon. I like it because its content is organized in an unusual way, but I don't know if that makes it the best, just interested and good for some learning styles. Its been around for quite while.
Does anyone else have experience with Madrigal?
I think you're right and wrong at the same time about how difficult it is to learn Indonesian.
The American 'FOREIGN SERVICE INSTITUTE' lists Indonesian as harder to learn than most of the major European languages: https://www.state.gov/foreign-language-training/
However, this is only true if you're learning formal, correct Indonesian. IMHO, it's probably the easiest language in the world to learn for practical, everyday use.
Here's the steps I took to learn practical, everyday, Indonesian.
That's it!
Well . . . not really, but you need to be honest with yourself about the likelihood of remembering words and concepts you have no practical use for.
The only reason I was able to retain what I learned was because I live in Indonesia and really NEED to know the language to get by.
For books, I thought Colloquial Kansai Japanese was well-priced and gave a good overview.
Great resource for spanish, written by a medic for medics.
http://www.amazon.com/RAPID-Rescue-Spanish-Paul-Maxwell/dp/0323042058
You'll be a bodyguard for your customers? How interesting.
I used this book: http://www.amazon.com/Japanese-All-Occasions-Mastering-Honorific/dp/4770031513 alongside wikipedias entry for 敬語.
I have this book, it has a ton of phrases that can be used in everyday speech and also a bunch of proverbs. I never see it mentioned by others learning Latin but it’s a great resource especially for those that want to speak it and apply Latin to modern conversations.
https://www.amazon.com/Conversational-Latin-Oral-Proficiency-Traupman/dp/0865166226
Well, I looked it over! I can read some French, but I'm not the strongest in it. If you expect anyone to learn it, you're going to need a pretty solid course in English though :S
I mentioned the ikindalikelanguages website before, but I also wanted to point out Margarita Madrigal's style of teaching too.
It is quite effective. You can actually download her Magic Key to French and Magic Key to German for free because they are both out of print.
Good luck on your future work!
Well look mate I'll paste below the resources I'd be using to kick-start your Spanish. Even at your level I'd say these would be worth giving a go to bolster your speaking and listening. It's an old comment so I'm just gonna paste the whole thing below:
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Well, If I had to redo my initial learning all over again and I was in your position this is what I'd do and these are the resources I would use for that initial learning period.
Pick yourself up a copy of Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish this was written back in the 50s but all the same principals apply and it's still in print. I see it as a no nonsense guide to Spanish and is something you could easily pack with you.
Pick up an Audio Course. There are a few out there but my personal favourite and the one which will teach you the vocabulary you need to know is Say Something in Spanish. each of these lessons is quite long about 40 minutes each I believe once you get into the middle parts of the course but this guy starts off with a core set of vocabulary and continues to build and build on it. Back when I did it I think the first 10 lessons were free and each additional lesson was £1 so it ended up costing about £40 total (money well spent).
The other courses I'd recommend are any of the Michel Thomas courses who has his own methods of explaining the grammar tenses (something you won't get in the Say Something in Spanish course) and will slowly introduce you to key words and concepts. Not crucial as Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish will introduce these also but if you are an Oral learner and enjoy simply listening to explanations this could be for you.
I'd recommend this as a good starting point at least to see if learning the language is for you. From there you can look to take lessons (I use Italki which is a website where you can take lessons over Skype and find a language partner if you are so inclined) investigate using a flashcard strategy that works for you and find Spanish content in which you can immerse yourself (youtube video, books for Spanish learners, one of my favourites is Gritty Spanish which has a beginners program also)
The most important aspect of language learning is to find materials for you that are fun and engaging. For me I get a kick out of speaking the language and being understood so I take every opportunity I can get to go to language exchanges depending on where I am (Check out Mundo Lingo or Meetup.com if that's something that interests you). So my learning focus tends to be on spoken Spanish rather then the type of language you might see in an epic fantasy novel.
All the best on your language learning journey. It's tough work but I extremely rewarding.
That's very cool, I never heard of that! I'll keep it in mind next time I need clarification on something. That other site is cool as well, I'll look into that one a little further as I've been semi-interested in maybe learning Turkish whenever I feel ready to eventually move on.
