Making Sense of Japanese: What the Textbooks Don't Tell You

by Jay Rubin (Author)

75 customer reviews

ISBN-13: 978-4770028020

ISBN-10: 4770028024

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Making Sense of Japanese is the fruit of one foolhardy American's thirty-year struggle to learn and teach the Language of the Infinite. Previously known as Gone Fishin', this book has brought Jay Rubin more feedback than any of his literary translations or scholarly tomes, "even if," he says, "you discount the hate mail from spin-casters and the stray gill-netter."

To convey his conviction that "the Japanese language is not vague," Rubin has dared to explain how some of the most challenging Japanese grammatical forms work in terms of everyday English. Reached recently at a recuperative center in the hills north of Kyoto, Rubin declared, "I'm still pretty sure that Japanese is not vague. Or at least, it's not as vague as it used to be. Probably."

The notorious "subjectless sentence" of Japanese comes under close scrutiny in Part One. A sentence can't be a sentence without a subject, so even in cases where the subject seems to be lost or hiding, the author provides the tools to help you find it. Some attention is paid as well to the rest of the sentence, known technically to grammarians as "the rest of the sentence."

Part Two tackles a number of expressions that have baffled students of Japanese over the decades, and concludes with Rubin's patented technique of analyzing upside-down Japanese sentences right-side up, which, he claims, is "far more restful" than the traditional way, inside-out.

"The scholar," according to the great Japanese novelist Soseki Natsume, is "one who specializes in making the comprehensible incomprehensible." Despite his best scholarly efforts, Rubin seems to have done just the opposite.

Previously published in the Power Japanese series under the same title and originally as Gone Fishin' in the same series.

Making Sense of Japanese: What the Textbooks Don't Tell You

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Product Details

Paperback: 144 pages
Publisher: Kodansha USA (March 1, 2002)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 4770028024
ISBN-13: 978-4770028020
Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 0.6 x 5.1 inches
Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (75 customer reviews)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,013,181 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #315 in Books > Textbooks > Humanities > Foreign Languages > Japanese
- #2446 in Books > Reference > Foreign Language Study & Reference > Instruction
- #7179 in Books > Reference > Dictionaries & Thesauruses > Foreign Language Dictionaries & Thesauruses

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Customer Reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars

5 star		75%
4 star		8%
3 star		8%
2 star		5%
1 star		4%

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Top Customer Reviews

A great treasure for intermediate students.

By B. M. Chapman on May 9, 2004

Format: Paperback

Having been studying Japanese on and off for, oh, nine years now, I have learned that not all educational tools and methods work for everybody. People have their own way to learn languages, and in my case the straight-up textbook approach never entirely succeeded. I lived and studied in Japan for several years, and that helped in conversation and in terms of immersion. I have purchased everything from particle guides and Kanji dictionaries and even children's books to help my study, and all of them help in ways, but it is a very piecemeal way to learn.
And I guess that is how it is when learning languages. Only the true geniuses of language can grasp these things in a ready and total fashion. And unfortunately for me, this piecemeal approach left me missing things from my study of the language. And then Jay Rubin stepped in.
Jay Rubin knows the Japanese language. He teaches it, and is a translator of Japanese literature. (Most famously he translated into English Murakami Haruki's "The Wind-up Bird Chronicle" and "Norwegian Wood", as well as writing a biography of Murakami.) To steal a line from Lawrence of Arabia, "He knows his stuff."
And so it is that Rubin decided to stuff all that stuff into a book for those of us who struggle with the more delicate grammatical issues of the Japanese language. And he does so with brilliance and wit and ease of use that I have yet to have seen surpassed. "Making Sense of Japanese" is indeed a precious little gem in my collection of Japanese learning aids that fills in so many holes in the facade of my shoddy language capacity. For instance:
Wa and Ga - Never before has there been a more thorough and easy to remember explanation of the delicate differences between these two particles.Read more ›

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Successfully disarms the scariest concepts in Japanese.

