Customer Reviews

Japanese Verbs: Saying What You Mean

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4 star:		(3)
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2 star:		(1)
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Japanese is a very complicated language is you have no previous knowledge of any Asian languages. One of the easiest things to learn is the alphabet. One of the hardest things to learn is the grammar (which includes verbs).

This book is suited for both beginner and advance. Total there are 82 lessons in the book covering all the forms and uses of each verb. For the beginner, text inside of the book is written in romaji (the English way of writing Japanese) if you haven't learned the three systems of writing. If you are an expert, then there are also sentences written in all three systems.

Each lesson is suited to be user friendly. At the beginning of the lesson, it will tell you uses of the verb form. Next, there are examples of how the verb form is used. In between examples and at the end, there may be explanations on how to create sentences in that structure, and sometimes it gives you advice on how to use it correctly. A sample structure of the examples is:

Sentence using kanji and hiragana with the aspect being learned bolded
(Sentence in romaji also with the aspect being learned bolded)
Translation in English

After, it will give you a "Word Check" that defines words used in that lesson and lessons before for those beginning to learn and memorize words. It is a very helpful tool to review with.

At the end, there may be Notes on the particular lesson like the culture, what words not to get confused with, or more on the language.

At the end there's a reference on the pronunciation and writing systems, the dreaded particles (not as much as verbs of course... which is why you're going to buy the book!), and "About You and Name Suffixes". You'll literally get more than you bargained for (by going to his website where it will give you some information on other aspects of the language).

Edward Lin

I've had this book for over a year now and have had a chance to really wear the pages down. I must say that the lessons are structured very well and are short enough to make review a painless task.

Something Mr. Matheson states in it is that Japanese is really made up of about 80% verbs and their various conjugations. That was a revelation that really helped to take me to a higher level in my studies. I regret not finding this tool earlier in my learning. The cover may not be too fancy, but we all know the old saying about judging books by their covers.

If you are just starting out on learning Japanese, you really owe it to yourself to get a copy of this right away. It'll help you grasp concepts much earlier on. Its worth its weight in gold.

sukatto

This is a good book. I've been studying Japanese as a hobby for a year or so and making slow but steady progress. I use this book all the time. I love the author's clear, pleasant style, through which I discern an amiable, helpful, knowledgeable person. Reading this book is like being helped with your Japanese by a good friend. I would recommend this book to anyone.

I hope the author does a second edition and alters it slightly. The book's major problem from my perspective is that the author did not decide whether he wanted to write a reference grammar or to write a textbook to teach Japanese verbs.

If it is meant to be a reference grammar, it minimally needs a good index and an informative table of contents. As it is, it is really hard to find anything in the book. Sometimes I know I have seen something in the book, but I am reduced to going through the book page by page to look for it. There is no index, and the table of contents, which consists solely of entries like "Base 1 + nakareba," would only be useful to someone who already knows the stuff in the book. It might be nice also to tighten up organization a bit. As it is, the book is studded with subsections that begin something like "Oh, as long as I'm telling you this, now would be a good time to mention this." So important topics get buried in sections nominally covering other topics. And, since so much in this book depends on the bases from which verb forms are made, it might be nice to have one section where the formation of all the bases is laid out in methodical fashion so that the user, confronted with some utterance like "'you desu' after base 3," can easily track down what base 3 is without paging through the whole book.

However, the author actually seems to have set out to write more of a textbook than a reference grammar because the book generally assumes that the reader knows what has already been covered earlier in it. If that is the case, the author needs to include exercises so that students can actually practice what he is explaining and to give more thought to systematically building up vocabulary and grammar from the rudimentary to the complex as the book moves on. And even then, a decent index and table of contents would help.

I actually think this book would be easier to nudge into the direction of a reference grammar than a text book, and that's what I would advise.

But, please, don't let my comments deter you from buying this book. It has been a great help to me and it will be to you, too.

This book is excellent as a reference book. It's jam packed with tons of different verb conjugations and examples on how to use them. While it obviously isn't comprehensive, it still contains a wealth of knowledge that you most likely would not find elsewhere.

I especially like the foot notes and comments on how the phrases are used and when they aren't appropriate.