Jyväskylän yliopisto/University of Jyväskylä has resources for learning Finnish here, it's very comprehensive but also very literal so it's best used as a basic reference point. As in, it's not going to try to explain things to you from a more English-speaking perspective, for the most part. For that a good resource is Finnish for Foreigners, which is a bit old and so it's possible that some smaller details are outdated now, but I liked it because it does a bit more in terms of explaining things for English speakers in a simple way. And it's also good because there is both a textbook and an accompanying workbook. Here is another good one. I also have this workbook, though it's more of an upper beginner/intermediate book and won't do much for you just starting out, and I also feel like it's laid out in a way that is pretty overwhelming. But it's a thing, if you want it. Also, there is this cool site that gives you articles written in Finnish and slow audio readings of them, and what I did initially when I was first beginning is I would actually have one tab with the Finnish open and one with it translated to English, so I could go back and forth and learn words that I didn’t know while I was listening to the audio.
I also have heard good things about iTalki so long as you choose a good teacher, but I haven't used it personally so I can't say much more than that.
If you want to get a book (which is generally cheaper than courses), I've read this one and it is good:
http://www.amazon.com/Medical-Spanish-Fourth-Bongiovanni/dp/0071442006/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1453634368&sr=1-6&keywords=medical+spanish
I also think the most important things to do are:
You could spend only 15 min a day and still progress if you're committed. Good luck!
https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Finnish-Beginner-Intermediate-Course/dp/1444195220
​
This book is a bit expensive, but it's fantastic, would suggest.
Most dialects you won't encounter too much. However, I really would recommend learning (to understand - not necessarily speak) the Kansai dialect (Osaka/Kyoto/Kobe region) as it's nearly as prominent as the Tokyo dialect. You'll hear it all the time on TV, movies, and even in the street.
Here's a good book for an intro
There are thick books about Japanese onomatopoeia. I have this one,
but that one seems to be easier for a start.
I can only recommend this book. It covers pretty much everything from getting into a street fight to telling a bar girl that you'll be gentle with her. (I don't have the "revised edition", but the original is pretty awesome)
Frankly if I were you I would spring for one of those pocket-sized Berlitz books of useful phrases, like this one
https://www.amazon.com/Berlitz-German-Phrase-Dictionary-Books/dp/2831508835
I think they even have an app that does the same thing.
Thank you so much for this. There is a book that I love that works on the same principle, and I'm so glad to have found something similar to it that is audio. If you're interested, this is the book: http://www.amazon.com/Madrigals-Magic-Key-Spanish-Creative/dp/0385410956
For all interested in kansai-ben exist a dedicated book about differences between "standard" japanese and Kansai-ben:
Colloquial Kansai Japanese: The Dialects and Culture of the Kansai Region: A Japanese Phrasebook and Language Guide
This book might be a good place to start: https://www.amazon.com/Conversational-Latin-Oral-Proficiency-Traupman/dp/0865166226
Bonam Fortunam!
Look! We have the same thing!
Granted, it doesn't feature a cute anime girl, but to be fair everything in Japan features a cute anime girl.
Practicing will obviously work the best, maybe volunteer at a clinic more likely to have spanish patients?
I think this is the most helpful medical spanish book: http://www.amazon.com/Medical-Spanish-Fourth-Bongiovanni/dp/0071442006/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1464016441&sr=8-6&keywords=medical+spanish
thats basically marriage Really? That long?
all i really have is books on my wishlist
this book is 11 not really 10 but i will put it here just incase i win
Coffee Break French https://open.spotify.com/show/6YqgG1UezfW9khCvLh8rvw (audio course, things like shopping, ordering food, etc)
Clozemaster https://www.clozemaster.com (mass vocab)
A grammar workbook like French Conversation https://www.amazon.com/Practice-Makes-Perfect-Conversation-Premium/dp/1260010686 I loved their Italian equivalent
Which edition should I get? I know a few people have said its outdated but there seems to have been a 2003 revised edition as well as a 2004 book called "more making out in japanese".
http://www.amazon.co.uk/More-Making-Out-Japanese-Tuttle/dp/0804833451/
Its not clear to me if the "more" edition contains the contents of the former editions.