I found a book for Japanese beginners with the fewest Japanese letters inside it

 I went to second-hand book shop today. 

classic smell of used books

And I found this book, "TEACH YOURSELF: Beginner's JAPANESE".

On the front cover and in bottom left corner, I can see the words saying 7th year of Heisei era (平成7年), which is 1995, so it's pretty old book. Interesting, isn't it. Is there any difference in teaching Japanese from 2022? It's been 27 years since it's published. That's more than a quarter of a century.

I flipped through the pages and noticed something odd in this Japenese text book. 

"I don't see any Japanese letters..."

Believe it or not, Japanese words introduced in this book were only with alphabets. Isn't it strange? If you think the other way, it's like, teaching English language to Japanese people in only Japanese letters. 

It is possible to "say" Japanese words by reading Roman characters. But teaching Japanese only with Roman characters is just making learning harder, specially with the volume of this book. (If it's like pocket-size book for use of visiting Japan, then it should be fine to just remember only the sound of Japanese words.)

At the same time, I also thought, this book is 1995. The year of Windows 95. Now it's 2022 and Windows 11. (Okay that's confusing comparing these two.)

When I walk in the city of UK now the 2022, I see Japanese letters sometimes. Many of them are attached with Japanese culture such as food, manga and anime. 

But in 1995, I believe it was quite rare to see Japanese letters back then. Japanese economy already bloomed in 1970s and 1980s, reaching 2nd highest for GDP in the world after USA, and from 1990s it started to shrink.
What I want to say here is that at that time, even there were many worldwide electronic Japanese companies, I don't think Japanese soft culture was not well known in the people of UK. For example, now the common dish Katsu curry (カツカレー), the Katsu is Japanese word. If you already know that Katsu is Japanese word and know how to say it, it is easy to go to next step. 
If you didn't know what Katsu is, it's just too stressful to learn Japanese letters from scratch. Because you almost don't know anything from culture side but try to learn new letters.

Culture is important. Oh culture. The word is everywhere now. Well that's because culture is really important in this 21st century world.

CJ