Would you recommend this over the Kanji Learner’s dictionary? Or is it pretty much the same? Both are from the same author and both are highly praised. Definitely seems to be a great supplement to Wanikani studies.
Definitely looking into buying the others (both are on my Christmas wishlist). Good to know that they ditch the romaji.
I will say that the way that my university ran the classes (immersion drill sessions every morning at 7am, then for the regular class sessions at 10am you had to have memorized the dialogues in the book so you could act them out with a group in class) that they made the best use of “Japanese the Spoken Language” possible, but… yeah, even when you supplement it with other material that uses normal written Japanese the fact that the text itself doesn’t sets such a bad precedent.
It is a terrific resource but not sure if you will be using it in the beginning. Tofugu has a review: A Dictionary of Japanese Grammar - The Tofugu Review
It is awfully expensive. I bought a hardcopy since I prefer to look at the entries manually. Only recently there is a ebook version of Amazon which again is quite expensive. Do you subscribe to Scribd? Scrib has a legal side with lots of legal interesting content but sometimes Scribd users upload scanned copies of books violating copyright law.
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They’re very similar but the regular version has about 1500 more kanji and has synonyms and homonyms for the kanji. If it were me picking between the two, I’d just get the cheaper one.
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I can also recommend 日本語文型辞典 (A Handbook of Japanese Grammar Patterns for Teachers and Learners) for the more experienced. It’s available in both English and Japanese, no romaji. It’s much more compact than the “A Dictionary Of * Japanese Grammar” series, with only one book, but it somehow seems to have even more grammar than those 3. I tried both (and others). I think 日本語文型辞典 is really the absolute best as a grammar reference. It leads with example sentences, and then a small (sometimes) explanation of the grammar point. I used to use A Dictionary Of quite a bit, but having 3 super bulky books around is extremely inconvenient (it was still good though).
Here’s an article that mentions it from Tofugu: “What I Use To Study Japanese” - Dan from Reajer (tofugu.com)
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Sorry, what “they” are you referring to here?
“They” in the post you’re quoting refers to the Intermediate and Advanced Dictionaries of Japanese Grammar, which are certainly related, but I’d hesitate to describe them as “very similar”.
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As someone who has, quite literally, read the book from cover to cover, I heartily recommend it.
Dedication! That really is awesome.
Was it the gripping plot with all the crazy twists and turns that kept you reading!? 
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Oh, there were definitely some crazy twists. 
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My “Basic” Dictionary is littered with sticky tabs / bookmarks sticking out of every direction. So many points to cross reference / compare.
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Just to say - you can borrow it at the Internet Archive.
https://archive.org/details/JDictDictionaryOfBasicJapaneseGrammar
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That’s an authorized upload? Seems unlikely to me…?
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YES, big time. I have all three of the books in that series and they’re the very best resources for grammar.
You may be right - I’ve just noticed that you don’t have to log in for that one to borrow it? However, the open library at the Internet Archive is full of modern books that you can borrow legitimately, as you would at a public library. You sign up for an account and you can take out books for an hour to read online (or sometimes a day or a week). So it’s possible there’s a legit copy on there even if that’s not exactly it, so long as there’s an out of print edition. There are many books of Japanese-related interest, some art etc.
I see, you weren’t using “borrow” facetiously. If it’s not a copyright violation then it’s fine to link it.
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I bought the basic and intermediate volumes, and honestly don’t use them very much at all. It’s usually easier to just google what I’m looking for, with the added benefit of doing “a vs b” kind of searches. Or I just ask one of my online teachers.
I just got it yesterday and loved it!
I was disappointed with the ておく entry of the DBJG and was pleasantly surprised with the ておくentry of the 日本語文型辞典 which covers more ground. The example sentence 遠慮しておきます。doesn’t make any sentence in the context of the DBJG or Genki explanation of ておく since they only focus on the “preparation” meaning.
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Do you have any clue who made this? There doesn’t seem to be any identifying information on the website.
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Couldn’t tell ya. Found it a while back
If you’re getting physical copies, it might be worthwhile to take a look at different sites and different country settings for it. Getting it from Amazon Japan was cheaper for me than Amazon Canada even once shipping was factored in (and, for some reason, the local bookstore that has it listed on their website wants $180 for it, which is just yikes), although it does take a little longer to ship.
Looking right now, my options for paperback are $42 USD on the US site, $69 CAD on the Canadian site (about $54 USD), or ¥3087 (about $30 USD) on the Japanese site (all of that for the Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar 日本語基本文法辞典).
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This book is great, wish I had picked it up while I was in Japan for like 2400 yen 
, but I already had too many books to carry… I prefer to learn grammar “on the spot” with a short explanation and example sentences, so I much prefer this to DoJG. I don’t find reading grammar in English fun or really that useful. Both are probably best used as a reference, not a textbook.
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