How To Use A Japanese Abacus: A step-by-step guide to addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, square roots and practical examples for the Japanese abacus (Soroban).

How To Use A Japanese Abacus is a very instructive tutorial. It presents usage of the Japanese Abacus in a straightforward easy to understand fashion. It provides pictorial illustrations for all of the lessons along with concise step by step movement of the beads for each lesson. I highly recommend this tutorial to those who desire to learn the Japanese Abacus, as there is an impressive learning curve to understanding the methods of calculating with the Abacus. This is a book well worth investing in.

Very well written book. A MUST for the serious study of these ancient, but very useful tools.

Put it this way, since Amazon is always breathing down my neck to complete my reviews. I would not have ordered it if I didn't think I wouldn't use it, or think it was worth it. Like another reviewer said, it seems the only inaccuracy has to do with the way the beads are manipulated. You basically use your thumb, and your forefinger, nothing else. That needs to be addressed. Good book.

My first reaction when opening this book was that it looked like a cheep photocopy nicely bound. That may be true. Don’t expect any fluff, history, theory, or bedstand reading material. This is a book you open at a table with your soroban and work through the examples. I had a teacher who once said - “It goes from the rediculous to the sublime.” Posting numbers - check. Adding simple numbers - check. Carrying over numbers - ok. Subtraction -ok. Carrying over subtraction - uhh. Multiplication - argh - I need to take a break and try this later. Division - maybe some day. I needed to do examples and work through it. This is a workbook. Do I recommend it? I’m not good enough to answer, but this book would help me be good enough to answer. Probably a good starting point.

Great book with lots of examples which helps me to use the soroban correctly.

You are not supposed to use middle finger to use abacus. You only use thumb and index finger. I grew up in Japan, took Japanese abacus class. I have never seen anybody teaching using middle finger.

Excellent guide.

When I first opened the book, I noticed in the middle of the page, a diagram had a "white bar" running through it for no reason. I then checked the other pages and discovered on every other page, the middle text didn't get printed. I guess the company that made the book had a defective printing press. Amazon said they will send me another copy at no charge while I return the defective book back to them. I will submit another review once I review the new copy (assuming it don't have the same defects; otherwise I might generate an even more nasty review if they did).

The only book you will ever need. Takes you from complete beginner to competent exponent.

J'aime. A+

First of all this book is physically huge with very large print. It would probably work well in a classroom setting or for kids who like large print, but if you want a normal sized book buy the pocket edition. Otherwise this book is great. It shows you step by step how to add, subtract, multiply, divide and take square roots with large pictures to show you the start and end set up of the abacus. The exercises are ordered in sequence so you start off simple and becomes gradually more complex. E.g. it starts off using numbers that don't require any carries and moving on to long sequences of multiple carries etc. However there are a few things that could be improved: While the descriptions tell you step-by-step which beads to move they don't actually explain why very well. A couple of pages explaining use of number bonds to 5 and 10 to know how many beads to move when adding/subtracting with carries would go a long way. You'll need to find another guide or video for that. For multiplication & division it helps if you're familiar with long multiplication and long division - it teaches the procedure but not the maths. The square root section is very short. It's enough to get you going but you'll probably have to look up the paper based procedure to really follow it. The finger movements described are a little unusual - I don't think most people use their second finger The illustrations are perhaps overdone - a lot of space is wasted with pictures of the abacus in start and end positions which you don't need beyond the first few pages. Maybe this is because it's aimed at kids.