Japanese Core Words and Phrases: Things You Can't Find in a Dictionary Paperback – December 3, 2012

I have been teaching myself to read Japanese the hard way, by reading Manga (Naruto) and news stories on "NHK News Easy". One thing I have been having difficulty with are phrases using the demonstratives. Within minuets of first opening this book, I was able to find the meaning of a particularly troubling statement, without which I would have completely misunderstood what Naruto's feelings were.The writing is very clear and the explanations of the subtle differences in the nuances of similar phrases are easy to understand. The examples are tremendous, with many full dialogs that put the phrases in a clear context. They feel like things people would really say. No "See Dick. See Dick run" here. A possible down side for some (not me, I like things hard) is that some of the examples are a bit hard to understand for beginners without some thought.This book has become one of my "go to" references. I am sure that I will out grow it at some point, but for now it is invaluable.

If you are a beginner/intermediate level student be aware that this book assumes that you know all standard Kanji.Unlike ths authors Common Japanese Collocations book this one does not have furagana for the Kanji and there are a LOT of Kanji. This results in a beginning/intermediate learner being forced to read the romaji instead of reading the kana as they should be. Be prepared to be frustrated as you bounce back an forth between the romaji and kana trying to guess the pronuciation of the various Kanji.The initial word/phrase is given in kana ONLY (no romaji) with Kanji. If you don't know the Kanji you have to look for the word/phrase in one of the example sentances (which has romaji) to even know what you are about to learn. Very time consumming and frustrating.The core content of the book is very good. If it had proper furagana (instead of romaji) to help students learn the Kanji it would rate a 5 star rating.

Extremely useful for beginning Japanese, but must have a common grasp of all the different letters and symbols in the language. This is a valuable tool for anyone who wants to learn Japanese in an easy and effective way. Once you get the grammar down, it becomes much easier to replace words with others to create effective and easily understood and correct phrases for conversation.

I really enjoy the style of the series and the way this book particularly demonstrates an understanding of linguistic terminology and aids in second language acquisition. I wish it were a bit longer as it seems like it could have had a more general focus, that's my only legitimate complaint. Hopefully the author combines new information or a secondary focus in any following editions or follow-up books.

Easy use

I really like this small textbook. Has a good deal of information in it and quite a bit of review. If your Japanese is getting rusty but not gone this is a great book to re enter conversational Japanese. It has terminology we don't employ in our everyday use in classrooms but is probably essential in Japan! Highly recommend.

Seems to be a lot of useful phrases and everyday conversational sentence structures that aren't covered in more 'official' Japanese primers.

Although I have studied the japanese language for some time there has been some holes in my understanding. I believe this is just the thing to help me understand the nuances- pocket phrase books just weren't cutting the mustard.

Useful part of a reference library for learners of Japanese.

bien pour des apprenants de niveau intermédiaire. Un regret : les phrases sont parfois complexes, la traduction élégante fait qu'avec un niveau trop bas on ne retrouve pas forcément à quelle partie de phrase correspond telle ou telle partie traduite...par contre chaque phrase est à chaque fois écrite :- en "vrai" japonais, avec kanji- en rômaji- en anglais

good book

Not as helpful as I hoped it would be, also it's pretty much the same as all other books on the subject. Didn't find too many helpful phrases "that I can't find in a Dictionary" like it states. Just another book for the pile collecting dust now.