賢くなるクロスワード: 小学初級1〜3年 – is it any good?

Learning through puzzles. ‘You like doing puzzles in English, so why not Japanese?’ (these were my initial thoughts). I’m not sure it really worked out that way…

Some good crosswords:

  • 反対の意味の言葉
  • 似た意味の言葉
  • 漢字の書き
  • 漢字の読み

Crosswords that weren’t so useful:

  • 動物
  • 植物
  • 秋の言葉
  • 花の名前

Ultimately, this book was never aimed at me. It’s for children in primary school years 1-3. Whilst I might not be very interested in learning what different insects are called in Japanese, children in Japan certainly are and would have no trouble naming them. As I don’t know many insects (in Japanese or English), I would need to understand the clue, search for the insect in English, translate it into Japanese and then complete the puzzle which is too much work for, let’s face it, not a very useful word to know.

However, puzzles such as 「似た意味の言葉」did offer value. I knew the words and could do the crossword like I would one in English – use my brain to come up with the word that the clue was hinting at.

Other puzzles like 「特別な言い方」were good but I didn’t know most of the idioms and looking things up just takes the fun away and I doubt I will remember the phrases unless I make an effort to.

I am glad I tried these books but I wouldn’t purchase more from the series. I wish they could have some aimed more at learners of Japanese which would be more thematically relevant and age appropriate. It’s also a bit disheartening to struggle with puzzles aimed at 6-9 year olds.

I hope this was helpful for anyone interested in this series. Have you tried any of them? I was interested in the 四字熟語 but I think that really would be too upsetting a challenge :)
Emily

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