Even if you have had no Japanese-language training, you can learn how to translate technical manuals, research publications, and reference works. Basic Technical Japanese takes you step by step from an introduction to the Japanese writing system through a mastery of grammar and scientific vocabulary to reading actual texts in Japanese. You can use the book to study independently or in formal classes.
    This book places special emphasis on the kanji (characters) that occur most often in technical writing. There are special chapters on the language of mathematics and chemistry, and vocabulary building and reading exercises in physics, chemistry, biology, and biochemistry. With extensive character charts and vocabulary lists, Basic Technical Japanese is entirely self-contained; no dictionaries or other reference works are needed.

Used for self-study or in the classroom, this text shows the reader how to read and translate technical Japanese texts by providing graded readings, explanatory notes, and translation aids.
 

Designed as a companion and study guide for the textbook Comprehending Technical Japanese, this book may also be used as a supplement to the textbook Basic Technical Japanese. It provides detailed explanations of the origin and meaning of the 500 kanji featured in CTJ, which were chosen for their frequency and significance in chemistry, physics, and biology.
    Each chapter is keyed to a chapter in CTJ, presenting twenty kanji, vocabulary that use those kanji, a kanji-card format for study and review, and the Japanese essay that appears at the close of each CTJ chapter, and its English translation.  This volume also introduces significant scientific vocabulary that include kanji  other than the 500 introduced in CTJ.