The Handbook of Japanese Adjectives and Adverbs (A Kodansha Dictionary) Bilingual Edition

by Taeko Kamiya (Author)

16 customer reviews

ISBN-13: 978-4770028792

ISBN-10: 4770028792

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For any beginner of Japanese, adjectives and adverbs are bound to present a challenge. Unlike English adjectives, Japanese ones conjugate, meaning that you must memorize their various forms before being able to build sentences of any complexity. Adverbs do not conjugate, but make use of particles to show their grammatical relationship to other words, and some have very subtle shades of meaning that are difficult to grasp. Moreover, many do not translate into adverbs in English.

The role these parts of speech play in adding flavor to the Japanese language is invaluable. This handy reference manual introduces the basic (and basics of) adjectives and adverbs in a clear and sensible way, enabling students not only to speak Japanese but to do it with pizzazz.

The book is divided roughly in half, the first half dealing with adjectives, the second with adverbs. Each is prefaced by a short introduction that serves as an overview of the material introduced. The section on adjectives is divided into two parts: Part 1 covers the conjugations of i- and na-adjectives and some basic auxiliary adjectives, and Part 2 presents common sentence patterns in which adjectives appear.

The adverb section is arranged by topic. Among the types of adverbs explained here are those used to express time, quantity, degree, circumstance, and natural sounds or actions (the ubiquitous onomatopoeic adverbs).

Each entry in this book is given a simple, concise English explanation and two or more example sentences to illustrate its usage. Exercises every few pages enable students to measure their understanding. Finally, a number of quick-reference lists in the appendixes provide a convenient means of recalling and building vocabulary.

Together with its sister publication, The Handbook of Japanese Verbs, this unique manual is certain to provide years of friendly guidance.

The Handbook of Japanese Adjectives and Adverbs (A Kodansha Dictionary)

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Product Details

Paperback: 326 pages
Publisher: Kodansha USA; Bilingual edition (November 15, 2002)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 4770028792
ISBN-13: 978-4770028792
Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 0.9 x 5.1 inches
Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,646,639 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #459 in Books > Textbooks > Humanities > Foreign Languages > Japanese
- #1388 in Books > Reference > Words, Language & Grammar > Reference
- #11166 in Books > Reference > Dictionaries & Thesauruses > Foreign Language Dictionaries & Thesauruses

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Top Customer Reviews

This is such an Eye Opener Book

By E. Frias on December 27, 2002

Format: Paperback

I've been studying japanese for quite some time, and I wasn't even aware of how the japanese adjectives can conjugate just like verbs. I thought that the only conjugation's that adjectives possessed were the Plain/ Polite Past/Present, and negative/affirmative, as well as the -ba, -tari, -tara, and the -sa form. But turn's out that this is just part of the basic's. Just like with verbs the basics would be the -te form, the -ba form etc. to which you can add diffrent ending's to, to give diffrent meaning's to the verb, you can do the same with the Adjectives. This book is great for studying japanese adjectives. Now for the adverbs, the adverbs section is really good, they give you a bundle of words all sectioned off into categories according to time, quantity, degree, circumstance, onomatopoeic words (A MUST READ), adverbs used with negatives, adverbs with diffrent meaning's with positive and negative expressions, interrogative adverbs, adverbs used with conditionals, adverbs expressing desire, conjecture, or resemblence. As you can see, the list is long, and very helpfull, the most helpfull part of the adverbs section (to me) were the onomatopoeic words, and adverbs with diffrent meanings ith positive and negative sentences. If you buy this book, it will save you ATLEAST a good 10 hours of tedious looking up definition's for words, research, and so on.. because this book does it all, and not only that. Every few lessons or so, this book provides a pratice to see how well you have mastered what you have learned. Over all I give this book a perfect 5 out of 5, for it's great layout and great approach to learning japanese adjectives and adverbs. (I also recommend you buy "The handbook of japanese verbs" 'it's sister book', and "Jpanaese verbs at a glance" these two books give the most information you can learn about the conjugation of japanese verbs) Well, I hope this was a helpfull review, thanks for reading it. Bye.

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Informative, but weirdly indexed

By J. Lim on May 19, 2005

Format: Paperback

First of all, I'd like to reiterate all the praise from previous reviewers: this book is a tremendous resource about the many mutant forms of Japanese adjectives and provides excellent explanations and practice exercises; the examples are given in kanji/kana as well as romaji. The adverbs are categorized by useful categories such as degree, circumstance, certainty, and so on, and the list of onamatopoeia is a wonder to behold.

