Customer Reviews

Schaum's Outline of Japanese Grammar

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For those of you with the extreme misfortune of having to use Eleanor Jorden's abysmal text (Jorden's Solipsistic Language), this book may save your grade. It contains all of the grammar covered in first year Japanese. Furthermore, all examples are given in hiragana/katakana/kanji, with a romanji and an English translation. In other words, although this is a grammar survey, it also provides you with the reading practice that you'll need in order to achieve any degree of fluidity in Japanese. Cover up the English and the romanji lines and see how much you can read. You won't get all of the kanji, but even reading everything around the kanji will help you, and the more you see kanji, the less strange they seem. You will pick some up just from the frequency with which they appear. As for the grammar explanations: they are both concise and self-sufficient, just what a beginner needs. Finally, the book provides answers to all exercises, an often neglected feature of texts written by egomaniacs such as Eleanor Jorden. Buy this book if you want a clear and straightforward Japanese grammar book that offers exercises and solutions, in addition to reading practice and an easy to use index and table of contents.

I bought this book a few months ago as it seemed to explain most of the essential points of Japanese grammar as well as provide exercises to test your understanding. At my local foreign language book shop, there was a plethora of Japanese language books to choose from but some only skimmed the surface where as others were great slab-like enclyclopaedias which should have come with a warning "contents under extreme pressure".
The book is divided into fifteen chapters and covers subjects such as adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, particles, conjunctions, verbs, conditional clauses, interrogative words, nominalization, honorific expresssions etc etc. The last chapter is particularly good because it illustrates several commonly used japanese expressions. There are nicely varied examples (written in english, romaji and kanji/kana) in every chapter with corresponding exercises and answers(great!).
Sure there were a few typos and dubious answers but i'm sure they will be edited when the next edition comes out. To tell you the truth, they didn't bother me much at all.
I would have given this book another half star if particles were explained in greater depth but that probably would have doubled the book's thickness.
Overall, a good buy

Technically, this is a cram guide for College students studying japanese for courses. But it makes an ideal companion for people living in Japan who are learning a lot of words through osmosis, but need a little help with the grammar to help them structure what they know and take their Japanese to a basic level.

I used this book to help me with my grammar within 6 months of arriving in Japan, and it helped me make the leap from being able to make single to triple word declarations in Japanese, to being able to speak in full sentences, and helped put me on the road to fluency. It shows you how to form basic sentences (for example comparisons "X is bigger than Y" etc) in a simple, straightforward manner. Since it's an outline of the most fundamental grammar, all of it is highly relevant and useful, with no filler.

One thing though- As useful as it is for beginners, since it only covers fundamental elementary grammar, good students will quickly outgrow it. Once finished with it I would recommend "A Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese Grammar" by Seiichi Nakino and Michio Tsutsui, also available here on amazon.

By the way- the reviewer below is right about "Wo" not being a mistranslation. It's a standard, if confusing way to spell it. You need to
type "wo" to get that particle if you're typing in Japanese on a web browser or microsoft word, for example.

This book covers just about every important bit of the Japanese Grammar in a comprehensible manner.

Each part is given a short intro, explained shorly and clearly and then is given numerous example in all romaji, Japanese (Kana + Kanji) and its english translation in which the grammar part is bolded out to stress its influence on the sentence.

Then there are explanation and examples of common speech patterns in which the grammar part is used (and then followed by yet another numerous examples). There are also many exercises at the end of each section with answers at the end of the book.

The last part is probably the most important part. It covers many of the common patterns and addressing such as comparison, asking for premission, giving advice, ect.

I used this book through my studies from being an absolute beginner. Even now it serves as a great reference and review book since it organized in a way that you can easily find any speech patten you seek and view varius examples that will remind you what you had forgot.

Pretty much sums up this book. It tries to do too much and ends up skimming over the details. I would give it a higher score but it doesn't really do a good job at what it covers and the examples are vague & cumbersome. It feels like the authors are trying too hard. If you're new to Japanese stay away from this.

I was looking for something to review my basic Japanese grammar before I moved onto the intermediate level, and Schaum's Outline of Japanese Grammar was perfect! It goes over just about every essential beginner grammar ponit, with plenty of excercises along the way. All Japanese text is either in hiragana, katakana, or kanji, with romaji at the bottom. Very useful, and I'm quite satisfied!

I haven't read this book, but one reviewer said that they incorrectly used "wo" for the particle commonly represented as "o"-- this is false; "wo" is the name of the particle; the w sound is merely softer than that in "wa".

When I first found this book, I was so glad, because as far as I know, it's the only grammar-intensive self-study Japanese textbook on the market. Every other textbook on learning Japanese is either for total beginners with lots of "fun" tourist-oriented sidebars, or is designed for classroom use. Here, finally, I thought, was a book that simply laid out the basic rules of Japanese grammar in a compact and concise manner. Perfect.

Now having worked my way through much of the book, however, my enthusiasm has waned. I still love the concept, and it HAS been helpful, but it's got a lot of mistakes. From mistranslating the Japanese particle "o" as "wo" through the entire book, to incorrect answer keys, to numerous typos. They also use the annoying "double" method for writing long vowels, as in "paati" and "shoojiki", instead of the more logical and accurate Hepburn system with lines over the vowels to show that they're long. All the errors make me wonder sometimes if they got the grammar wrong anywhere as well. So I still recommend the book, but just, um, nervously.