I had it… never finish it… and put it with the pile of books for donation before moving out.
The explanation on は/が was quite useful, is the thing I remember the most about the book. He puts a lot of personal examples on when and if you should even use any of the two in a sentence. I think this chapter alone worth the price of the book. I got until the middle of the second part and also remember the explanation on ageru, morau kureru really helpful.
In any case it’s not comprehensive at all. But I think the chosen gramatical points are really well explained. Probably, not a first lecture, more of a clarifier, specially if you have accumulated doubts on the mentioned concepts. Check the ToC and see if any of those are giving you special problem. Though I would think that anyone after a basic explanation on Genki (my case) or similar would benefit a lot from a much deeper explanation specially on ga/ha, mainly because the book it’s actually fun to read and Rubin’s makes some great analogies to make you “get it”.
anything other than “ない is an adjective”… which seems pretty trivial?
Yes, agreed, it is trivial, but none of the standard learning books seem to mention it. Perhaps they do when you go beyond genki? If you know that it’s an adjective, then also the “magic” conjugation rules collapse into just those for adjectives and you have to memorize less unintuitive stuff.
There’s lots of little things like that in these videos that make you go hmmm, it all sort of falls into place!
Thanks. I’ve fixed the reference; probably confused them when taking notes.
I haven’t used it before, but doesn’t it suffer from exactly the same issues as the Dictionary series? Lack of overarching structure, insufficient grammar breakdown, etc. I just created an account and took a look at a couple of entries, and to be honest, it seems somewhat lacking, but as you say maybe it will get better in time.
Random picks from BunPro
にて: Nowhere in the description or the two linked further reading sources does it mention that にて is really で, not just “you can replace it with で” but that で is really a contraction of にて in the first place.
に限らず: There is no breakdown whatsoever of the conjugation and no mention even that it is just the ず form of 限る; it’s obvious if you know, but that’s not an argument. For that matter, there is no entry for ず in the main list, only one for ずに, which links to sources that don’t describe the full conjugation (I note it doesn’t link to Tae Kim or Imabi, which both have decent coverage of the topic).
のみならず: Somehow the entry is not linked to に限らず although one of the proposed translation is about the same, and the suggested reading material is a comparison entitled “〜に限らず VS 〜のみならず VS 〜はもとより”. Again, no grammatical analysis, on the main site or in the links, whereas in the DAJG you can find a reasonable explanation, this time: from のみ “only” and なり the classical copula.
I don’t have the book but I have seen it and took the chance to speed through the section on は vs が for which it seems to be famous. I wouldn’t say it is geared towards linguists at all. On the contrary, I think the writing is quite accessible so that pretty much anyone could read it.
If anything, I believe it should be of interest to aspiring translators more so than linguists; Jay Rubin is a respected translator and the book conveys his “feel” for the language rather well. IMHO, aspiring linguists would be better served by reading classics such as Kuno (esp. on は vs が) or Martin (regarding は as (de)focus), instead. (I do have a passing interest in translation, mind you; my copy of Hasegawa’s Course in Japanese Translation still awaits my return, patiently sitting on my shelves.)
Ah, that might well be; I thought you meant to say it had a deeper meaning than that. It is not a perfect analogy, but for the most part, -(a)nai indeed behaves as an adjective.
To be perfectly honest, I just assumed it was common knowledge, and I can’t remember at all when or where I learned that. I haven’t kept up with the paedagogic aspects well… and that would be why I should refrain from commenting on introductory resources!
Since nobody has mentioned it yet, Human Japanese and Human Japanese Advanced are both great apps. They’re not specifically dedicated to grammar but probably focus on grammar more than other combo resources (equal vocab, kanji, grammar etc). It’s what I’ve used up to now to learn grammar and I haven’t even finished the advanced app yet. As others have said though, no one resource is sufficient.
Well, let’s say that due to circumstances, I have been lured out of academia for the time being. Also Japanese linguistics has never been my field, although I did take an interest; after all, one of the greatest benefits of being in academia is that you get to poke around, have colleagues with great knowledge of other subjects willing to share, and access to awesome libraries.
I haven’t kept up with the paedagogic aspects well… and that would be why I should refrain from commenting on introductory resources!
Also Japanese linguistics has never been my field, although I did take an interest; after all, one of the greatest benefits of being in academia is that you get to poke around, have colleagues with great knowledge of other subjects willing to share, and access to awesome libraries.