[aDoIJG] Appendices šŸ’® A Dictionary of Intermidiate Japanese Grammar

Appendices


A Dictionary of Japanese Grammar :white_flower: Home Thread

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#32 Aug 10th Appendices #2-3 626 - 665 40
#33 Aug 17th Appendices #4-6 666 - 697 32
#34 Aug 24th Appendices #7-8 698 - 734 37

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I just skimmed through the appendix of counters ā€“ too dull for me to read it properlyā€¦

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I thought Iā€™d better post to say that I did finish the appendices, and so also this volume of the Dictionary. I found the appendices much less interesting reading than the main articles (which I guess is why theyā€™re relegated to appendicesā€¦)

I think Appendix 4 (conjunctions) and 8 (functional expressions) seem like they would be the most useful to an intermediate learner, especially if you have a need to produce output, since they gather together and summarize various different ways to say ā€œbutā€, ā€œthereforeā€, make requests, give advice, etc. But for me right now thatā€™s not the point Iā€™m at, so I donā€™t suppose Iā€™ll have much need to refer to them.

Thank you again to @helloorange for organising the discussion threads.

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Gonna post my thoughts on the appendixes as I read through them.

Appendix 1 Katakana Word Transcription Rules

Neat to have as a reference, I suppose, but I feel like you start to sort of get a sense for how to katakana-ize English words the more experience you have with Japanese. I guess itā€™d be nice if youā€™re trying to spell a word that hasnā€™t been written in katakana before (like if youā€™re translating a fantasy novel term or something).

Appendix 2 Compound Verbs

I recently learned that apparently some of these can be tricky for native speakers, too.

I found this interesting: ā€œGenerally speaking, the entire compound verb is an intransitive verb if V1 is intransitive, and a transitive verb if V1 is transitive.ā€

There were also lots of interesting usage notes throughout this section. Some of them I had managed to sort of figure out on my own just through repeated exposure, haha.

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Appendix 3 Compound Particles

This section is kind of a nice review, though I feel like Iā€™m unlikely to use it as a reference, probably, because itā€™s a lot faster to look this stuff up by mousing over it with Yomitan, though I suppose if Iā€™m ever trying to produce Japanese and am struggling to remember one of these grammar points, this might be a nice way to quickly look over them and find the appropriate one.

Also, a more niche use might be using the English translations of the example sentences to get wording suggestions for translating some of these grammar points. I feel like sometimes my translations are more literal than they have to be, and some of these examples give me ideas for how to write smoother translations.

Appendix 4 Conjunctions

This section introduces something that Iā€™m pretty sure Iā€™ve already looked up, but had definitely forgotten, which is that coordinate conjunctions connect independent sentences, and subordinate conjunctions connect two sentences into a single complex sentence.

Appendix 5 Affixes: Prefixes and Suffixes

Kind of just skimmed this oneā€¦ Honestly, doing WaniKani leaves you pretty set here, I feel. Even if some of them turn out a bit different in actual practice than you might have assumed from your surface knowledge of being able to recognize the kanji, I feel like youā€™ll pick them up pretty quickly.

Appendix 6 More Counters

Skimmed this one as wellā€¦ Iā€™m not sure the best way to use this section, to be honest? Itā€™s kind of interesting as a curiosity, but I feel like itā€™d be hard to reference when producing Japanese, and Yomitan and other sources are much easier to use when looking up unfamiliar counters. Oh well.

I suppose maybe itā€™s another resource that could help me translate some of these (via the English translations of the example sentences). And I guess maybe if youā€™re trying to figure out how the numbers work for each of them, it could be useful to reference, as Iā€™m not sure my Yomitan dictionaries have that.

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Appendix 7 Cooccurrence

I felt like this appendix was a bit oddā€¦ Not even sure what youā€™d use this one for :sweat_smile:.

Appendix 8 Functional Expressions and Grammatical Patterns

I admittedly skimmed this one as well, though I can at least think of some ways that this one could be a useful reference. Itā€™s nice to have your different options for saying these things all laid out in one place like this. I donā€™t know if Iā€™ll ever use it, but itā€™s good that itā€™s there, I suppose.


All in all, I think I agree with pm215 about the appendixes being less interesting reading than the main articles. Iā€™m glad that I went through them just so that I know whatā€™s there in case I ever have some niche use case where this would be the perfect resource, but I donā€™t feel like I learned terribly much from them.

With that, I managed to completed this volume before 2025! Iā€™ll try to remember to post about my overall thoughts in the club thread once I have a little more time.

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