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Book Description
Making Sense Of Japanese is a Kodansha International publication.
Concordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great treasure for intermediate students.,
By
This review is from: Making Sense Of Japanese: What the Textbooks Don't Tell You (Paperback)
Having been studying Japanese on and off for, oh, nine years now, I have learned that not all educational tools and methods work for everybody. People have their own way to learn languages, and in my case the straight-up textbook approach never entirely succeeded. I lived and studied in Japan for several years, and that helped in conversation and in terms of immersion. I have purchased everything from particle guides and Kanji dictionaries and even children's books to help my study, and all of them help in ways, but it is a very piecemeal way to learn.And I guess that is how it is when learning languages. Only the true geniuses of language can grasp these things in a ready and total fashion. And unfortunately for me, this piecemeal approach left me missing things from my study of the language. And then Jay Rubin stepped in. Jay Rubin knows the Japanese language. He teaches it, and is a translator of Japanese literature. (Most famously he translated into English Murakami Haruki's "The Wind-up Bird Chronicle" and "Norwegian Wood", as well as writing a biography of Murakami.) To steal a line from Lawrence of Arabia, "He knows his stuff." And so it is that Rubin decided to stuff all that stuff into a book for those of us who struggle with the more delicate grammatical issues of the Japanese language. And he does so with brilliance and wit and ease of use that I have yet to have seen surpassed. "Making Sense of Japanese" is indeed a precious little gem in my collection of Japanese learning aids that fills in so many holes in the facade of my shoddy language capacity. For instance: Wa and Ga - Never before has there been a more thorough and easy to remember explanation of the delicate differences between these two particles. They are a great bane to learners of Japanese, and Rubin dedicates 20 pages to truly making sense of them. The Myth of the Subjectless Sentence - and how it is a true myth. Which is followed by a really nifty look into the differences in pronoun use in Japanese and English. Receiving and Giving - and all the verbs that pertain to those actions. Causitives and Passives - and how they combine at times. Tame - Rubin succinctly explains the two forms of "tame" and gives examples. Tsumori - and how it too has a double use. And so much more! All told in a very lucid style and sharp wit that is sorely missing from most study guides. The final part of the book is dedicated to taking a very complex sentence in Japanese and breaking it apart and showing exactly how it forms a full statement. To some this may seem a little tedious and an over-indulgence in explaining in English what is fundamentally the properties of another language, but I have always felt in my studies that most texts and aids are lacking in easy to understand explanations. If you get frustrated with what seem to be overly simple and/or boring explanations of some very important grammar elements of Japanese, this little book is a marvel. But like any other language guide, these lessons must be studied to have impact. Though Rubin makes it very easy to read these passages over and over.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Explains the seemingly unexplainable,
By Elijah Zupancic (Kawasaki, Japan) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Making Sense Of Japanese (Paperback)
This book by Jay Rubin humorously explains some of the most seemingly esoteric aspects of the Japanese language to the intermediate student of Japanese. Some of the most useful concepts that Rubin explains are ha and ga, giving and receiving, passive, causative, hodo, and many more. After a casual reading of this book I felt that certain aspects of the Japanese language seemed to make more sense than ever before. I would recommend this book to any third year student of Japanese.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Winner,
By
This review is from: Making Sense Of Japanese: What the Textbooks Don't Tell You (Paperback)
This book explains the most difficult parts of Japanese grammar in clear and concise English. For example, one of the hardest things to learn is when to use "wa" and when to use "ga." This is sort of like when to use "the" or "a" or no article at all in English. It may come naturally to you, if you are a native English speaker, but it drives everyone else nuts. Unless Japanese is your first language, you almost certainly feel that way about "wa" and "ga," as well as several other concepts, but this book really does help like no other I have found.All students of Japanese should read this book. The only question is when. My advice is to buy it and read it over quickly as early as possible. You won't follow all of it right away, but that is ok. Just hang onto the book and read it again after you've finished the equivalent of one year's worth of classes. And again after two years, or whenever you get confused. One word of caution: this is not a text book. It does not have lessons, nor practice exercises, let alone vocabulary. It is a supplement only, but an essential one.
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