Customer Reviews

All About Particles (Power Japanese)

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A very handy reference on Japanese particles for self-learners (basic Japanese kana's and kanji's assumed, although romanizations are also given). Instead of perplexing users with a lot of technical details like other dictionaries did, this pocket size reference gives clear directions on how and when particles are used. An extreme amount of examples are given.

This book is an excellent reference for the student of Japanese, and especially for those who do any kind of Japanese-to-English translation. Particles are the most difficult aspect of Japanese to understand, and arguably one of the most important. This book sets itself the task of taking common particles in modern Japanese and explaining to the reader what they do in a sentence, with examples and elementary as well as advanced usages. It accomplishes this task, in my opinion, very well. It's one of the books I keep by my side as I do translation work; All About Particles is more helpful to me than my dictionaries in cases where a particle is confusing me (rightfully so; one can't expect a dictionary to fully explain all particles in such limited space).

As the jacket says: "Particles can be difficult. Particles can be tiresome. But there is no denying it: they must be learned to speak decent Japanese." This book takes the pain out of particles and makes them interesting again.