The logic behind Japanese sentence structure

Now that project would be useful. I’m tempted to get this but it’s not just the money, I’ve got loads of resources and never find the time to look at them all. Might just get the e-book. Does it cover short form verbs do you know?

Yes, it does. Rather than being a separate section like Genki1, it’s spread through the text side by side with the long form, starting in Ch.8 (Verbs), I think. Each practice question tells you which form it wants you to use.

Sounds good, cheers.

Thank you for the comprehensive info you’ve provided in this thread!

I was actually searching for reviews of this book yesterday as I’m looking for something for grammar and most textbooks haven’t really resonated with me so far. I found the article linked here while looking for reviews and liked the article, but was hoping to get more info on the book itself but wasn’t having a lot of luck. Think I’m going to take finding this thread today to be a sign and give this book a shot.

This is very useful
I’ve always been searching for ways to let me have my natural sense handle grammar for me and train it through practice, this practically eases up what I need to quickly cover xD

Check out some of the other resources in the Textbook section of our Japanese Resources List [1]. Some of the resources are very similarly approachable, such as Japanese for the Western Brain [2] and Visualising Japanese Grammar [3] (by an older source.) You might even want to follow along with one the textbooks. Some of them are from another age, as you might notice from the styling of the sites, but the resources are just as comprehensive!

  1. The Ultimate Additional Japanese Resources List!
  2. https://kimallen.sheepdogdesign.net/Japanese/index.html
  3. Visualizing Japanese Grammar
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Love this whole thread, and I don’t want to get too off topic, but in reading it I have a simple question that I don’t feel deserves a whole new thread. Warning, I’m still quite poor at grammar. At one point the article says:

Would saying 「赤い車です」 be any different/less correct than saying 「車は赤いです」?

It’s equivalent to the English distinction of “It is a red car” versus “The car is red.”

For instance, if someone says どの車ですか “which car is it?” you could say 赤い車です “the red car”.
But if someone said 車は何色ですか “what color is the car” then 赤いです or 車は赤いです “it’s red” would be appropriate.

There’s some overlap, where switching the pairs isn’t “wrong” per se, just more or less natural.

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Ok, I got the e/audio book.

Thanks for posting this. This guy writes in a way that my brain can easily ingest.

@rfindley, or @anyone who owns 80/20Japanese, what do you think of the audiobook? Is the reading engaging? I imagine it is voiced by Richard Webb, himself. I don’t particularly have a need for a textbook in audiobook form at the moment, but I might be commuting by train in the near future and the extra price isn’t too much higher.

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I want to know that too. I sometimes just have a habit of reading a book too fast…

I have just surfed through the website and thinks the book looks good.

I didn’t get the audio book, though it looks like @Franken did.

Personally, I don’t learn well via audio lesson. Ironically, my audio memory is extremely strong, and I memorize in-context language very easily, but I’m more of a visual learner when it comes to studying.

I miss Syphus.

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I have the audio book, though I haven’t listened to much of it yet. I didn’t get it to use as my primary text for this, I’m reading through the book as a whole first, and then I’m going to revisit chapter by chapter and work on the exercises and practice applying the lessons. At that point, I’m planning to use the audio book as some review while I’m doing housework to try and keep my brain engaged with the grammar at least a bit. I did spot check through the audio book just to get an idea of how it is.

First off, it is narrated by the author and he has what sounds to me like an Australian accent. I didn’t expect that, personally, so it was a bit of a surprise. For anyone that’s not familiar with the accent this could be a bit of a challenge. I only bring it up because even as a native English speaker I find certain accents difficult to understand (though not Australian in my case) so I can see how it could be difficult for some.

Also, he speaks very quickly, imo. The book clocks in at about 10 hours, and if I were trying to take notes or anything while listening I can see where I’d be doing a lot of pausing and rewinding to do so. I’ve actually never listened to an audio book before this, so it might be a pretty standard pace for those, but from a study standpoint I think using the audio book exclusively would be a bit frustrating. I do appreciate that the answers to the exercises (for those that aren’t asking you to make up your own statements) read aloud, and would love to have a cut of just those for shadowing/reinforcing purposes.

It’s not really any more dry or boring than you would expect a grammar book read aloud to be. I think, if you’re planning to use the audio book to supplement the text and provide additional reinforcement it’s probably worth it. However, if you don’t want to get it right away I know there was a note on the site that if you want to upgrade a bundle at any time you can do so by emailing and pick up the other items just for the price difference. That could be an option if you’d rather wait to see if you enjoy the content first.

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Thanks, this is great advice. I’m not too worried about the Australian accent, as I hear it quite a lot. I will likely just purchase the first tier as you suggest and upgrade if it seems appropriate.

I will add a reference to your comment in the original post for those looking to purchase the book, if you don’t object.

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Sure, no problem.

The accent isn’t a big issue, just wanted to put it out there for anyone that might be considering the audio book. I assumed it would be one of the many American accents just because the site was in US dollars, which is mainly why it surprised me when I first started it up. It’s not particularly difficult to understand by any means.

So, I have just paid the 60 USD. My first impression? Like Tae Kim, but with exercises. Might be better structured. Audiobook helps hold my attention and makes me read slower. (Still, I play the audio at 1.25x speed.)

I like the concept of structured exercise, just like learning-python-the-hard-way.

Chapter 0 tells you how to learn effectively. I like it, just like any self improvement books.

Still, steady pace, routine, slowness or even this book cannot guarantee success. But at least, I feel worthy of spending my time on this.

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That 80/20 text book sounded good! A bit expensive though, but, I think I could really find it useful so worth it! I’ll add it to my ever growing bookshelf of material :wink:

Nice, I’ll have to look into this a bit more. Thanks for sharing.