Enter your mobile number or email address below and we'll send you a link to download the free Kindle App. Then you can start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

  • Apple
  • Android
  • Windows Phone
  • Android

To get the free app, enter your email address or mobile phone number.
Download to your computer
Kindle Cloud Reader

How to Tell the Difference between Japanese Particles: Comparisons and Exercises Bilingual Edition

by Naoko Chino (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars 12 customer reviews
ISBN-13: 978-4770022004
ISBN-10: 477002200X
Why is ISBN important?
ISBN
This bar-code number lets you verify that you're getting exactly the right version or edition of a book. The 13-digit and 10-digit formats both work.
Scan an ISBN with your phone
Use the Amazon App to scan ISBNs and compare prices.
Have one to sell? Sell on Amazon

Sorry, there was a problem.

There was an error retrieving your Wish Lists. Please try again.

Sorry, there was a problem.

List unavailable.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest
More Buying Choices
10 New from $35.00 24 Used from $4.23
34 used & new from $4.23
See All Buying Options
Best Books of the Year So Far
Looking for something great to read? Browse our editors' picks for the Best Books of the Year So Far in fiction, nonfiction, mysteries, children's books, and much more.
click to open popover

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1
This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.
Back
  1. All About Particles: A Handbook of Japanese Function Words
    Naoko Chino
    4.4 out of 5 stars 38
    Paperback
    $11.12 Prime
  2. Japanese Sentence Patterns for Effective Communication: A Self-Study Course and Reference
    Taeko Kamiya
    4.8 out of 5 stars 32
    Paperback
    $18.99 Prime
  3. The Handbook of Japanese Adjectives and Adverbs
    Taeko Kamiya
    4.5 out of 5 stars 16
    Paperback
    $17.86 Prime
  4. Making Sense of Japanese: What the Textbooks Don't Tell You
    Jay Rubin
    4.4 out of 5 stars 75
    Paperback
    $9.37 Prime
  5. The Handbook of Japanese Verbs (Kodansha Dictionary)
    Taeko Kamiya
    4.6 out of 5 stars 31
    Paperback
    $13.77 Prime
  6. Common Japanese Collocations: A Learner's Guide to Frequent Word Pairings
    Kakuko Shoji
    4.5 out of 5 stars 18
    Paperback
    $16.95 Prime
Next

Customers Viewing This Page May Be Interested In These Sponsored Links

  (What's this?)
NO_CONTENT_IN_FEATURE
New York Times best sellers
Browse this week’s New York Times best sellers in popular categories like Fiction, Nonfiction, Children’s Books and more. See more

Product Details

  • Paperback: 198 pages
  • Publisher: Kodansha USA; Bilingual edition (July 1, 2005)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 477002200X
  • ISBN-13: 978-4770022004
  • Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 0.6 x 5.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,434,429 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

    •  Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Customers Viewing This Page May Be Interested In These Sponsored Links

  (What's this?)

Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsA must-have guide to a murky area
By Zack Davisson HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWERVINE VOICE on July 31, 2005
Format: Paperback
"I sat at the chair." "I went on school today." That is probably what most of us sound like when we start really speaking Japanese, merrily swapping around all those cute little "ni"s, "wa"s, "de"s and "ga"s. It gets even worse at an upper level when the mysterious "hodo"s and "kana"s start rearing their ugly heads. Particles are one of the most confusing aspects of Japanese, and one of the biggest road blocks to conversational fluency.

Every student of Japanese could use "How to Tell the Difference Between Japanese Particles." It is a practical, concise little book that contains a wealth of information. Unlike Naoko Chino's previous particle book, "All About Particles," this volume contains practice exercises and demonstrations of the most common mistakes of Japanese particles. It is more of a workbook, that should be followed from start to finish.

Chino takes several similar but confusing particles, such as "particles indicating time" or "particles used for comparison," then highlights the different usages of each particle, along with demonstration sentences in both English, kana and romaji. Like all good Japanese books, the emphasis is on the kana, with the romaji and English doing support work. After each chapter, there are several quizzes to test your new knowledge. The book closes with an overall test on the entire book.

