Colloquial Japanese: With Important Construction and Grammar Notes

by Noboru Inamoto

Book Overview

This volume presents the grammatical patterns used in colloquial Japanese. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 080481581X
• ISBN13: 9780804815819
• Release Date: January 1989
• Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
• Length: 436 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.2" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

Romaji-- I DONT MIND!

This book is about Grammar-- and it explains this REALLY well if you are the type of learner that is good at using patterns, and experimenting with them. Each lesson builds on the previous lessons, and by the end of the book there one can express a decent amount of ideas if all the vocab, and sentence structures are mastered. You wont be able to say everything you want(not a realistic expectation of any ONE book anyway)--- but if you are creative and can think on your toes-- you should be able to talk around these problem areas so that your meaning is understood. like saying "a scientist who looks at stars" if you dont know the word for "an ASTRONOMER." --granted: its a little more wordy-- but totally understandable. And being wordy is definitely better than just going--- a.... guy...... um...... stars..... looks at... --- right? Which makes this book a great foundation before more indepth independent learning. I got this book at a used store-- and I have to say it is one of the best written grammar references that I have ever found for studying japanese. It has a couple of issues that keep it from being a 5 star book in my opinion-- some dated vocabulary items and a lack of less formal registers. My friends here in Japan do not talk to me this politely! haha... Also, I doubt that it could really be used as a stand alone textbook for most students. I understood some of the reasoning and sentence structures from prior experience studying the language, and am not sure that a novice would follow everything perfectly on their own.--- That said though, I dont think that this is necessarily a bad thing. Its better to have native friends who can help you anyway, and this is a good book to elict their help-- it makes the rules and patterns clear to THEM! SO they can teach you better! As for the supposed evils of Romaji-- I understand the arguments for why people say its BAD! And in some ways--i think they are right, but usually for the wrong reasons. When I am studying GRAMMAR issues, I like to isolate the grammar-- and not worry if i am reading a particular kanji correctly. its not always best to learn GRAMMAR only in context-- in context is good, great even... but you can do both... its not just an either or thing... and a book like this is a nice shortcut to understanding. when I am studying Grammar, pronunciation and character meanings are just problems I dont want to or need to worry about. I can read the roman alphabet just fine-- and Its not always better to reinvent the wheel. Aside from a few vowel length issues, and the /N/+/a vowel/ as two sylables like in kinen (no smoking) ki-n-e-n -- romaji usually reperesents japanese close enough for GRAMMAR study. I agree, that it is better for the serious student to learn kanji, and the kana (as I have)-- it makes life easier. And its just a practical fact that advanced books assume a knowledge of the written language. Do they NEED to?... not really... it would

A great book

I would just like to make an amendment to my other review, this book doesnt have kana or kanji in it, I was partially mixing it up with another book, but aside from the lack of kana it is an excellent grammar book.

quite a good book

I have been studying Japanese for about ten years, although only seriously the last couple. This book was a very good resource for me, and had great grammar and sentence structure information in it. The only thing about the book I noticed was that it had alot of romaji in it and it distracted me a bit at times, but there is also Japanese writing so it was good for everyone. Certainly a worth while buy for the beginner and even into intermediate level.