However, I have one nagging nitpick, which is that the book lacks a comprehensive index. It seems to've been conceived as two entirely separate books, leaving the reference section at the end still awkwardly split in half: the adjective exercise answers are followed by (unindexed) Japanese/English and English/Japanese adjective glossaries ; after that, the adverb exercise answers are followed by a categorized list organized by (indexed) order of introduction in the text rather than by alphabet/kana for the actual words in English or Japanese, and then by another unindexed pair of Japanese/English and English/Japanese glossaries for the adverbs.

I suggest adding several bookmarks or post-its to mark the different reference sections in the back, and (to the publishers) page-indexing the glossaries in future editions to make it easier to look up usage examples. Other than that, this really is a very good book-- I just realized that the appendices also contain a list of sentence-pattern templates for adjective forms-- so buy it, but be prepared for some initial frustration until you get used to the way it's organized.

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Very good book!

By C. Eggleston on August 2, 2004

Format: Paperback

While I am not done with this one it is only because of my level of skill so far it is very helpful in explaning forms, introducing new words, and kanji. This is a masterpiece, but make two precautions. 1 Get a supplementing workbook. Actually put forth the effort to make your own sentences and there will be a vast increase in your language abilities and flow. I agree with all the other writers in the amazon.com book reviews that praised this book alongside with me. This books should help fragment any other textbook that seems cloudy. Caution: Not for total beginners. A learner of Japanese needs a fairly wide vocabulary to understand the sentence stuctures.

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Great handbook.

By Nancy Nguyen on October 17, 2014

Format: Paperback Verified Purchase

Love this book. I have both this one and The Handbook of Japanese Verbs. I wish there were just a list of adverbs and adjectives but sadly, there is not. However, this book does explain when to use what form and quite well. I suggest buying it for the serious Japanese learners out there.

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Excellent Source to Find Out About Japanese Adjectives

By Reuben Koutal on May 29, 2007

Format: Paperback Verified Purchase

Before describing the book, a word or two has to be mentioned regarding the publisher, Kodansha International. I don't know if it's because of the policy within Kodansha, or the Japanese culture in general, but you can feel the tidiness, accuracy, and meticulous nature of each author, and the effort expended in order to convey information to the reader the best possible way.

When first starting to learn Japanese on my own, I had tried grammar texts and dictionaries from two other publishers. I found out after a couple of months, that they only cause the reader great confusion, lack a lot of important concepts, the print is often ineligible, and the sentences are in Romaji and not in the native alphabet (Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji), which is so necessary in order to learn the language properly. Other Kodansha publications which I found useful for learning Japanese are Kodanshas Essential Kanji Dictionary (Japanese for Busy People)The Kodansha Kanji Learners Dictionary (Japanese for Busy People)Kodansha's Furigana Japanese Dictionary: Japanese-English English-Japanese...Read more ›

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

Very useful book!

A MUST have! Very useful book!

Published 7 months ago by Sally Sweet

Awesome book, great for learning

Well packaged, Awesome book, great for learning, Absolute Recommend

Published 20 months ago by Michael

Great book for learning Japanese

With the various sample, this book has worked great to compliment the Japanese Verbs which i have and which is by the same author.

Published 23 months ago by Larry

Only use for adverbs

I have been studying Japanese for a long time 5+ years, but one of my greatest weeknesses is adverbs. So I bought this book due to the section that focuses on them. Read more

Published 24 months ago by Bree H.

very good

the book came very nice, no defects or problems, good book for everybody. Nice to take all your doubts when learning japanese.

Published on June 3, 2014 by Débora

Japanese language

Fantastic Japanese language book and a great resource for adjective building. It's something that I would recommend to anyone wanting to be a better Japanese speaker.

Published on November 30, 2013 by L.P.

a great reference

I love this book, and the one on verbs by the same author. A fabulous reference, usefully exhaustive and organized in a way I have found very helpful. Read more

Published on November 29, 2013 by Amazon Customer

Do you put the donkey behind the cart or in front of the cart?

Another great aid for learning Japanese. Very challenging to learn Japanese. This is another great aid to understanding how to put sentences together.

Published on April 17, 2013 by Amazon Customer

Not so user friendly

I am a Japanese language student and I found this book not user friendly. I am discouraged to use it because I could never find what I want even though something tells me what I'm... Read more

Published on March 3, 2011 by Guru bound

Exercise book - not a handbook

This isn't really a handbook. It is a language practice book. The book is full of exercises throughout. It is aimed at advanced beginners or something like that. Read more

Published on October 25, 2010 by Jackal