Japanese for Busy People is the most popular Japanese language textbook series in the world.

Japanese for Busy People series is one of the most comprehensive series containing texts, workbooks and teacher's manuals for all three volumes. Audio recordings for the dialogues and listening exercises are now available as free download from kodansha.us.

Teacher's Manual provides specific suggestions for teachers on how to use the main text in a classroom setting and how to coordinate it with the workbook. CAN-DO section is useful in creating lesson plan and measuring learners' mastery level. It also contains a Japanese translation of all of the key components of the main text, such as culture notes, notes on Japanese grammar, and active communication.

This first of three volumes introduces "survival Japanese" - the absolute minimum amount of Japanese needed to live in Japan. Thus, the vocabulary and grammatical items it introduces are limited to about a third of what is typically introduced in a first-year course. In addition, the book features notes on Japanese culture intended to expand the learner's understanding of Japan, its customs and people.

Japanese for Busy People I is available in two formats: romanized and kana.
The Romanized Version uses romanized Japanese throughout, with kana in the Opening Dialogues of each lesson. The Kana Version - exposing students to hiragana and katakana from the very beginning - uses only kana.The content of the two books is otherwise exactly the same.

The companion volume, Japanese for Busy People 1: The Workbook for the Revised 4th Edition contains a variety of illustrated exercises for mastering the basic sentence patterns presented in the main text.