BUT, this should be used a reference book to supplement your learning. To get the most benefit out of the book you need to understand the JAPANESE examples, not just the English descriptions... and to understand the Japanese examples you will need to read / study other books, websites, or take lessons.
The book is ordered by verb bases, not really by simplicity.

Some of the Japanese examples can reach the intermediate level. This book doesn't really go into depth on the grammar behind the example sentences but that's understandable because this is a VERB book.

The additional particle section is very small and should be good enough for people who are just starting Japanese, but upper level beginners and intermediates will already know what's in there.

I purchased this book a year ago and actually started using it a couple of weeks ago...My only regret now is to have not opened it much much sooner. This verb book is fantastic. SHort lessons with straight-to-the point illustrations. Japanese language suddenly appeared to me much easier than i thought.
A must-have.

I bought this book because I started teaching myself Japanese with the Pimsleur audio series. The series is a great way to practice hearing and speaking a new language, but despite claims to the contrary, I think you really have to learn the grammar if you want to speak competently. I found this book to be a great supplement for exactly that reason. Whenever I ran into a verb construction in a specific context, I could always look it up in here and learn the details of application and how to generalize the expression.

It's absolutely worth the price to have around.

This Book it one of the best book ever if you ever want to learn the Japanese Language! It's better than many others out there for several reasons:
1. It has romanji... But it is only there because it has all the rest in full Japanese Script, Kanji and all.
2. Very east to study, all layed out very nicely.
3. Provides insights into Japanese Culture.

All and all, i suggest this book to anyone serious in the study of japanese.

I've been studying Japanese for a few months, and I'm approaching it through anime since I am an anime fan and there are few places in my rural town where I can find native Japanese speakers to listen to. This book has been invaluable in helping me decode the verbs. When I hear a verb form I don't know yet, I reach for this book and scan the table of contents for the ending I heard. Then, knowing which base and which ending and what the ending means, I can easily figure out the dictionary form of the verb and look it up. (Anybody watching anime with me will get frustrated at my constantly pausing it to look things up in a dictionary, LOL!) As a result of using this book in this way, it became easy for me to complete Japanese for Busy People, volume 1, because I'd already learned and used the verb forms.

The book would be even more useful if it had an index where you could look up the English verb form you want to use and find Japanese approximations to it. And I would have loved for it to have exercises where I could check my answers in the back of the book.

Yes, everything in this book is available for free on the author's website (including a similar bunch of lessons on adjectives, which I hope he'll also make into a book). But all the ways to fit the internet into your backpack cost much more than this book, plus most of the places I can catch a few study moments (like when I take my kids to the park) don't have wi-fi. And if you find yourself enjoying the website, why not take the opportunity to put a few dollars in the author's pocket?

One of the first books I started learning japanese with. It is in my opinion the most complete book on verbs you can get. There are many, many books on verbs, but this one introduces a lot of verb conjugations that you can't find in any other books. I use this one alongside of All About Particles : A Handbook of Japanese Function Words . Both books are excellent reference. I actually have learned more from these, than grammar books. As this one doesn't explain grammar, you better start with a basic grammar book like Japanese for Busy People I: Kana Version includes CD (Japanese for Busy People Series) (Bk. 1) if you're a beginner. Is the one I used at first :)

Japanese Verbs, saying what you mean, doesn't have practice exercises, though, but you can make your own senteces to make the examples stick. The explanations are very clear and you get many examples. At the end of every chapter, there is a list of the words used in the examples, so you expand vocabulary. Use this book together with other favorite books of japanese as a suplement.

Hope my review can help you make up you mind to buy! This book is excellent tool for learning japanese.

I started learning Japanese last summer. In the past year I ordered may be 20 introduction level Japanese books. This one is among the ones I read most often (beside Japanese dicitionary). It is very well written and easy to understand with a lot of examples for each of the different verb forms. You will find yourself still be able to pick up something even when you are skipping chapters because each indiviuals lesson is organized very well. So when you are reading some Japanese book and find yourself stuck by some verb form that you don't understand, you can go ahead and find the answer without flipping back and forth looking up some other unknown terminology. This book is well worth the price.