The comparative nature of this book, along with the repeated quizzes, make "How to Tell the Difference Between Japanese Particles" one of the most useful Japanese study guides that I own. It serves a niche purpose, but a very useful and necessary one.
1 Comment 75 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse
5.0 out of 5 starsa superb guide to a complicated subject
By Dewdrop on September 6, 2007
Format: Paperback
This book does a superb job teaching the difference between closely related particles, allowing students to grasp subtle distinctions in meaning and usage.
Chino has written an excellent book - the text is very clear and concise, well organized, and illustrates each point with great examples. Students can study the particles by reading through the book and then reinforcing what they've learned by taking the quizzes at the end of each chapter. Afterwards you can continue to use the book as a handy reference guide.
The book probably isn't suitable for beginner level, as the example sentences are too difficult and many of these particles are beyond the scope of beginners. But intermediate and advanced students will definitely benefit. In the blurb, the author promises to quickly give students a knowledge of the particles that would normally take years speaking Japanese to acquire, and this is no exaggeration.
I strongly recommend this book as a great way to quickly pump up your Japanese grammar.
Comment 15 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse
4.0 out of 5 starsDecent if you have problems with particles
By K. on December 6, 2012
Format: Paperback
I`ve already taken two years of Japanese, but had quit because I was always behind and it was always too confusing. I decided that I should try again, and ordered some books so I could go at my own slow pace. I particularly have problems with particles, and decided this book would help with my problem. This is not a complete list of all the particles, so it would help to also order "All about Particles" if you aren`t sure you`ll be able to pick it up through your curriculum. I do not recommend getting only this book as your end all Japanese reference, as it really works best as a supplement to another course, such as busuu or a textbook. I like that the book really compares different similar particles, but it is not the best choice if you learn best from charts and other visual aids, as there is a complete lack of those. (I wish there was a Venn diagram to illustrate the similarities and differences!) This is also a great reference in how the table of contents are set up, as it shows particles in useful groups like telling time, or telling directions. I do like the quizzes to help review lessons, or to check what you still need to learn. I hate the inclusion of Romanji, and I really would have proffered if the phonetic version of the sentence (each sentence in the examples are listed 3 times, in with kanji, romanji, and English) had been in hiragana. I think I would have liked to get this book the very first lesson of Japanese I took, to avoid all my frustration, so I think this really would be great for a beginner or intermediate student. I think, if you were closer to fluent, it might be more useful to get "All about Particles" as a sort of particle dictionary for infrequent look ups to remind you if you forget the meanings or proper choice in a sentence.
Comment 5 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse
5.0 out of 5 starsIt's truly all about particles!
By Christina L. Lechner on August 19, 2008
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
This book is absolutely fantastic and critical for students of Japanese--from beginners, who are just learning about particles, to advanced students, who should brush up on particles and learn as much as they can about them. This book can't even compare with dictionary definitions--it goes much further beyond that! Instead of giving flat out definitions and making groups of particles all sound the same, it gives examples and restrictions of when and how to use the particles.

There are also quizzes at the end of each section and a main test at the end of the book. These are very useful, and it gives you more motivation to take notes in the book.

The author groups the particles into sections--the first one dealing with particles about time. This is very smart, considering that some particles--if spaced out throughout the book too far--could become confusing with one another. Although, please note, that some particles found in much later chapters are much more common than some found in the first chapter.

Kudos to Naoko Chino. Kudos.
Comment 5 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse

Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsA great reference book.

Having the particles grouped by subject matter makes it easy to find what you're looking for.

Published 2 months ago by Steve Duvall
4.0 out of 5 starsI HATE HATE romaji but it is a nice book otherwise

I hate when all of these cute little Japanese books use romaji -- like hate hate hate. They need to create "kana only" versions. Read more

Published 16 months ago by Aer1ekah
4.0 out of 5 starsgood but lots of wasted space

I used this in conjunction with Meguro Learning Center's cheat sheet to study for the JLPTN4. It was pretty good but there were lots of pages with only 1-2 sample sentences. Read more

Published on October 14, 2013 by sparky_magic_rainbow
5.0 out of 5 starsLoved it!

Very useful and complete. It really helps you to understand the multiple uses of every single japanese particle and the difference between them.

Published on July 8, 2013 by Dorya Rascon
4.0 out of 5 starsCan be recommended

I first checked out the author's All About Particles: A Handbook of Japanese Function Words (Power Japanese Series) (Kodansha's Children's Classics). I didn't like that book. Read more

Published on October 25, 2010 by Jackal
2.0 out of 5 starsNot enough explanation and examples

I was expecting too much of this book. I thought I would get a detail difference between similar particles. Isn't that why we purchase this book at the first place. Read more

Published on July 4, 2010 by Seol
4.0 out of 5 starsbetter for intermediate and advanced students of Japanese

I like how she grouped the particles. It definitely makes comparing and contrasting them a lot easier. Read more

Published on June 8, 2010 by G. Andrus
1.0 out of 5 starsMistakes in the quiz answers.

I just read one of the other reviews where somebody said that they are having to look up a lot of words in the sentences. Read more

Published on February 18, 2010 by naware

There's a problem loading this menu right now.

Learn more about Amazon Prime.