Making Sense of Japanese: What the Textbooks Don't Tell You

4 stars for a book you said to borrow? Why?Having just finished this book, I will state it is extremely informative. The author does a fantastic job of explaining things, but, unfortunately, it's not what I would call a reference book.This is important if you're learning Japanese. Once you read this book, your continued learning will be a bit easier, but you'll never read it again.Hence, borrow it.One of the biggest issues I have with "teaching yourself Japanese" books is how they don't literally translate Japanese, but instead, "convert" to English in hopes to better understand.For example, a conversation in Japanese may go like this:Joe: "Doing?"Jane: "Going to bed."But teaching books incorrectly translate as:Joe: "What are you doing?"Jane: "I'm going to bed."This is SO wrong when learning Japanese because many times, the subject has "disappeared", and it makes sense. If Joe and Jane are the only two conversing, dropping the subjects (themselves) is expected. Moreso, in Japanese language, once the subject has been identified, it disappears as the conversation continues! This is why so many people feel this language is so difficult to learn.This book clearly covers situations like this, but does so in a manner you won't forget it while learning Japanese from textbooks that get it wrong while dispelling the "subject-less sentence".The loss of 1 star comes from the author's weird reason to draw out some topics, but cover others with just a paragraph or two. I wish all topics were a few paragraphs.Here's an example of this. When discussing the difference between "Wa" and "Ga", the author took an astounding 10 pages to simplify the definition "'Ga' marks the subject while 'Wa' marks the topic."(this is simplified, as examples are present. Also, there are circumstances when the above isn't true, but the overall truth to the simplification was perfect.)However, his topic "You say Kimeru and I say Kimaru" was compressed to one paragraph with a few examples. Perfect.As a person who just started learning Japanese, I am thankful the author wrote the book. It's informative, but not really worth a purchase. But that's just me. You may feel different if you feel the information deserves to be paid for with a purchase.Now, my quest to finding the perfect "learning Japanese" book continues. I've yet to find one.I wish this author would write a learning Japanese book. He gets it. He understand the language. This would have been, in my opinion, a better use of his expertise rather than a "what they don't tell you" book.I would definitely recommend this book for reading.Hope this review helps.

Although there are already quite a few positive reviews of this book, I thought I'd add my own.First off, I bought this book about five years ago, at which time I'd already been studying Japanese for about 15 years. I own at least 25 Japanese language books. I'm at a solid intermediate level, approaching advanced, but there still seemed to be some grammatical concepts that gave me some trouble.And guess what, a handful of those troublesome concepts are discussed in this book. At the very top of the list, the nuances of "wa" and "ga." These two particles are invariably difficult to all beginning, and often intermediate, students. Most intermediate students can use these particles competently, but there will still be many instances where you aren't sure which to use. This book gives a fairly exhaustive explanation on this subject, and honestly, it is worth the price of the book alone.Some of the subjects in this book can be found in other books, but some I had never seen before. I particularly enjoyed the info on the exact differences between "Shiru" and "Wakaru" and how to use each correctly. If you're like me, you've used these words many times, probably correctly (but sometimes incorrectly) and you don't know why you used one or the other. You just did it because you'd heard it used that way and knew it was correct. But sometimes you have the inclination to use the other one, but are told it is incorrect. Japanese people understand the nuances, of course, but most of them can't explain it in English (understandably so. It's complicated).The other great section of this book is the "Explainers" section. This is something that isn't explained in many grammar books, and if it is, it is sometimes partially incorrect or simply incomplete.It's not a perfect book, of course. The author sometimes gets a little too technical and overly detailed in some of his explanations, and I found myself at times thinking "Ok ok, cut to the chase" or "Just give me an example of what you're trying to explain." Also, some of the stories he tells seem a little unnecessary at times. And there are other things that could've been added to the book, but for the size and price of the book, it's perfect. If you want a good follow-up to this book, which covers a lot of the same detailed, often misunderstood grammatical concepts, I highly recommend "Using Japanese." Great book.In closing I'd like to say this is very likely one of those books you may not realize you need until you buy and read it. You'll think you've been doing something correctly or that you understand something, only to discover that you really don't understand it. I say give it a try. It's cheap and I guarantee you'll learn something from it, unless you've been studying Japanese for many years and/or have lived in Japan.

Wow, it's already been over 8 years since I first started learning Japanese! To think I was once using learning aides written in English!I bought this book before I was really ready for it: Rather than being designed to teach you Japanese it's more of a collection of essays on the nuances of some of the finer points of Japanese. These are points that learners transitioning between upper-elementary to intermediate Japanese might be puzzled by.If you're around JLPT N3 level this book is for you. Expect it to clear some things up for you before you move on torwards advanced Japanese.If you are at a lower level than that you may understand the book just fine, but it will be in one ear and out the other. You won't retain it. And if you're verging on upper-intermediate Japanese the points in this book are likely things you've already intuited and internalised from naturally absorbing the language.

Fantastic. Really cleared up my understanding on a few points (ga and wa/zero pronouns/passive verbs etc), whereas I’ve been confused on a number of things in my language classes. Humour combined with theory work great (really sinks in).

this book goes further than just wa and ga particles ,but I was not sure if I was understanding them properly and this book cleared things up and more besides

Throws light on some of the more culturally idiosyncratic and 'difficult' aspects of the Japanese language in an entertaining and accessible way.

The book consists of a number of mostly self-contained essays just as written on the cover. Each topic covered is like a reminder for some pattern, that you learn intuitively but tend to forget swiftly. It is a good thing someone codified these things briefly and in one place. The author's style is really good with lots of humour.