Learn to do Math with Soroban A Japanese Abacus

I liked very much the numerous and lengthy worksheets providing practice exercises that are absolutely essential to understand and work the Soroban abacus. But, except for basic addition and subtraction, the book's explanations were difficult to understand and almost impossible to follow. Even after resorting to Youtube and learning how to do negative subtraction, multiplication and division I still found it difficult to go back and figure out what procedures the book was teaching. Part of the problem seems to be that the writer does not appear to be a native English speaker. As I discovered from viewing numerous videos on Youtube there are several ways to do multiplication and division on the abacus. I would say that the book has chosen the most difficult. I do not recommend this book.

This is an excellent book, which makes learning soroban pretty easy. My only quibble is that it does not tell you how much you should practice, and there is only 1 page at the very end which discusses "mental abacus". But lots of practice problems, and an intuitive design and good diagrams.I wish it would tell me how to train, what to train on, to become proficient at "mental abacus". But this book only has clear instruction on how to do the operations, not how much to train or how to get there.This book is MUCH better than the old Kojima book, which was quite confusing.

Of the several books I've considered and purchased, this one appears to be the most well thought out and organized. The illustrations are clear and accompanied with cogently written instructions and there are plenty of exercises to develop skills. If you are looking for a single book to develop a working knowledge of the Soroban, this is it!NB: Don't let the price be off-putting. The skills you will acquire make it worth the investment! 👍

If I could have only one book on the soroban - this would be it. It covers everything - adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing, squaring and negative numbers with detailed illustrated and written instructions that are easy to understand and follow. Plus there are hundreds of practice problems - with the answers in the back. This is by far, the best book on how to use the soroban I have seen. Thank you SAI Speed Math Academy.

This book explains the mathematical processes in great detail. I enjoy working through the problems. I am learning my lessons well!

Love the explanations and the fact that it teaches adding, subtracting, multiplication, and division. Wish it had a few more problems for each.

Best period..want to explore the abacus...buy this and ignore the elementary school Japanese manuals.

Well graded with exhaustive exercises for self-instruction. Explanations are a bit long-winded, but, otherwise, a very good resource.

Se ci fosse una collana intitolata "libri che insegnano a fare le cose male" questo libro ne farebbe parte a pieno. Chi è interessato ad apprendere come usare il soroban scarichi da internet i due libri di Kojima. Questo libro sembra scritto da qualcuno che si è letto Kojima capendone però poco. Usare il soroban non è difficile ma c'è bisogno di essere metodici e sistematici, tutte cose che il sistema insegnato in questo libro non è. Esempi:Se si deve sulla stessa colonna innalzare la pietra superiore e abbassare una o più pietre inferiori quale delle due operazioni deve essere fatta prima? Kojima lo dice e ne spiega il motivo, questo libro no. Come essere sistematici con simili lacune? Nell'addizioni e nelle sottrazioni quando si agisce su più colonne tramite i complementi si effettua prima la sottrazione o l'addizione? Qui viene insegnato,in tale frangente, ad operare da sinistra a destra ma questo crea problemi in addizioni del tipo 999+1. Invece tutto fila semplice con il metodo insegnato da Kojima. Che dire poi dei metodi insegnati per operare con i numeri negativi? La confusione più totale.Se volete imparare ad usare l'abaco giapponese leggete manuali scritti da giapponesi come quelli di Kojima, lasciate perdere questo libro che vi dà solo l'impressione di imparare il metodo giusto.

Very comprehensive guide to learning how to use the Soroban.