By A Customer on July 16, 1998

Format: Paperback

If you're an intermediate student of Japanese, but haven't yet begun to really understand the language, this book will clear up a lot of your concerns. The author takes a humorous approach to some intimidating topics, and yields new insight on other, easier topics which textbooks often leave vague. The book frequently illustrates these concepts with examples in Japanese literature and journalism. Even examples in speech are explained in-depth. Yet, it remains light-hearted and humorous, relating the mysterious translations and hidden connotations in a way that the English-speaking mind can understand. Most importantly, it debunks many of the myths and misconceptions about Japanese that make Westerners fear it so. It also seemed that the author was subtly trying to prepare the readers to think in Japanese, which as wel all know is a vital step towards fluency.
The title pretty much sums it up when it says "What the Textbooks Don't Tell You." This book ! ! essentially takes the information from your textbooks and makes sense of it. If you study independently, like me, this book should be on your list. If you don't need this book, you probably know someone who does.

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Totally deserving of these 5 stars

By Tim on January 4, 2000

Format: Paperback

When I ordered this book, I hadn't read it, or even seen the cover. I just picked it up because I'm anxious to learn more daily Japanese conversation. While this book didn't teach me the slang and modern speech I'm wanting to learn, I did find it to be extremely useful. I'm not finished yet, but this book has so far been very informative and easy to read. The writing is excellent, and it's entertaining to read. It explains how "subjectless" sentences work and how to use "wa" and "ga" properly, amomg other things of course. If you're a student of Japanese, and you want to actually understand the logic of the language instead of simply memorizing vocabulary, this book is a must-have.

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The only one that...

By Shinjitsu no Uta on March 23, 2006

Format: Paperback

I own numerous fantastic Japanese grammar reference volumes on Japanese (most of which are available through amazon.) All of them allude to the points that Rubin tackles in this deceivingly slender yet startlingly informative volume. Despite avid interest in grammar and having studied countless hours huddled over cup after cup of espresso, I had questions to which I could not seem to find adequate answers. That changed when I finally tracked down a copy of this book.

If it is credibility you're looking for, Jay Rubin has it: besides a position as a professor of Japanese at an ivy league, he is a famous translator whose works read like English rather than an attempt to superimpose foreign syntax upon each sentence. In other words, this is someone who is comfortable with Japanese and can explain it both as an expert and as one who at one time studied it in school (and struggled, as he explains briefly.)

As for content, the book is concise, funny (I laughed out loud a dozen times,) and incredibly helpful. The content is focused upon the greatest ills of English-speaking students of the Japanese language. The book begins with a fun introduction in which Rubin assaults the myth that Japanese is somehow vague or alien in comparison to other languages of the world. He begins by debunking the tale oft-perpetuated by well-meaning Japanese instructors. You know what I'm talking about: the subjectless sentence. In actuality, these are NOT subjectless anymore than an English sentence using a pronoun or demonstrative is subjectless. Rubin spends time warning the reader to re-evaluate his/her understanding of what it means to have a passive/intransitive verb versus one with an agent and helps to once and for all expell the confusion.Read more ›

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

One Star

I expected a book about Japanese. With more examples, and at least written in Kana and Kanji.

Published 17 days ago by Ilya

Splendid book

Rubin explains the finer points of Japanese grammar while making you laugh out loud.

Published 1 month ago by Elin Säfström

Not helpful

The Romaji makes this book unreadable. This book doesn't make sense to me.

Published 2 months ago by skeptik

Five Stars

Unbelivably readable. A real student of Japanese will lve it.

Published 3 months ago by Marianne E. Graham

Very useful in understanding the difference(s) between Wa and Ga

Very useful in understanding the difference(s) between Wa and Ga, a part of Japanese that trumps tons of Japanese students.

Published 3 months ago by Amazon Customer

not easy for me to read

a little hard to understand for beginners

Published 5 months ago by orchidchef

This is a brilliant and fascinating book

This is a brilliant and fascinating book. As a beginner a fair amount of it went over my head, but it's still interesting if you're trying to get a handle on the primary... Read more

Published 6 months ago by D.J. Howard

Must-Read for Japanese Teachers!

If you are a teacher of Japanese, you owe it to your students to read this book. It will help immensely in the effort to clearly convey some important distinctions that are often... Read more

Published 7 months ago by Amazon Customer

Explains some very tricky concepts. Good read.

Get this book for the explanation of は and が, and implicit pronouns. The rest of the book contains things you may or may not pick up from intermediate studies, but it can't hurt. Read more

Published 11 months ago by NH

Interesting but ultimately disappointing

To echo other reviewers, the usage of romaji makes this book painful to read, especially full Japanese sentences. Read more

Published 12 months ago by Wayne Lester