Building Word Power in Japanese: Using Kanji Prefixes and Suffixes (Paperback)

by Timothy J. Vance (Author)
Key Phrases: natte kita, natte iru, shite iru, Approximate English Equivalents, United States, New Year (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Having grasped the rudiments of Japanese grammar, what the student needs next are more words, more phrases, more turns of phrase. In short, more ways to get across the ideas that can be expressed so easily in English but for which the student simply doesn't have the requisite Japanese vocabulary.

One answer to this problem is found in affixes -- nifty little prefixes and suffixes, written with a single kanji, that can be attached to ordinary words to create new ones. They function much like Latin-derived prefixes and suffixes do in English. Just as you can attach "anti-" to almost any noun to create a new one (e.g., anti-American), you can attach its Japanese equivalent in the same way (e.g., han-amerika). Once you know this, you can "anti" and han yourself left and right and, for the most part, be understood.

Thus, without going through the laborious process of slowly acquiring these useful affixes through many hours of reading, you can quickly build a larger vocabulary and expand your range of speech and your ability to comprehend. Even for those who have good many kanji under their belt, this is a great time saver. For those whose kanji is rather minimal or nonexistent, it provides a means of picking up words that would ordinarily be far beyond their reach, for they can learn these prefixes and suffixes as sounds.

In short, it is as though you only knew the word "simple" and then one day acquired "simplify," "simplistic," and "simpleton." And, perhaps more importantly, this approach allows you not only to learn words that are in the dictionaries but to actually create new words to suit what you want to say, just as you would do in English. The Japanese themselves are constantly doing this, and you have to know what is going on in order to keep up. Whether for your active or passive vocabulary, the use of kanji prefixes and suffixes is one area that should not be ignored.

There are 13 kanji prefixes and 50 kanji suffixes in this book.

Previously published as Instant Vocabulary through Prefixes and Suffixes in the Power Japanese series.

About the Author
Timothy J. Vance is professor and department head of East Asian Studies at the University of Arizona. He is author of An Introduction to Japanese Phonology (Suny Series in Linguistics, 1988).

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Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Kodansha International; Bilingual edition (March 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 4770027990
• ISBN-13: 978-4770027993
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 5.1 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #32,457 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unparalleled..., May 13, 2003

By	Brent Church (Tucson, AZ United States) - See all my reviews

I have owned this book for about five years, and just finished reading it for about the fifth time. It seems to keep jumping off that bookshelf and landing right in my lap!

Four years ago, when I was preparing for level two of the Japanese Proficiency Exam, I summoned this thin volume to assist me in building my vocabulary. It proved instrumental in helping me pass that exam.

Just 63 prefixes and suffixes in 127 pages...Doesn't sound like a lot. But in just a short amount of time with this book, a student can increase their Japanese vocabulary by a couple thousand words. The example sentences provided within are both meaningful and interesting. Perhaps the best thing about this book is that, through teaching prefixes and suffixes, it prepares students to recognize and then comprehend the meaning of new kanji compounds which they encounter in their readings.

I highly recommend this book. It definitely provides a lot of bang for the buck.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Easy way to learn new words, July 16, 2002

By A Customer

I like this book for the prefixes and suffixes it introduces. After reading the book, I can recognize them more easily when they come up in something I'm reading. But I also learned a lot from what the author calls the "bases," that is, the basic words that the prefixes and suffixes are attached to. Many of these words I didn't know. What I think is most valuable, though, is that you can now spot the prefixes and suffixes when you hear them in conversation. It's not just a matter of seeing them, but hearing them too.