My favourite grammar book

Japanese Language Resources
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If anyone is looking for a new way to learn grammar, this is my favourite book!

There are two editions: one fiction, the other, essays.

The premise is simple: most of what students read is catered to non-native speakers, so sometimes the language used is a little forced. This book allows learners of Japanese to read real Japanese work, even if it might be a little above their level.

What I like about it is that every time a new kanji is introduced in a story, it is first written with furigana (and also, vertically!). That’s on the right side of each page, whereas the left deals with interpreting select phrases. There’s a specialised dictionary in the back, along with a detailed explanation of harder-to-grasp grammar points!

Because I taught myself Japanese, this is what I used to learn kanji in the first place (I know, what an awfully roundabout way to do it!), and this was a game-changer for my studies.
I hope you folks enjoy it as much as I do!

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I bought this book and I just finished reading the first story (Kamisama by Kawakami Hiromi). It really is fantastic, I learned a lot and I loved the detailed explanations, especially the way the stylistic choices the author made to create the atmosphere were explained. The story itself was really good too, and I think a lot of it would have been lost in translation. I’ll start on the second story soon.

That said, I wouldn’t consider it a grammar book, as in, you wouldn’t use this to systematically learn new grammar points. I’d say you need at least a decent grasp on N3 grammar before you can tackle this.

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I was actually gifted this book a little while back (haven’t read through it yet), but it sounds like a useful resource for improving your ability to read native content. I’ve been looking for something that provides more detailed explanations for some ~N3+ content, so this sounds great.

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That’s Yoshitomo Nara’s artwork, we were just talking about him on the Art appreciation thread.

Looks like a fun book and not expensive at all. I see someone put a negative review due to the dark content
now I really want it.

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Can anyone give me an idea of how high my WK level should be for this book? I wanted to start reading more when i hit level 10. But I assume this is more for 25-30+?

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This is what it looks like. It’s certainly got kanji above your level. As there is furigana, you can easily read if you know the vocab and grammar. It’s definitely not a beginner’s book, though, you won’t make the best use of it if you don’t already know the grammar used.

Btw, the more detailed explanations are at the back of the book, the side by side is just the translation.

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Oooh, I have this book, but I was waiting for my grammar level to go up a bit more before giving it a second try.


 seems like I waited way too long! It seems fairly simple now. I’m looking forward to finally reading it!

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I just finished the second story inspired by this thread. It’s a horror story but it’s quite light.

Compared to the first, I found it a bit harder to read: compound verbs written in kana always throw me off. Good practice, though.

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