Size of A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar

Japanese Language Questions
1

So I recently purchased A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar. I was expecting this to be a pretty big book, but when it arrived, I was quite surprised that the length of the book was the same length as my hand! The small text makes it annoying to read, and I was just wondering, is it supposed to be like that? Did I somehow get a smaller than normal version?

2

I only own it digitally, and havenā€™t looked at it much, so itā€™s hard for me to say, but since it claims to be for basic grammar, it doesnā€™t need to be huge, Iā€™d say. If it was comprehensive or advanced, thatā€™d be different.

EDIT: oh you mean the literal physical size. Nevermind

3

I have a physical copy and itā€™s about 18cm tall, 13cm wide and 3.5cm deep.
Pretty sure that is the only size it comes in.
Personally I find the size to be suitable.

450Ɨ600 73.7 KB

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4

Ah, ok thanks for the feedback! I guess I will have to make do with this, haha.

5

Iā€™ve not had a chance to look in a grammar dictionary but I find the concept a little confusing. What type of content does it contain and how you meant to look things up? Especially when you donā€™t recognize the grammar pattern?

6

You take what you know and you go from there. Letā€™s say you know the basic grammar of 恰恋悊 when it comes after a noun or a past tense verb, but then you see it behind a present tense verb. You look up 恰恋悊 and then find an entry that fits with that construction.

The fact that you donā€™t recognize the grammar is how you know what to look for, no?

I guess you need a baseline before you can tell what is ā€œdifferentā€ about a grammatical construction that you can use to search by.

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7

I have one on my tablet, and when I canā€™t sleep, I read it. itā€™s helped me get my head around some of the construction, as well as just educated me as far as verbs etc.

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8

Iā€™m curious as to how you guys use this book. Do you normally just read it casually, use it to look up stuff, or read it seriously and take notes?

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9

Genuinely not trying to entrap you in any way so feel free not to respond to this, butā€¦ how does one buy a legitimate digital copy these books?

10

Ahh that actually cleared it up for me. My mind always equates grammar to being full sentences and I couldnā€™t get my thinking past that.

Now I would really like to know a bit more about how everyone fits it into their study or general reading. Seems like a good book but that price tag is pretty restrictive, need to know more before I drop that much.

11

Source of legitimate digital copy of many eBooks would be Amazon Kindle, even for a big big textbooks. However, the price is high for textbooks.

12

also the intermediate and Advanced grammer books are the same size, just thicker, I think.
I have the intermediate at home. My omiyage from my last trip to Japan :slight_smile:

13

Thanks. Though I ask because I have already searched high and low for legit digital copies of these books, including amazon.co.jp. Would love to know if anyone has had more success than I have.

14

I have one this size (but older and used - was only Ā£7).

I use it to cross reference grammar points taught in text books, reconfirm things I have learned when they appear in new contexts or to look up new points I discover in books/games.

Really handy. Must buy.

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15

I think I confused it with another grammar series too. Double fail. I donā€™t know if this is available digitally. I use the Kindle app.

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16

I think the point is to use it as a dictionary. You read some Japanese out in the wild and come across some word or conjugation you donā€™t understand or have forgotten. You then proceed to look it up in the dictionary.
However, when I was going through Genki, I looked up every grammar point in the dictionary because the explanations are much better and more in depth.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is serious about Japanese. For each grammar point, they explain how and when to use it, give multiple example sentences, list some additional notes to help you use it correctly, and explains how some other grammar points are related to the current one.

17

Ah okay, thanks for replying. AFAIK this series isnā€™t officially available digitally, which is pretty disappointing. I own a physical copy but it always seems to be several thousand miles away when I need it :frowning:

18

In the U.S., by the way, case law is favoring the legality of using scanned copies of books of which you own a physical copy. It falls under the Fair Use Act, and courts have ruled so far that it is fair use.

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19

Thanks for the info! Thatā€™s good news, though I understand that the fair use laws in my country of nationality (UK) are more restrictive.

Iā€™d imagine also that any readily available scanned copies are not text-searchable, making them fairly inconvenient to use in absence of the alphabetical ā€œtabsā€ visible on the page edges of the dead tree version.

20

There are free OCR tools that can make scanned PDFs text-searchable. I have the paid version of FoxIt PDF, and it has built-in OCR for many languages. Not sure if thatā€™s in the free version, though. I scan a lot of Japanese materials for the text-searchability.

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