[aDoAJG] 💮 Part 1 - Introduction

[Akashelia]

A Dictionary of Advanced Japanese Grammar

Part 1 - Introduction

(Preface, To the Reader, List of Abbreviations, List of Symbols, Grammatical Terms, Special Topics in Advanced Japanese Grammar)

Questions about this book club? Check out the main thread → A Dictionary of Japanese Grammar Home Thread

Program for this thread:

Week	Start Date	Reading
#1	Jan 11th	Preface、 To the Reader、 List of Abbreviations、 List of Symbols、 Grammatical Terms
#2	Jan 18th	Special Topics in Advanced Japanese Grammar. 1. Adjectives in Japanese 2. Interpretation of “N1 no N2” 3. Politeness and Formality in Spoken and Written Language
#3	Jan 25th	4. Rhetorical Questions 5. Metaphors in Japanese 6. Number Marking

Next part: Part 2 - [A-D]

Discussion Guidelines

Spoiler Courtesy

In general, this series doesn’t have a problem with spoilers, however there are two instances where spoiler tags are a good idea.

1. When you share sentences from what you are consuming, any potential spoilers for external sources need to be covered by a spoiler tag and include a label (outside of the spoiler tag) of what might be spoiled. These include but are not limited to: other book club picks, other books, games, movies, anime, etc. I recommend also tagging the severity of the spoiler (for example, I may still look at minor spoilers for something that I don’t intend to read soon).

2. If you decide to translate a sentence you are sharing, please hide that behind a spoiler so people have a chance to take in the sentence without a translation. Or if you are helping someone and use translation as a part of that help, then hiding it behind a spoiler tag would be good too.

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Resources

For additional explanations, here are some options:

• Bunpro
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• JLPTSensei

Participation

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[Cathm2]

Week 1 is mostly revision of grammatical terms, but I’m taking advantage of this to read along while finishing the intermediate version.

All main items now done! I’m on appendix 3. I’ll try not to fall behind on the advanced dictionary, but probably will at some point. The main issue I’ll have is a higher rate of unknown entries I suspect.

[eagleflo]

It’s good for me that the book begins with a gentle review of the grammar terms used, since I’m joining this club without having read the DIJG quite yet. The terms seem largely the same as in the first book. I much prefer the terms 五段動詞 & 一段動詞 over the arbitrary Group 1 & 2 names, but I’ll manage.

Since the pace is going to be slow enough, I’ll take this chance to get a “first glance” at some advanced points of grammar, some of which I expect to have already encountered in my reading before.

It seems that this book has a lot of references to the previous two volumes; if I’m completely lost I expect to be able to reference them as needed.

By the way, when reading a compilation of volumes like this relatively closely together, it’s often obscured how long the compilation of each volume took:

DBJG - 1986
DIJG - 1995
DAJG - 2008

Based on the preface, it took the two authors over 20 years to write this series! The last volume alone represents seven years of work. I expect to be using these three books for the rest of my life as a reference, so it only makes sense to get at least a little bit familiar with what’s in the last volume, even though I expect it to be the least useful out of all three.

[Akashelia]

Week 2!

Special Topics in Advanced Japanese Grammar (part 1/2)

1. Adjectives in Japanese
2. Interpretation of “N1 no N2”
3. Politeness and Formality in Spoken and Written Language

• I’m reading along
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• I have finished this part
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[hotdogsuplex]

I’d planned on skipping the intro and going straight for the main grammar points, but these topics looked kinda interesting so I started reading them.

[fallynleaf]

Starting at a slight delay, but I finally cracked open this bad boy!

List of Symbols

Okay, right off the bat, I see a big change from the previous volumes: the degree of unacceptability only goes up to TWO question marks now instead of three. This means there’s no more Michelin scale of unacceptability! What funny name can I use to refer to it now??

Grammatical Terms

I’m pretty familiar with all this stuff by now, but the big change I noticed here is that there was no mention of adverbial particles or case particles or any of that . Looking back at the last book’s discussion thread, the difference seems to be that “Double Particle” is gone from the grammatical terms list.

I’m choosing to believe that case particles and adverbial particles are beginner/intermediate grammar concepts that are obviously too straightforward for the advanced volume to cover.

[Akashelia]

Week 3!

Special Topics in Advanced Japanese Grammar (part 2/2)
4. Rhetorical Questions
5. Metaphors in Japanese
6. Number Marking

• I’m reading along
• I haven’t reached this part yet
• I have finished this part
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• I’m reading this book after the club has finished

[eagleflo]

Week 2

Interpretation of N1のN2 left me kinda unsatisfied… all right, now I know that 研究の遺伝子 is not acceptable, but I didn’t quite internalize why this type of noun phrase is not allowed as opposed to some that are. I’m left guessing it’s because the relationship between 研究 and 遺伝子 is not clear enough? What would make it clear enough?

In these cases it would be helpful to explain why not and show an acceptable alternative, something I remember DBJG doing on multiple occasions.

And indeed, as the text notes, usually there is surrounding context that makes it clear which possible meaning of N1のN2 was intended.

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Politeness and formality being two separate dimensions of Japanese is something I’ve grown to accept over the years quite naturally. It’s interesting to me that using polite form in a book could be considered intimate, in fact I’ve thought kind of the opposite – maintaining formality or politeness maintains distance. It is a surprise to me that you’d use this polite tone when writing to family members. Isn’t that exactly the people we’re taught to use normal だ with? Does it differ so much between speaking and writing?

What about SNS or instant messaging? I guess I need a Japanese pen pal…

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Week 3

Rhetorical questions are an area where Japanese greatly differs from Finnish. I feel like the Finnish use is much more restricted, mostly to make humorous observations rather than avoiding directly stating your opinion. I guess Finnish {language, culture} values stating opinions clearly and not trying to circle around an issue – speaking in an overly circumferential way is seen as a negative speciality of Savonians.

(I guess one other common use is to make an accusation without being 100% sure.)

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Metaphors – so that’s what that fancy word from the movie Synecdoche New York meant.

「月が綺麗ですね」 would certainly be taken at face value here. “Why are you looking at the moon and not me?”

It’s kinda interesting that 花見 is stated to only mean cherry-blossom viewing here; unsure why JMdict even includes the more generic sense.

The list of shared metaphorical idioms between Japanese and English was great – there are also a great many shared between Japanese and Finnish, and there are some that do not appear in English. Compiling a list could be a fun exercise in the future.

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Regarding number marking, when I was first learning Japanese I thought it was somehow incredible that the language doesn’t have a plural form. Now, aeons later, I can’t remember the last time I’ve felt confused about the plurality of something – in addition to the listed ways to indicate plurality, it’s usually just clear from the context. (If only the counters made any sense…)

[pm215]

@eagleflo

Interpretation of N1のN2 left me kinda unsatisfied… all right, now I know that 研究の遺伝子 is not acceptable, but I didn’t quite internalize why this type of noun phrase is not allowed as opposed to some that are. I’m left guessing it’s because the relationship between 研究 and 遺伝子 is not clear enough? What would make it clear enough?

I suspect it’s more in the realm of “some phrases just don’t sound right/aren’t idiomatic”. Grammatically speaking there’s no obvious issue, as their examples of other の uses in that subsection show.

My main takeaway from the N1のN2 section was mainly “の can link nouns whose possible connection (both grammatical and semantic) covers a very wide range”. The rest just comes down to “eventually you pick up a feel for what sounds right” – the examples in 10 do feel a bit weird to me. (But would I have picked them out if you’d showed them to me without the unacceptability markers? Maybe not.)