For every student, a time eventually comes when basic grammar is no longer the problem. You can say a few words about the weather, or the fact that, yes, you are feeling hungry, or explain that you are going out for the day - and actually be understood. Beyond that, however, the going gets tough. You cannot make pertinent comments about philosophy, politics, art, science, law, or business - simply because you lack the necessary vocabulary. In fact, you may not be able to say that you are interested in "philosophy" at all, because you don't know the Japanese word for it. How do you go about acquiring this specialized vocabulary (most of which consists of kanji compounds)? Usually by spending hundreds of hours reading Japanese books or picking through a dictionary. This book is an attempt to shorten that process by collecting a good number of the more commonly used key words from crucial areas of human endeavor. Now, without spending years mastering the written language, you can occasionally come up with the right word at the right moment in a conversation that is striving toward comprehensibility. This can even be done by students who do not have a strong grasp of kanji, for they can learn the words as sounds. The areas covered in the book are ideas and theories