SAKURA - Japanese for Class VIII Sakura, "cherry blossom", is the text book for Class VIII students. This is next in the series

after Ume, "plum blossom", the text book for Class VI and Momo, "peach blossom", the text book for Class VII students.

Like Ume and Momo, Sakura, too, is in two parts - the text book and the exercise book. It comprises of eight lessons.

While lessons in Ume were in the Roman script and in Momo, in the Japanese phonetic script Hiragana, in Sakura, the text is rendered in Hiragana and Katakana, the other Japanese phonetic script. In addition. 39 Kanji characters of the pictorial script are included 12 of which the students are expected to learn to read only and 27 characters both to learn to read and write.

The lessons are in the form of short conversations or short passages. Formal version has been provided for colloquial expressions that appear in some conversation pieces. Students are advised to revise the sentence patterns and the vocabulary introduced therein after completing each lesson by doing the exercises given in the Exercise Book.

A glossary of words and patterns that are introduced in the book is appended at the end.