Since it was first published in 1984, the focus of the Japanese for Busy People series has always been to teach Japanese for effective communication.

The Kana Workbook teaches the two basic Japanese scripts, hiragana and katakana, which are essential for any student wishing to read Japanese.

It teaches not only reading and writing of kana (as these scripts are collectively called), but also listening and pronunciation with the aid of audio recordings which can be downloaded for free from kodansha.us.

Sections for practicing individual kana come with reference lines to help learners get a feel for the proper size and shape of each character. It also shows the stroke order, correct angles, and spaces between strokes, so that learners can master even confusingly similar-looking characters.

There are also many illustrations which help learners to build their vocabularies.