Re: Books advice and/or comments.

Hello David.

Wow, what a message. I hope it was already written somewhere else ;) If not, it should!

David Chien wrote:

4770028997 Breaking into Japanese Literature
Maybe too high for my level, but it looks promising. Lacks of grammar explanations, I think, just translation and vocabulary list.


Decent for me, but you'll need at least 1 year of Japanese lessons to be comfortable using this book. It can be a little advanced if you're vocabulary isn't up to par (meaning you'll be looking up every other word), but it's a fun reader that lets you enjoy learning.
Use it as a reader, not as the main text - it's to help you get used to reading Japanese in context and to let you 'guess' and predict what naturally comes in a sentence once you've read a few words.

Yes, it is the main use I'm looking for in a reading book. Maybe too high for my vocabulary level, but it is a good way to improve it ;)


At least you get the free MP3 readings - this lets you listen to an actual speaker and let you practice understanding what they say once you've gone over the text a few times. 

This is nice also, I need to practice listening. Just anime is not enough ;)

Japanese for Everyone 0870408534
Works for me. What I learned out of vs. the silly Japanese for Busy People series (silly because they go too slow - three books to cover what one book does?). Plus, it gets you started into Kanji and hiragana quickly, and doesn't let up until the end. (Japanese for Everyone has a little too much English for my taste.) Forces you to quickly adopt Japanese and use it to get through the chapters in the book.

But, you really do need both the workbook and the Kanji workbook + a teacher/tutor who knows Japanese and your native language well enough to explain, test, and move you along. It's not completely a self-study set. They do have audio tapes to go with the chapters as well.

Well, as I'm in a group, I think I cannont change the class book. We are using "Japanese for busy people". We are finishing the second level.

I'm looking mainly for grammar reference books (like Seiichi dictionaries) and reading books to improve my kanji level and reading skills.

All About Particles: A Handbook of Japanese Function Words 4770027818
A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Sentence Patterns 4770026080
Decent guides to both topics by Chino. Worth having as a reference to understand what you're reading in more advanced texts. 

I was considering "All about particles" too, as some people recommend it.

Japanese Particle Workbook 0834804042
A must-have for any learner IMO. Lots of examples and questions to help you learn and prove you know particles. Easy to read and understand.

Between this one and "All about particles", which do you prefer? Do you recommend both?

Complete Japanese Adjective Guide: A Simple Approach to Japanese Grammar
0804832765
The Complete Japanese Verb Guide 0804834245
501 Japanese Verbs: Fully Described in All Inflections, Moods, Aspects and Formality Levels in a New Easy-To-Learn Format, Alphabetically Arranged
0764102850


These looks interesting too, maybe better the second, at least the title is more promising ;)

Basic Japanese-English Dictionary
0-19-860859-4

About dictionaries, I bought an electronic dictionary with my native language (Spanish) included. It is a Casio and I'm really happy.

In a forum, a person told me that I should buy also a paper dictionary, to read the pages in no particular order or looking for a specific word. I suppose that it may help, but Japanese-Spanish dictionaries are really expensive, not very good and they are more japanese-oriented, like the dictionary in the wordtank.

I'm a little afraid of buying a Japanese-English dictionary because I may end with both the J-E and the English-Spanish dictionary on the table ;)

In any case, if it is cheap it may worth the money...


Kodansha's Effective Japanese Usage Dictionary 4770028504
A must-have reference dictionary!
Unlike others, this one clearly explains the difference, with examples, of similar words and when one is more appropriate.

eg. totemo vs. taihen

You will find lots of Japanese sentences here with English translations for proper understanding of what these subtle differences really mean.

A must have for anyone learning Japanese at more advanced levels - I certainly haven't found another resource that covers so many thousands of words in such fine detail.

This one is interesting too. My teacher sometimes fails to clarify when to use some similar words. She is Japanese so she doesn't have this problem!

My only doubt is, like in the dictionary, if I need to know clearly the difference between English words...


As for scanning, use a Canon DR-2080C scanner, and you'll have to have the spines cut off by Kinkos to feed the sheets through. That or use a 7MP digicam like a Sony P200 to take photos of each page of a book. This lets you carry dozens of Japanese books with you for study w/o the 50+lbs weight of them all - just one light DVD disc or two. Particularly useful if you have an inexpensive TabletPC laptop computer where you can hold it like a paper pad in your arm, and read each page on the 'screen'. (eg. Acer C100/C110 models; Averatec tablet pcs;etc for the <$1000 range) Smaller devices also work, but you really need something that has at least 1024x768 resolution or higher to read scanned books on the computer. Even more useful if you've got a Gmail or 1GB+ account somewhere - you can easily upload all of your texts into the account, then wifi browse each page from any computer/pda/portable on the planet when you're away from home - keeps your personal library of books always handy for reference and study without having to pack up a bookshelf worth of books.


Wow... well, I don't have any kind of portable computer... and the cellular screen is too small for it ;) Anyway, I almost always study at home, so books are fine.


Well, thanks a lot for your comments and recommendations. I'll take a look to the rest of the books you mentioned. I hope that requesting the books from Amazon JP works fine ;)

Best regards.

.