Oxford Japanese Grammar and Verbs (Dictionary)

There are several good books available on Japanese grammar but the problem is they usually only cover specific areas which means you have to spend a fortune buying each one. This book, however, covers a great deal of the essential information and it won't break the bank balance. I must say, though, it is CERTAINLY not for beginners as explanations are very short in order to fit in as much as possible. One thing that I found particularly annoying was the lack of consistency in using Romaji- all exemplary sentences are provided in both script and romanized form, yet there are many tables and headings where it is assumed you are already know the whole Hiragana syllabary. Of course, I wholeheartedly agree that being able to read Japanese script is an essential part of learning the language, but if they are going to use Romaji in some instances, they should be consistent! To be fair, though, a Hiragana and Katakana chart has been included at the back of the book. Another minor annoyance was that there is the occasional error in the Romaji; nothing major, but could still cause confusion.
All in all, then, a worthy purchase if you already know quite a bit of Japanese and require an inexpensive reference book on key grammar points.

Great (5/6 people found this helpful)

I've been studying Japanese for a few years now, and I bought this book the other day from my local book store (for £9.99; should have gone to Amazon). It's generally really good, I've already learnt lots of new little things I didn't know before, and it's definately a good book for me to read when I'm bored, because it's really interesting to read.

One little gripe I do have with it is the romaji it uses. It uses kana and kanji too, but for people who can't read japanese characters, they are forced to read the romaji, which is a little odd. It uses what many text books use; the line above the vowel if it's length is doubled, which I personally don't like; I prefer a 'u' after the vowel being lengthened (eg. otousan, not otôsan). Also, for words that contain glotal pauses (like docchi for example), they replace the first letter of the pause with 't' (eg. docchi, would be dotchi).

Apart from the few little gripes, this book in generally very good, and an invaluable resource for intermediate learners of Japanese.

Good book, except for a few typos (6/6 people found this helpful)

I have been studying Japanese for almost two years now and although I had a Japanese grammar book already, written almost completely in Japanese, I decided to get a book that had English explanations.

I'm quite happy with this book and really glad the examples are not written entirely in romaji. Using it as a reference book, I find that sometimes it is difficult to find the topic I am looking for as the way the book is laid out is ... unconventional.

I have noticed that there a few typos. I've only read about 20 pages and have noticed 3-4 so far, maybe I'm just unlucky and the rest of the book doesn't contain any.

Good Buy (10/10 people found this helpful)

This is a really good book, though maybe not for the very beginner, but great for everyone else. It has a lot of stuff in it but one fault is that it does not have word lists so you need to get those from other sources. It does look daunting from the start, an idea is not to read it in order, maybe start with the chapters on: Verbs then Nouns then Adjectives. Overall a very informing book

For the best. (6/10 people found this helpful)

This book is a beginners guide to arranging sentances properly. You obtain the symbols, Romanized font (Romanji) and the English meanings.

Oxford is currently the best book series to obtain, as each word pronounciation is arranged in a very easy format so you can pick up words quicker, unlike most books for languages such as Japanese, you will get all the words they can possibly squeeze onto a page, which if you have to admit makes it rather hard to pick up what the book reads.

Oxford however use colourful presentations, and in some cases just plane monochrome pages, but is arranged in a very neat format. So you can read the book and think "Wow! Now I am glad I took his advice and bought this! This is really good!".

This is a good book for beginners and I would highly recommend purchasing it if you are in search of specific help on the languages.

Oxford Japanese Grammar and Verbs (Dictionary)

Jonathan Bunt

Reader Reviews:

Good (4/4 people found this helpful)

Great (5/6 people found this helpful)

Good book, except for a few typos (6/6 people found this helpful)

Good Buy (10/10 people found this helpful)

For the best. (6/10 people found this helpful)

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