C. J. Dunn, S. Yanada: Teach yourself Japanese

The object of this book is to enable you to teach yourself to speak Japanese. The vocabulary and constructions used have been chosen to provide you with the essential minimum for saying whatever you are likely to want to say without going into technicalities in any special subject, with the possibility of increasing your vocabulary as your contact with Japanese increases.
Japan is a country with a long cultural tradition. Her works of art are famous throughout the world. She is also one of the leading industrial and trading nations, with a population of over eighty millions increasing by a million a year. Thus many people in the world are in contact with some aspect or other of her activity; yet outside Japan and her former Empire, and those parts of North and South America where many Japanese have settled, her language is known by only a few hundred people at the most. Without a wider knowledge of her language, appreciation of her rich culture must remain restricted. Business-men, too, would find great advantage in becoming familiar with Japanese, not only in their negotiations but also in the key it provides to the way the Japanese think.