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Making Sense of Japanese
 
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Making Sense of Japanese (Paperback)

by Jay Rubin (Author)
4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
RRP: £10.99
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Product details

  • Paperback: 144 pages
  • Publisher: Kodansha Europe; New Ed edition (1 May 2002)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 4770028024
  • ISBN-13: 978-4770028020
  • Product Dimensions: 17.8 x 13 x 1.3 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 112,498 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in these categories:

    #6 in  Books > Languages > By Language > Japanese > Grammar & Vocabulary
    #38 in  Books > Languages > Grammar, dictionaries & phrasebooks > Dictionaries

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Product Description

Product Description

This text aims to offer entertaining shortcuts to mastering the Japanese language. It offers creative approaches to common problems that plague beginning students of Japanese. Difficult areas involving subjects, adjectives, verbs and particles are covered, in a straightforward, readable format.


About the Author

Jay Rubin is a professor of Japanese literature at Harvard University, where he has employed the pedagogical techniques contained in Making Sense of Japanese "as infrequently as possible." He has authored Injurious to Public Morals: Writers and the Meiji State and Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words, edited Modern Japanese Writers, and translated Soseki Natsume's Sanshiro and The Miner and Haruki Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Norwegian Wood, and After the Quake (Knopf and Harvill, 2002).
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Customer Reviews

6 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.8 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Successfully disarms the scariest concepts in Japanese., 17 Jul 1998
By A Customer
This review is from: Making Sense of Japanese: What the Textbooks Don't Tell You (Power Japanese) (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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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Essential reading, 20 Mar 2006
No serious study of Japanese as a second language is complete without at least a passing familiarity with this short work. The style is anecdotal and humourous, not to mention modest, but don't let that fool you as to the seriousness of the scholarship that underpins it. The editors at Kodansha are no fools and recognise a classic when they see it.

I believe it to be worth the price for the discussion of the author's (massively illuminating to my poor mind) concept of the "zero pronoun" and its effect on the perennial problem of "wa" and "ga" alone. I can't think of any single work that has furthered my understanding of Japanese sentence structure more than this book. And on top of that, you could almost consider it to be the Japanese language study equivalent of "Chicken Soup For The Soul" (yes, I keep my copy in the bathroom). It may be a short work, but it's immensely re-readable - like those chicken bones, there always seems to be a little more goodness to be gotten out it.

I agree it's not for everyone, and it is to some extent academically controversial, but I think only the most rigid and conventional thinker could fail to gain something valuable from it.

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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Very helpful but maybe not to everyone, 17 May 2004
I am an intermediate self-taught Japanese speaker, and this book is an enormous help to me. Although the language is a little verbose and confusing in places, it is filled with very helpful advice.

While it is true this book is for all levels it may not be immidiatley useful to beginners who haven't grasped the Japanese way of thinking yet. I would recommend this book to anyone but only if you're reasonably sure of your Japanese ability.

For example, I believe someone looking to learn a few phrases of Japanese a few weeks before their first trip to Japan will most likley get next to nothing out of this book. Or similarly, someone who has just started learning Japanese may just be confused by this book. However, if you are comfortable with your Japanese speaking and you want to learn more, this book will give you an insight into the finer points of the language and will not only help you sound more fluent but it will give you a better idea of exactly what native Japanese speakers actually mean when speaking their own language.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars As good as everyone says it is.
This is a simple little book, in which the author draws on his experience of learning, teaching and translating Japanese to nail some of the knotty problems that plague those... Read more
Published 7 months ago by S. Wilson

5.0 out of 5 stars Marvellous
This is an excellent book for those who have studied Japanese but have found a few thorny problems. Beautifully written, light in touch but with some sharp and erudite... Read more
Published 18 months ago by PJ

5.0 out of 5 stars The best book for the advanced student
I have been studying and struggling with Japanese for years and in the process I have bought many grammar books. Read more
Published on 24 Aug 2006 by honyaku

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