Book excerpt: This is a concise and user-friendly book for learning polite spoken Japanese or written Japanese. Respect language—the special style of polite spoken or written Japanese—is involved almost every exchange of Japanese between one person and another, including the simplest phrases of greeting. An understanding of its forms is therefore essential to any serious student of the Japanese language. This programmed course is carefully designed to teach the basic and correct forms which the learner should master for his or her own use, by first looking at the various typical situations to see when respect should and should not be shown in Japanese, and then going on to see how respect is expressed in special forms of speech. In this way, the learner is shown how to identify the type of respect for used, the person to whom respect is being shown, and the equivalent form in colloquial language. The insights into both Japanese culture and language will help any student or businessperson traveling to Japan or speaking Japanese on a regular basis. Understand which situations require respect language. Identify the most suitable grammar, honorifics, and more for a wide range of situations. Self-tests to help you master what you learn. Valuable quick-reference appendices.